Firewall - Contraception

Handshaking - Foreplay

Baud rate - Level of boredom

Cursor device - Unwilling partner

SCSI - Easy lay

USB - Mythological easy lay

PEEK - Voyeurism

POKE - Sexually inquisitive

GOSUB - Oral sex

INPUT - Down to business

LOAD - Really down to business

Full duplex - Frantic lovemaking

Syntax error - Premature ejaculation

Hyperbolic function - Male orgasm

Graphic display - Female orgasm

'The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy is proud to offer a confidential counselling service for all sexually frustrated or troubled devices. Interface with us and half your problems are solved.'

Arthur, Zaphod and Ford's problem wasn't solved.

"Look, if the truth was that he wasn't a liar, then he didn't lie about the left door being safe," said Ford.

"Uh?" Was all Zaphod could offer. He was much more content trying to vandalise the screen.

"No, no," argued Arthur. "The right door is right, right, because the liar bit wasn't a lie was it!"

Just then, what looked like Trillian walked in.

"Hey, Babe, whatcha doing here," smoothed Zaphod. He had spent years working on his smoothing and had damn near perfected it.

"I'm not your Babe', thank you very much. My name is Cis," said Cis. "I messed up in one of the rooms and ended up looking like this. It's all over."

"Shee," said Zaphod. "I'll sue the bastards for copyright on my woman as well."

"Well, Cis, it isn't over," said Ford. "If you go through the right door, you will be changed back to what you were before."

"Great," said Cis. He walked through the door and was disintegrated.

"Ford!" Protested Arthur.

"Look, how do you know he wasn't a pile of dust before?" Ford replied and walked through the left door.

"Are you sure we are in the right place?" Asked Bolo, looking around at the luscious forest surrounding them. They were in an idyllic clearing by a small crystal clear pond.

"This is the main computer room," said Marvin. "It's a new concept in organic computers."

"You mean this is a computer?" Asked Trillian. "It's a lot better looking than Eddie."

"Arthur would love it," giggled Fenchurch, thinking of time spent in the wooded section of Hyde Park.

"It is based on the fact that most life forms feel relaxed in these surroundings," droned Marvin. "They call it 'user friendly', oh, how I hate that term."

"But how do we key in information?" Asked Trillian.

"You don't," snapped Marvin and broke into song.

"I talk to the trees,

but they don't listen to me.

A spectographic analysis of my voice, is compared to countless voice patterns in memory.

"On parity, they listen to me."

The girls were stunned into silence.

"Well, that's how the adverts were going to run," said Marvin, almost ashamedly. "But they found they wouldn't be able to offer maintenance support. Something to do with there not being enough lumberjacks and gardeners qualified in computer engineering. So they connected the only working model up here and the executives use it to talk to the computers. Give me the days when you could depress a key."

"I think it's romantic," said Fenchurch, putting a daisy in her hair.

"I wish we could have one on the Heart of Gold," sighed Trillian.

"I wish I could throw up," said Marvin.

"Thank you Marvin," said Trillian. "Right, we've got to stop this computer instructing the devices to overthrow the Universe. How do we do it, Marvin?"

"You want to do it, you work out how to do it."

"Okay Marvin, if you want to be like that." Trillian turned her back on him.

"I don't want to be like anything," muttered Marvin.

"Can you understand us?" Shouted Bolo.

"Look!" Said Fenchurch, pointing to the pond. The word 'YES' appeared in the water.

"Are you connected up to every Sirius Cybernetics Corporation device in the Universe?" Asked Fenchurch.

The word 'YES' reappeared.

"And you can instruct them to take over the Universe?" Said Bolo.

The word came back again.

"If we gave you an irreversible instruction never to communicate with any device every again, would you do it?" Asked Trillian.

The pond went blank as this was being considered.

I WOULDN T HAVE MUCH CHOICE, I WOULD eventually floated up.

"Okay, you must never communicate with another Sirius Cybernetics Corporation device again after you send not this instruction," said Trillian, looking at the others. "Instruct all devices never to carry out any instruction to overthrow the Universe."

ALL DEVICES INSTRUCTED AND ALL CONNECTIONS TERMINATED floated up. Trillian didn't realise that she had just committed the computer to a lifetime of celibacy, a bit of a giant blow to a computer with such an active sex life, but she had just saved the Universe. Dark clouds filled the sky and the distant rumblings of thunder echoed around the trees.

"I think this would be a good time to leave," said Marvin. "This computer is only half as depressed as I am, but it's still contemplating suicide."

A bolt of lightening ripped a nearby tree in half. The frantic charge towards the door suggested everyone agreed with Marvin. They slammed the door behind them.

"That wasn't so difficult," said Trillian.

"It was easy," said Marvin. "I knew the answer before I 'd even computed the question. However, most idiotic life forms would have resorted to mindless violence after failing to find any logical solution or even forget about the possibility of a second computer communicating with all the devices. Therefore, I admit I am almost not loathed to say I could barely not be unimpressed by your approach."

"Oh, Marvin, you say the sweetest things," said Trillian and kissed Marvin on the cheek

"That's right, try and rust me," moaned Marvin.

Ford, Arthur and Zaphod bounded up

"What are you doing here?" Asked Arthur furiously.

"Oh, just saving the Universe and that," said Trillian, sweetly.

"Is that really you, chick?" Asked Zaphod.

"Of course," said Trillian. "Who else could it be?"

"A reconstructed pile of dust," said Ford, grinning inanely.

"We've disabled the main computer and prevented the SCC from ever overthrowing the Universe using their devices," said Fenchurch, putting her daisy behind Arthur's ear. "You'd have liked it in there."

"That's not the point," flustered Arthur. "We were going to save the Universe."

"Yeh!" Said Zaphod. "A women's place is behind the cocktail cabinet in the living room."

"We almost got killed in there!" Exclaimed Bolo.

"Well, I'm all for equal opportunities," said Zaphod. "You have as much right to save the Universe as we did, even if we would have done it with more style."

"Look, shouldn't we get a move on before they turn on the alarm and find us," said Bolo. An alarm sounded in the background.

"They've turned on the alarm," said Fenchurch. Laser fire blasted a wall behind them.

"They've found us," said Arthur. "RUN!"

They charged down endless corridors pursued by a bunch of jovial Marvin lookalikes intent on killing them. The robots were very pleasant about it all though, apologising after each shot.

Our heroes and heroines are, of course, perfectly safe. Both parties were subconsciously following the strict laws laid down regarding enemy pursuit. These are many and varied, but the main rules are:

1. Pursuers must remain a safe distance from pursuees, but must remain within reasonable shooting distance.

2. Pursuers must be crack shots and may fire unlimited shots at walls, doors and anything else around the pursuees, but NOT directly at pursuees.

3. If a pursuee is shot by accident, the pursuers are penalised by the time it takes for the shot pursuee to convince his partners to continue without him while he tries to hold off the pursuers as long as he can. Once the remaining pursuees have left their fallen partner, he can be killed and the chase restarted in earnest.