"For? For nothing. Nothing's for anything," said Ford Prefect happily. "Come and join us. I'm Ford, this is Arthur. We were just about to do nothing at all for a while but it can wait."
The girls looked at them doubtfully.
"I'm Agda," said the tall one, "this is Mella."
"Hello Agda, hello Mella," said Ford.
"Do you talk at all?" said Mella to Arthur.
"Oh, eventually," said Arthur with a smile, "but not as much as Ford."
"Good."
There was a slight pause.
"What did you mean," asked Agda, "about only having two million years? I couldn't make sense of what you were saying."
"Oh that," said Ford, "it doesn't matter."
"It's just that the world gets demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass," said Arthur with a shrug, "but that's two million years away, and anyway it's just Vogons doing what Vogons do."
"Vogons?" said Mella.
"Yes, you wouldn't know them."
"Where'd you get this idea from?"
"It really doesn't matter. It's just like a dream from the past, or the future." Arthur smiled and looked away.
"Does it worry you that you don't talk any kind of sense?" asked Agda.
"Listen, forget it," said Ford, "forget all of it. Nothing matters. Look, it's a beautiful day, enjoy it. The sun, the green of the hills, the river down in the valley, the burning trees."
"Even if it's only a dream, it's a pretty horrible idea," said Mella, "destroying a world just to make a bypass."
"Oh, I've heard of worse," said Ford, "I read of one planet off in the seventh dimension that got used as a ball in a game of intergalactic bar billiards. Got potted straight into a black hole. Killed ten billion people."
"That's mad," said Mella.
"Yes, only scored thirty points too."
Agda and Mella exchanged glances.
"Look," said Agda, "there's a party after the committee meeting tonight. You can come along if you like."
"Yeah, OK," said Ford.
"I'd like to," said Arthur.
Many hours later Arthur and Mella sat and watched the moon rise over the dull red glow of the trees.
"That story about the world being destroyed..." began Mella.
"In two million years, yes."
"You say it as if you really think it's true."
"Yes, I think it is. I think I was there."
She shook her head in puzzlement.
"You're very strange," she said.
"No, I'm very ordinary," said Arthur, "but some very strange things have happened to me. You could say I'm more differed from than differing."
"And that other world your friend talked about, the one that got pushed into a black hole."
"Ah, that I don't know about. It sounds like something from the book."
"What book?"
Arthur paused.
"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," he said at last.
"What's that?"
"Oh, just something I threw into the river this evening. I don't think I'll be wanting it any more," said Arthur Dent.
FB2 document info
Document ID: admin-admin-2005-06-13t20:25:00z Document version: 1.2
Document creation date: 2005-06-13T20:25:00Z
Created using: wml2fb, FBE, hands, EMACS software
Document authors :
Rollon (smotritel)
aikipooh
Source URLs :
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Document history:
v 1.0 by Haali 07.29.2002
v 1.1 proofread by Rollon 06.14.2005
v 1.2 aikipooh proofread, checked by the paper original, put more emphases 05.06.2013. Problem is that the original was American so there are discrepancies like OK okay, different typography and even different wordings.
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The Restaurant at the End of the Universe Page 18
