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There are of course many problems connected with life, of which some of the most popular are:
Why are people born? Why to they die? Why do they want to spend so much of the intervening time wearing digital watches?
Many many millions of years ago a race of hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings (whose physical manifestation in their own pan-dimensional universe is not dissimilar to our own) got so fed up with the constant bickering about the meaning of life which used to interrupt their favourite pastime of Brockian Ultra Cricket (a curious game which involved suddenly hitting people for no readily apparent situation and then running away) that they decided to sit down and solve their problems once and for all.
And to this end they built themselves a stupendous super-computer which was so amazingly intelligent that even before its data banks had been connected up it had started from
I think therefore I am and got as far as deducing the existence of rice pudding and income tax before anyone managed to turn it off.
It was the size of a small city.
Its main console was installed in a specially designed executive office, mounted on an enormous executive desk of finest ultramahogany topped with rich ultrared leather. The dark carpeting was discreetly sumptuous, exotic pot plants and tastefully engraved prints of the principal computer programmers and their families were deployed liberally about the room, and stately windows looked out upon a tree-lined public square.
On the day of the Great On-Turning two soberly dressed programmers with briefcases arrived and were shown discreetly into the office. They were aware that this day they would represent their entire race in its greatest moment, but they conducted themselves calmly and quietly as they seated themselves deferentially before the desk, opened their briefcases and took out their leather-bound notebooks.
Their names were Lunkwill and Fook.
For a few moments they sat in respectful silence, then, after exchanging a quiet glance with Fool, Lunkwill leaned forward and touched a small black panel.
The subtlest of hums indicated that the massive computer was now in total active mode. After a pause it spoke to them in a voice rich, resonant and deep.
It said: 'What is this great task for which I, Deep Thought the second greatest computer in the Universe of Time and Space, have been called into existence?'
Lunkwill and Fook glanced at each other in surprise.
'Your task, O Computer...' began Fook.
'No, wait a minute, this isn't right,' said Lunkwill, worried. 'We distinctly designed this computer to be the greatest one ever and we're not making do with the second best. Deep Thought,' he addressed the computer, 'are you not as we designed you to be, the greatest, most powerful computer in all time?'
'I described myself as the second greatest,' intoned Deep Thought, 'and such I am.'
[...] (ndBiHi: s'ensuit une conversation dans laquelle les programmeurs demande si DeepThought n'est pas meilleur que tel ou tel ordinateur, et chaque fois il se moque de l'ordinateur en question) (ndBiHi: oui je fais court sinon j'ai pas fini

)
Contemptuous lights flashed across the computer's console.
'I spare not a single unit of thought on these cybernetic simpletons!' he boomed. 'I speak of none but the computer that is to come after me!'
Fook was losing patience. He pushed his notebook aside and muttered, 'I think this is getting needlessly messianic.'
'You know nothing of future time,' pronounced Deeph Tought, 'and yet in my teeming circuitry I can navigate the infinite delta streams of future probability and see that there must one day come a computer whose merest operational parameters I am not worthy to calculate, but which it will be my fate eventually to design.'
Fook sighed heavily and glanced across to Lunkwill.
'Can we get on and ask the question?' he said.
Lunkwill motioned him to wait.
'What computer is this of which you speak?' he asked.
'I will speak of it no further in this present time,' said Deep Thought. 'Now. Ask what else of me you will that I may function. Speak.'
They shrugged at each other. Fook composed himself.
'O Deep Thought Computer,' he said, 'the task we have designed you to perform is this. We want you to tell us...' he paused '... the Answer!'
'The Answer?' said Deep Thought. 'The Answer to what?'
'Life!' urged Fook.
'The Universe!' said Lunkwill.
'Everything!' they said in chorus.
Deep Thought paused for a moment's reflection.
'Tricky,' he said finally.
'But can you do it?'
Again, a significant pause.
'Yes,' said Deep Thought, 'I can do it.'
'There is an answer?' said Fook with breahtless excitement.
'A simple answer?' added Lunkwill.
'Yes,' said Deep Thought. 'Life, the Universe and Everything. There is an answer. But,' he added, 'I'll have to think about it.'
[...] (ndBiHi: Là deux philosophes entrent et refusent que Deep Thought ne dise la réponse car ils n'auraient alors plus de travail. On apprend ensuite que de toutes façons il va mettre 7,5 millions d'années à trouver la Réponse. Il y a ensuite un autre gros passage, que je coupe pour ne pas avoir à raconter tout le livre.)
'Good morning,' said Deep Thought at last.
'Er... Good morning, O Deep Thought,' said Loonquawl nervously, 'do you have... er, that is...'
'An answer for you?' interrupted Deep Thought majestically. 'Yes. I have.'
The two men shivered with expectancy. Their waiting had not been in vain.
'There is really one?' breathed Phouchg.
'There is really one,' confirmed Deep Thought.
'To Everything? To the great Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything?'
'Yes.'
[...]
'And you're ready to give us?' urged Loonquawl.
'I am.'
'Now?'
'Now,' said Deep Thought.
They both licked their dry lips.
'Though I don't think,' added Deep Tought, 'that you're going to like it.'
'Doesn't matter,' said Phouchg. 'We must know it! Now!'
'Now?' enquired Deep Tought.
'Yes! Now...'
'All right,' said the computer and settled into silence again. The two men fidgeted. The tension was unbearable.
'You're really not going to like it,' observed Deep Tought.
'Tell us!'
'All right,' said Deep Tought. 'The Anwer to the Great Question...'
'Yes...!'
'Of Life, the Universe and Everything...' said Deep Tought.
'Yes...!'
'Is...' said Deep Tought, and paused.
'Yes...!'
'Is...'
'Yes...!!!...?'
'Forty-two,' said Deep Tought, with infinite majesty and calm.
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