Life, the Universe and Everything

was standing silent for a moment, lost in disappointed thoughts.

– Me? - said Arthur. - Oh, my name’s Arthur Dent.

Prak’s eyes popped out of his head.

– No kidding? - he yelped. - You are Arthur Dent? The Arthur Dent?

He staggered backwards, clutching his stomach and convulsed with fresh paroxysms of laughter.

– Hey, just think of meeting you! - he gasped. - Boy, - he shouted, - you are the most… wow, you just leave the frogs standing! - he howled and screamed with laughter. He fell over backwards on to the bench. He hollered and yelled in hysterics. He cried with laughter, he kicked his legs in the air, he beat his chest. Gradually he subsided, panting. He looked at them. He looked at Arthur. He fell back again howling with laughter. Eventually he fell asleep.

Arthur stood there with his lips twitching whilst the others carried Prak comatose on to the ship.

– Before we picked up Prak, - said Arthur, - I was going to leave. I still want to, and I think I should do so as soon as possible.

The others nodded in silence, a silence which was only slightly undermined by the heavily muffled and distant sound of hysterical laughter which came drifting from Prak’s cabin at the farthest end of the ship.

– We have questioned him, - continued Arthur, - or at least, you have questioned him - I, as you know, can’t go near him - on everything, and he doesn’t really seem to have anything to contribute. Just the occasional snippet, and things I don’t want to hear about frogs.

The others tried not to smirk.

– Now, I am the first to appreciate a joke, - said Arthur and then had to wait for the others to stop laughing.

– I am the first… - he stopped again. This time he stopped and listened to the silence. There actually was silence this time, and it had come very suddenly.

Prak was quiet. For days they had lived with constant manical laughter ringing round the ship, only occasionally relieved by short periods of light giggling and sleep. Arthur’s very soul was clenched with paranoia.

This was not the silence of sleep. A buzzer sounded. A glance at a board told them that the buzzer had been sounded by Prak.

– He’s not well, - said Trillian quietly. - The constant laughing is completely wrecking his body.

Arthur’s lips twitched but he said nothing.

– We’d better go and see him, - said Trillian.

Trillian came out of the cabin wearing her serious face.

– He wants you to go in, - she said to Arthur, who was wearing his glum and tight-lipped one. He thrust his hands deep into his dressing-gown pockets and tried to think of something to say which wouldn’t sound petty. It seemed terribly unfair, but he couldn’t.

– Please, - said Trillian.

He shrugged and went in, taking his glum and tight-lipped face with him, despite the reaction this always provoked from Prak.

He looked down at his tormentor, who was lying quietly on the bed, ashen and wasted. His breathing was very shallow. Ford and Zaphod were standing by the bed looking awkward.

– You wanted to ask me something, - said Prak in a thin voice and coughed slightly.

Just the cough made Arthur stiffen, but it passed and subsided.

– How do you know that? - he asked.

Prak shrugged weakly.

– ‘Cos it’s true, - he said simply.

Arthur took the point.

– Yes, - he said at last in rather a strained drawl. - I did have a question. Or rather, what I actually have is an Answer. I wanted to know what the Question was.

Prak nodded sympathetically, and Arthur relaxed a little.

– It’s… well, it’s a long story, - he said, - but the Question I would like to know is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know is that the Answer is Forty-Two, which is a little aggravating.

Prak nodded again.

– Forty-Two, - he said. - Yes, that’s right.

He paused. Shadows of thought and memory crossed his face like the shadows of clouds crossing the land.

– I’m afraid, - he said at last, - that the Question and the Answer are mutually exclusive. Knowledge of one logically precludes knowledge of the other. It is impossible that both can ever be known about the same universe.

He paused again. Disappointment crept into Arthur’s face and snuggled down into its accustomed place.

– Except, - said Prak, struggling to sort a thought out, - if it happened, it seems that the Question and the Answer would just cancel each other out and take the Universe with them, which would then be replaced by something even more bizarrely inexplicable. It is possible that this has already happened, - he added with a weak smile, - but there is a certain amount of Uncertainty about it.

A little giggle brushed through him.

Arthur sat down on a stool.

– Oh well, - he said with resignation, - I was just hoping there would be some sort of reason.

– Do you know, - said Prak, - the story of the Reason?

Arthur said that he didn’t, and Prak said that he knew that he didn’t.

He told it.