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

And if we freeze it will expand to fill the cavern, but then I never was any good at Physics

I say it's time we tested the acceleration on the improved raft and see how quickly we get across the lake.

*fastens her seat belt*

*kicks up the speed, the raft quickly but gently accelerates*

*leans forward to cope with the suprising burst of speed*

Hey she's quite handy isn't she.

If we can't give Ghoti a boiling or freezing how about some depth charges ?

*digs out several munitions from his pockets and starts to bind them together with duct tape*

Depth charges? That gives me an idea, if you can place the blast in precisely the right spot, you can generate a wave that is the exact mirror image of the wave that Ghoti is generating. When the two waves meet, they will cancel each other out. Fight water with water, it's the only way.

/* Takes out a pencil and paper */

Now we just have to calculate the exact location. Hmmm. Now from what I remember of physics, that means we get to draw little arrows.

/* draws an arrow */

Wouldn't we just have backlash, then? *thinks about how water might react to a depth charge in an enclosed space*

*thinks about how the cave might react to a depth charge in an enclosed space*

Ummm... can't we just deploy a force field and make a path through the water? Like Moses did?

You want to use depth charges in this enclosed space? You do know that water doesn't compress, right? You use those charges and we're squished against the ceiling.

Well, I can see that boiling and freezing the whole lake is out of the question, but I'd think that we could safely boil or freeze bits of it in self defense. I mean, a snowzar couldn't freeze the whole thing anyway.

*points at the iceberg now floating in the lake*

See! When the water was rising to crush us, the snowzar froze just the part that was rising, and the weight of it was enough to reverse the upward motion.

If we could freeze the whole surface, then maybe it couldn't form into any new shapes, but then maybe the water underneath could push the ice sheet up to squash us. Besides, I have no idea how we could freeze over the entire surface anyway.

So, how do you fight water? The only thing I can think of is to freeze anything that gets formed.




Just had an idea. Didn't he say that he was building a castle? Now, why would a bunch of sentient water need a castle? Maybe, there is someone, or some thing controlling the water! Maybe we can interfere with the communication somehow. What if we all thought real hard about a calm, ripple-free water surface?

*Begins to concentrate*

Or sound waves? Wouldn't they jiggle the water up so that the entity couldn't hold it's shape?

We must have a ghettoblaster somewhere amongst all out pockets, or I could use the MP3 app on my Palm. I've got Deep Purple's Smoke on the Water on it

No we need something loud that goes BANG big time like semtex ...... we've had no serious pyrotechnics on this adventure yet and all it'll do if placed carefully is to create another wave ..... sure possibly a sizeable one but we can ride that out

Come on let's bomb the b@stard

*opens one eye*




Which reminds me of a joke: How does a government employee wink? He opens one eye.


While normally, I'm all for explosions, in this case, we don't even know where to bomb. All we know is that we either have sentient water, or we have someone somewhere controlling the water. That someone could be anywhere, even - ha, ha - IN the water! Even though I risk a serious injury, I'm going back to the mental interference.

Wuss !

Eat your heart out Charlton Heston!

*Amos stands up, brandishing his shillelagh, but fails to look Old-Testament-like on account of being covered in orchids*

*he aims the head of the staff and pushes a button*

Avast!

*a pulse of energy shoots out of the head of the shillelagh and plows a wide furrow through the water*

Zomnker! Go!

*The giant pillar of ice makes some dangerous-sounding cracking sounds before somehow reverting back to water, dropping the raft back to the surface of the lake with it*

You people look like morons, you know that? I can control the total shape, structure, and density of this lake! Altering the phase of water from ice to water, while admittedly not an easy to learn trick, was well within my grasp.

So, unless you are still working with the crazy assumption that I can be bought or that I'll grant you my treasure or safe passage if you just answer a riddle or solve a puzzle, then we'll try this once more. Go now. Or die.

We look like morons? Well, I guess the interference plan didn't work.

*looks sideways at Red Dog*

I think we should try Caer's smoke on the water plan next. I think they installed that new sound system in the refit, didn't they? If we blast it loud enough, maybe it will jam the transmissions between the controller and the water. Besides, that's the best way to play it anyway.

Dum dum dum, dum dum de dum, dum dum dum, dum dum.

Stop it! You'll hurt the fish! I bet you're the type of people who like to tap the glass on aquariums, aren't you!

*What looks like a cannon forms from the water. It begins shooting high-intensity spheres of water at the raft*

*picks off the spheres one by one with a pencil heat beam from the Dial-a-gun turning them into blasts of hot water vapour before they reach the raft*

Try Handel's Water Music Garius