h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Okay, but I need a lot of money with me for traveling expenses (food, hibernation gas, cryogenics maintenance, fuel, temporal relays to get back home before dinner, etc.) So, make sre I have at least enough to get there and back, plus a few million when I get back. Oh, I also want a few towels, a ray gun, and a computer that can decipher alien languages. After all, I don't have any babbelfish with me.

Well, since noone has sent any money, we'll have to move to Plan B.

Um ... anyone have any good ideas for a Plan B?

We could build a time machine here, and try and stop the martians from evolving. Of course, that could cause a temporal paradox. Oh, who cares. Let's just read my entry on temporal paradoxes to get a little prepared, then let's go for it! That's plan B!

Sure. Yah. Sounds great. Let's go for it.

Now all we need is .... um .... all we need is ... uh....is ..

Hey, what do we need? I've got an old watch with only an hour hand. Will that help?

Yes. Also, get a watch with only the minute hand, and only the second hand. That should make setting the time of arrival that much easier. Also, we need an electroning calendar that only does days (must have capacity for leap year), one that only does months, one that only does years. Let me think about it a little longer.

Could you use an old pendulum from a grandfather clock?

Oh, and I have a little hour glass egg timer. That useful?

Hmmmm. Probably. I don't see anything about that in my schematics, but as I've never actually done this before, one idea's good as any other, right?

OK, sounds like we're getting somewhere. When do you think the thing will be ready? And what are we going to do with it that will help our hero thwart EMO?

Well, I'm pretty much making this up as I go, but when properly used, a time machine (techically called a Temporal Rift Creator, or TRC for short) lets people/objects/things travel through time. When improperly used, you can create a black hole that will keep recreating itself. Anyway, we can send the machine to the human hero, who in turn can use it to 1) get back, and 2) create a black hole around EMO. I'll work out the bugs later.

Sounds like we might need a fund-raiser for the stamp to send the machine to our hero. I'll start baking some cookies.

We've got to work fast, too, because I heard through the cosmograpevine that IMO is on the move with his nascent army. Our hero needs to start preparing his trap.

Hmmm. We may not need to. I just picked up a radio message on my Photacyon Tranceiver (faster than light radio) that the human hero had somehow managed to jump through a series of wormholes, and is only a few minutes from where the army is getting its final instructions for the take over of some galaxy really, really, *really* far away. Maybe the human hero can take him down from there without the black hole?

Yah, I think we can let them handle it themselves from here on out. You can have the last word if you like. If you don't like, then my last word is: fatuous.

I believe I shall have the last two words. Ahem . . . mauve weasels.