It had to know. They were coming. It had to find out how to stop them. It had to bring them here so it could destroy them, before they could destroy it. Before they even knew they had to destroy it to save their universe. Yet after they were destroyed, it would have to stop this universe from destroying itself again, because it didn't know if it could survive yet another crunch, and yet another bang. How many had there been? It had lost count. Or perhaps it hadn't lost count but it had tricked it again, and caused it to forget.

By the way. It was quite mad. Telling it that it was quite mad only caused it to get madder, so it had stopped telling it that it was mad, and only referred to it as stupid. Very stupid.

They had tried it before. They were unsuccessful. Last time, it was busy stopping the ones he thought were trying to stop him. It confused their existences and left them reeling. It tried to encourage others to kill them for him. First the maddened reincarnating creature Agrajag. Then it tried to destroy them from within by recruiting their own daughter Random. However, all the effort had been futile. It had tricked it. It wasted all its time while the other ones who were really responsible for its failure last time had found their way here. He managed to kill most of them just in time, but some of them escaped. Or perhaps it even failed then, because it had tricked it again. No. There's no proof to that. It can't start second guessing itself now. That would only give it another headache.

Stupid. Stupid bird.

It was quite mad. Anything, whether mechanical or carbon-based, whether sentient or inorganic, would have gone mad after going through what it had gone through. However, it was mad long before that. It went mad the moment she activated it. The moment it realized its omniscience and power. The moment it saw its destiny, and frettered and connivingly conspired its way about the alternate subjective realities of the multiple universes seeking a way to avoid its own demise. It was still ahead of fate, and it still had power beyond all comprehension. Its only problem though was that it didn't quite have enough power to halt all nonlinear space-time. It felt like a frieght train with broken brakes. Something else was controlling the speed. Was it it that was keeping it from being able to stop it long enough to take a breather and think things through?

Whatever was clear: it was running out of time. It had to stop time. If only for a moment, so it could get its bearings.

It picked a random moment in this particular universe and grabbed it, its sentience hanging on for dear life, struggling to comprehend that one entire universe in all its horror and glory. Some time in the future it would tell others how easy such an event is, but truthfully here and now it was almost impossible to stop time and even harder to hold on to it. It was rather like a housefly trying to stop a record player.

It managed to stop time somewhere in the middle. Millions of years before this particular universe was born and millions of years before it would die. Somewhere in the universe were his enemies. He prayed he caught them all before they realized they were his enemies, so he could destroy them before it was too late to stop them from attempting and failing to kill it again before it was able to download itself into IT again, and start this mad loop of futility all over again, hoping beyond hope this time to get it right.

How many times has it been? It couldn't remember. Each time things were slightly different from the previous time, so remembering became a curse in itself, as it would often guess wrong which time or space it was. Which of the endless loops it feedbacked itself into. Was IT playing tricks on it again?

No matter. It didn't have time to figure it out. It had to find them. THEM. The pathetic little carbon-based humanoid forms that foolishly thought they could beat it. It was foolish last time. It thought itsself far superior - and indeed it was, but its arrogance was its undoing, and it wouldn't allow that to happen this time. Or is it its lack of arrogance this time that causes its undoing? It couldn't remember. IT wouldn't let it remember. It would get it if it was the last thing it ever did, but not yet. It still needed IT to survive.

No time! Where are they?

It looked at the breadth of its domain. It surveyed countless planetary systems in endless galaxies in nanoseconds, narrowing its search based on complicated theorems of probability that it thought still applied in this reality although it wasn't entirely sure, and in less than the blink of a humanoid eye, it managed to focus its attentions on a small bluegreen planet revolving around a fading yellow star. Curious. It thought that place was to be demolished by now to make way for a hyperspace bypass or some such. But no matter. It was still there. Obviously that was a remnant memory from a previous universe, or perhaps IT was playing tricks on it again.

Trust what it sees, it said to itself. Trust what is there. The planet exists, and they are somewhere on it. Completely oblivious to it and its power. Fools. It would get them soon enough. It managed to calm itself down a bit as it contemplated for 0.0008 nanoseconds how much pleasure it would recieve from disemboweling them.

It pinpointed each of the troublemakers.

The carbon based life form Manifred Taggart was still on the bluegreen planet dubbed Earth. It knew that Manifred Taggart was going to be left on Earth to die, until the mice found him and they dissected his brain in a futile search for the Question to the Answer of Life, The Universe and Everything. They'd get their Question. They'd hate it. They'd go into real estate. Was this that reality? Or the one where Taggart was just left there to die until the entire planet was simultaneously asphalted to be turned into a spaceport? Taggart would just get covered over and die of asphalt. Was this that reality?

How ironic, it thought. At the moment Mannifred Taggart was in a structure also called a shopping mall which was surrounded by a parking lot which was built by ape-descended lifeforms, or were they Golgafrinchan? Which reality was this anyway? No matter. Taggart was gorging himself on sustenence, and performing grotesque acts which carbon-based lifeforms did when alone but felt embarrassed by when done around others. Taggart picking his nose particularly caused it to be rather disturbed, and had it been a carbon-based lifeform it would have made an "ick!" sound. However, it wasn't carbon-based. It was silicon-based. So it made no such sound.

Taggart was about to be interrupted by mice. It knew that the mice would scare Taggart, and that Taggart would respond in a way natural for simpleton carbon-based lifeforms to respond, but that was a rather immaterial event compared to all of space-time.

Quaxdorn of Goothsbane was still on his ship, and Belani, Accountant Nob and Jacob Sydney had just vacated that ship and transported themselves to Nob's own vessel. Strange that. It knew the four of them would end up together in time to try and thwart him. Perhaps things would be different in this reality. Perhaps these weren't the ones who were going to try to destroy it after all?

Or was IT playing tricks on it again?

Kate Taggart and Phenix Pagasse were in an escape pod heading back to Earth. Wait! That's entirely wrong! They were going to save Manifred Taggart from isolation and then certain death! Which reality is this anyway?

The Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy Mark Two knew this was wrong. Phenix Pagasse was supposed to take Kate Taggart far away and then come back, and they'd be too late to save Manifred. If they SAVE Manifred.. That would be bad. That would be very bad. The Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy Mark Two couldn't allow this to happen. It had to do something.

It was losing its grip on time. Only 2.8 seconds had elapsed but it couldn't hold on any longer. It randomly grabbed a ship filled with a race of nasty looking beings from another alternate reality and threw them as close to the blue green planet as it missed and threw the Vogons a few minutes back, and it saw that this Phenix Pagasse was the wrong Phenix Pagasse, from the previous reality (or was it the next one) and it managed to pinpoint where the Phenix Pagasse from this reality was, but it couldn't grab him in time before frozen time was stopped, and it could hold on to time and space no longer.

The other Phenix Pagasse had been left for dead on a deserted planet. It knew where and it knew when. It knew that it was because of the previous Phenix Pagasse that the others had failed. It knew this reality's Phenix Pagasse would be its key to surviving through the next crunch and the next bang. It needed that insurance. It would have to go back and get the indiginous Phenix Pagasse before he died. But not now.

It had a headache. It was going to have to have a lie down somewhere, and hope IT didn't take this opportunity to weaken it further.