The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Further Radio Scripts

by Douglas Adams

  INT. – GUIDE MARK II AMBIENCE

  VOICE OF THE BIRD: Please wait. This entry is being updated over the sub-etha net. The system will be down for a measurable period.

  EXT. – LAMUELLAN FOREST

  FX: Dawn chorus. Chittering of squirrels. Ford and Arthur walking through underbrush, under

  ARTHUR: Go away!

  FX: Squirrel chitters off.

  ARTHUR: I’ve been pestered by squirrels all night. They keep on trying to give me magazines and face wipes.

  FORD PREFECT: Arthur – is this anywhere near where your ship crashed?

  ARTHUR: Yes.

  FORD PREFECT: Well, it happens. Ship’s cabin robots get destroyed. The cyberminds that control them survive and infest the local wildlife. Can turn a whole ecosystem into some kind of helpless service industry, handing out hot towels and drinks to passers-by. By the way, who was that young woman who cracked me over the head and stole my spaceship?

  ARTHUR: My daughter.

  FORD PREFECT: Beg your pardon?

  ARTHUR: My daughter, Ford.

  FORD PREFECT: Is there a mother involved?

  ARTHUR: Trillian.

  FORD PREFECT: Trillian? She told me once she had a kid, but – I didn’t think—

  ARTHUR: No. I was financing my travel with donations to sperm banks.

  FORD PREFECT: And she made an early withdrawal.

  ARTHUR: (Sighs) I was hoping it might become a standing order. Ford, what are you doing on Lamuella?

  FORD PREFECT: Phroo. Long story. I was coming to pick up a parcel I’d sent to myself care of you. It’s something unimaginably dangerous.

  ARTHUR: So you sent it to me?

  FORD PREFECT: You’re the one person I could rely on to be absolutely boring and not open it. Except that your daughter’s got it now.

  ARTHUR: Got what?

  FORD PREFECT: The new Guide! The bird! She’s made off with it and with my ship. And when I say my ship, I mean an RW6.

  ARTHUR: A what?

  FORD PREFECT: An RW6, for Zark’s sake. I’ve got this great new relationship going between my credit card and the Guide’s central computer. And she’s stolen my ride! (Sighs) There must be some way off this zarking planet.

  ARTHUR: We could sit around and wait for a passing spacecraft, I suppose.

  FORD PREFECT: Oh yes? And how many spacecraft have visited this fleapit recently?

  ARTHUR: Well, mine came – well, crashed – here a few years ago. Then Trillian of course; and the parcel delivery, and you, and . . . you’re right, that’s it.

  FORD PREFECT: This is important, Arthur.

  ARTHUR: And my daughter’s out there all alone in the Galaxy.

  FORD PREFECT: Can we feel sorry for the Galaxy later? It’s the Guide I’m worried about. It’s been taken over. Changed beyond all recognition.

  ARTHUR: Oh! Oh! Oh! I’m incoherent with excitement! Please tell me what fascinating bit of badger-sputumly inconsequential trivia you’ll assail me with next!

  FORD PREFECT: I leaped out of a high-rise window.

  ARTHUR: No chance of you doing it again?

  FORD PREFECT: I did. The first time I managed to save myself with the help of a security robot I reprogrammed. Called Colin.

  ARTHUR: And having saved yourself very cleverly once you very sensibly went and jumped again.

  FORD PREFECT: Naturally . . . and fell straight into the open cockpit of a passing jet towncar, whose pilot had inadvertently pushed the eject button instead of changing tracks on the stereo. Even I couldn’t think that that was particularly clever of me.

  ARTHUR: Oh, I don’t know. I expect you probably sneaked into his jetcar the previous night and set it to play the pilot’s least favourite track or something.

  FORD PREFECT: No, I didn’t. Though, coincidentally, somebody else did. And this is the nub. You could trace the chain of coincidences back. Turned out the new Guide had done it. It’s not an electronic book any more. It’s a bird.

  ARTHUR: What bird?

  FORD PREFECT: The one your daughter is rampaging through the cosmos with. Looks pretty, talks big, uses temporal reverse engineering the way Zaphod mixes Gargle Blasters. Arthur, nobody understands what’s been unleashed here!

  FX: Arthur stops walking. Then Ford.

  ARTHUR: Oh. Would that explain the Earth?

  FORD PREFECT: What Earth?

  ARTHUR: A huge hologram, projected onto the rain last night. The Earth, lots of Earths, like a string of sausages, projected in the sky.

  FORD PREFECT: Sounds like it was explaining the infinitely multitudinous possibilities of your planet Earth to your daughter. Blow up one, another pops into existence. Handy, but confusing.

  ARTHUR: (Rummage in pocket) Mmm. I think . . . I’ve got . . .

  FORD PREFECT: An idea?

  ARTHUR: (Producing it) A sandwich. (Tearing it) You eat Perfectly Normal Beast, don’t you?

  FORD PREFECT: Not come across that one.

  FX: Both eating.

  FORD PREFECT: (Eating) When I found the bird – the Guide Mark II – it put on the most fantastic multi-dimensional display I’ve ever seen. It then said that it would put its services at my disposal in my universe, whether I liked it or not. I said we’d see about that and it said that we would. That’s when I packed it up and sent it to you for safety.

  ARTHUR: (Eating) Whose safety?

  FORD PREFECT: Then, what with one thing and another, my best option seemed to be jumping out of the window again, being fresh out of other options at the time. Did I mention the passing jetcar . . . ? Anyway, whether I liked it or not, the Guide was now working for me. And if you’ve got the Guide you think that you’re the one it’s working for. Mm. Any more sandwiches?

  ARTHUR: Have my crusts. But now my daughter has the bird – the Guide.

  FORD PREFECT: She’s the next one in the chain who’ll think that everything is going fabulously for her . . . until she’s done whatever it is, then it’ll all be up for her too. The new Guide uses Unfiltered Perception. Do you know what that means?

  ARTHUR: Me? I’ve been making sandwiches, for Bob’s sake!

  FORD PREFECT: Unfiltered Perc— Who’s Bob?

  ARTHUR: Never mind.

  FORD PREFECT: OK. The Bird – the new Guide – perceives everything. We don’t. And because it perceives every possible Universe, the bird is present in every possible Universe. Existing in Total Perspective. So they only have to make one of it for everybody to have one. Yes?

  ARTHUR: . . . Ish.

  FORD PREFECT: With Unfiltered Perception, any move it makes has the power of a virus. It propagates across distance, time and a million other dimensions . . . which means that, somewhere, there is one key instruction. But where’s the final application? You know what this means, Arthur?

  ARTHUR: Sorry, I nodded off for a moment.

  FX: Distant rumble, under:

  FORD PREFECT: Think about this. You know who I saw at the Guide offices? Vogons. The Vogons are behind this!

  ARTHUR: Good grief – of course—!

  FORD PREFECT: Oh good. I’ve said a word you understand at last. But do you know who I found trapped inside their virtual accounting software . . . ?

  ARTHUR: (Leaps to his feet) That noise!

  FORD PREFECT: The thunder?

  ARTHUR: It isn’t thunder. It’s the spring migration of the Perfectly Normal Beasts. It’s started early.

  FORD PREFECT: What are these animals you keep on about?

  ARTHUR: Our ticket off this planet . . .

  INT. – POST-PRODUCTION HOUSE, SOHO – CORRIDOR

  FX: Muffled sound of spooling, stops, under:

  FX: Knock on door.

  TRICIA McMILLAN: (Muffled) What?

  RUNNER: Cup of tea, Miss McMillan?

  TRICIA McMILLAN: What does it say on the door?

  RUNNER: Um – do not disturb.

  TRICIA McMILLAN: No, below that.

  RUNNER: Go away. (Beat) Is there a problem? I’m not with you.

>   TRICIA McMILLAN: You are. That’s the problem.

  INT. – POST-PRODUCTION HOUSE, SOHO – CUTTING ROOM

  RUNNER: (Muffled) Yes, Miss McMillan.

  TRICIA McMILLAN: Thank you.

  FX: Spooling, runs, stops:

  TRICIA: (On tape) This is Tricia McMillan reporting from the surface of the Planet Rupert—

  TRICIA McMILLAN: No—

  FX: Spooling.

  TRICIA McMILLAN: The stuff in the ship going there first—

  FX: Spooling stops.

  FX: Grebulon scoutship atmos.

  GREBULON LIEUTENANT: (On tape) —arrive at Rupert in something like seven of your Earth hours.

  TRICIA: (On tape) Which means you must have some form of propulsion unknown to us on Earth.

  GREBULON LIEUTENANT: (On tape) Oh, you mean is it a warp drive or something like that? You’d have to ask our Flight Engineer, Mr Scott.

  TRICIA: (On tape) Which one is he?

  GREBULON LIEUTENANT: (On tape) We don’t know. We have all lost our minds, you see.

  FX: Spooling starts.

  TRICIA McMILLAN: Who’s going to believe this?

  FX: Spooling stops.

  FX: Background lots of TVs showing different output, under:

  TRICIA: (On tape) (A little embarassed) Er – this is Rupert, the home of the um, Grebulons. It may look, to you, the viewer, like a bunch of slightly thin and discoloured people sitting around watching televisions that show reruns of M*A*S*H and The Rockford Files—

  FX: Spooling starts.

  TRICIA McMILLAN: I’ll be laughed out of the business.

  FX: Spooling stops.

  TRICIA: (On tape) This is clearly alien technology on a dramatic scale. Huge, grey buildings under the dark canopy of a clear pressure dome . . .

  TRICIA McMILLAN: Could be a studio set from just about any low-budget science-fiction movie.

  TRICIA: (On tape) And here comes the Grebulon Leader.

  TRICIA McMILLAN: Looking like some guy in costume and make-up, standing in front of a cheap cardboard set . . .

  TRICIA: (On tape) Hallo . . . Leader.

  GREBULON LEADER: (On tape) Miss McMillan, I cannot tell you how much I enjoy your shows on TV. I am your greatest fan. I am so glad you have been able to visit us on Rupert and help us triangulate our astrological position. Here is the book I want you to use.

  TRICIA: (On tape) You And Your Planets by Gail Andrews?!

  FX: Click.

  TRICIA McMILLAN: Oh my God. There’s nothing of any use here at all . . . oh my . . . (Dawning horror) I left astronomical research because I couldn’t prove that a glamorous alien with two heads once tried to pick me up at a party . . . I switched careers to TV. Now I dream up an alien race of people stuck on a remote outpost of our solar system; filling their cultural vacuum with our media junk. It’s happened again. I have no recollection of faking any of this. But if I ever show it to anybody, I’ll be a laughing stock. (Sighs, then catches sight of something) Wait a minute – what are those?

  FX: Spooling, interrupted by knock on door.

  RUNNER: (Muffled) Miss McMillan—

  TRICIA McMILLAN: (Calls) What is it?

  RUNNER: It’s an alien spaceship!

  FX: She jumps to the door, opening it.

  TRICIA McMILLAN: What?

  RUNNER: An alien spaceship. In Regent’s Park. Big silver job. Some girl with a funny-looking bird. Speaks English, throws rocks at people and keeps asking for you. The girl, that is, not . . .

  TRICIA McMILLAN: For me?

  RUNNER: There’s a taxi outside with a camera crew.

  TRICIA McMILLAN: Where’s my bag? Oh, never mind – no – wait. Look.

  RUNNER: (Nervous) Yes?

  TRICIA McMILLAN: That freeze-frame. Do those buildings look like huge gun turrets to you?

  RUNNER: Yeah . . . what is it? The SciFi Channel?

  TRICIA McMILLAN: (Groans) Never mind. (Runs off) Just keep that door locked!

  INT. – GUIDE MARK II AMBIENCE

  VOICE OF THE BIRD: Many many light years from anywhere lies the abandoned planet of Vogsphere. Somewhere on its fetid, fog-bound mudbanks stands, surrounded by the broken and empty carapaces of its last few jewelled scuttling crabs, a stone monument which marks the place where, it is thought, the species Vogon vogonblurtus first arose. On the monument is carved an arrow which points away into the fog, under which are inscribed the words ‘The buck stops there.’ ‘There’, in this instance, is the flagship of Captain Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz’s constructor fleet. The captain’s job all comes down, in essence, to one instruction. He is to put a tick in a box on a checklist when he has carried it out. He has carried out the instruction once before, but a number of troublesome circumstances have prevented him from putting the tick in the box. One of them is the Plural nature of this Galactic sector, where anything you demolish keeps on reappearing. That will soon be taken care of. Another problem has been the irritating and anarchic device called The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. That is now well and truly taken care of and, through temporal reverse engineering, its successor is the agency through which everything else will be taken care of, including a small group of people who continually refuse to be where they are supposed to be when they are supposed to be there. Particularly the two who are stranded on the planet Lamuella.

  EXT. – LAMUELLA – PLAINS OF ANHONDO

  FX: Thundering hooves, bellows of the Perfectly Normal Beasts as they stampede.

  FORD PREFECT: (Yells) Wave the towel higher! Flick it! Careful, don’t get run over!

  ARTHUR: (Yells) This isn’t working! We’ll be killed if we try to jump on to a stampeding Perfectly Normal Beast. Well, you will.

  FORD PREFECT: (Yells) Pardon?

  FX: They move back from the herd. Stampede lower.

  ARTHUR: (More conversational) Ford, have you ever heard of Stavromula Beta?

  FORD PREFECT: Don’t think so. How do you spell it?

  ARTHUR: Don’t know. You remember I told you about Agrajag?

  FORD PREFECT: You mean the guy who was convinced you were getting him killed over and over again?

  ARTHUR: Yes. One of the places he claimed I’d got him killed is called Stavromula Beta. Someone tries to shoot me, it seems. I duck and Agrajag, or one of his many reincarnations, gets hit. It seems that this has definitely happened at some point in time so, I suppose, I can’t get killed at least until after I’ve ducked on Stavromula Beta.

  FORD PREFECT: Yeah, well I wouldn’t bet my life on stopping a one-and-a-half-ton Perfectly Normal Beast armed with nothing but a towel.

  ARTHUR: But they are a way out of here – they gallop up this plain, turn by the hills at the far end and just disappear . . . and they return at the next migration.

  FORD PREFECT: Certainly looks like it might be some kind of evidence of dimensional drift.

  ARTHUR: Which is what?

  FORD PREFECT: A multidimensional nexus intersecting this planet.

  ARTHUR: Which means we can ride our way out of here.

  FORD PREFECT: Exactly. But waving that towel around like a matador isn’t going to do it. You’ve got to flick it more. You need more follow-through from the elbow if you’re going to get those blasted creatures to notice anything at all.

  ARTHUR: What about you? You need more suppleness in the wrist.

  FORD PREFECT: You need more after-flourish.

  ARTHUR: You need a bigger towel.

  OLD THRASHBARG: (Off) You need a pikka bird.

  FORD PREFECT: You what?

  ARTHUR: Hallo, Old Thrashbarg.

  OLD THRASHBARG: To attract the attention of a Perfectly Normal Beast, you need a pikka bird. Like this.

  FX: Pikka bird – pikka pikka.

  FORD PREFECT: The bird he’s holding. What is it?

  ARTHUR: A pikka bird. Its eggs make rather a good omelette. The secret is whipping them lightly with—

  FORD PREFECT: I don’t want a zarking recipe, I just want to be sure it’s a real bird and no
t a multidimensional cybernightmare.

  OLD THRASHBARG: So. Is it written that Bob shall once more take back unto himself the benediction of his once-given Sandwich Maker?

  FORD PREFECT: He’s barmy, isn’t he?

  ARTHUR: (Low) He always talks like that. (Aloud) Ah, venerable Thrashbarg. I’m afraid I think I’m going to have to be popping off now. But young Drimple, my apprentice, will be a fine Sandwich Maker in my stead.

  OLD THRASHBARG: (Like an invocation) O Sandwich Maker from Bob . . . !

  ARTHUR: Yes?

  OLD THRASHBARG: (Tricky one, this) Life . . . will be a very great deal less weird without you!

  ARTHUR: Do you know, I think that’s the nicest thing anybody’s ever said to me?

  FORD PREFECT: Old man, where do these beasts go?

  OLD THRASHBARG: To the Domain of the King!

  FORD PREFECT: What King?

  OLD THRASHBARG: Come! Let us show the Bird to the Beasts! Then you will ride there!

  EXT. – REGENT’S PARK – DAY

  FX: Helicopters, sirens, a crowd.

  RANDOM: (Yelling) Trillian Astra! I want to see Trillian Astra!

  POLICEMAN: (Off, through loud hailer) Now step away from the flying saucer, please, miss.

  RANDOM: (Close, yelling) Come a step closer and I’ll throw this rock at your head!

  POLICEMAN: (Loud hailer) We can’t locate a Trillian Astra.

  RANDOM: (Yell) I told you before! Her Earth name is Tricia McMillan. I know she’s here!

  VOICE OF THE BIRD: (Close) Random.

  RANDOM: Yes, little bird?

  VOICE OF THE BIRD: Say the word and I can make him go away. For ever.

  RANDOM: I – no – don’t.

  VOICE OF THE BIRD: Then I am needed elsewhere . . .

  FX: Bird folds itself up into nothing.

  RANDOM: Wait – no – where did you go—?

  FX: In amongst the crowd:

  TRICIA McMILLAN: (Bustling) How’s my hair? Yes? Nose shiny? How’s that? Good. Turn over.

  RANDOM: (In background) Keep away! All of you! Where’s my bird?

  CAMERAMAN: Recording. Take one, no slate.