Major heat waves started to coincide, with almost magical
precision, with major failures of the Breathe-o-Smart systems.
To begin with this merely caused simmering resentment and only
a few deaths from asphyxiation.
The real horror erupted on the day that three events happened
simultaneously. The first event was that Breathe-o-Smart Inc.
issued a statement to the effect that best results were achieved
by using their systems in temperate climates.
The second event was the breakdown of a Breathe-o-Smart
system on a particularly hot and humid day with the resulting
evacuation of many hundreds of office staff into the street where
they met the third event, which was a rampaging mob of long-
distance telephone operators who had got so twisted with having
to say, all day and every day, `Thank you for using BS&S' to
every single idiot who picked up a phone that they had finally
taken to the streets with trash cans, megaphones and rifles.
In the ensuing days of carnage every single window in the city,
rocket-proof or not, was smashed, usually to accompanying cries
of `Get off the line, asshole! I don't care what number you want,
what extension you're calling from. Go and stick a firework up
your bottom! Yeeehaah! Hoo Hoo Hoo! Velooooom! Squawk!'
and a variety of other animal noises that they didn't get a chance
to practise in the normal line of their work.
As a result of this, all telephone operators were granted a
constitutional right to say `Use BS&S and die!' at least once
an hour when answering the phone and all office buildings were
required to have windows that opened, even if only a little bit.
Another, unexpected result was a dramatic lowering of the
suicide rate. All sorts of stressed and rising executives who had
been forced, during the dark days of the Breathe-o-Smart tyr-
anny, to jump in front of trains or stab themselves, could now
just clamber out on to their own window ledges and leap off at
their leisure. What frequently happened, though, was that in the
moment or two they had to look around and gather their thoughts
they would suddenly discover that all they had really needed was
a breath of air and a fresh perspective on things, and maybe also
a farm on which they could keep a few sheep.
Another completely unlooked for result was that Ford Prefect,
stranded thirteen stories up a heavily armoured building armed
with nothing but a towel and a credit card was nevertheless able
to clamber through a supposedly rocket-proof window to safety.
He closed the window neatly after him, having first allowed
Colin to follow him through, and then started to look around
for this bird thing.
The thing he realised about the windows was this: because
they had been converted into openable windows after they had
first been designed to be impregnable, they were, in fact, much
less secure than if they had been designed as openable windows
in the first place.
Hey ho, it's a funny old life, he was just thinking to himself,
when he suddenly realised that the room he had gone to all this
trouble to break into was not a very interesting one.
He stopped in surprise.
Where was the strange flapping shape? Where was anything
that was worth all this palaver - the extraordinary veil of secrecy
that seemed to lie over this room and the equally extraordinary
sequence of events that had seemed to conspire to get him into
it?
The room, like every other room in this building now, was
done out in some appallingly tasteful grey. There were a few
charts and drawings on the wall. Most of them were meaningless
to Ford, but then he came across something that was obviously
a mock-up for a poster of some kind.
There was a kind of bird-like logo on it, and a slogan which said
`The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy Mk II: the single most
astounding thing of any kind ever. Coming soon to a dimension
near you.' No more information than that.
Ford looked around again. Then his attention was gradually
drawn to Colin, the absurdly over-happy security robot, who was
cowering in a corner of the room gibbering with what seemed
strangely like fear.
Odd, thought Ford. He looked around to see what it was that
Colin might have been reacting to. Then he saw something that
he hadn't noticed before, lying quietly on top of a work bench.
It was circular and black and about the size of a small side
plate. Its top and its bottom were smoothly convex so that it
resembled a small lightweight throwing discus.
Its surfaces seemed to be completely smooth, unbroken and
featureless.
It was doing nothing.
Then Ford noticed that there was something written on it.
Strange. There hadn't been anything written on it a moment
ago and now suddenly there was. There just didn't seem to have
been any observable transition between the two states.
All it said, in small, alarming letters was a single word:
begin{center}
PANIC
end{center}
A moment ago there hadn't been any marks or cracks in
its surface. Now there were. They were growing.
Panic, the Guide Mk II said. Ford begin to do as he was
told. He had just remembered why the slug-like creatures looked
familiar. Their colour scheme was a kind of corporate grey, but
in all other respects they looked exactly like Vogons.
13
The ship dropped quietly to land on the edge of the wide
clearing, a hundred yards or so from the village.
It arrived suddenly and unexpectedly but with a minimum of
fuss. One moment it was a perfectly ordinary late afternoon in
the early autumn - the leaves were just beginning to turn red and
gold, the river was beginning to swell again with the rains from the
mountains in the north, the plumage of the pikka birds was begin-
ning to thicken in anticipation of the coming winter frosts, any day
now the Perfectly Normal Beasts would start their thunderous
migration across the plains, and Old Thrashbarg was beginning
to mutter to himself as he hobbled his way around the village,
a muttering which meant that he was rehearsing and elaborating
the stories that he would tell of the past year once the evenings
had drawn in and people had no choice but to gather round the
fire and listen to him and grumble and say that that wasn't how
they remembered it - and the next moment there was a spaceship
sitting there, gleaming in the warm autumn sun.
It hummed for a bit and then stopped.
It wasn't a big spaceship. If the villagers had been experts
on spaceships they would have known at once that it was a
pretty nifty one, a small sleek Hrundi four-berth runabout
with just about every optional extra in the brochure except
Advanced Vectoid Stabilisis, which only wimps went for. You
can't get a good tight, sharp curve round a tri-lateral time axis
with Advanced Vectoid Stabilisis. All right, it's a bit safer, bu
t
it makes the handling go all soggy.
The villagers didn't know all that, of course. Most of them here
on the remote planet of Lamuella had never seen a spaceship,
certainly not one that was all in one piece, and as it shone warmly
in the evening light it was just the most extraordinary thing they
had come across since the day Kirp caught a fish with a head at
both ends.
Everybody had fallen silent.
Whereas a moment before two or three dozen people had
been wandering about, chattering, chopping wood, carrying
water, teasing the pikka birds, or just amiably trying to stay
out of Old Thrashbarg's way, suddenly all activity died away
and everybody turned to look at the strange object in amazement.
Or, not quite everybody. The pikka birds tended to be amazed
by completely different things. A perfectly ordinary leaf lying
unexpectedly on a stone would cause them to skitter off in par-
oxysms of confusion; sunrise took them completely by surprise
every morning, but the arrival of an alien craft from another
world simply failed to engage any part of their attention. They
continued to kar and rit and huk as they pecked for seeds on the
ground; the river continued with its quiet, spacious burbling.
Also, the noise of loud and tuneless singing from the last
hut on the left continued unabated.
Suddenly, with a slight click and a hum, a door folded itself
outwards and downwards from the spaceship. Then, for a minute
or two, nothing further seemed to happen, other than the loud
singing from the last hut on the left, and the thing just sat there.
Some of the villagers, particularly the boys, began to edge
forward a little bit to have a closer look. Old Thrashbarg tried
to shoo them back. This was exactly the sort of thing that Old
Thrashbarg didn't like to have happening. He hadn't foretold it,
not even slightly, and even though he would be able to wrestle
the whole thing into his continuing story somehow or other, it
really was all getting a bit much to deal with.
He strode forward, pushed the boys back, and raised his arms
and his ancient knobbly staff into the air. The long warm light
of the evening sun caught him nicely. He prepared to welcome
whatever gods these were as if he had been expecting them all
along.
Still nothing happened.
Gradually it became clear that there was some kind of argument
going on inside the craft. Time went by and Old Thrashbarg's
arms were beginning to ache.
Suddenly the ramp folded itself back up again.
That made it easy for Thrashbarg. They were demons and
he had repulsed them. The reason he hadn't foretold it was that
prudence and modesty forbade.
Almost immediately a different ramp folded itself out on the
other side of the craft from where Thrashbarg was standing, and
two figures at last emerged on it, still arguing with each other
and ignoring everybody, even Thrashbarg, whom they wouldn't
even have noticed from where they were standing.
Old Thrashbarg chewed angrily on his beard.
To continue to stand there with his arms upraised? To kneel
with his head bowed forward and his staff held out pointing at
them? To fall backwards as if overcome in some titanic inner
struggle? Perhaps just to go off to the woods and live in a tree
for a year without speaking to anyone?
He opted just to drop his arms smartly as if he had done
what he meant to do. They were really hurting so he didn't
have much choice. He made a small, secret sign he had just
invented towards the ramp which had closed and then made
three and a half steps backwards, so he could at least get a
good look at whoever these people were and then decide what
to do next.
The taller one was a very good looking woman wearing
soft and crumply clothes. Old Thrashbarg didn't know this, but
they were made of Rymplon TM, a new synthetic fabric which was
terrific for space travel because it looked its absolute best when
it was all creased and sweaty.
The shorter one was a girl. She was awkward and sullen
looking, and was wearing clothes which looked their absolute
worst when they were all creased and sweaty, and what was
more she almost certainly knew it.
All eyes watched them, except for the pikka birds, which
had their own things to watch.
The woman stood and looked around her. She had a purposeful
air about her. There was obviously something in particular she
wanted, but she didn't know exactly where to find it. She glanced
from face to face among the villagers assembled curiously around
her without apparently seeing what she was looking for.
Thrashbarg had no idea how to play this at all, and decided
wail, but was instantly interrupted by a fresh outbreak of song
from the hut of the Sandwich Maker: the last one on the left.
The woman looked round sharply, and gradually a smile came
over her face. Without so much as a glance at Old Thrashbarg
she started to walk towards the hut.
There is an art to the business of making sandwiches which
it is given to few ever to find the time to explore in depth.
It is a simple task, but the opportunities for satisfaction are
many and profound: choosing the right bread for instance. The
Sandwich Maker had spent many months in daily consultation
and experiment with Grarp the baker and eventually they had
between them created a loaf of exactly the consistency that was
dense enough to slice thinly and neatly, while still being light,
moist and having that fine nutty flavour which best enhanced
the savour of roast Perfectly Normal Beast flesh.
There was also the geometry of the slice to be refined: the
precise relationships between the width and height of the slice
and also its thickness which would give the proper sense of bulk
and weight to the finished sandwich: here again, lightness was
a virtue, but so too were firmness, generosity and that promise
of succulence and savour that is the hallmark of a truly intense
sandwich experience.
The proper tools, of course, were crucial, and many were
the days that the Sandwich Maker, when not engaged with the
Baker at his oven, would spend with Strinder the Tool Maker,
weighing and balancing knives, taking them to the forge and
back again. Suppleness, strength, keenness of edge, length and
balance were all enthusiastically debated, theories put forward,
tested, refined, and many was the evening when the Sandwich
Maker and the Tool Maker could be seen silhouetted against
the light of the setting sun and the Tool Maker's forge making
slow sweeping movements through the air trying one knife after
another, comparing the weight of this one with the balance of
another, the suppleness of a third and the handle binding of a
fourth.
Three knives altogether were required. First there was the
knife for th
e slicing of the bread: a firm, authoritative blade
which imposed a clear and defining will on a loaf. Then there
was the butter-spreading knife, which was a whippy little number
but still with a firm backbone to it. Early versions had been a little
too whippy, but now the combination of flexibility with a core of
strength was exactly right to achieve the maximum smoothness
and grace of spread.
The chief amongst the knives, of course, was the carving
knife. This was the knife that would not merely impose its will
on the medium through which it moved, as did the bread knife;
it must work with it, be guided by the grain of the meat, to
achieve slices of the most exquisite consistency and translucency,
that would slide away in filmy folds from the main hunk of meat.
The Sandwich Maker would then flip each sheet with a smooth
flick of the wrist on to the beautifully proportioned lower bread
slice, trim it with four deft strokes and then at last perform the
magic that the children of the village so longed to gather round
and watch with rapt attention and wonder. With just four more
dexterous flips of the knife he would assemble the trimmings
into a perfectly fitting jigsaw of pieces on top of the primary
slice. For every sandwich the size and shape of the trimmings
were different, but the Sandwich Maker would always effortlessly
and without hesitation assemble them into a pattern which fitted
perfectly. A second layer of meat and a second layer of trimmings,
and the main act of creation would be accomplished.
The Sandwich Maker would pass what he had made to his
assistant who would then add a few slices of newcumber and
fladish and a touch of splagberry sauce, and then apply the