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

*Looks wide-eyed at Titania.*

You know, I never thought of that! Just turn off the engines!

*Turns excitedly to Affy.*

Affy - we've just gotta try it!

[Protoman] .....

*Affy jumps over to the computer and sets the course for "The Malevolant Maelstrom"*

We'll turn the engines off as soon as we're in range of the current. Everyone, if you look through the right porthole you can see a cave currently inhabited by slime creatures created through an accidental toxic dump thanks to yours truly.

*looks out to the right*

/* Waves to the slime creatures */

Hey, now I'll be able to discover once and for all - if a mælström rotates clockwise in one hemisphere and counter-clockwise in the other hemisphere, which way does it rotate in h2g2? I suspect some other way entirely, but now we'll know for sure.

*Puts on his best announcer voice.*

And coming up on our left is a rather remarkable iceberg. If you look closely, you'll see the faint outlines of some fairly large creatures encased in the ice. They are snagadoons from the planet bloogle in the thoodnit system. They're quite friendly, really, and Affy and I thought they would make nice pets. Unfortunately, once we got them here, we realized that they could only survive on a particular slime that is found only on their home planet. We experimented, trying to create a reasonable facsimile, but we weren't, um, successful.

*Glances out the right porthole at the slime creatures.*

Anyway, we decided to put them into suspended animation while we worked on it, and there they are.

*Points dramatically at the iceberg.*


We'd better move those slime experiments up on the to-do list.

Not until we get the noodle incident completely under wraps. I know we can't kill it, but we can definitely keep it from ever being found!

*Begins to wonder why she ever thought she wanted to see what was under wraps at CLI. Decides to put up a good front and responds to GL's spiel.*

Ooohhhh...ahhhhhhh.

Oh, now our tour's in for a treat! Directly ahead of us in the Vortex of Temporal Instability! One of the few underwater rifts in the space/time continuum located in this area, it alternates between heading to a tiny crack located in the southwestern United States, a small spring in Africa, and a tiny brooke in Canada. In other words, the waters that we are in at the moment may flow into locations that will, over time, eventually become The Grand Canyon, The Nile River, and Niagra Falls.

Of course, we only know this because of a few probes that we sent through who came back to us by waiting for time to catch up with us. They apparantly went crazy while waiting and all collaborated in a rather, um, unfortunate accident in, uh, a nuclear plant. In Chernobyl.

*A few tense moments of silence*

Garius, we're lucky that we haven't been tried and found guilty by nearly every country on Earth, when I think about it....

*pretends she didn't hear that part about Chernobyl, in case someone would ask her sometime*

Oh, we'll be fine so long as no one knows about those things.

*Takes careful note of Titania's whistling. Indentifies the song as the Beatles' "Do you want to know a secret". Determines to watch her closely.*

Especially that Vesuvius thing. Who'd have ever guessed that that would be the result of just the tiniest tectonic adjustment. At least we DID get the hot spring we were after. Good thing we had our temporal recall devices with us.

*Grimaces at the experience*

Yeah, but didn't we cause the extinction of....

*Notices the people in hearing distances*

....a really fantastic trip. Yeah. It got dull near the end. Um, yeah....

*Tries to change the subject as rapidly as possible*

Say everyone, there are some interesting rock formations coming up. If I remember, the one out our left window is....

*Happens to look at the left window. His eyes grow wide at the sight of what looks like a jellyfish and an ox. He jumps in front of that window to block the view*

....totally unimportant. The ones out the right window are amazing.

*A totally blank wall is there*

Right. See? That's igneous. Most of the stuff around here is....shale. Yeah, that's it. Shale.


Say, I think I remember what the chefbot's making tonight. His secret recipe! You know how good that is. Let's hurry home as fast as possible!



Just how many extremely secret secrets do we have on this trail again? If we don't hurry, something might slip. We should probably go faster.

[Protoman whistles his themesong to himself]

[Roll] [in binary (kinda like R2-D2)] Say, Blues, do you think we should tell anyone about this?

[Protoman] [in binary] No. It would most likely result in a large number of people coming to harm, emotionally if not physically.

[Roll] [in binary] Hmm ... I never thought of it that way ...

[Protoman]

*Glances down at the sonar and heaves a sigh of relief.*

Okay, folks, we're approaching the Maelstrom now. We should be within its influence already, so I'll just turn off the engines.

*Reaches down to the controls and makes numerous complicated motions. The engines slow gently until they are just a soft purr in the background, then there is a violent explosion and the engines stop.*


I hate it when the engines do that.

Uh - do you mean that the engines *usually* do that?

Next time you fuel up you should try premium instead of regular.

Hey wait! Go back! I didn't get a good picture of the shale - there was a stupid ox in the way!

/* Waves camera eagerly */

[Protoman] .....

What? No! I mean....the engines are off. By the time we could get them back on, the Maelstrom's currents'd be too strong. But we've got lots of the shale pictures, and we could always, I don't know, exchange them for, let's say, your camera.

*Look's over d'Elephant's shoulder.*

Is that a digital camera, d'E? You know, instant display and all that?