Mostly Harmless Read online

  The laser readers were becoming very agitated as they flickered over his fingerprints, his retina and the follicle pattern where his hair line was receding. They didn't like what they were finding at all. The chattering and screeching of highly personal and insolent questions was rising in pitch. A little surgical steel scraper was reaching out towards the skin at the nape of his neck when Ford, holding his breath and praying very slightly, pulled Vann Harl's Ident-i-Eeze out of his pocket and waved it in front of them.

  Instantly every laser was diverted to the little card and swept backwards and forwards over it and in it, examining and reading every molecule.

  Then, just as suddenly, they stopped.

  The entire flock of little virtual inspectors snapped to attention.

  'Nice to see you, Mr Harl,' they said in smarmy unison. 'Is there anything we can do for you?'

  Ford smiled a slow and vicious smile.

  'Do you know,' he said, 'I rather think there is?'

  Five minutes later he was out of there.

  About thirty seconds to do the job, and three minutes thirty to cover his tracks. He could have done anything he liked in the virtual structure, more or less. He could have transferred ownership of the entire organisation into his own name, but he doubted if that would have gone unnoticed. He didn't want it anyway. It would have meant responsibility, working late nights at the office, not to mention massive and time-consuming fraud investigations and a fair amount of time in j ail . He wanted something that nobody other than the computer would notice: that was the bit that took thirty seconds.

  The thing that took three minutes thirty was programming the computer not to notice that it had noticed anything.

  It had to want not to know about what Ford was up to, and then he could safely leave the computer to rationalise its own defences against the information ever emerging. It was a programming technique that had been reverse-engineered from the sort of psychotic mental blocks that otherwise perfectly normal people had been observed invariably to develop when elected to high political office.

  The other minute was spent discovering that the computer system already had a mental block. A big one.

  He would never have discovered it if he hadn't been busy engineering a mental block himself. He came across a whole slew of smooth and plausible denial procedures and diversionary subroutines exactly where he had been planning to install his own. The computer denied all knowledge of them, of course, then blankly refused to accept that there was anything even to deny knowledge of, and was generally so convincing that even Ford almost found himself thinking he must have made a mistake.

  He was impressed.

  He was so impressed, in fact, that he didn't bother to install his own mental block procedures, he just set up calls to the ones that were already there, which then called themselves when questioned, and so on.

  He quickly set about debugging the little bits of code he had installed himself, only to discover they weren't there. Cursing, he searched all over for them, but could find no trace of them at all.

  He was just about to start installing them all over again when he realised that the reason he couldn't find them was that they were working already.

  He grinned with satisfaction.

  He tried to discover what the computer's other mental block was all about, but it seemed, not unnaturally, to have a mental block about it. He could no longer find any trace of it at all, in fact; it was that good. He wondered if he had been imagining it. He wondered if he had been imagining that it was something to do with something in the building, and something to do with the number 13. He ran a few tests. Yes, he had obviously been imagining it.

  No time for fancy routes now, there was obviously a major security alert in progress. Ford took the elevator up to the ground floor to change to the express elevators. He had somehow to get the Ident-i-Eeze back into Harl's pocket before it was missed. How, he didn't know.

  The doors of the elevator slid open to reveal a large posse of security guards and robots poised waiting for it and brandishing filthy looking weapons.

  They ordered him out.

  With a shrug he stepped forward. They all pushed rudely past him into the elevator which took them down to continue their search for him on the lower levels.

  This was fun, thought Ford, giving Colin a friendly pat. Colin was about the first genuinely useful robot Ford had ever encountered. Colin bobbed along in the air in front of him in a lather of cheerful ecstasy. Ford was glad he'd named him after a dog.

  He was highly tempted just to leave at that point and hope for the best, but he knew that the best had a far greater chance of actually occurring if Harl did not discover that his Ident-i-Eeze was missing. He had somehow, surreptitiously, to return it.

  They went to the express elevators.

  'Hi,' said the elevator they got into.

  'Hi,' said Ford.

  'Where can I take you folks today?' said the elevator.

  'Floor 23,' said Ford.

  'Seems to be a popular floor today,' said the elevator.

  'Hmm,' thought Ford, not liking the sound of that at all. The elevator lit up the twenty-third floor on its floor display and started to zoom upwards. Something about the floor display tweaked at Ford's mind but he couldn't catch what it was and forgot about it. He was more worried about the idea of the floor he was going to being a popular one. He hadn't really thought through how he was going to deal with whatever it was that was happening up there because he had no idea what he was going to find. He would just have to busk it.

  They were there.

  The doors slid open.

  Ominous quiet.

  Empty corridor.

  There was the door to Harl's office, with a slight layer of dust around it. Ford knew that this dust consisted of billions of tiny molecular robots that had crawled out of the woodwork, built each other, rebuilt the door, disassembled each other and then crept back into the woodwork again and just waited for damage. Ford wondered what kind of life that was, but not for long because he was a lot more concerned about what his own life was like at that moment.

  He took a deep breath and started his run.

  Chapter 9

  Arthur felt at a bit of a loss. There was a whole Galaxy of stuff out there for him, and he wondered if it was churlish of him to complain to himself that it lacked just two things: the world he was born on and the woman he loved.

  Damn it and blast it, he thought, and felt the need of some guidance and advice. He consulted the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. He looked up 'guidance' and it said 'See under ADVICE'. He looked up 'advice' and it said 'see under GUIDANCE'. It had been doing a lot of that kind of stuff recently and he wondered if it was all it was cracked up to be.

  He headed to the outer Eastern Rim of the Galaxy where, it was said, wisdom and truth were to be found, most particularly on the planet Hawalius, which was a planet of oracles and seers and soothsayers and also take-away pizza shops, because most mystics were completely incapable of cooking for themselves.

  However it appeared that some sort of calamity had befallen this planet. As Arthur wandered the streets of the village where the major prophets lived, it had something of a crestfallen air.

  He came across one prophet who was clearly shutting up shop in a despondent kind of way and asked him what was happening.

  'No call for us any more,' he said gruffly as he started to bang a nail into the plank he was holding across the window of his hovel.

  'Oh? Why's that?'

  'Hold on to the other end of this and I'll show you.'

  Arthur held up the unnailed end of the plank and the old prophet scuttled into the recesses of his hovel, returning a moment or two later with a small Sub-Etha radio. He turned it on, fiddled with the dial for a moment and put the thing on the small wooden bench that he usually sat and prophesied on. He then took hold of the plank again and resumed hammering.

  Arthur sat and listened to the radio.

  '. . . be confirmed
,' said the radio.

  'Tomorrow,' it continued, 'the Vice-President of Poffla Vigus, Roopy Ga Stip, will announce that he intends to run for President. In a speech he will give tomorrow at . . .'

  'Find another channel,' said the prophet. Arthur pushed the preset button.

  '. . . refused to comment,' said the radio. 'Next week's jobless totals in the Zabush sector,' it continued, 'will be the worst since records began. A report published next month says . . .'

  'Find another,' barked the prophet, crossly. Arthur pushed the button again.

  '. . . denied it categorically,' said the radio. 'Next month's Royal Wedding between Prince Gid of the Soofling Dynasty and Princess Hooli of Raui Alpha will be the most spectacular ceremony the Bjanjy Territories has ever witnessed. Our reporter Trillian Astra is there and sends us this report.'

  Arthur blinked.

  The sound of cheering crowds and a hubbub of brass bands erupted from the radio. A very familiar voice said, 'Well Krart, the scene here in the middle of next month is absolutely incred-ible. Princess Hooli is looking radiant in a . . .

  The prophet swiped the radio off the bench and on to the dusty ground, where it squawked like a badly tuned chicken.

  'See what we have to contend with?' grumbled the prophet. 'Here, hold this. Not that, this. No, not like that. This way up. Other way round, you fool.'

  'I was listening to that,' complained Arthur, grappling helplessly with the prophet's hammer.

  'So does everybody. That's why this place is like a ghost town.' He spat into the dust.

  'No, I mean, that sounded like someone I knew.'

  'Princess Hooli? If I had to stand around saying hello to everybody who's known Princess Hooli I'd need a new set of lungs.'

  'Not the Princess,' said Arthur. 'The reporter. Her name's Trillian. I don't know where she got the Astra from. She's from the same planet as me. I wondered where she'd got to.'

  'Oh, she's all over the continuum these days. We can't get the tri-d TV stations out here of course, thank the Great Green Arkleseizure, but you hear her on the radio, gallivanting here and there through space/time. She wants to settle down and find herself a steady era that young lady does. It'll all end in tears. Probably already has.' He swung with his hammer and hit his thumb rather hard. He started to speak in tongues.

  The village of oracles wasn't much better.

  He had been told that when looking for a good oracle it was best to find the oracle that other oracles went to, but he was shut. There was a sign by the entrance saying, 'I just don't know any more. Try next door, but that's just a suggestion, not formal oracular advice.'

  'Next door' was a cave a few hundred yards away and Arthur walked towards it. Smoke and steam were rising from, respec-tively, a small fire and a battered tin pot that was hanging over it. There was also a very nasty smell coming from the pot. At least, Arthur thought it was coming from the pot. The distended bladders of some of the local goat-like things were hanging from a propped-up line drying in the sun, and the smell could have been coming from them. There was also, a worryingly small distance away, a pile of discarded bodies of the local goat-like things and the smell could have been coming from them.

  But the smell could just as easily have been coming from the old lady who was busy beating flies away from the pile of bodies. It was a hopeless task because each of the flies was about the size of a winged bottle top and all she had was a table tennis bat. Also she seemed half blind. Every now and then, by chance, her wild thrashing would connect with one of the flies with a richly satisfying thunk, and the fly would hurtle through the air and smack itself open against the rock face a few yards from the entrance to her cave.

  She gave every impression, by her demeanour, that these were the moments she lived for.

  Arthur watched this exotic performance for a while from a polite distance, and then at last tried giving a gentle cough to attract her attention. The gentle cough, courteously meant, unfortunately involved first inhaling rather more of the local atmosphere than he had so far been doing and as a result, he erupted into a fit of raucous expectoration, and collapsed against the rock face, choking and streaming with tears. He struggled for breath, but each new breath made things worse. He vomited, half-choked again, rolled over his vomit, kept rolling for a few yards, and eventually made it up on to his hands and knees and crawled, panting, into slightly fresher air.

  'Excuse me,' he said. He got some breath back. 'I really am most dreadfully sorry. I feel a complete idiot and . . .' He gestured helplessly towards the small pile of his own vomit Iying spread around the entrance to her cave.

  'What can I say?' he said. 'What can I possibly say?'

  This at least had gained her attention. She looked round at him suspiciously, but, being half blind, had difficulty finding him in the blurred and rocky landscape.

  He waved, helpfully. 'Hello!' he called.

  At last she spotted him, grunted to herself and turned back to whacking flies.

  It was horribly apparent from the way that currents of air moved when she did, that the major source of the smell was in fact her. The drying bladders, the festering bodies and the noxious potage may all have been making violent contributions to the atmosphere, but the major olfactory presence was the woman herself.

  She got another good thwack at a fly. It smacked against the rock and dribbled its insides down it in what she clearly regarded, if she could see that far, as a satisfactory manner.

  Unsteadily, Arthur got to his feet and brushed himself down with a fistful of dried grass. He didn't know what else to do by way of announcing himself. He had half a mind just to wander off again, but felt awkward about leaving a pile of his vomit in front of the entrance to the woman's home. He wondered what to do about it. He started to pluck up more handsful of the scrubby dried grass that was to be found here and there. He was worried, though, that if he ventured nearer to the vomit he might simply add to it rather than clear it up.

  Just as he was debating with himself as to what the right course of action was he began to realise that she was at last saying something to him.

  'I beg your pardon?' he called out.

  'I said, can I help you?' she said, in a thin, scratchy voice, that he could only just hear.

  'Er, I came to ask your advice,' he called back, feeling a bit ridiculous.

  She turned to peer at him, myopically, then turned back, swiped at a fly and missed.

  'What about?' she said.

  'I beg your pardon?' he said.

  'I said, what about?' she almost screeched. 'Well,' said Arthur. 'Just sort of general advice, really. It said in the brochure- '

  'Ha! Brochure!' spat the old woman. She seemed to be waving her bat more or less at random now.

  Arthur fished the crumpled-up brochure from his pocket. He wasn't quite certain why. He had already read it and she, he expected, wouldn't want to. He unfolded it anyway in order to have something to frown thoughtfully at for a moment or two. The copy in the brochure wittered on about the ancient mystical arts of the seers and sages of Hawalius, and wild-ly over-represented the level of accommodation available in Hawalion. Arthur still carried a copy of The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy with him but found, when he consulted it, that the entries were becoming more abstruse and paranoid and had lots of x's and j's and {'s in them. Something was wrong somewhere. Whether it was in his own personal unit, or whether it was something or someone going terribly amiss, or perhaps just hallucinating, at the heart of the Guide organisation itself, he didn't know. But one way or another he was even less inclined to trust it than usual, which meant that he trusted it not one bit, and mostly used it for eating his sandwiches off when he was sitting on a rock staring at something.

  The woman had turned and was walking slowly towards him now. Arthur tried, without making it too obvious, to judge the wind direction, and bobbed about a bit as she approached.

  'Advice,' she said. 'Advice, eh?'

  'Er, yes,' said Arthur. 'Yes, that is- 'r />
  He frowned again at the brochure, as if to be certain that he hadn't misread it and stupidly turned up on the wrong planet or something. The brochure said 'The friendly local inhabitants will be glad to share with you the knowledge and wisdom of the ancients. Peer with them into the swirling mysteries of past and future time!' There were some coupons as well, but Arthur had been far too embarrassed actually to cut them out or try to present them to anybody.

  'Advice, eh,' said the old woman again. 'Just sort of general advice, you say. On what? What to do with your life, that sort of thing?'

  'Yes,' said Arthur. 'That sort of thing. Bit of a problem I sometimes find if I'm being perfectly honest.' He was trying desperately, with tiny darting movements, to stay upwind of her. She surprised him by suddenly turning sharply away from him and heading off towards her cave.

  'You'll have to help me with the photocopier, then,' she said.

  'What?' said Arthur.

  'The photocopier,' she repeated, patiently. 'You'll have to help me drag it out. It's solar-powered. I have to keep it in the cave, though, so the birds don't shit on it.

  'I see,' said Arthur.

  'I'd take a few deep breaths if I were you,' muttered the old woman, as she stomped into the gloom of the cave mouth.

  Arthur did as she advised. He almost hyperventilated in fact. When he felt he was ready, he held his breath and followed her in.

  The photocopier was a big old thing on a rickety trolley. It stood just inside the dim shadows of the cave. The wheels were stuck obstinately in different directions and the ground was rough and stony.

  'Go ahead and take a breath outside,' said the old woman. Arthur was going red in the face trying to help her move the thing.

  He nodded in relief. If she wasn't going to be embarrassed about it then neither, he was determined, would he. He stepped outside and took a few breaths, then came back in to do more heaving and pushing. He had to do this quite a few times till at last the machine was outside.

  The sun beat down on it. The old woman disappeared back into her cave again and brought with her some mottled metal panels, which she connected to the machine to collect the sun's energy. She squinted up into the sky. The sun was quite bright, but the day was hazy and vague.