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

Jill sipped her tea in her tent and daydreamed about muscular men in parkas - or alternatively feathered headgear. Why not have both at once, she thought, needing warmer thoughts as it was getting darker and colder and increasingly Siberian outside the bivouac.

A knock on the tent brought her out of her reverie. She opened up immediately - she was ready for anyone, with thoughts like that in her head, she would have taken on a yeti.

"Talk of the Devil" she thought. A monstrous yeti grabbed her cup, flung it out of the tent and proceeded to molest her. Unfortunatel it was a female yeti - vicious and bitchy....

Meanwhile, the other agents were standing in the ticket-queue at the railway station in St. Petersburg. The attendent said 'next please' in polite Russian and Arthur stepped up to the counter. While he was ordering four tickets for the Trans-Siberian Express, the others waited with their luggage.
Surrounded by a flurry of snow, a man in a Parka approached and tapped Tim on the shoulder. Tim turned round and gasped, and then looked embarassed. He'd been fantasising about Parka-man since Finland, those lovely muscles in that tight little ski-suit. Parka-man smiled.
"Hi," he said, in a way that made Tim very glad about that day's clothing decision, -trekking across northern Europe, it would have been easy to let himself go.
Parka-man unzipped his parka and produced a video-tape, which he thrust into Tim's hand. He zipped up and paused, head on one side.
"Hey, maybe when this is all over you and me could get together," said Parka-man softly. "Love the suit, by the way," and with that he was gone.
Tim was left slightly agast in the middle of St. Petersburg Station with a VHS tape in his hand.

Later, on the train as it headed south towards Moscow, they sneeked up to the first class carriage and watched the contents of the tape on the TV. There was no dialogue, just a tracking shot following the cryogenically preserved head of Boutros Boutors-Ghali as it was carried silently across a sparse room. The head was taken into what appeared to be a tatty kitchenette. The door of a microwave oven was ceremoniously opened and the head was placed inside. The door was closed with a clunk and light came on inside, illuminating Boutros's concerned expression. The camera zoomed in on the dial on the front of the microwave. Slowly a hand entered the picture and turned the dial to 'defrost'. Zooming out again, Boutros's head was seen to have begun revolving inside. The film cut to static and then blackness.

Tim, the natty sailor, was speechless. How was he going to tell the others. Who would they now turn to for leadership?

There was only one person in the world that could take over the position that BBG had so expertly held all these years, and that was............

UPS Guy. A first-class field agent, teacher and aid to the group on their mission. Bob had said he was there at the start and had been folowing them ever since. In fact, Tim traced the outline of Parka-man in his mind, then once again for good measure. Wasn't that...yes...it was! Parka Man IS UPS Guy!

Just then the train entered a tunnel and the carriage was plunged into darkness. Someone pulled the emergency stop chain and the train lurched as it ground to a halt. Tim was thrown off his feet. Panic quickly set in. Tim thought he heard shouting...a gunshot... further up the train whoever it was was working there way along towards him. Maybe the Russian Maffia was hi-jacking the locomotive. Whoever, they'd be in First class in any minute. He had to hide He had to something. He had to think!...

Meanwhile, Jill was running away from a large and bitchy yeti. She knew she was lost the momnent she had been thrown from the bivoucac, the snow had closed in and now it was just white on all sides. The hairy great beast was somewhere behind her, she could still here it's roars as she fled through the snow. She turned to look but then Jill lost her footing and tumbled down an embankment. She lay tired and exhausted in the snow at the bottom of the hill. She forced herself to stand up again. She winced at the pain in her ankle, the cold was making it numb. Thoughts of Parka-man were still keeping her warm. Her suit was keeping her alive. But neither would hold out forever. Jill turned around and stared out at nothing. She was on a lip of a cavenous presipice, if she had slid any further in her fall..Well, she might well still be falling. The thing didn't look like it had a bottom.

It was then that the yeti crested the ridge.

Jill flung herself into the floor. Swallowed a scream, She waited then risked a peek out of her hood. The creature was still there it appeared to be sniffing the air. "It can smell me" Jill thought. "But it hasn't seen me yet. That gives me an advantage. How do you get out of a situation like this This certainly wasn't covered in basic training?" she thought. "Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place! Although, more correctly, a viscious great animal and a bloody great hole in the ground." Slowly, Jill came up with a plan...

Jill's hand closed in the small packet of assorted condiments which had come with the bacon roll that bob had declined while being interrogated
(a long time ago)

Taking careful aim she openerd tha packet of pepper and threw it into the Yeti's face with relish (well she wasn't going to eat the relish anyway)


The Yeti bitch let out an amazing roar of pain and confusion and just has Jill had planned the noise dislodged a wall of snow from the cliff above. Clambering onto her letherette handbag she surfed the edge of the snow wave out of harms way while the Yeti floundered neck deep in the soft drifts.

As she surveyed the scene Jill felt a tap on her shoulder ...

She spun round to be confrounted by...

The witch doctor from the village

but meanwhile back in the heart of Russia

Boutrous groaned. He was feeling dizzy, all this atomic radiation was turning him into brain stew. Was it an atomic powered action that microwaves had? whatever they were these were not good vibrations. He felt like he was in some sort of chain reaction.

"How could it go so wrong" he thought to himself just last night he had said "the future's so bright I gotta wear shades". Sunglasses! the insperation hit him Jill had once told him that when he put his shades on he was a deadringer for someone ... Boutrous had always had a bad memory "who's that girl in friends" he mused to himself Courtney Love that was it. Boutrous had once met Love in an elivator and there was no doubt about it it was like looking in a mirror.

"Man, it must be love" he decided

"Help" he shouted feebly "get me out"

"Gee whizz its you" said the guard as he pressed the stop button. He called over his supervisor "there has been some sort of mistaken identity this isnt BBG its Courtney Love"
"Whats love got to do with it" his boss replied grumpily as he came over to be met by a vision of American woman "Dear god" he exclaimed "I never ment to turn you on"

Just then the radio activated. "Kenneth Brannagh and Robert De nero is waiting Mr Deniro has a red box and needs to give it on up to you. He says he can drive Courtney home if you would like"

As the chaufer was delivering the goods he gave boutrous a wink. It was of course UPS guy. He lifted Boutrous into the lift "love plus one going down" he barked

Soon they were driving away. "Just like old times" said UPS guy. Boutrous siged reminiscently "back in the USSR". UPS guy turned to Brannagh who was sitting silently. "We need to contact the sub - whats the frequency kenneth."

UPS guy took the mike "Beaver this is UPS - were heading from Russia with love"

Boutros said - "Stop fooling around - what's in that box?" he said.

The UPS Guy opened it up. The Boutros, who still only existed from the neck up, was delighted with what he saw. "Every body needs some body" Sang Mr UPS, carrying on the musical allusions bit.

"But who can operate well enough to connect it back on?" wailed BBG. (And when is he going to notice it's female - thought the brown uniformed UPS guy to himself)

Meanwhile Jill was getting over her surprise and removing the tap from her shoulder.

"Aggrzthpthz isn't it" she said "what brings you here".

"Dear me" the witch doctor replied "Since I became civilised and qualified as a neurosurgon I call myself Heddingly Edgbaston. I have a small private practice that takes up most of my time. Now lets take a look at the ankle"

Under Heddingly's professional (and non sexual) care Jill's ankle was soon bound and feeling much better. (Heddingly also provide Jill with some less orthodox care - suffice it to say Jill was soon feeling thouroughly warmed up and more relaxed)

"I was travelling home from a conference in Sweden" Heddingly explained as they relaxed together in the compacted snow. "when I spotted your lear jet and thought you might be in trouble"

he reached into his pocket "By the way here is your radio communicator thing - now that I have cable I don't use it much any more"

He then looked over Jills shoulder in alarm ..

"But now I think we should get out of here - your friend is heading towards us very fast and she looks a mite peeved.

Jill thought back hurridly to the horroscope that Parka-man had delivered to her. "...A Friend is important to you. Your lucky bun-cake today is: Blueberry Muffin."

"Quickly Heddingly, said Jill, do you have a Blueberry Muffin secluded about your Savile Row suit?"

"Why, indeed I do my good lady, what on earth do you want it for I was going to nosh it down for my luncheon don't-cher-know."
"Just give it here."

It had, Jill was quite prepared to admit, been 'a while' since she had held the Lil' Miss shotput champion silver medal but, she reassured herself, "It's a skill you never forget."

The yeti picked up speed, it charged at Jill.

Jill reeled back; tensed her muscles. And THREW the Muffin with all her might. It sailed through the air and...

whizzed past the ear of the bitchy yeti. Jill froze, cursing her aim, which had never really been an issue in her junior shot-put days.
However, if this particular yeti had read her horoscope that morning, she would have discovered that her lucky bun-cake for the day was date and walnut slice. Indeed, a thorough confectionary-astrologer would have noticed signs warning that blueberry muffins in particular would be extremely unlucky for the yeti, that particular day. Had she read her horoscope, she might have ignored the muffin. But she had not, and as her favourite flavour of muffin was indeed blueberry, she turned quickly and dove after the muffin as it bounced over the frozen tundra. As her horoscope would have predicted, the muffin bounced over a revine and the yeti, maddened by her simple desire for cake followed it into oblivion.

As the trans-Siberian Express thundered out of the tunnel four hundred miles south-east of Novosidorsk the driver was greeted by the glare of the Siberian sun. He adjusted his cap. His train barrelled on through a high-sided valley, the tracks ahead invisible under a blanket of snow. Then something fell out of the sky. The driver squinted as an object made an arc through the frozen air before him, landing in the thick snow between the tracks a hundred yards ahead. Then a large light-coloured mass followed it. The driver hauled on the brake lever, and he could feel the wheels skid beneath the enormous bulk of the train as it continued onward under immense enertia. The train came to a halt with its snow-plough a few feet from where a very large hairy creature was sitting on the tracks, eating a muffin.

The sudden jolt as the train shuddered to a halt caused Billy-Bob to wake up with a start. "Whew" he thought "what a strange dream" but then he realised he was not in the bedroom of his Finchley Park flat but in a rather cramped sleeping car on the trans-siberian railway. "Oh no" he groaned

Tim the natty sailor was consulting a tatty copy of Bradshaw's East European Almanac. "We're not due to stop for another 3 hours" Tim remarked as he grabbed several outfits from the luggage rack. He turned as left the carrage heading for the bathroom "If something is out here I'd better make myself look presentable"

Meanwhile back in London a very large polliceman was radioing his headquarters. "Sarge, you'd bettter send me some backup" A group of clowns has just broken into the main UPS Depot in Muswell Hill - I think there's something funny going on ..."

A large flying object the size of a house but roughly the shape of an Austin Metro and with no obvious means of keeping it in the air, glided low over the tundra and stopped above the ravine. Jill had earlier called in the BBG drop-ship to pick her up from deepest Siberia, using the personal communicator returned to her by Dr. Heddingly-Edgbaston. It hovered over the trans-Siberian Express, hiding the yeti in shadow and frightening it away. The air-craft edged backwards slightly and dropped silently onto the railway tracks. Jill and the doctor half ran, half rolled down the side of the ravine starting several small avalances on the way and came to rest between the drop-ship and the front of the train. The cargo doors in the belly of the air-craft opened up and the warm pink glow from within was reflected in the snow all around.

Inside the train, Arthur was hammering on the toilet door.
"Tim, come on. You look fine."
The others had opened the door at the end of the carriage and were throwing the rucksacks out onto the snow.
When he emerged, Tim, who to be fair was looking really good, was bundled out by Arthur and they ran after the others towards the ship. In the hatchway, the UPS guy was waiting and hauled each of them in turn into the cargo hold where Jill and a very dapper Polynesian gentleman were already there. Then UPS guy pressed a red button on the wall and the gaping doors began to close. He through a friendly salute to the driver of the trans-Siberian Express in his cab and turned, ushering the others up the ladder into the cock-pit.
'You see all sorts on this route', thought the train driver. But he had been driving the Express for decades and nothing fazed him any more. With alarming speed the air-craft was gone and he reached to release the brake handle.

Meanwhile, some place else entirely....

Leicesterschniictch Kitanya-irrania-tatonya-karenska-alisov brooded behind his desk. Two men stood before him. They were clearly terrified. The Red Leicester fixed them with an un-flinching, level stare and said:

"What, do you mean....escaped?"

"Well...Um...boss, BBG we had him set on defrost...like you said...and, erm... well he turned into Courtney Love and then Robert De Niro and Kenneth Brannagh took her, I mean him, away and well...he...er...escaped."said the guard.

"I see."

He then shot them both with incredable accuracy. Well...as much accuracy as is required with a harpoon launcher.

"Get rid of THOSE." He pointed to the bodies on the floor. A fellow henchmen grimly towed the remains of his former colleagues out of the room.

"Upon his return to England, no doubt Boutros will want to be fully de-briefed by his secret agents, that gives us some time. What agents do we have stationed in Britain ?" asked The Red Leicester.

An officious looking character in a good suit detached himself from the wall against which he had been hitherto leaning and glided sleekly across the floor. His name was Vincent.

"We have the assasain Gonzarooolio and his Clown Posse. Also there is The Criminal Federation of Stage and Screen Talent. The clownz were I believe, planning a raid on a UPS depot. They were hoping it could give us some more leaverage with...Um...Boutros's ransom." said Vincent.

"That failure has been acounted for.", said Leicester, neatly stepping over a small patch of blood on his persian rug. "The last thing they will be expecting is a direct assault. Not so soon.
Boutros, Arthur, X and Jill and the rest of that meddlesome secret agency have been a thorn in my side for too long now. Gather our forces we are going to war..."

Meabwhile in the secret headquaters of The Scecret Agency (not as one might suspect the brand-spanking new MI6 site on the Thames, but the small franchise Egyptian family bistro just across the road. An angry exchange was taking place...

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****we now return to the story, already in progress***

"We ought to get one of those..." said Agent Bruce (XXXX - He wouldn't give a Castlemaine fourex for anything else.)

"Are kidding?" said Agent X.com "have you SEEN the price!?"

Mustapha Kofi rubbed his hands together angrily.

The clowns had been sitting in the best seats in the resteraunt for an hour now just watching the gate of the UPS Depot across the road. Mustapha stormed across "Are you gentlemen going to order, or are you just fooling around!"

The clowns looked at each other. A particularly tall clown spoke up soothingly. "We are just waiting for some friends to join us - if perhaps we could see the wine list and a bottle of mineral water"

Kofi was somewhat mollified "Ok gentlemen you may stay - but no funny business"

At another table Bruce was busy extoling the advantages of direct advertising to his colleague.

"We could reach thousands of people, accepts all major credit cards and make ££££££ from the comfort of our own home" said Bruce animatedly.

"Bruce listen, we're meant to be secret agents, not Blue Coal salesmen" AgentX.com shook his head desparingly "we have no need to advertise instantly"

Further comercial discussion was however suddenly interupted as across the road ...

A Baby-Grand Piano fell out of an upstairs window of the UPS offices and crushed a passing car, that had been waiting at the lights....