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

*Njan smiles, and digs a toe into the sand, staring off across a blue-grey lake to the contours of the land opposite, which arches out of the water and into the wispy clouds, rocks at the bottom, trees at the top*

*he turns round and looks back up the beach*

*Venom pops in* Thought you might want a bit of backup. *Notice he is re-armed*

Hmmm nice place - Nova class isn't it ? So what was on your mind ?

Ah, well.. that depends upon whose word you take.

The ship's mind was originally in charge of a mountain class GSV of the same name, which was - regrettably - seriously shaken up whilst in transit here. As a result, when the vehicle ran into problems in a particularly nasty bit of space, the mind scuttled off, and was replaced into what approximated best to a nova class GSV (the differences between it and an actual, bona fide nova-class are negligable), and a few years later, the original mind returned and assimilated much of the original hardware from the first Incorrect Catachresis.

So... it really depends where you take your designation from.

*sniggers at the bad pun, whilst the obligatory avatar frowns in condescending disapproval*

Ah, well, now that you're here, the proposal which we were wanting to discuss was your kidnapping.

You see, Krans and myself (amongst numerous others who you may have seen around) decided that our little - ah - band needed noticing. And whilst the invasion of somewhere particular on h2g2 would suffice, we decided that it would be boring, to say the least.

So we decided to kidnap you.

Now.. a normal kidnapping being as inconvenient for all as it is, we decided that the simplest thing to do would just be to bring you up here. No-one else can come here, you see. Since it's unreasonable not to allow visitors to see you, we decided that the problems which this would be entail would be rather large, so we cooked up a rather ingenious way to keep everyone happy.

We've got several holographic imaging processors installed in this bay, and we can make an exact solid light image of the bay downstairs, as it were... back in the h2g2 Cantina. So to all concerned, everyone's in the bay. But if anyone tries to spring you out of the GSV, all they'll end up with is a solid light bee, which isn't much use to anyone, unless they're interested in virtual landscape recreation, in which case we'd be happy to give them some technology.

, or ?

Well in the circumstances I suppose a nice cup of tea would be the best thing I think.

Will the Mind give me any control over my environment ?

*Venom places a small box on RD's arm, clasped there with energy couplers* Had to take care of the biogenic implants. As long as you're not interfering with the prison quality of this bay, then you can change the environment. However, no doors, teleports, or tunnels, etc. that would cause you to leave the area, and no sneaky programming tricks. Now then, how about a or a or maybe a nice cup of .

*Venom hefts his plasma rifle into a firing position, reminding RD of the enforcement of these rules*

*smiles*

Mr. Venom, that's quite unneccessary.. the GSV's mind's quite capable of take care of Red Dog. Watch. *Njan takes the plasma rifle, aims it at Red Dog, and fires. The rifle clicks, and a small puff of grey smoke arises from the muzzle*

There's an impressive array of matter and energy containment devices which're aligned on this bay in particular, so we have little to worry about.

*hands Red Dog a cup of *

*hands Red Dog a small silver pen*

Have a limited terminal pen emulator.. you should be able to change the environment and be as comfortable as the bay'll afford. And if the pen's not sufficient, a drone or an avatar shouldn't be more than a few milliseconds away. *smiles*

*takes his plasma rifle back* Out of all of my stuff, you DON'T touch my rifle. So, how much we ransoming him off for?

......we kidnapped red dog.............thats beautiful..........50% of our possible clientel out the window....gooooood.......

Twasn't my idea. Talk to K/N, I'm jsut here for backup. If our respective buttockses are already in the fire, I'm ready to deflect any attacks so that they can still be pulled out.

*plays with terminal pen emulator erecting a cone of silence around Venom from a friendly drones emulator fields*

Mmmm - that's better. Now for a spot of lunch.

Now, Red Dog, that's bad. You.. .. shouldn't do that. Ahem. I should take that field down.

*beeper bleeps*.. oop.. I'll - uh - be right back. *walks over to a nearby tree, and climbs it, heading up to the silvery ducting along the ceiling, just visible 400 metres above the clouds*

*uses his Palm, which contains his GSV terminal add-on, to take down cone of silence and give RD a small electric zap in the back*

*the computer obediantly sets up a target further down the bay, using ice in true GSV style, and the avatar - smirking - waits for Yow to pull the trigger*

*makes a note in his black book about Venom for later on*

*the target rifle, in the same manner as Mr. Venom's plasma rifle, coughs a little, discharging a small amount of grey smoke. No projectile is to be seen*

*the avatar, previously in the midst of explaining that the ratio she bears to the total consciousness of the ship's mind is about the same ratio a grain of sand bears to the average beach, smiles wryly and looks over at Yo*

*requests a drone for refreshment purposes*