Mostly Harmless Read online

  'What was that?' asked Random, in a small voice.

  'A glimpse along the probability axis of a discontinuously probable object.'

  'I see.'

  'Most objects mutate and change along their axis of probability, but the world of your origin does something slightly different. It lies on what you might call a fault line in the landscape of probability which means that at many probability co-ordinates, the whole of it simply ceases to exist. It has an inherent instability, which is typical of anything that lies within what are usually designated the Plural sectors. Make sense?'

  'No. '

  'Want to go and see for yourself?'

  'To . . . Earth?'

  'Yes.'

  'Is that possible?'

  The bird Guide did not answer at once. It spread its wings and, with an easy grace, ascended into the air and flew out into the rain which, once again, was beginning to lighten.

  It soared ecstatically up into the night sky, lights flashed around it, dimensions dithered in its wake. It swooped and turned and looped and turned again and came at last to rest two feet in front of Random's face, its wings beating slowly and silently.

  It spoke to her again.

  'Your universe is vast to you. Vast in time, vast in space. That's because of the filters through which you perceive it. But I was built with no filters at all, which means I perceive the mish mash which contains all possible universes but which has, itself, no size at all. For me, anything is possible. I am omniscient and omnipotent, extremely vain, and, what is more, I come in a handy self-carrying package. You have to work out how much of the above is true.'

  A slow smile spread over Random's face.

  'You bloody little thing. You've been winding me up!'

  'As I said, anything is possible.'

  Random laughed. 'OK,' she said. 'Let's try and go to Earth. Let's go to Earth at some point on its, er . . .

  'Probability axis?'

  'Yes. Where it hasn't been blown up. OK. So you're the Guide. How do we get a lift?'

  'Reverse engineering.'

  'What?'

  'Reverse engineering. To me the flow of time is irrelevant. You decide what you want. I then merely make sure that it has already happened.'

  'You're joking.'

  'Anything is possible.'

  Random frowned. 'You are joking aren't you?'

  'Let me put it another way,' said the bird. 'Reverse engineering enables us to shortcut all the business of waiting for one of the horribly few spaceships that passes through your galactic sector every year or so to make up its mind about whether or not it feels like giving you a lift. You want a lift, a ship arrives and gives you one. The pilot may think he has any one of a million reasons why he has decided to stop and pick you up. The real reason is that I have determined that he will.'

  'This is you being extremely vain isn't it, little bird?'

  The bird was silent.

  'OK,' said Random. 'I want a ship to take me to Earth.'

  'Will this one do?'

  It was so silent that Random had not noticed the descending spaceship until it was nearly on top of her.

  Arthur had noticed it. He was a mile away now and closing. Just after the illuminated sausage display had drawn to its conclusion he had noticed the faint glimmerings of further lights coming down out of the clouds and had, to begin with, assumed it to be another piece of flashy son et lumiLjre.

  It took a moment or so for it to dawn on him that it was an actual spaceship, and a moment or two longer for him to realise that it was dropping directly down to where he assumed his daughter to be. That was when, rain or no rain, leg injury or no leg injury, darkness or no darkness, he suddenly started really to run.

  He fell almost immediately, slid and hurt his knee quite badly on a rock. He slithered back up to his feet and tried again. He had a horrible cold feeling that he was about to lose Random for ever. Limping and cursing, he ran. He didn't know what it was that had been in the box, but the name on it had been Ford Prefect, and that was the name he cursed as he ran.

  The ship was one of the sexiest and most beautiful ones that Random had ever seen.

  It was astounding. Silver, sleek, ineffable.

  If she didn't know better she would have said it was an RW6. As it settled silently beside her she realised that it actually was an RW6 and she could scarcely breathe for excitement. An RW6 was the sort of thing you only saw in the sort of magazines that were designed to provoke civil unrest.

  She was also extremely nervous. The manner and timing of its arrival was deeply unsettling. Either it was the most bizarre coincidence or something very peculiar and worrying was going on. She waited a little tensely for the ship's hatch to open. Her Guide - she thought of it as hers now - was hovering lightly over her right shoulder, its wings barely fluttering.

  The hatch opened. Just a little dim light escaped. A moment or two passed and a figure emerged. He stood still for a moment or so, obviously trying to accustom his eyes to the darkness. Then he caught sight of Random standing there, and seemed a little surprised. He started to walk towards her. Then suddenly he shouted in surprise and started to run at her.

  Random was not a good person to take a run at on a dark night when she was feeling a little strung out. She had unconsciously been fingering the rock in her pocket from the moment she saw the craft coming down.

  Still running, slithering, hurtling, bumping into trees, Arthur saw at last that he was too late. The ship had only been on the ground for about three minutes, and now, silently, gracefully it was rising up above the trees again, turning smoothly in the fine speckle of rain to which the storm had now abated, climbing, climbing, tipping up its nose and, suddenly, effortlessly, hurtling up through the clouds.

  Gone. Random was in it. It was impossible for Arthur to know this, but he just went ahead and knew it anyway. She was gone. He had had his stint at being a parent and could scarcely believe how badly he had done at it. He tried to continue running, but his feet were dragging, his knee was hurting like fury and he knew that he was too late.

  He could not conceive that he could feel more wretched and awful than this, but he was wrong.

  He limped his way at last to the cave where Random had sheltered and opened the box. The ground bore the indentations of the spacecraft that had landed there only minutes before, but of Random there was no sign. He wandered disconsolately into the cave, found the empty box and piles of missing matter pellets strewn around the place. He felt a little cross about that. He'd tried to teach her about cleaning up after herself. Feeling a bit cross with her about something like that helped him feel less desolate about her leaving. He knew he had no means of finding her.

  His foot knocked against something unexpected. He bent down to pick it up, and was thoroughly surprised to discover what it was. It was his old Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. How did that come to be in the cave? He had never returned to collect it from the scene of the crash. He had not wanted to revisit the crash and he had not wanted the Guide again. He had reckoned he was here on Lamuella, making sandwiches for good. How did it come to be in the cave? It was active. The words on the cover flashed DON'T PANIC at him.

  He went out of the cave again into the dim and damp moonlight. He sat on a rock to have a look through the old Guide, and then discovered it wasn't a rock, it was a person.

  Chapter 18

  Arthur leapt to his feet with a start of fear. It would be hard to say which he was more frightened of: that he might have hurt the person he had inadvertently sat on or that the person he had inadvertently sat on would hurt him back.

  There seemed, on inspection, to be little immediate cause for alarm on the second count. Whoever it was he had sat on was unconscious. That would probably go a great deal of the way towards explaining what he was doing Iying there. He seemed to be breathing OK, though. Arthur felt his pulse. That was OK as well.

  He was Iying on his side, half curled up. It was so long ago and far away when Arthur had las
t done First Aid that he really couldn't remember what it was he was supposed to do. The first thing he was supposed to do, he remembered, was to have a First Aid kit about his person. Damn.

  Should he roll him on to his back or not? Suppose he had any broken bones? Suppose he swallowed his tongue? Suppose he sued him? Who, apart from anything else, was he?

  At that moment the unconscious man groaned loudly and rolled himself over.

  Arthur wondered if he should - He looked at him.

  He looked at him again.

  He looked at him again, just to make absolutely sure.

  Despite the fact that he had been thinking he was feeling about as low as he possibly could, he experienced a terrible sinking feeling.

  The figure groaned again and slowly opened his eyes. It took him a while to focus, then he blinked and stiffened.

  'You!' said Ford Prefect.

  'You!' said Arthur Dent.

  Ford groaned again.

  'What do you need to have explained this time?' he said, and closed his eyes in some kind of despair.

  Five minutes later he was sitting up and rubbing the side of his head, where he had quite a large swelling.

  'Who the hell was that woman?' he said. 'Why are we sur-rounded by squirrels, and what do they want?'

  'I've been pestered by squirrels all night,' said Arthur. 'They keep on trying to give me magazines and stuff.'

  Ford frowned. 'Really?' he said.

  'And bits of rag.'

  Ford thought.

  'Oh,' he said. 'Is this near where your ship crashed?'

  'Yes,' said Arthur. He said it a little tightly.

  'That's probably it. Can happen. Ship's cabin robots get destroyed. The cyberminds that control them survive and start infesting the local wildlife. Can turn a whole ecosystem into some kind of helpless thrashing service industry, handing out hot towels and drinks to passers-by. Should be a law against it. Probably is. Probably also a law against there being a law against it so every-body can get nice and worked up. Hey ho. What did you say?'

  'I said, and the woman is my daughter.'

  Ford stopped rubbing his head.

  'Say that one more time.'

  'I said,' said Arthur huffily, 'the woman is my daughter.'

  'I didn't know,' said Ford, 'that you had a daughter.'

  'Well, there's probably a lot you don't know about me, said Arthur. 'Come to mention it, there's probably a lot I don't know about me either.'

  'Well, well, well. When did this happen then?'

  'I'm not quite sure.'

  'That sounds like more familiar territory,' said Ford. 'Is there a mother involved?'

  'Trillian'

  'Trillian? I didn't think that . . .

  'No. Look, it's a bit embarrassing.

  'I remember she told me once she had a kid but only, sort of, in passing. I'm in touch with her from time to time. Never seen her with the kid.'

  Arthur said nothing.

  Ford started to feel the side of his head again in some bemusement.

  'Are you sure this was your daughter?' he said.

  'Tell me what happened.'

  'Phroo. Long story. I was coming to pick up this parcel I'd sent to myself here care of you . . .

  'Well, what was that all about?'

  'I think it may be something unimaginably dangerous.

  'And you sent it to me?' protested Arthur.

  'Safest place I could think of. I thought I could rely on you to be absolutely boring and not open it. Anyway, coming in at night I couldn't find this village place. I was going by pretty basic information. I couldn't find any signal of any kind. I guess you don't have signals and stuff here.'

  'That's what I like about it.'

  'Then I did pick up a faint signal from your old copy of the Guide, so I homed in on that, thinking that would take me to you. I found I'd landed in some kind of wood. Couldn't figure out what was going on. I get out, and then see this woman standing there. I go up to say hello, then suddenly I see that she's got this thing!'

  'What thing?'

  'The thing I sent you! The new Guide! The bird thing! You were meant to keep it safe, you idiot, but this woman had the thing right there by her shoulder. I ran forward and she hit me with a rock.'

  'I see,' said Arthur. 'What did you do?'

  'Well, I fell over of course. I was very badly hurt. She and the bird started to make off towards my ship. And when I say my ship, I mean an RW6.'

  'A what?'

  'An RW6 for Zark's sake. I've got this great relationship going now between my credit card and the Guide's central computer. You would not believe that ship, Arthur, it's . . .

  'So an RW6 is a spaceship, then?'

  'Yes! It's - oh never mind. Look, just get some kind of grip will you, Arthur? Or at least get some kind of catalogue. At this point I was very worried. And, I think, semi-concussed. I was down on my knees and bleeding profusely, so I did the only thing I could think of, which was to beg. I said, please, for Zark's sake don't take my ship. And don't leave me stranded in the middle of some primitive zarking forest with no medical help and a head injury. I could be in serious trouble and so could she.'

  'What did she say?'

  'She hit me on the head with the rock again.'

  'I think I can confirm that that was my daughter.'

  'Sweet kid.'

  'You have to get to know her,' said Arthur.

  'She eases up does she?'

  'No,' said Arthur, 'but you get a better sense of when to duck.' Ford held his head and tried to see straight.

  The sky was beginning to lighten in the west, which was where the sun rose. Arthur didn't particularly want to see it. The last thing he wanted after a hellish night like this one was some blasted day coming along and barging about the place.

  'What are you doing in a place like this, Arthur?' demanded Ford.

  'Well,' said Arthur, 'making sandwiches mostly.'

  'What?'

  'I am, probably was, the sandwich maker for a small tribe. It was a bit embarrassing really. When I first arrived, that is, when they rescued me from the wreckage of this super high-technology spacecraft which had crashed on their planet, they were very nice to me and I thought I should help them out a bit. You know, I'm an educated chap from a high-technology culture, I could show them a thing or two. And of course I couldn't. I haven't got the faintest idea, when it comes down to it, of how anything actually works. I don't mean like video-recorders, nobody knows how to work those. I mean just something like a pen or an artesian well or something. Not the foggiest. I couldn't help at all. One day I got glum and made myself a sandwich. That suddenly got them all excited. They'd never seen one before. It was just an idea that had never occurred to them, and I happen to quite like making sandwiches, so it all sort of developed from there.'

  'And you enjoyed that?'

  'Well, yes, I think I sort of did, really. Getting a good set of knives, that sort of thing.'

  'You didn't, for instance, find it mind-witheringly, explosively, astoundingly, blisteringly dull?'

  'Well, er, no. Not as such. Not actually blisteringly.'

  'Odd. I would.'

  'Well, I suppose we have a different outlook.'

  'Yes.'

  'Like the pikka birds.' Ford had no idea what he was talking about and couldn't be bothered to ask. Instead he said, 'So how the hell do we get out of this place?'

  'Well I think the simplest way from here is just to follow the way down the valley to the plains, probably take an hour, and then walk round from there. I don't think I could face going back up and over the way I came.'

  'Walk round where from there?'

  'Well, back to the village. I suppose.' Arthur sighed a little forlornly.

  'I don't want to go to any blasted village!' snapped Ford. 'We've got to get out of here!'

  'Where? How?'

  'I don't know, you tell me. You live here! There must be some way off this zarking planet.'

  'I don't kn
ow. What do you usually do? Sit around and wait for a passing spacecraft, I suppose.'

  'Oh yes? And how many spacecraft have visited this zark-forsaken little fleapit recently?'

  'Well, a few years ago there was mine that crashed here by mistake. Then there was, er, Trillian, then the parcel delivery, and now you, and . . .'

  'Yes, but apart from the usual suspects?'

  'Well, er, I think pretty much none, so far as I know. Pretty quiet round here.'

  As if deliberately to prove him wrong, there was a long, low distant roll of thunder.

  Ford leapt to his feet fretfully and started pacing backwards and forwards in the feeble, painful light of the early dawn which lay streaked against the sky as if someone had dragged a piece of liver across it.

  'You don't understand how important this is,' he said.

  'What? You mean my daughter out there all alone in the Galaxy? You think I don't . . .'

  'Can we feel sorry for the Galaxy later?' said Ford. 'This is very, very serious indeed. The Guide has been taken over. It's been bought out.'

  Arthur leapt up. 'Oh very serious,' he shouted. 'Please fill me in straight away on some corporate publishing politics! I can't tell you how much it's been on my mind of late!'

  'You don't understand! There's a whole new Guide!'

  'Oh!' shouted Arthur again. 'Oh! Oh! Oh! I'm incoherent with excitement! I can hardly wait for it to come out to find out which are the most exciting spaceports to get bored hanging about in in some globular cluster I've never heard of. Please, can we rush to a store that's got it right this very instant?'

  Ford narrowed his eyes.

  'This is that thing you call sarcasm, isn't it?'

  'Do you know,' bellowed Arthur, 'I think it is? I really think it might just be a crazy little thing called sarcasm seeping in at the edges of my manner of speech! Ford, I have had a fucking bad night! Will you please try and take that into account while you consider what fascinating bits of badger-sputumly inconsequential trivia to assail me with next?'

  'Try to rest,' said Ford. 'I need to think.'

  'Why do you need to think? Can't we just sit and go budum-budumbudum with our lips for a bit? Couldn't we just dribble gently and loll a little bit to the left for a few minutes? I can't stand it, Ford! I can't stand all this thinking and trying to work things out any more. You may think that I am just standing here barking . . .'