From: AnasaziBB@aol.com Date: Sat, 31 May 1997 18:22:40 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Another submission This is another story which is already included in your archives under author DMScully. It is "The X-Files Guide to the Galaxy." Thank you. S. Sanger :) Author--S. Sanger (AnasaziBB@aol.com) Rating--G Classification--CH Keywords--XF/Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy crossover Summary--Fox Mulder and Dana Scully meet Zaphod Beeblebrox. It was nighttime. Nothing moved. Everything was silent. Then . . . Knock, knock, knock. Mulder rolled over and groaned. "What time is it?" After glancing at the clock to see that it wasn't a very pleasant time for someone to be knocking on his door, Mulder said a not very pleasant word. "It's the middle of the night. If this is Scully, I'll disown her." Then he thought, "Well, I'm not related to her, so I can't really disown her." Then he thought, "We're partners, so I suppose I could disown her." Then he thought, "Why am I arguing with myself?" and got out of bed. Knock, knock, KNOCK! "I'm coming, I'm coming," growled Mulder, as he walked to the door. He opened it. There stood a man with two heads. ********** "So, after dumping it into the black hole, I decided that I would find the question to Life, the Universe, and Everything." said the alien, as he swallowed the last of his ice cream. He had insisted on Mulder finding him something "decent" to eat, after realizing that Mulder didn't have any alcoholic beverages on hand. Mulder eyed the empty cookie jar, 4 plates that had previously held sandwiches, and three empty cartons of ice cream. "Don't you mean the ANSWER to Life, the Universe, and Everything?" The alien's two heads looked at each other. The one on the right replied, "No, I do mean the question. I already have the answer. I thought I found the question, but it didn't really make sense. Besides, if you take 9 times 6 (or was it 5?) you get 54, not 42." Mulder looked more confused than he had in the past hour, which was pretty confused. "I--I think I'm going to call a friend. She'll come over, and be able to make sense of this." Or so he hoped. "What did you say your name was?" ********** Mulder nervously waited as the phone rang. "Come on, come on." One of the man's two heads looked up at him. Mulder smiled weakly. Ring . . . ring . . . ri--"Hello?" said a sleepy voice. "Um, hello, Scully, this is Mulder--" "Mulder--" Right now we don't need to tell the exact words that came out of Scully's mouth, but suffice it to say it was similar to what had come out of Mulder's mouth when he was woken up by the ringing doorbell. "Scully, I know it's early, but there's a man with two heads sitting in my kitchen, and he's sitting there! He ate all my ice cream and cookies, and that was after he found out I didn't have any beer! He wanted beer, Scully! An alien, living proof, wanted--" "MULDER! I am going to kill you if you don't hang up the phone right now, and go BACK to bed RIGHT NOW! I DO NOT appreciate getting woken up in the middle of the night to hear your strange, DELUSIONAL dreams!" CLICK, buzzzz. "Scully? Scully? Hello?" Mulder dialed her number again. She picked it up. "Mulder--" "Scully, listen! His name is Orchid Beetlebronx--" "Zaphod Beeblebrox." said the two-headed alien. "--whatever, and he's really here, I swear! Just come over here!" "No!" Just then there was a crash on Mulder's end of the phone. "What was that?" asked Scully. "Well," Mulder began, scratching his eye, "it was the alien. He picked up my table as he was looking for my cat." "Mulder, you don't have a cat." "I know. He dropped the table when he realized that." "Uhhhh. Okay, I'm coming over there. But it's only because you're showing signs of becoming criminally insane." Scully hung up. ********** Twenty minutes later, Scully arrived at Mulder's apartment. She noticed that the "4" in his apartment number seemed to be hanging oddly, but she was too tired to do anything about it. As the door creaked open, Scully glanced at her watch. Through blurry eyes, Scully could just make out that it was 38:97. "It's too early." She said to herself. "Mulder, I'm so tired that I could just fall asleep right here . . . " she trailed off. "There is a two headed man sitting on your couch, drinking milk straight out of the milk carton." Zaphod smiled at her and said, "Did you bring any beer?" "I told you, Scully. I'm not delusional." Scully's eyebrows raised. "No. Not delusional at all." ********** "There. That's the entire story." "That thing about the mice doing experiments on us is really true?" Scully asked, stunned. "That can't be true. I mean, I do stuff mice cannot possibly do." "Yes." Zaphod's heads looked at each other. "And you're just a bunch of dumb organic ape-like beings that live on this computer." "Umhm." Mulder, who had been almost silent through the whole second telling of Zaphod's story, said, "So, what exactly are you here for, and why in the worl--universe did you come to MY apartment, and WHAT IS THE ANSWER TO LIFE THE UNIVERSE AND EVERYTHING?" "I could," started Zaphod's left head, "tell you." "But," said Zaphod's right head. "You really--" "Really--" "REALLY--" "Wouldn't like it." "Really." Finished Zaphod's right head. "Tell us anyway." said Scully, smiling a weak, and non-believing, smile. "42." "Excuse me?" "42. The answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything is 42." "Yeah . . . " "And I'm at Fox's apartment, because its number is 42. I was hoping I could search it, and see if the question to Life, the Universe, and Everything was here." Scully looked at Mulder and whispered, "You let him call you Fox?" Mulder smiled wanly and said, "I told him my name was Fox Mulder, and he asked if he could call me Fox, and I said no. Then smiled and said, 'Okay, that's what I'll call you now'." Scully nodded faintly. Mulder turned to Zaphod. "Are you just investigating just MY apartment, or what?" "Oh, of course not. I just decided to start with Earth. I once had a friend who came from earth, the poor unfortunate slob. His name was Arnold, or Arthur, or something like that . . . Anyway, can I look?" Mulder motioned for him to go ahead. As Zaphod wandered around Mulder's apartment, his two heads bobbing up and down, Mulder whispered excitedly to Scully. "He's living proof that there's aliens--" "Who think that we're a bunch of dumb ape-like creatures who live on a planet which is actually a computer to find the question to Life, the Universe, and Everything." "Well, he's from outer space, isn't he? Who cares why he's here?" Zaphod came back in from Mulder's bedroom. "I don't find anything in here. I think I'll leave. I have many places to visit. Thanks for the ice cream . . . and cookies . . . and milk . . . and sandwiches. Good-bye!" With that, the door shut. Scully and Mulder sat there, looking stunned for a few moments, then Scully got up and said, "I'm leaving." She shut the door and went home. Mulder went back to bed. ********** Mulder was chewing on sunflower seeds when Scully got to work. He looked up from the paper he was reading and said, "So, how did you sleep?" Scully glared at him. "Thanks to your phone call, I had a really weird dream." "What?" "I dreamed that I went over to your apartment and that there was a two headed man there!" "But you did come over to my--" "Really. I wish you would keep your weird alien dreams to yourself from now on." "But I--" "Imagine! You calling me up in the middle of the night." "But you did come over!" "Mulder, I would never come over in the middle of the night just because you had a bad dream." "But--" "He said that mice ran the world, and that the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything was 42! That's why he was searching your apartment, to find the question. Imagine! I really ought to stop eating a whole pint of ice cream before I go to bed. That was another thing . . ." Scully went into the next room, still talking. Mulder looked perplexed. "It did happen! You were there! Come back here! Scully!"