Chapter 20 Chapter Twenty

The restaurant still exists, but everything else has ceased.The relative time static force field carries and protects it in a nothingness that is more thorough than a vacuum.The reason why it is said to be more complete than a vacuum is because here is pure nothingness - nothing.After all, a vacuum is a real thing, but there is no vacuum here. Shield dome forks once back to opaque.The party is over and the diners have left; Zakun vanishes flat with the rest of the universe; the Time Turbine is preparing to pull the restaurant back from the edge of time for lunch; Go to his small, curtained dressing room and call his agent on the Timeline.

In the parking lot, the black spaceship was parked there, the door closed, silently. The late Mr. Blake Diciato entered the parking lot and was pushed along the elevated walkway by his bodyguards. They go down a pipe to the ground.When approaching the luxurious spaceship, a hatch was lowered from the side of the spaceship and snapped together with the wheels of the wheelchair, sending the wheelchair into the cabin.Baolian followed behind, watching his boss safely connect to his death support system before entering the cramped cockpit.From there, he operated the remote control system to activate the autopilot on the black ship parked next to the luxury ship.This move greatly relieved Zaphod Beeblebrox, who had spent more than ten minutes trying to open this thing.

The black ship slid forward smoothly out of its berth, turned around, and began to move rapidly along the central passage without making a sound.Finally, it accelerated violently, rushed into the relative time launch chamber, and began a long journey back to the distant past. The lunch recipe for "The End of the Sky" has a quote from it, with permission.This passage is as follows: The history of every major civilization in the galaxy goes through three clearly identifiable phases, Survival, Questioning, and Fall, often referred to as the How, Why, and Where phases. For example, the first stage is characterized by the question, "How do we get food?" The second stage is, "Why do we eat?" The third stage becomes, "Where do we go?" eat lunch."

The recipe goes on to suggest that "The End of the Sky," the restaurant at the end of the universe, would be a cozy and depraved answer to the third question. "How are we doing now," asked Arthur Dent. "Bad," said Prefect Ford. "Where are we going?" Trillian asked. "No idea," said Zaphod Beeblebrox. "Why?" asked Arthur Dent. "Shut up," said Zaphod Beeblebrox and Prefect Ford simultaneously. "Basically, what you're trying to say," continued Arthur Dent, ignoring the two of them, "is that we're out of control."

The spaceship vibrates and shakes, which makes people feel very uncomfortable.Meanwhile, Ford and Zaphod attempt to wrest control of the spacecraft from the autopilot.The engine howled and whined like a tired child wandering around the supermarket. "This crazy color scheme really pissed me off," says Zaphod.A minute into the flight, the love story between him and the ship was over. "Every time you try to operate one of those weird black switches with a black label on a black background, a little black light glows black to tell you you've done it. What the hell is this Son? Some kind of galactic super hearse?"

The bulkheads of the rickety cabin were also black, the ceiling was black, and the seats—they were rough, because the ship was designed to make one flight, and a piloted flight at that— were black. , the console feet are black, the gauges are black, the screws that hold them in place are black, the nylon carpet is black - the raised corner shows that the styrofoam underneath is also black "Maybe the guy who designed this thing has something wrong with his eyes, and he can't distinguish between different lengths." Cui Lien speculated. "Or without any imagination," grumbled Arthur.

"Perhaps," said Marvin, "he was very depressed." Of course they would not know that, in fact, the choice of this style of decoration was entirely in honor of the sad, sighing, tax-deductible situation in which the owner of this spaceship was currently in. Suddenly, the spaceship sank. "Don't do it too hard," pleaded Arthur, "it'll make me space-sick." "You're time sick," said Ford, "We're plummeting backwards through time." "Thank you," Arthur said. "I think I'm really going to throw up."

"Spit it out, then," said Zaphod, "we can make some color in this place." "Is that a polite post-dinner conversation?" said Arthur angrily. Zaphod left the console, came over to Ford, consulted with him, then turned to Arthur. "Look, earthlings," he said angrily. 'The question of the ultimate answer, isn't it?' "What, that thing?" said Arthur. "You used to have a job to finish" I thought we'd left it behind! " "I don't, man. Those rats said it'd be worth a fortune if it found a place. And it's locked up in that thing called your head."

"Yes, but..." "There's nothing wrong with that! Think about it, the meaning of life! Once we get a hold of it, every psychiatrist in the galaxy will be a hostage at our mercy, and they'll have to take as much ransom as we want them to pay." There's a ransom. That's a lot of money. It's like a mint." Arthur took a breath and showed little enthusiasm. "Okay," he said, "but where do we start? How would I know? They say the ultimate answer, or whatever, is 42, and how am I supposed to know what the question is for that answer, Could be anything. I mean, what is 6 times 7?"

Zaphod stared at him gravely for a moment.Then, his eyes sparkled with excitement. "421" he called. Arthur wiped his forehead with the palm of his hand. "Yes," he said patiently, "I know." Zaphod's face fell. "I just wanted to show that the question could be anything," said Arthur, "and besides, I don't see the slightest reason why I should know about it." "Because," hissed Zaphod, "you were there when the planet Doom turned into a giant firework." "We have a saying on Earth," said Arthur: "There was," Zaphod corrected him.

"...called alertness. Oh, never mind that. You see, I really don't know." A deep voice echoed dully in the cabin. "I know," Marvin said. Ford yelled at the console, where he was still fighting a losing battle. "Don't get me wrong, Marvin," he said. "This is a conversation between organisms." "It's printed in the brain transition pattern of this earthling." Marvin continued, "but I don't think you will be interested in my words." "You mean," asked Arthur, "that you can read my mind?" "Yes." Marvin said. Arthur's eyes widened in astonishment. "And then..." he said. "It amazes me how you can manage to live on such a small brain." "Well," said Arthur, "you're insulting me." "That's right." Marvin agreed. "Oh, leave him alone," said Zaphod, "he made it all up." "Making it up?" said Marvin, shaking his head in mock surprise, "why would I want to make something up? Biography is bad enough, there's no need to add more bad things to it. " "Marvin," Cui Li is now the only one who can still talk to this poorly designed guy with such an attitude, "if you knew already, why didn't you tell us?" Marvin turned his head toward her. "Because you didn't ask," he replied simply. "Well, we'll ask you now, Metal Man," said Ford, turning to look at him. At this moment, the shaking and shaking of the spaceship suddenly stopped, and the howling of the engines was reduced to a gentle hum. "Hey, Ford," said Zaphod, "sounds better. Have you got the ship's controls?" "No," said Ford, "I'm just not messing with them anymore. We're getting where this ship wants to go, I guess, and we should hurry down." "Yeah, that's right," said Zaphod. "I knew you guys weren't really interested," Marvin muttered to himself, slumped into a corner, and shut himself off. "The problem," said Ford, "is that there's only one instrument on the entire ship with a readout that worries me. If it's really what I think it is, and what it's saying is what I think If that's what it means, then we're going back too far in the past—almost two million years before our own time." Zaphod shrugged. "It's time to oversleep," he said. "I don't know whose ship it is," said Arthur. "Mine," said Zaphod. "No. I mean, who does it really belong to." "It's really me," insisted Zaphod. "See, property is a possession, isn't it? So possession is property. So this ship is mine, see?" "Talk these words to the spaceship," Arthur said. Zaphod stalked up to the console. "Ship," he said, slamming his fist on the panel, "this is your new master speaking." He didn't go on.Because something happened immediately. The spaceship jumps out of time travel mode and returns to real space. All the controls on the console, previously turned off for time travel, now light up. A large video screen above the console flickered back to life, showing a vast picture of the starry sky, with a lonely and unusually huge sun hanging directly in front of them. But that wasn't what had thrown Zaphod into the back of the cabin.Others were similarly pushed towards the back of the cabin. The reason: There was a loud thunderous noise from the monitor speakers surrounding the video screen.