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

Ouch. This is some headache.

The seal is, indeed, a little whiffy. This is the trouble with spending too long out of the water in a warm climate. And it makes you all too easy to hunt down.

He is wedged upside-down in that otherwise useless luggage-space, where no-one ever puts their Christmas shopping, in case some lout skips down the stairs and nicks it.

He doesn't know how he got here. People should be more careful with stories. It's one thing being real, and it's another being a piece of fiction, but it's no fun being stuck in that uncertain ground between the two. You get the bruises of the first and the dubious continuity of the latter. Like he believes he said already, ouch.

But Pinniped isn't stupid. He has taken everything in, except the word "autochthonous". Most of all, he knows that Pingu has gone Underground.

You can run or you can confront your fears. Seal-boy, as always, is going to take the reckless option. He's never been able to resist that fatal fascination for unpleasant developments, and developments just don't come more unpleasant than the Underground.

Face to face with your Nemesis, then.
Which kind of reminds him that someone is in the way.

"Orchid. Move your fat arse", says Pinniped, wearily.

The dog pawed over his muse for a while.
Did he really want an A level in Media?
Was a meaty bone a fair trade off for an insane seal or, more importantly, (he knew the game the paparazzi played) a collar and lead to the red dress on the political bus.

Besides he'd had his soul therapy. He could break out of the paper box if he wanted too...oh no that was wrong...it wasn't 'could' was it you stupid animal? What had the footprints in the sand said?

'Will' that was it! His key word was Will.
Now all he had to do was find the Will.

'She knows more than she's letting on.' Swished long-coated chihuahua.

'Be careful' sang the vulture 'She'll set the jaguars on you.'

'Oh will I now?' thought the dog still unwilling to disclose....

'Could I even? Should I?'

It was no use, vocabulary was not his strong suit. Hearts possibly but vocabulary now that was a diffrent pack of cards.

Thank heavens the seal's back. he nodded towards the phociod fearful of a kicking. At least he wouldn't have to bother with mind games for a while, the master could take charge.

_____________________________________
The Next Train At This Platform ... 2 mins
_____________________________________


Back on platform 1d, having lightly toasted several MI5 agents and driven back several more, Pingu stopped mid stride. He sensed a change. His quarry was closer... Drawn to the Underground map, he studied it until the purple dashes of the as yet end less Eugene Line leapt out at him off the wall. Still under construction, largely untested, no one knew where this line would go.


His map study was interrupted by the arrival of an Important Announcement.


_____________________________________
Important Announcement: The Train Now Arrived At Platform 1d
Is For Construction Only - Do Not Board This Train. Repeat - Do Not Board This Train
_____________________________________


The words 'Don't Panic' flash in lime green and purple across the public announcement boards on every platform. The lights promptly go out throughout the Underground system...


"Oh, h**l!" thought the Important Announcement, "I'll never get home in time for 'Countdown' now."

========


Back on board the Routemaster, the vulture watched the seal trying push past Orchid. How he'd got into the luggage rack was beyond her, though she thought it might have something to do with that hound. Oh yes, look at him, all big eyed and innocent! Wagging his tail til it hit the seats either side of the aisle in pleasure at the seal's return. She was pretty sure the hound's ability with imagination was capable of creating as much havoc as the seal's. Still, it was good to have him back, reeking or not.

She wished she had same ability to imagine, it would save so much time. There was someone she thought might save Pingu. If Pingu didn't destroy them all first. Perhaps all you had to do was try.

Suddenly the hound's tail stopped wagging. His coat went into reverse making him look like a stunted ridgeback, ears pinned back and teeth barred.
'Good heavens' thought the Vulture, 'Either something's wrong or he's rehearsing for a Hound of the Baskervilles audition.

'What's up Boots?' enquired the sheep just back from the buffet car and more than a little put out by the fact that lamb chops were the only thing left on the menu.

'Mind games' whimpered the dog.

'Yes please' Said the Seal finally deciding it was worth joining in and most certain that he would be declared the absolute winner. No-one played mind games as well as he did.

'You don't understand, it's dangerous.' The dog was shivering.
'We have to get off this train. It's started already.'

'I thought this was the Routemaster' mumbled Orchid, 'How come we're on a train now?'

'Mimd games' repeated the dog. 'Where is everyone? See they've all gone. Where's Jazz and Mog and Hypatia?'

'Pingu!' Pinniped spat out the noxious word. He needed to think. He needed to find water. Pingu would track him down in no time smelling like this.

MIND THE DOORS.

'Too late' howled the dog

'Maybe not' said the vulture. 'What's the next station Boots?'

'Waterloo.'

'Oh that's fine then'. The phocoid relaxed.

'Wake me up when we get there.'

The Emperor Napoleon admired his position, cast-iron confident in the impending victory that would surely belong to him. Having taken control of Waterloo-East and the North Kent line, as well as custody of the international terminus, he breathed deep, the heavy cloyingly sweet cordite-laden air. His troops were strong, in mind and body; his cavalry and artillery had pinned down the red-tunicked English in Waterloo-West, and divisive victories two days earlier would surely prevent the stand-off Wilkinson from uniting his troops with the satin-spangled Swedish rockers. The little Emperor admired his position. This indeed would soon be his Waterloo. Napoleon however was unprepared for the cataclysmic events which were to follow, changing forever the course of history. A low deep rumble and a blast of wind emanated from the portal to the tube station ... Napoleon was for once uncertain ... it could be the 18:15 from Holborn; it could be a touch of leviathan flatulence; moreover, he was unfamiliar with an EXCLAYMATION. Indeed, it could have been all of those things ...

It was indeed the 1815 from Holborn, packed to the gunnels with members of the Royal Horse Artillery, right of the line, pride of the british army, already unloading their 4.5 inch field guns and gun limbers whilst F troop unloaded the horses.
The figure 1815 held some faint remembered significance for the Emperor - something to do with lots of loud noises, falling men then the quiet of Elba. Were his dreams of the united states of Europe to be threatened yet again?
What he didn't yet know was that loads and loads of Wellington's men were already drawing up in battle squares in the squares of London, muskets at the ready, bayonets polished - ready for action because MI5 was busy elsewhere, unable to interfere with their politically correct demeanour.

Wolfagang exited the subway station and ran back toward the jeep where Hyp and Jazzme were trying to teach the bird and the hound how to play gin rummy. His face was blackened, his hair was singhed in three places and his false mustache was hanging vertically across his mouth.

The crew expected to see the other MI5 agents follow him out of the subway, but they didn't appear.

"This is all your fault, stupid librarian!" Wolfgang shrieked. (Yes, shrieked. He was in quite a state.) This would never have happened if you had leased the Range Rover like I told you!"

"What? What exactly has happened?" Jazzme demanded. He didn't like the way the disheveled agent talked to Hypatia and was considering punching him in the nose.

But it was too late. Wolfgang had already boarded the bus, pulled the driver out of his seat, thrown him onto the pavement and driven away.

"Gin!" said Waz happily.

The bus tore throught he narrow streets toward Waterloo Station. The only passenger was the terrified sheep, who had expressed his contempt for card games and had refused to join his fellow travellers.

"Baaaa! Baaaaa!" bleated the .

Wolfgang glanced behind him and dismised the sheep as being of no interest and certainly no threat.

"Shut up back there," the Agent snarled. "PeeYou! You smell as bad as that pixilated phocoid."

Suddenly Wolfgang remembered Napoleon's fondness for a lamb roased on a spit over an open fire and started developing a plan. "Hey, no offense back there. Just calm down and make yourself comfortable. We'll be there in no time. No time at all."

The pint-sized gallic general admired his position once more. It was the third time in two paragraphs. He really was becoming vane. He then chastised himself, cursing his D-grade grasp of European history; it was earlier Elba and later (St.) Helena. Perhaps if he ever lost yet another campaign of European conquest, they'd send him somewhere nice again ... he'd always fancied the Isle of Wight, with their stripy sand-filled penile-enlargement devices ...

... but Ney, he could not lose, not now, not so close, and not with the pivotal Michalak marshalling the gendarmes from midfield.

---------------------------

The Prime Minister stood from his position of recumbence and announced "I have in my hand a piece of paper ...". Indeed it was soft strong and very long, but no-one listened, unless he could count on the spare toilet-roll dolly. But from where she stood, he was just an a**e. Resignedly, he got on with the paperwork in hand. He now knew that his policy of pacification with Napoleonic France had been a mistake. Meanwhile, the Nobhardly West by-election campaign was going from worse to even worse ...

----------------------------

A gang of several emerged from the subterranean portal out onto the concourse of the railway station. It was bedlam, right enough, and needed to be put straight.

"My my," said Trout Montague, at Waterloo. "Trust us to arrive at bloody rush-hour".

"Oh yeah," responded Pinniped, the inscrutable Phocoid, "I have met my destiny in quite a similar way. The history book on the shelf is always repeating itself."

Trout Montague, who, for the record, was not so scrutable himself, came over all quizzical-looking and wondered why the seal-sayer was so suddenly stilted.
"Pingu's after me you know?" said Pinniped rhetorically and almost naturally, before lapsing back into clunky narrative, "I couldn't escape if I wanted to, knowing my fate is to be with you, finally facing my waterloo. Woe woe woe woe."

Trout Montague was briefly touched. It was the Hound, rubbing himself up against his pedal-fin.

"What now, dog-breath?", asked Trout Montague, politely.

"Who's that, over there?" panted the dog, pointing towards Platform 14, where a tall man sat proudly and erect upon a steaming white horse.

"That's Wellington, Boots", stated Waz, matter-of-factly, in doing so revolutionising the wet-weather footwear industry.

"No, not him, him." The canine gestured wildly chasing its own tail in frustration. After some brief confusion, they looked to where Napoleon, the crazy wee Frenchman who'd kicked off all this nonsense, was standing. And behind him, all black and white but with a few flecks of malevolent amber, stood a Penguin, armed and dangerous.

"Time?" asked Pinniped, sharply.

It was a quarter past six (pm) according to the station clock ... somehow, Pinniped came to know.

"18:21. Napoleon'll be French-toast in six minutes ... do you see, Pingu's locked onto Napoleon or Napoleon's madness. Pingu will tear him limb from limb, he'll wrench every bone apart ...". Pinniped paused while the others sighed heavily. "In six minutes ...", continued Pinniped, with melodramatic tension built purposefully into the dialogue, "we need to have gotten the truck out of here ..."

As the careening bus approached Waterloo Station, the truck carrying the trout and the too long out of water phocoid made it's way in the opposite direction.

"Baaaaaaa" The sheep, tired of what he percieved to be reckless driving and even more tired of being ignored, walked up behind the deranged MI5 agent, bit his left ear completely off, and spit it out on the floor of the bus.

Wolfgang was so startled that he momentarily forgot his mission and made a dive for the aromatic ruminant, thus losing control of the vehicle and running it head on into a large larch beside the roadway. The force of the impact forced open the bus doors, hurling the angry sheep clear of the bus. The angst-ridden agent, bleeding profusely from his wound, staggered out of the bus, walked a few yards and then collapsed.

was considering whether or not to go to his aid when he saw the jeep filled with his friends approaching.

Hypatia, jazzme, the bird and the hound pulled up in the leased vehicle that should have been a Range Rover but wasn't just as a small plane flew overhead and dropped several thousand leaflets onto the unsuspecting crowd below.

Hypatia picked up a leaflet and read it's message to herself.

"What does it say?" jazzme asked. Hypatia handed him the leaflet and replied, "I'm afraid I can't tell you. It's written in French. Postings using any language other than English contravene the house rules. But it's signed Napoleon Roi"

The hound carried several of the leaflets over to the bleeding bungler and used them to stanch the flow of blood. "CAN YOU HEAR ME?" the canine shouted into the hole where the ear had recently resided.

Wolfgang twitched a couple of times and then lay still. At that moment a large explosion was heard coming from the direction of Waterloo Station.

Sounds as if the Royal Horse Artillery have gone into action said Jazz. As he turned hid attention to the leaflet.

"Attention all English", he read, "You are being taken over by the Imperial Armies of the French Republic. All person of noble birth are to report at once to Buckingham Palace for a day trip to Paris.
Commoners are to continue to carry out their normal duties for the time being. (signed) Napoleon Roi ".

"King Napoleon?", snorted Jazz in disgust,"King indeed? We have a way of dealing with these European upstarts." and he tore the leaflet into shreds.

The Royal Horse Artillery were offering their observations on the subject as the bangs merged into a continuous rumble of gunfire.

Jazz drew a protective arm around the trembling Hypatia and began to sing,"Land of Hope and Glory....."

'Will it be good to have a french King?' The sheep had had quite enough of Land of hope and glory. Wasn't that something the wrong team sang at sporting events?

'Cannons approaching from the left!'

'Who says?' asked the Trout debating whether to take up arms or merely enter the King's Arms and have a quiet pint while the farce that had become Waterloo sorted itself. Were it not for the strains of Abba emanating from the pub, the pint would have won.

A fish in full battle dress borders on the ridiculous. Trout bestrode his trusty camel as best a fish can and headed into the melee.

'Be careful!' called Hypatia.

'Don't worry I'll throw the book at them!'

Pin groaned.

Trout slipped off the camel.

Jazz decided another verse of land of hope and glory was the only answer to the question that no one had posed.

Waz posed for want of something better to do.

The hound was busy making a collage out of the bloodstained leaflets.

And the whole world spiralled round and around.

Trout Montague approached a cubicle in the Pub. It was quiet, dark and snug. Warmth from unknown sources pervaded his every cell; this was surely how mellow felt. Curiously, he found that he carried two drinks to the table, one a pint of dark brown liquid, probably bitter judging by the sorry flotsam atop the volume, which he decided must be for himself, and the other a glass of lemonade, brimful and teeming alive with bubbles eager to rise to the top. A packet of cheese and onion crisps, green as is the industry standard, dangled from between his lips.

Already at the table, Young Ben, now 16 and serious was scribbling furiously in her notebook. Taking herself seriously was a serious business. At once neo-anarchic quasi-gothic and artistic, Young Ben liked to be in control of situations. The on-going story was a roller-coaster runaway and it had left the rails, if it ever had any. Young Ben could provide those rails. She'd have some catching up to do though, and she loathed being left behind. But she could. If she wanted. Chin out. Defiant. Typical Young Ben.

Trout Montague supped at his pint and leaned back on the dark wooden bench. The upright back was unupholstered and he had trouble with his adiposal fin. The ergonomics of the bench were clearly not fish-friendly.

Oh yes, architecture was imperative, here. A good story needs its cornices and dado rails, suspended ceilings and mezzanine floors. But architecture without a structural design is little more than flim-flammery. Remove the façade, and underneath you'll find raw steel and concrete. It ain't pretty, but it's there, holding all the architectural features in their place. Without the structure, the façade will blow away, like a rudderless boat caught on a gust of wind, ready to be dashed on the rocks.

Young Ben looked up sharply. The cacophonous tumult from the story outside whistled into and swirled around the room as the Pub door swung open for a fraction of a moment; maybe the wind blew it or maybe someone entered the pub, who knows? Young Ben furrowed her young brow. If someone had entered the pub, they'd left the story, perhaps bored by the plot spinning but nevertheless unspun. She could join in, she thought. But that would mean backing down, showing a chink in her armour, and 16-year olds don't have such flaws, especially those that could indicate a lack of stubbornness.

Trout Montague finished up his pint, and stood to leave. He wasn't about to abandon this story. Young Ben might follow. She might not. But Trout Montague wasn't looking back to see ...

Wolfgang (D.D.) Dandelion aka Dan Wolfowitz aka Daniel David Wolfe aka DW Leonides awakened to find himself floating above his injured body. The scene unfolding below him was chaotic. People were fleeing in all directions from Waterloo Station where smoke was wafting skyward. What appeared to be a mounted regiment approached the Station at full gallop.

The motley crew of travellers was gathered around his still form trying to staunch the flow of blood, trying to revive him. The sheep looked especially distressed and DW's anger at the silly creature evaporated. The sheep hadn't been the only one out of control, he realized.

DW saw the Trout exiting a pub, but there was no sight of Pinniped or Ben. That's par for the course, he thought. Circumstances had left him and the others leaderless more than once.

He didn't know what had happened to the search for Ben, the rescue of the seal, or the reanimation of Pingu. The events had become too convoluted for his taste. There was no continuity, no direction, not even a map to follow. As a quadruple agent, DW appreciated a well drawn map.

He was sure that no matter what direction the story took, someone would find a reason to complain about it. Damned if you do and damned if you don't.

And now this! Floating above the scene like some freaking Yogi! It was really too much.

"I think he's stopped bleeding," said boots. "Shame on you, blacksheep. Now go find that ear and put it on ice until we can find someone to sew it back on." The sheep wandered off with a dejected look on his face.

Waz landed nearby. She had some thread and a needle that she took out of a crow's nest. "This might do the trick. It's the best I can do at the moment."

Not having any opposable thumbs, boots turned the repair task over to jazzme. Maybe if he had something to keep him occupied he'd stop singing. "Bring that ear over here, blacksheep."

Hypatia looked on with interest. She had stopped trembling and her color was coming back. "jazz may not be a great crooner," she thought, "but he's a good bloke in a crisis." Hypatia was becoming very fond of jazz. This worried her since she had been disappointed in her friendships so often in the past. And also since he - or any of them - could be written out of the story at any moment by just about anyone.

Time warps, dead generals and emperors, reanimated clay penguins, beached whales, one-eared MI5 agents and disappearing seals. What a thread! She hoped Ben would make a decision soon, that Pinniped would find what he was looking for and that trout and cleo would get rid of the murderous penguin before her visa expired.

DW opened one eye and winked at Hyp. "Sorry if I made you do the peepee dance, little lady. I'm gonna be just fine."

Trout Montague exited the Pub and shivered in the November air, returning to the story, where the Jazzme appeared to be performing some sort of finesse cobbling on the CIAgent's ear.

"What are you doing?" asked Trout Montague. But before the Jazzme could respond, the CIAgent bespoke.

"I'm being tailed."

"Ha, the irony", thought Trout Montague to himself. "Well be careful, he's might make a silk pig's purse of it", but he said this aloud.

The Hypatia pouted and swung a protective arm around the Jazzme. "Ignore him, Jazz, he just wants to do it himself ...". However, conversely, Trout Montague harboured no such delusions. Control of the thread was something he most certainly didn't want ...

"Look ...", at which Boots sat up, as if ready to fetch, "... we've lost the seal, and with him Orchid. The sheep's been struck even dumber, and the dog's just ... well ... it's still just the dog." Boots gnawed at the bridge of his tail. "We've lost the MoG, Young Ben's in the Pub, strife-ridden and sensible, and if you haven't got the punning lettuce in your bag, we've lost him as well. Pingu's about to leave Waterloo. What do you say to we go to Paris ... "


He turend toward the international terminus, a billboard obscuring his view ...


'Dictionary of English Impairments':
_____________________________________
CHUNNEL : (vulg.) Tunnel underneath sea. [fr. Contraction Channel Tunnel]
_____________________________________

***

Hypatia looked at Trout Montague in dismay. "Paris? I don't have a visa for France!"

'Bien sur!' Yapped the dog.

The others looked at him in an expect the straight jacket any moment fashion.

'Sorry...don't know where that one came from. I have got a chip though.'

'Will that be a chip on your shoulder or a chip to be eaten with uncalled for fish?' Hypatia was still put out by the Trout.

'He means a passport chip' said Jazz who prided himself on being abreast of current events.

'Lets go to Paris..c'est tres jolie' the hound was short circuitng with enthusiasm.

They had nothing better to do and Ben might possibly enjoy
a sensible sabbatical.

It was a thought. Not perhaps the deepest thought ever proffered but nonetheless a thought...

"Thorted!" declares the whale, happily.

Pinniped still isn't saying much.

"Autochthonouth. It meanth indigenouth. Ooh, thorry. You're all wet". Orchid rather compounds the insult by dropping the dictionary on her companion's flukes.

A few minutes pass. Anything is better than this silence, and so the whale pipes up again.

"They thaid you've gone".

"Well, I haven't. And unfortunately you haven't either".

Orchid makes a petulant face, six feet across. "You've been ethpethially unthothiable rethently", she huffs.

The seal wipes his eye with his flipper. "Can't you just say 'unfriendly'?" he hisses.

The whale is determined to remain above all of this. "Anyway, why are we in France?" she demands.

"I've gone into hiding", says Pinniped, acidly. "Only you're making me kind of conspicuous. Still, we've probably shaken off Pingu for a few days, and the rest of them are hardly going to follow us here, are they?"

"But it wath thuch a nithe thtory", replies Orchid, looking wistful. "I thought it wath funny when he wath making you thpeak in Abba".

Pinniped adopts the glare, the one that's supposed to be intimidating. Then the suggestion of an evil glint lights his eye. Orchid looks away. She really does not want to know.