Book Name : Life,
The Universe and Everything
Author
:
No. of Pages
: 247
Summary : (Taken from
Wikipedia)
After being
stranded on pre-historic Earth after the events in The Restaurant at the End of the
Universe, Arthur Dent is met by his old friend Ford Prefect, who drags him into a
space-time eddy, represented by
an anachronistic sofa. The two end up at Lord's Cricket Ground two days before the Earth's
destruction by the Vogons.
Shortly after they arrive, a squad of robots land in a spaceship in the middle
of the field and attack the assembled crowd, stealing The Ashesbefore departing. Another
spaceship, the Starship
Bistromath, arrives, helmed by Slartibartfast,
who discovers he is too late and requests Arthur and Ford's help.
As they
travel to their next destination, Slartibartfast explains that he is trying to
stop the robots from collecting all the components of the Wikkit Gate. Long ago, the peaceful
population of the planet of Krikkit,
unaware of the rest of the Universe due to a dust cloud that surrounded its
solar system, were surprised to find the wreckage of a spacecraft on their
planet. Reverse engineering their own vessel, they explored past
the dust cloud and saw the rest of the Universe, immediately taking a disliking
to it and determining it must go. They built a fleet of ships and robots to
attack the rest of the Universe in a brutal onslaught known as the Krikkit
Wars, but were eventually defeated. Realising that the Krikkit population would
not be satisfied alongside the existence of the rest of the Universe, it was
decided to envelop the system in a Slo-Time envelope, allowing Krikkit to
survive long after the rest of the universe has ended; the Wikkit Gate was the
key to the envelope. However, just before it was activated, one ship carrying a
troop of robots escaped the envelope, and began to retrieve the pieces of the
Gate after they were dispersed about space and time.
The three
transport to a party that has lasted numerous generations where another Gate
component, the Silver Bail, is to be found, but Arthur finds himself separated
from the others and ends up at a Cathedral of Hate created by a being called Agrajag. Agrajag reveals that Arthur
has killed him countless times before, each time reincarnating into a new form
that is soon killed by Arthur, and now plans to kill Arthur in revenge.
However, when he realises that Arthur has yet to cause his death at a place
called Stavromula Beta, Agrajag discovered he took Arthur out of his relative
timeline too soon, and that killing him now would cause a paradox but attempts to kill Arthur anyway. In
his insanity, Agrajag brings the Cathedral down around them. Arthur manages to
escape unharmed, partially due to learning how to fly after falling and missing
the ground while catching sight of a piece of luggage he had lost at a Greek
airport years before. After collecting the suitcase, Arthur inadvertently comes
across the flying party and rejoins his friends. Inside, they find Trillian, but they are too late to
stop the robots from stealing the Bail. Arthur, Ford, Trillian, and
Slartibartfast return to the Bistromath and try to head off the robots
activating the Wikkit Gate.
Meanwhile,
the Krikkit robots steal the last piece, the Infinite
Improbability Drive core from the
spaceship Heart of Gold,
capturing Zaphod Beeblebrox and Marvin
the Paranoid Android at the same
time.
The Bistromath arrives too late at the gate to stop
the robots, and transport to the planet to attempt to negotiate with the
Krikkit people. To their surprise, they find that the people seem to lack any
desire to continue the war, and are directed to the robot and spaceship
facilities in orbit about the planet. With Zaphod and Marvin's help, the group
is able to infiltrate the facilities and discover that the true force behind
the war has been the supercomputer Hactar (Due to the obvious flaw in the idea
that the people of Krikkit are simultaneously smart enough to develop their
ultimate weapon- a bomb that could destroy every star in the universe- while
also being stupid enough not to realise that this weapon would destroy them
too). Previously built to serve a war-faring species, he was tasked to build a
supernova-bomb that would link the cores of every sun in the Universe together
at the press of a button and cause the end of the Universe. Hactar purposely
created a dud version of the weapon instead, causing his creators to pulverise
him into dust, which thus became the dust cloud around Krikkit, still able to
function but at a much weaker level. Trillian and Arthur speak to Hactar in a
virtual space that he creates for them to explain himself. Hactar reveals that
he spent eons creating the spaceship that crashed on Krikkit in order to
inspire their xenophobia and incite them to go to war, also
influencing their thoughts. However, when the Slo-Time envelope was activated,
his control on the population waned. As he struggles to remain functional,
Hactar apologises to Trillian and Arthur for his actions before they leave for
their ship.
With the
war over, the group collects the core of the Heart
of Gold and the Ashes, the
only two components of the Wikkit Gate not destroyed by the robots, and returns
Zaphod and Marvin to the Heart
of Gold. Returning only moments after the robots' attack at the Lord's
Cricket Grounds, Arthur attempts to return the Ashes, but is suddenly inspired
to bowl one shot at a wicket that is being defended using a cricket ball in his
bag. However, in mid-throw, Arthur suddenly realises that the ball he had was
created and placed in his bag by Hactar and is actually the working version of
the cosmic-supernova-bomb, and that the defender of the wicket is one of the
Krikkit robots, ready to detonate the bomb once thrown, all this causing him to
trip, miss the ground, and allow him to fly. Arthur is able to throw the ball
aside and disable the robot in mid-throw.
In the end
Arthur goes to live on the planet
Krikkit where he becomes a more
skillful flier and learns bird
language.
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