F/X THE BACKGROUND NOISE SUDDENLY STOPS OSCILLATING AND SETTLES INTO A STEADY PATTERN

TRILLIAN Hey, that sounds better. Have you managed to make some sense of the controls?

FORD No, we just stopped fiddling with them. I think this ship has a far better idea of where it's going than we do.

The beach was a beach we shall not name, because his private house was there, but it was a small, sandy stretch somewhere along the hundreds of miles of coastline that runs west from Los Angeles, which is described in the new edition of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy in one entry as

Engine Room
You're in the infinite improbability drive chamber. Nothing Happens; there is nothing to see.

>look

Engine Room
I mean it! There's nothing to see here!

INT. PRISONER PROCESSING BUILDING/MAIN ROOM

A, F & Z enter the double doors, then stop short. Stunned.

THEIR P.O.V. - a typical government pick-a-number and wait sort of room. Bland. Bad lighting. Numbered windows. It's packed with all manner of species.

(A pause - just long enough to build up the suspense, then:)

FORD I bought some peanuts.

ARTHUR Whhhrrr?

(This conversation mostly in hushed tones)

It is a West zone planet which by an inexplicable and somewhat suspicious freak of topography consists almost entirely of subtropical coastline. By an equally suspicious freak of temporal relastatics, it is nearly always Saturday afternoon just before the beach bars close.

EXT. DEEP SPACE - NIGHT

We hover above a greenish/purplish planet.
IMPROBABILITY EFFECT - space RIPPLES.
Something begins to materialize, something big and gray tumbling toward us.
We now see the big, gray thing is a GIANT RHINOCEROS -
which ripples, flips inside out and becomes the Heart of Gold.

Suddenly a team of Fronurbdian Beasthunters charges in, intent on catching the Beast for their zoo. Mistaking you for the Beast, they fire stun guns at you, wrap you in nets, and install you in a lovely little lair in the Fronurbdi National Zoo.

Modern elevators are strange and complex entities.

The Heart of Gold fled on silently through the night of space, now on conventional photon drive. Its crew of four were ill at ease knowing that they had been brought together not of their own volition or by simple coincidence, but by some curious perversion of physics -

TRILLIAN
We have a couple of hitchhikers in our receiving bay.

His head jerks upwards. He quickly grabs it with his hands and shoves it back down.

TRILLIAN
I didn't pick them up. The ship did.

ZAPHOD
Huh?

TRILLIAN
When you engaged the Improbability Drive.

ZAPHOD
I didn't engage the drive.

ARTHUR What an extraordinary book.

FORD Help me write the new edition.

ARTHUR No, I want to go back to Earth again I'm afraid. Or its nearest equivalent.

FORD You're turning down a hundred billion new worlds to explore.

ARTHUR Did you get much useful material on Earth?

It is known that there an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds.

"An S.E.P.," he said, "is something that we can't see, or don't see, or our brain doesn't let us see, because we think it's somebody else's problem. That's what S.E.P. means. Somebody Else's Problem. The brain just edits it out; it's like a blind spot.

Now the images rise up from the screen like holographs as the book "presents itself" like some hi-tech infomercial.

GUIDE VOICE (CONT'D)
In many of the more relaxed civilizations on the Outer Eastern Rim of the Galaxy, the Hitchhiker's Guide has already supplanted the great Encyclopedia Galactica

Ford yawns. "Matter transference always tires me out. I'm going to take a nap." He places something on top of his satchel. "If you have any questions, here's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." Ford lowers his voice to a whisper.

Ford handed the book to Arthur.
"What is it?" asked Arthur.
"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It's a sort of electronic book. It tells you everything you need to know about anything. That's it's job."

NARRATOR (Over music. Matter of fact, characterless voice)

This is the story of The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, perhaps the most remarkable, certainly the most successful book ever to come out of the great publishing corporations of Ursa Minor -