Death is a funny thing. Many people in the known Universe believe that this God person only did that right in everything he did with life. Its that, everyone dies (read that, and that first paragraph will make more sense). Of course, the immortals, all seventeen of them, staunchly say that death was a mistake, and everyone should forever. However, two things keep people from taking them seriously. The first is that only one person has ever managed to make himself immortal, and that was by accident. The second reason is that, it is commonly viewed that the lot of them (except the aforementioned person, who is currently on a mission to insult everyone in the Universe in alphabetical order, and physics and all that rot be hanged) are a bunch of prissy bastards. So no one ever listens to them (that does not count the bunch of people who are labled from Mediocre to Advanced God, who have their own set of problems). In fact, people were so concerned about this problem, that they made a computer to solve that problem. He came up with the Answer (forty-two), but not the Question. So, an even bigger computer was commisioned to find the Ultimate Question, to Life, the Universe, and Everything (as a part of life, Death was a part of the question, filed away under "and Everything". That computer was called Earth, and it had a bunch of Ape-creatures running around on it, who played a game called Cricket and still thought that Digital Watches were a neat idea. The stupid turlingdromes. *** At that moment, one of those Ape-creatures, Arthur Dent, Pulled himself up from the floor with a world weary sigh. He rubbed at a rapidly rising bump on his head. He sighed again. Well, nothing to do about that, he thought tohimself. Best get some bearings! "Eddie," he said, "Where in the bloody Hell are we?" Silence. "Eddie?" A deep, omnipotent, and disturbingly familiar voice said to him, "Oh, Joy. First its get the prisoners and bring them to the bridge. Why don't you just sit in a giant whale carcase? Or, how about you wait for a few billion years while go have lunch? At least my left arm doesn't hurt anymore. Oh, wait... I don't have arms anymore. Its for the best, I suppose. I hated having arms. It was a miserable buisness." "Marvin? Is that you?" The ship shuddered with the manic-deppresive A.I.'s sigh. "Why, yes, I suppose it is." "Wha-what are you doing here?" "I really don't know. One moment, I was hating being in oblivion, then I was here, and despising every moment of it. And you know what? Oh, but you wouldn't want to know about that. No one ever does." Arthur couldn't really say that he could, as the robots personality could wear on a guy. And Arthur really didn't need this. Actually, he very much wished that he was dead at the moment, as he was having a very bad life. After all, he was in God knows where, without his towel, which was lost to improbability, and his girlfriend, Fenchurch, was know in some other dimension (or other). Or she was simply dead. Either way, he was not having a good life at the moment. And where the Hell was Ford? Marvin droned on for a few more minutes, and Arthur took in presicely none of it at all. Finally, he said, "Oh, shut up, and tell me where we are!" Marvin did his best to retreat with a quiet dignity, which was quite hard when your a ship's A.I. "Fine, then. After all, why should you care? And if you must know, we are in a despondic little solar system with one sun, and each planet is inhabited by Humans." "Humans?" "I know. Wretched, isn't it?" He paused for a moment. "Oh, and theres a pink spaceship and a very angry space goose near by." Arthur really didn't like this at all. Not one bit. *** Meanwhile, on Serenity, Mal had turned into an ostrich, and then proceded to sprout non-sensicle things about the viscocity of pie, Book had found himself and immediately turned into a mattress, and Jayne turned a putrid shade of puce. Down in the cargo bay, Simon succesfully staved off his wayward tentacles, although he had lost a few more in the process. Kaylee had managed to unfuse her legs, but now her arms, all seventeen of them, were fusing together to make wings. A herd of long horned tadpoles, who were all named Geb and Larry, froozled and gorgnighed into the horizon. An entire civilization of men called Vroomsdaghen Veltch (who, by an extreme coincedence, were also named Geb and Larry, with a George thrown in for zest) sprang up on the small of the back of a Gorilla, but were all killed when the Gorilla decided to lay down. And the space Goose honked at them, in the very angry way that only a Space Goose can honk. Eventually, Simon grew back his arms, River lost her gills and general blue coloration, Kaylee gained her arms back, Mal stopped being an ostrich and started being an ass again, but that wasn't an abnormal occourence on Serenity. Zoe and Wash stopped being letters, and Jayne decided that being a color shade wasn't worth it, but ended up in a Little Bo-Peep costume, and a sheep bleated belatedly behind him. Oh, and Book stopped being a mattress. They all found their way into the kitchen, feeling like they needed a stiff drink. All they found were Mal and Jayne arguing about the sheep. "Well what? We gotta put that thing down on the next planet, 'kay! Gorramit, we can't keep no sheep here, 'less its a job!" "I ain't lettin' you get rida this here shep!" Yes, he said "this here shep." "Would you rather we had rack of lamb?" "NO!!!" Jayne gathered the sheep in his arms and left the room, glancing suspiciously at Simon, Kaylee, and River as they came in, all the while whispering in its ear, "don' you worry, lil' shep, I ain't gonna let 'em hurt ya." He exited huffily, trailing bells and pink tassels. Zoe and Wash were trying, and failing, to withhold their laughter. When they burst out, Zoe managed to gasp, "I think that that-that-that bonnet suites him, dontcha think, s-s-s-sir?!?!!?" Then, fell against her husband, turning almost blue in the face. Simon looked from the laughing couple, to the pink garbed Jayne (complete with pink floral bonnet), then back to Mal. "What was that about?" *** Arthur watched the screen as the pink ship flew serenely toward the planet, which seemed to be rather cold and uninhabited. He spoke to Marvin, "well, I guess we go see them. After all, we turned their ship pink."

TBC