Read Online Volume 2 - The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe by Douglas Adams - Free Book Online Page A

population of which lives permanently in one fairly small and crowded nut tree. In which tree they are born, live, fall in love, carve tiny speculative articles in the bark on the meaning of life, the futility of death and the importance of birth control, fight a few extremely minor wars and eventually die strapped to the underside of some of the less accessible outer branches.
    In fact the only Oglaroonians who ever leave their tree are those who are hurled out of it for the heinous crime of wondering whether any of the other trees might be capable of supporting life at all, or indeed whether the other trees are anything other than illusions brought on by eating too many Oglanuts.
    Exotic though this behavior may seem, there is no life form in the galaxy which is not in some way guilty of the same thing, which is why the Total Perspective Vortex is as horrific as it is.
    For when you are put into the Vortex you are given just one momentary glimpse of the entire unimaginable infinity of creation, and somewhere in it a tiny little marker, a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot, which says “You are here.”
    The gray plain stretched before Zaphod, a ruined, shattered plain. The wind whipped wildly over it.
    Visible in the middle was the steel pimple of the dome. This, gathered Zaphod, was where he was going. This was the Total Perspective Vortex.
    As he stood and gazed bleakly at it, a sudden inhuman wail of terror emanated from it as of a man having his soul burned from his body. It screamed above the wind and died away.
    Zaphod started with fear and his blood seemed to turn to liquid helium.
    “Hey, what was that?” he muttered voicelessly.
    “A recording,” said Gargravarr, “of the last man who was put in the Vortex. It is always played to the next victim. A sort of prelude.”
    “Hey, it really sounds bad …” stammered Zaphod. “Couldn’t we maybe slope off to a party or something for a while, think it over?”
    “For all I know,” said Gargravarr’s ethereal voice, “I’m probably at one. My body that is. It goes to a lot of parties without me. Says I only get in the way. Hey ho.”
    “What is all this with your body?” said Zaphod, anxious to delay whatever it was that was going to happen to him.
    “Well, it’s … it’s busy you know,” said Gargravarr hesitantly.
    “You mean it’s got a mind of its own?” said Zaphod.
    There was a long and slightly chilly pause before Gargravarr spoke again.
    “I have to say,” he replied eventually, “that I find that remark in rather poor taste.”
    Zaphod muttered a bewildered and embarrassed apology.
    “No matter,” said Gargravarr, “you weren’t to know.”
    The voice fluttered unhappily.
    “The truth is,” it continued in tones which suggested he was trying very hard to keep it under control, “the truth is that we are currently undergoing a period of legal trial separation. I suspect it will end in divorce.”
    The voice was still again, leaving Zaphod with no idea of what to say. He mumbled uncertainly.
    “I think we were probably not very well-suited,” said Gargravarr again at length; “we never seemed to be happy doing the same things. We always had the greatest arguments over sex and fishing. Eventually we tried to combine the two, but that only led to disaster, as you can probably imagine. And now my body refuses to let me in. It won’t even see me.…”
    He paused again, tragically. The wind whipped across the plain.
    “It says I only inhibit it. I pointed out that in fact I was meant to inhabit it, and it said that that was exactly the sort of smart alec remark that got right up a body’s left nostril, and so we left it. It will probably get custody of my forename.”
    “Oh …?” said Zaphod faintly. “And what’s that?”
    “Pizpot,” said the voice. “My name is Pizpot Gargravarr. Says it all really, doesn’t it?”
    “Errr …” said Zaphod sympathetically.
    “And that is why I, as a disembodied mind, have this