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

‘Ahem. So you’ve decided to vote for Hypatia’.

Speak fixes Pinniped with a scowl. ‘You are an inhabitant of polar seas. Might I suggest that you have very little reason to identify with the Ozarks?’

The seal scowls back. ‘Very little reason, yeah. That’s what I like about it. I guess you’re going to be sensible about this, as usual?’

‘Of course’, replies the Speak-Your-Weight-Machine sweetly. ‘I shall vote for Gnomon’.

‘Brilliant’, snaps Pinniped. ‘It’s going to be pitch-dark here for the next six months, and you want to vote for part of a sundial’.

‘He has a point there’, suggests Alberta, though she doesn’t sound too sure about it.

Speak quivers with annoyance. ‘No he doesn’t’, he barks. ‘There’s no point to him whatsoever’.

Drawing its claws back up into it's leg feathers with relief, the lammergeier turned south. They felt warm and snug there. It was no joke delivering mail this far north. The election campaign trail was going to make a real mess of the EEC Bird Action Plan distribution data records, she thought ruefully.

Still, the cause was worth it. Hypatia would a be good President. She'd reach the parts of HooToo that no other President would reach.

The carefully targetted parcel hit the elephant seal squarely on the bonce and split open in a shower of manifestos. The Missourian Librarian smiling from the front of each one.

A smile that promised cider and brownies, or plump trout on a bed of crushed ice, or juicy marrow bones.

The Albatross eyed the leaflet that slid across the ice in her direction. It had fallen open, '...boat comes in for Albatrosses' she read, '...guaranteed minimum pension... two lb squid per week ...'

Alberta is looking uncomfortable. It's what she's good at.

The limpet, on the other hand, seems quite tranquil in its serene repose on the corner of the manifesto.

'Shhhh...he's reading it', whispers Pinniped.

A thankfully small amount of disgusting fluid is discharged over the paper.

'Good man, Roofle', exults the seal. 'That's another vote for Hypatia'.

The albatross cringes. She felt more sure of this a few minutes ago, but the squid is too good to miss.

'That's the whole Pier, but for Speak', says Pinniped, proudly. 'And everybody I know, just about. Even a proxy for fish-boy'.

Alberta is incredulous. 'That would be the whole Pier except...'

'No. Him too', declares the seal with a self-satisfied grin. He strokes his whiskers with the edge of a flipper, and Alberta can now see that they're comprehensively singed.

She winces. 'So that thing's going to vote for Hypatia too? I didn't think it liked her very much'.

'Quite', says Pinniped. 'And not liking someone very much is positively affectionate by Ilmarinen's standards. Better not let it get about, though. Might not do much for her popularity'.

'Then why did you ask it?' Alberta wears a pained look.

Pinniped puts on a conspiratorial air. 'I thought he might like to work on Speak', he whispers.