`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 lumiere.
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 run-
ning, 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.
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 lying there. He seemed to
be breathing OK, though. Arthur felt his pulse. That was OK as
well.
He was lying on his side, half curled up. It was so long ago
and far away when Arthur had last 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 know. 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?'
ADAMS, Douglas - Mostly Harmless Page 19
