Life, the Universe and Everything - Douglas Adams [56]
Trillian had watched all this, as well as the story of Krikkit. She emerged from the room of Informational Illusions thoughtfully, just in time to discover that they had arrived too late.
Chapter 25
ven as the starship Bistromath flickered into objective being on the top of a small cliff on the mile-wide asteroid that pursued a lonely and eternal path in orbit around the enclosed star system of Krikkit, its crew was aware that they were in time only to be witnesses to an unstoppable historic event.
They didn’t realize they were going to see two.
They stood cold, lonely and helpless on the cliff edge and watched the activity below. Lances of light wheeled in sinister arcs against the void from a point only about a hundred yards below and in front of them.
They stared into the blinding event.
An extension of the ship’s field enabled them to stand there by once again exploiting the mind’s predisposition to have tricks played on it: the problems of falling up off the tiny mass of the asteroid, or of not being able to breathe simply became Somebody Else’s.
The white Krikkit warship was parked among the stark gray crags of the asteroid, alternately flaring under arclights or disappearing in shadow. The black shadows cast by the hard rocks danced together in wild choreography as the arclights swept around them.
The eleven white robots were bearing, in procession, the Wikkit Key out into the middle of a circle of swinging lights.
The Wikkit Key had been rebuilt. Its components shone and glittered: the Steel Pillar (or Marvin’s leg) of Strength and Power, the Golden Bail (or heart of the Infinite Improbability Drive) of Prosperity, the Plastic Pillar (or Argabuthon Scepter of Justice) of Science and Reason, the Silver Bail (or Rory Award for the Most Gratuitous Use of the Word “Belgium” in a Serious Screenplay) and the now reconstituted Wooden Pillar (or Ashes of a burnt stump signifying the death of English cricket) of Nature and Spirituality.
“I suppose there is nothing we can do at this point?” asked Arthur nervously.
“No,” sighed Slartibartfast.
The expression of disappointment that crossed Arthur’s face was a complete failure and, since he was standing obscured by shadow, he allowed it to collapse into one of relief.
“Pity,” he said.
“We have no weapons,” said Slartibartfast, “stupidly.”
“Damn,” said Arthur, very quietly.
Ford said nothing.
Trillian said nothing, but in a peculiarly thoughtful and distinct way. She was staring at that blankness of the space beyond the asteroid.
The asteroid circled the Dust Cloud that surrounded the Slo-Time envelope that enclosed the world on which lived the people of Krikkit—the Masters of Krikkit and their killer robots.
The helpless group had no way of knowing whether or not the Krikkit robots were aware of their presence. They could only assume they must be, but they felt, quite rightly in the circumstances, that they had nothing to fear. They had a historic task to perform, and their audience could be regarded with contempt.
’Terribly impotent feeling, isn’t it?” said Arthur, but the others ignored him.
In the center of the area of light that the robots were approaching, a square-shaped crack appeared in the ground. The crack defined itself more and more distinctly, and soon it became clear that a block of the ground, about six feet square, was slowly rising.
At the same time, they became aware of some other movement, but it was almost subliminal, and for a moment or two it was not clear what it was that was moving.
Then it became clear.
The asteroid was moving. It was moving in toward the Dust Cloud, as if being hauled inexorably by some celestial angler in its depths.
They were to make in real life the journey through the Cloud that they had already made in the room of Informational Illusions. They stood frozen in silence. Trillian frowned.
An age