“I wouldn’t say it was the most romantic wedding I’ve ever been to,” said Arthur.
“It was certainly one of the best gigs I’ve been to,” laughed Fenchurch.
“Still, I suppose the priest could do it another way, if you asked him,” said Arthur.
“Probably.”
“Not that I was thinking of asking him.”
“Of course not.”
Arthur looked deeply into a Kopwilsilus dip.
“Arthur, let’s get married.”
Arthur looked up.
“What? Why did you have to say that?”
“It seemed like you were having trouble.”
“You’ve ruined all my plans, I was just building up to a big speech.” Arthur looked back at the dip, which seemed to look back.
“I’m sorry, pretend I never said it.”
“Well it’s a bit difficult now.”
“Arthur, ask me.”
“Fenchurch, will you marry me?”
“I’ll have to think about it.”
Arthur picked up the dip in mock anger
“I’ve thought about it. I will.”
“I’ll get the priest.”
“I don’t want to get married here, I want to get married on Earth.”
“But that’s omps away from here.”
“Well I’m sure Zaphod or Ford will lend you a towel and you’ve still got your copy of the Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. We can leave after the party.” She paused.
“You know, I’m really getting into this hitch-hiking lark.”
THE END
PROLOGUE
Space, like a second sentence, can be big, confusing and needs going through twice to really understand it. One of the few ways to comprehend how big space can be, is to be subjected to the total perspective vortex, but as this usually leads to death unless your ego is as large as say, Zaphod Beeblebrox’s, it is just as well to accept everyone’s word that it is. Distances can therefore become ridiculously large, large enough for those tired with light years (and the enormous slide rules needed to calculate in light years) to invent new, exciting words for inexorably large distances. A Kirpcatorno is now widely accepted as a pretty long way (say 23474 to the power of the collective ages of those at a reasonably successful party) and an ‘Omp’ is about twice as far as a ‘Kirpcatorno.
However, to prevent distances getting too conceited about their sizes, ships such as the Heart of Gold or the Starship Bistromath were designed to sprint through space fast enough to make distances go into a corner and sulk. So for Arthur Dent to say ‘We must be in Zaphod Beeblebrox’s neighbourhood’ when it is, in fact, 36 omps away, is not entirely unreasonable for a good hitchhiker.
To recap, Arthur Dent, having found a wonderful companion in Fenchurch (that being her name, not the place) had visited God’s last message to his creation, only to have Marvin die in his arms. Ford Prefect had resumed his job as a researcher for that truly wonderful book, The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, with new vigour and was probably skulking around some seedy bar trying to talk somebody into buying him a drink. Zaphod Beeblebrox had settled down with Trillian to raise kids and have a peaceful time not saving the Universe. In fact, although saving the Universe again was the furthest thought from all their minds (about 421 omps), it was preparing to renew its acquaintance with them quite shortly.