The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: Chapter 31 Summary & Analysis

“It is of course well known that careless talk costs lives,” Adams writes, “but the full scale of the problem is not always appreciated.” In keeping with this, when Arthur says, “I seem to be having tremendous difficulty with my life-style,” a “freak wormhole” opens in space and carries his words “to a distant Galaxy where strange and warlike beings [are] poised on the brink of frightful interstellar battle.” The two war leaders are having a fateful meeting when Arthur’s phrase floats between them. In one of their languages, this sentence is “the most dreadful insult imaginable.” As a result, the two populations begin a long and horrific war. Thousands of years later, the two sides realize it was a simple mistake, uniting forces to wage war on Arthur’s galaxy. They therefore launch a fleet of battleships toward Earth, all of which plummet into a dog’s mouth.

Slartibartfast brings Arthur to a waiting room, where he finds his friends feasting on an exquisite lunch. After he greets them, he hears a tiny voice that says, “Welcome to lunch, Earth creature.” Looking down, he sees Trillian’s mice on the table. “Arthur,” Trillian says, “this is Benjy mouse. And this is Frankie mouse.” The mice, who are sitting inside what look like two futuristic whiskey glasses, greet him before dismissing Slartibartfast and informing him that they “won’t be needing the new Earth any longer.” As he exits, the old man rants angrily about the work he’s already done on Africa.

“Now, Earth creature,” says Benjy mouse, “the situation we have in effect is this. We have, as you know, been more or less running your planet for the last ten million years in order to find this wretched thing called the Ultimate Question.” Interrupting, Arthur says, “Why?” In response, Frankie mouse says, “No—we already thought of that one, but it doesn’t fit the answer. Why? Forty-two…you see, it doesn’t work.” He then admits that they’re tired of running experiments on Earth and daunted by the idea of doing the entire thing again. “It was by the merest lucky chance that Benjy and I finished our particular job and left the planet early for a quick holiday, and have since manipulated our way back to Magrathea by the good offices of your friends.” Magrathea, Benjy interjects, is a “gateway” back to their dimension.

Since leaving Earth, Benjy and Frankie have received a very lucrative offer to “do the 5D chat show and lecture circuit” in their own dimension. “But we’ve got to have product, you see,” Frankie says. “I mean, ideally we still need the Ultimate Question in some form or other.” They need something, they tell Arthur, that “sounds good.” This is why they need Arthur, who is “a last generation product of [the Earth’s] computer matrix.” This means that his brain is “an organic part of the penultimate configuration of the computer program.” Because of this, the mice think that the Ultimate Question is “encoded” within him. “So we want to buy it off you,” Benjy says. For a moment, Arthur thinks the mice want to buy the question from him, but they soon make clear what they really want: his entire brain.

Arthur rears back in his chair as the mice try to convince him to give them his brain, saying that they can give him a simple electronic replacement. As he tries to inch away, the mice lift off the table in their glass cases and start moving toward Arthur. Meanwhile, Trillian, Ford, and Zaphod try to pull Arthur away while opening the door. Unfortunately, a group of heavily-armored Magratheans block their way. Miraculously, though, a planet-wide alarm system bleats into the air, stopping everybody in their tracks.