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.
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 Presi-
dent. 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 help-
lessly 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 ex
pectoration, 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 lying
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 -'
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
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.
`It'll take a while,' she said.
Arthur said he was happy to wait.
The old woman shrugged and stomped across to the fire.
Above it, the contents of the tin can were bubbling away. She
poked about at them with a stick.
`You won't be wanting any lunch?' she enquired of Arthur.
`I've eaten, thanks,' said Arthur. `
No, really. I've eaten.'
`I'm sure you have,' said the old lady. She stirred with
the stick. After a few minutes she fished a lump of some-
thing out, blew on it to cool it a little, and then put it in
her mouth.
She chewed on it thoughtfully for a bit.
Then she hobbled slowly across to the pile of dead goat-like
things. She spat the lump out on to the pile. She hobbled slowly
back to the can. She tried to unhook it from the sort of tripod-like
thing that it was hanging from.
`Can I help you?' said Arthur, jumping up politely. He hurried
over.
Together they disengaged the tin from the tripod and carried
it awkwardly down the slight slope that led downwards from her
cave and towards a line of scrubby and gnarled trees, which
marked the edge of a steep but quite shallow gully, from, which
a whole new range of offensive smells was emanating.
`Ready?' said the old Lady.
`Yes...' said Arthur, though he didn't know for what.
`One,' said the old lady.
`Two,' she said.
`Three,' she added.
Arthur realised just in time what she intended. Together
they tossed the contents of the tin into the gully.
After an hour or two of uncommunicative silence, the old