Chapter 20
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The Restaurant continued existing, but everything else had stopped. Temporal
relastatics held it and protected it in the nothingness that wasn’t merely a vacuum, it was
simply nothing-there was nothing in which a vacuum could be said to exist.
The force-shielded dome had once again been rendered opaque, the party was over, the
diners were leaving, Zarquon had vanished along with the rest of the Universe, the Time
Turbines were preparing to pull the Restaurant back across the brink of time in readiness
for the lunch sitting, and Max Quordlepleen was back in his small curtained dressing
room trying to raise his agent on the temp phone.
In the car park stood the black ship, closed and silent.
In to the car park came the late Mr. Hotblack Desiato, propelled along the moving
catwalk by his bodyguard.
They descended one of the tubes. As they approached the limoship a hatchway swung
down from its side, engaged the wheels of the wheelchair, and drew it inside. The
bodyguard followed and having seen his boss safely connected up to his death-support system, moved up to the small cockpit. Here he operated the remote control system which
activated the autopilot in the black ship lying next to the limo, thus causing great relief to
Zaphod Beeblebrox had been trying to start the thing for over ten minutes.
The black ship glided smoothly forward out of its bay, turned, and moved down the
central causeway swiftly and quietly. In the end, it accelerated rapidly, flung itself into
the temporal launch chamber, and began the long journey back into the distant past.
The Milliways Lunch Menu quotes, by permission, a passage from The Hitchhiker’s
Guide to the Galaxy. The passage is this:
The History of every major Galactic Civilization tends to pass through three distinct
and recognizable phases, those of Survival, Inquiry, and Sophistication, otherwise known
as the How, Why, and Where phases.
For instance, the first phase is characterized by the question “How can we eat?", the
second by the question “Why do we eat?” and the third by the question, “Where shall we
have lunch?"
The Menu goes on to suggest that Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe,
would be a very agreeable and sophisticated answer to that third question.
What it doesn’t go on to say is that though it will usually take a large civilization many
thousands of years to pass through the How, Why, and Where phases, small social
groupings under stressful conditions can pass through them with extreme rapidity.
“How are we doing?” said Arthur Dent.
“Badly,” said Ford Prefect.
“Where are we going?” said Trillian.
“I don’t know,” said Zaphod Beeblebrox.
“Why not?” demanded Arthur Dent.
“Shut up,” suggested Zaphod Beeblebrox and Ford Prefect.
“Basically, what you’re trying to say,” said Arthur Dent, ignoring this suggestion, “is
that we’re out of control.”
The ship was rocking and swaying sickeningly as Ford and Zaphod tried to wrest
control from the autopilot. The engines howled and whined like tired children in a
supermarket.
“It’s the wild color scheme that freaks me,” said Zaphod whose love affair with this
the ship had lasted almost three minutes into the flight, “every time you try to operate one of
these weird black controls that are labeled in black on a black background, a little black
light lights up black to let you know you’ve done it. What is this? Some kind of galactic
hyperhearse?”
The walls of the swaying cabin were also black, the ceiling was black, the seats-which
were rudimentary since the only important trip this ship was designed for was supposed
to be unmanned-were black, the control panel was black, the instruments were black, the
little screws that held them in place were black, the thin tufted nylon floor covering was
black, and when they had lifted up a corner of it they had discovered that the foam
underlay also was black.
“Perhaps whoever designed it had eyes that responded to different wavelengths,”
offered Trillian.
“Or didn’t have much imagination,” muttered Arthur.
“Perhaps,” said Marvin, “he was feeling very depressed.”
In fact, though they weren’t to know it, the decor had been chosen in honor of its
owner’s sad, lamented, and tax-deductible condition.
The ship gave a particularly sickening lurch.
“Take it easy,” pleaded Arthur, “you’re making me space sick.”
“Time sick,” said Ford, “we’re plummeting backward through time.”
“Thank you,” said Arthur, “now I think I really am going to be ill.”
“Go ahead,” said Zaphod, “we could do with a little color about this place.”
“This is meant to be a polite after-dinner conversation is it?” snapped Arthur.
Zaphod left the controls for Ford to figure out and lurched over to Arthur.
“Look, Earthman,” he said angrily, “you’ve got a job to do, right? The Question to the
Ultimate Answer, right?”
“What, that thing?” said Arthur, “I thought we’d forgotten about that.”
“Not me, baby. Like the mice said, it’s worth a lot of money in the right quarters. And
it’s all locked up in that head thing of yours.”
“Yes but…”
“But nothing! Think about it. The Meaning of Life! We get our fingers on that we can
hold every shrink in the Galaxy up to ransom, and that’s worth a bundle. I owe mine a
mint.”
Arthur took a deep breath without much enthusiasm.
“Alright,” he said, “but where do we start? How should I know? They say the Ultimate
Answer or whatever is Forty-two, how am I supposed to know what the question is? It
could be anything. I mean, what’s six times seven?”
Zaphod looked at him hard for a moment. Then his eyes blazed with excitement.
“Forty-two!” he cried.
Arthur wiped his palm across his forehead.
“Yes,” he said patiently,” I know that.”
Zaphod’s faces fell.
“I’m just saying that the question could be anything at all,” said Arthur, “and I don’t
see how I am meant to know.”
“Because,” hissed Zaphod, “you were there when your planet did the big firework.”
“We have a thing on Earth…” began Arthur.
“Had,” corrected Zaphod.
“… called tact. Oh never mind. Look, I just don’t know.”
A low voice echoed dully around the cabin.
“I know,” said Marvin.
Ford called out from the controls he was still fighting a losing battle with.
“Stay out of this Marvin,” he said, “this is organism talk.”
“It’s printed in the Earthman’s brainwave patterns,” continued Marvin, “but I don’t
suppose you’ll be very interested in knowing that.”
“You mean,” said Arthur, “you mean you can see into my mind?”
“Yes,” said Marvin.
Arthur stared in astonishment.
“And…?” he said.
“It amazes me how you can manage to live in anything that small.”
“Ah,” said Arthur, “abuse.”
“Yes,” confirmed Marvin.
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