The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

  "Delay?" he cried, "Have you seen the world outside this ship? It's a wasteland, a desert. Civilization's been and gone, man. There are no lemon-soaked paper napkins on the way from anywhere!"

  "The statistical likelihood," continued the autopilot primly, "is that other civilizations will arise. There will one day be lemon-soaked paper napkins. Till then there will be a short delay. Please return to your seat."

  "But..."

  But at that moment the door opened. Zaphod span round to see the man who had pursued him standing there. He carried a large briefcase. He was smartly dressed, and his hair was short. He had no beard and no long fingernails.

  "Zaphod Beeblebrox," he said, "My name is Zarniwoop. I believe you wanted to see me."

  Zaphod Beeblebrox wittered. His mouths said foolish things. He dropped into a chair.

  "Oh man, oh man, where did you spring from?" he said.

  "I've been waiting here for you," he said in a businesslike tone.

  He put the briefcase down and sat in another chair.

  "I am glad you followed instructions," he said, "I was a bit nervous that you might have left my office by the door rather than the window. Then you would have been in trouble."

  Zaphod shook his heads at him and burbled.

  "When you entered the door of my office, you entered my electronically synthesized Universe," he explained, "if you had left by the door you would have been back in the real one. The artificial one works from here."

  He patted the briefcase smugly.

  Zaphod glared at him with resentment and loathing.

  "What's the difference?" he muttered.

  "Nothing," said Zarniwoop, "they are identical. Oh--except that I think the Frogstar Fighters are grey in the real Universe."

  "What's going on?" spat Zaphod.

  "Simple," said Zarniwoop. His self assurance and smugness made Zaphod seethe.

  "Very simple," repeated Zarniwoop, "I discovered the coordinates at which this man could be found--the man who rules the Universe, and discovered that his world was protected by an Unprobability field. To protect my secret--and myself--I retreated to the safety of this totally artificial Universe and hid myself away in a forgotten cruise liner. I was secure. Meanwhile, you and I..."

  "You and I?" said Zaphod angrily, "you mean I knew you?"

  "Yes," said Zarniwoop, "we knew each other well."

  "I had no taste," said Zaphod and resumed a sullen silence.

  "Meanwhile, you and I arranged that you would steal the Improbability Drive ship--the only one which could reach the ruler's world--and bring it to me here. This you have now done I trust, and I congratulate you." He smiled a tight little smile which Zaphod wanted to hit with a brick.

  "Oh, and in case you were wondering," added Zarniwoop, "this Universe was created specifically for you to come to. You are therefore the most important person in this Universe. You would never," he said with an even more brickable smile, "have survived the Total Perspective Vortex in the real one. Shall we go?"

  "Where?" said Zaphod sullenly. He felt collapsed.

  "To your ship. The Heart of Gold. You did bring it I trust?"

  "No."

  "Where is your jacket?"

  Zaphod looked at him in mystification.

  "My jacket? I took it off. It's outside."

  "Good, we will go and find it."

  Zarniwoop stood up and gestured to Zaphod to follow him.

  Out in the entrance chamber again, they could hear the screams of the passengers being fed coffee and biscuits.

  "It has not been a pleasant experience waiting for you," said Zarniwoop.

  "Not pleasant for you!" bawled Zaphod, "How do you think..."

  Zarniwoop held up a silencing finger as the hatchway swung open. A few feet away from them they could see Zaphod's jacket lying in the debris.

  "A very remarkable and very powerful ship," said Zarniwoop, "watch."

  As they watched, the pocket on the jacket suddenly bulged. It split, it ripped. The small metal model of the Heart of Gold that Zaphod had been bewildered to discover in his pocket was growing.

  It grew, it continued to grow. It reached, after two minutes, its full size.

  "At an Improbability Level," said Zarniwoop, "of... oh I don't know, but something very large."

  Zaphod swayed.

  "You mean I had it with me all the time?"

  Zarniwoop smiled. He lifted up his briefcase and opened it.

  He twisted a single switch inside it.

  "Goodbye artificial Universe," he said, "hello real one!"

  The scene before them shimmered briefly--and reappeared exactly as before.

  "You see?" said Zarniwoop, "exactly the same."

  "You mean," repeated Zaphod tautly, "that I had it with me all the time?"

  "Oh yes," said Zarniwoop, "of course. That was the whole point."

  "That's it," said Zaphod, "you can count me out, from here on in you can count me out. I've had all I want of this. You play your own games."

  "I'm afraid you cannot leave," said Zarniwoop, "you are entwined in the Improbability field. You cannot escape."

  He smiled the smile that Zaphod had wanted to hit and this time Zaphod hit it.

  Chapter 13

  Ford Prefect bounded up to the bridge of the Heart of Gold.

  "Trillian! Arthur!" he shouted, "it's working! The ship's reactivated!"

  Trillian and Arthur were asleep on the floor.

  "Come on you guys, we're going off, we're off," he said kicking them awake.

  "Hi there, guys!" twittered the computer, "it's really great to be back with you again, I can tell you, and I just want to say that..."

  "Shut up," said Ford, "tell us where the hell we are."

  "Frogstar World B, and man it's a dump," said Zaphod running on to the bridge, "hi, guys, you must be so amazingly glad to see me you don't even find words to tell me what a cool frood I am."

  "What a what?" said Arthur blearily, picking himself up from the floor and not taking any of this in.

  "I know how you feel," said Zaphod, "I'm so great even I get tongue-tied talking to myself. Hey it's good to see you Trillian, Ford, Monkeyman. Hey, er, computer...?"

  "Hi there, Mr. Beeblebrox sir, sure is a great honor to..."

  "Shut up and get us out of here, fast fast fast."

  "Sure thing, fella, where do you want to go?"

  "Anywhere, doesn't matter," shouted Zaphod, "yes it does!" he said again, "we want to go to the nearest place to eat!"

  "Sure thing," said the computer happily and a massive explosion rocked the bridge.

  When Zarniwoop entered a minute or so later with a black eye, he regarded the four wisps of smoke with interest.

  Chapter 14

  Four inert bodies sank through spinning blackness. Consciousness had died, cold oblivion pulled the bodies down and down into the pit of unbeing. The roar of silence echoed dismally around them and they sank at last into a dark and bitter sea of heaving red that slowly engulfed them, seemingly for ever.

  After what seemed an eternity the sea receded and left them lying on a cold hard shore, the flotsam and jetsam of the stream of Life, the Universe, and Everything.

  Cold spasms shook them, lights danced sickeningly around them. The cold hard shore tipped and span and then stood still. It shone darkly--it was a very highly polished cold hard shore.

  A green blur watched them disapprovingly.

  It coughed.

  "Good evening, madam, gentlemen," it said, "do you have a reservation?"

  Ford Prefect's consciousness snapped back like elastic, making his brain smart. He looked up woozily at the green blur.

  "Reservation?" he said weakly.

  "Yes, sir," said the green blur.

  "Do you need a reservation for the afterlife?"

  In so far as it is possible for a green blur to arch its eyebrows disdainfully, this is what the green blur now did.

  "Afterlife, sir?" it said.

  Arthur
Dent was grappling with his consciousness the way one grapples with a lost bar of soap in the bath.

  "Is this the afterlife?" he stammered.

  "Well I assume so," said Ford Prefect trying to work out which way was up. He tested the theory that it must lie in the opposite direction from the cold hard shore on which he was lying, and staggered to what he hoped were his feet.

  "I mean," he said, swaying gently, "there's no way we could have survived that blast is there?"

  "No," muttered Arthur. He had raised himself on to his elbows but it didn't seem to improve things. He slumped down again.

  "No," said Trillian, standing up, "no way at all."

  A dull hoarse gurgling sound came from the floor. It was Zaphod Beeblebrox attempting to speak. "I certainly didn't survive," he gurgled, "I was a total goner. Wham bang and that was it."

  "Yeah, thanks to you," said Ford, "We didn't stand a chance. We must have been blown to bits. Arms, legs everywhere."

  "Yeah," said Zaphod struggling noisily to his feet.

  "If the lady and gentlemen would like to order drinks..." said the green blur, hovering impatiently beside them.

  "Kerpow, splat," continued Zaphod, "instantaneously zonked into our component molecules. Hey, Ford," he said, identifying one of the slowly solidifying blurs around him, "did you get that thing of your whole life flashing before you?"

  "You got that too?" said Ford, "your whole life?"

  "Yeah," said Zaphod, "at least I assume it was mine. I spent a lot of time out of my skulls you know."

  He looked at around him at the various shapes that were at last becoming proper shapes instead of vague and wobbling shapeless shapes.

  "So..." he said.

  "So what?" said Ford.

  "So here we are," said Zaphod hesitantly, "lying dead..."

  "Standing," Trillian corrected him.

  "Er, standing dead," continued Zaphod, "in this desolate..."

  "Restaurant," said Arthur Dent who had got to his feet and could now, much to his surprise, see clearly. That is to say, the thing that surprised him was not that he could see, but what he could see.

  "Here we are," continued Zaphod doggedly, "standing dead in this desolate..."

  "Five star..." said Trillian.

  "Restaurant," concluded Zaphod.

  "Odd isn't it?" said Ford.

  "Er, yeah."

  "Nice chandeliers though," said Trillian.

  They looked about themselves in bemusement.

  "It's not so much an afterlife," said Arthur, "more a sort of apres vie."

  The chandeliers were in fact a little on the flashy side and the low vaulted ceiling from which they hung would not, in an ideal Universe, have been painted in that particular shade of deep turquoise, and even if it had been it wouldn't have been highlighted by concealed moodlighting. This is not, however, an ideal Universe, as was further evidenced by the eye-crossing patterns of the inlaid marble floor, and the way in which the fronting for the eighty-yard-long marble-topped bar had been made. The fronting for the eighty-yard-long marble-topped bar had been made by stitching together nearly twenty thousand Antarean Mosaic Lizard skins, despite the fact that the twenty thousand lizards concerned had needed them to keep their insides in.

  A few smartly dressed creatures were lounging casually at the bar or relaxing in the richly coloured body-hugging seats that were deployed here and there about the bar area. A young Vl'Hurg officer and his green steaming young lady passed through the large smoked glass doors at the far end of the bar into the dazzling light of the main body of the Restaurant beyond.

  Behind Arthur was a large curtained bay window. He pulled aside the corner of the curtain and looked out at a landscape which under normal circumstances would have given Arthur the creeping horrors. These were not, however, normal circumstances, for the thing that froze his blood and made his skin try to crawl up his back and off the top of his head was the sky. The sky was...

  An attendant flunkey politely drew the curtain back into place.

  "All in good time, sir," he said.

  Zaphod's eyes flashed.

  "Hey, hang about you dead guys," he said, "I think we're missing some ultraimportant thing here you know. Something somebody said and we missed it."

  Arthur was profoundly relieved to turn his attention from what he had just seen.

  He said, "I said it was a sort of apres..."

  "Yeah, and don't you wish you hadn't?" said Zaphod, "Ford?"

  "I said it was odd."

  "Yeah, shrewd but dull, perhaps it was..."

  "Perhaps," interrupted the green blur who had by this time resolved into the shape of a small wizened dark-suited green waiter, "perhaps you would care to discuss the matter over drinks..."

  "Drinks!" cried Zaphod, "that was it! See what you miss if you don't stay alert."

  "Indeed sir," said the waiter patiently. "If the lady and gentlemen would care to order drinks before dinner..."

  "Dinner!" Zaphod exclaimed with passion, "Listen, little green person, my stomach could take you home and cuddle you all night for the mere idea."

  "... and the Universe," concluded the waiter, determined not to be deflected on his home stretch, "will explode later for your pleasure."

  Ford's head swivelled towards him. He spoke with feeling.

  "Wow," he said, "What sort of drinks do you serve in this place?"

  The waiter laughed a polite little waiter's laugh.

  "Ah," he said, "I think sir has perhaps misunderstood me."

  "Oh, I hope not," breathed Ford.

  The waiter coughed a polite little waiter's cough.

  "It is not unusual for our customers to be a little disoriented by the time journey," he said, "so if I might suggest..."

  "Time journey?" said Zaphod.

  "Time journey?" said Ford.

  "Time journey?" said Trillian.

  "You mean this isn't the afterlife?" said Arthur.

  The waiter smiled a polite little waiter's smile. He had almost exhausted his polite little waiter repertoire and would soon be slipping into his role of a rather tight lipped and sarcastic little waiter.

  "Afterlife, sir?" he said, "No, sir."

  "And we're not dead?" said Arthur.

  The waiter tightened his lips.

  "Aha, ha," he said, "Sir is most evidently alive, otherwise I would not attempt to serve sir."

  In an extraordinary gesture which is pointless attempting to describe, Zaphod Beeblebrox slapped both his foreheads with two of his arms and one of his thighs with the other.

  "Hey guys," he said, "This is crazy. We finally did it. We finally got to where we were going. This is Milliways!"

  "Yes, sir," said the waiter, laying on the patience with a trowel, "this is Milliways--the Restaurant at the End of the Universe."

  "End of what?" said Arthur.

  "The Universe," repeated the waiter, very clearly and unnecessarily distinctly.

  "When did that end?" said Arthur.

  "In just a few minutes, sir," said the waiter. He took a deep breath. He didn't need to do this since his body was supplied with the peculiar assortment of gases it required for survival from a small intravenous device strapped to his leg. There are times, however, when whatever your metabolism you have to take a deep breath.

  "Now, if you would care to order drinks at last," he said, "I will then show you to your table."

  Zaphod grinned two manic grins, sauntered over to the bar and bought most of it.

  Chapter 15

  The Restaurant at the End of the Universe is one of the most extraordinary ventures in the entire history of catering. It has been built on the fragmented remains of... it will be built on the fragmented... that is to say it will have been built by this time, and indeed has been--

  One of the major problems encountered in time travel is not that of accidentally becoming your own father or mother. There is no problem involved in becoming your own father or mother that a broadminded and well-adjusted family can't
cope with. There is also no problem about changing the course of history--the course of history does not change because it all fits together like a jigsaw. All the important changes have happened before the things they were supposed to change and it all sorts itself out in the end.

  The major problem is quite simply one of grammar, and the main work to consult in this matter is Dr. Dan Streetmentioner's Time Traveller's Handbook of 1001 Tense Formations. It will tell you for instance how to describe something that was about to happen to you in the past before you avoided it by time-jumping forward two days in order to avoid it. The event will be described differently according to whether you are talking about it from the standpoint of your own natural time, from a time in the further future, or a time in the further past and is further complicated by the possibility of conducting conversations whilst you are actually travelling from one time to another with the intention of becoming your own father or mother.

  Most readers get as far as the Future Semi-Conditionally Modified Subinverted Plagal Past Subjunctive Intentional before giving up: and in fact in later editions of the book all the pages beyond this point have been left blank to save on printing costs.

  The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy skips lightly over this tangle of academic abstraction, pausing only to note that the term "Future Perfect" has been abandoned since it was discovered not to be.

  To resume:

  The Restaurant at the End of the Universe is one of the most extraordinary ventures in the entire history of catering.

  It is built on the fragmented remains of an eventually ruined planet which is (wioll haven be) enclosed in a vast time bubble and projected forward in time to the precise moment of the End of the Universe.

  This is, many would say, impossible.

  In it, guests take (willan on-take) their places at table and eat (willan on-eat) sumptuous meals whilst watching (willing watchen) the whole of creation explode around them.

  This is, many would say, equally impossible.

  You can arrive (mayan arrivan on-when) for any sitting you like without prior (late forewhen) reservation because you can book retrospectively, as it were when you return to your own time. (you can have on-book haventa forewhen presooning returningwenta retrohome.)

  This is, many would now insist, absolutely impossible.

  At the Restaurant you can meet and dine with (mayan meetan con with dinan on when) a fascinating cross-section of the entire population of space and time.

  This, it can be explained patiently, is also impossible.