by So Long
amusing mix up the surgeon removed his leg in error, and before
the appendectomy could be rescheduled, the appendicitis
complicated into an entertainingly serious case of peritonitis
and justice, in its way, was served.
The figure trudged on.
A Saab drew to a halt beside him.
Its window wound down and a friendly voice said, "Have you come
far?"
The figure turned toward it. He stopped and grasped the handle of
the door.
The figure, the car and its door handle were all on a planet
called the Earth, a world whose entire entry in the Hitch Hiker's
Guide to the Galaxy comprised the two words "Mostly harmless".
The man who wrote this entry was called Ford Prefect, and he was
at this precise moment on a far from harmless world, sitting in a
far from harmless bar, recklessly causing trouble.
=================================================================
Chapter 4
Whether it was because he was drunk, ill or suicidally insane
would not have been apparent to a casual observer, and indeed
there were no casual observers in the Old Pink Dog Bar on the
lower South Side of Han Dold City because it wasn't the sort of
place you could afford to do things casually in if you wanted to
stay alive. Any observers in the place would have been mean
hawklike observers, heavily armed, with painful throbbings in
their heads which caused them to do crazy things when they
observed things they didn't like.
One of those nasty hushes had descended on the place, a sort of
missile crisis sort of hush.
Even the evil-looking bird perched on a rod in the bar had
stopped screeching out the names and addresses of local contract
killers, which was a service it provided for free.
All eyes were on Ford Prefect. Some of them were on stalks.
The particular way in which he was choosing to dice recklessly
with death today was by trying to pay for a drinks bill the size
of a small defence budget with an American Express Card, which
was not acceptable anywhere in the known Universe.
"What are you worried about?" he asked in a cheery kind of voice.
"The expiration date? Have you guys never heard of Neo-Relativity
out here? There's whole new areas of physics which can take care
of this sort of thing. Time dilation effects, temporal
relastatics ..."
"We are not worried about the expiration date," said the man to
whom he addressed these remarks, who was a dangerous barman in a
dangerous city. His voice was a low soft purr, like the low soft
purr made by the opening of an ICBM silo. A hand like a side of
meat tapped on the bar top, lightly denting it.
"Well, that's good then," said Ford, packing his satchel and
preparing to leave.
The tapping finger reached out and rested lightly on the shoulder
of Ford Prefect. It prevented him from leaving.
Although the finger was attached to a slablike hand, and the hand
was attached to a clublike forearm, the forearm wasn't attached
to anything at all, except in the metaphorical sense that it was
attached by a fierce doglike loyalty to the bar which was its
home. It had previously been more conventionally attached to the
original owner of the bar, who on his deathbed had unexpectedly
bequeathed it to medical science. Medical science had decided
they didn't like the look of it and had bequeathed it right back
to the Old Pink Dog Bar.
The new barman didn't believe in the supernatural or poltergeists
or anything kooky like that, he just knew an useful ally when he
saw one. The hand sat on the bar. It took orders, it served
drinks, it dealt murderously with people who behaved as if they
wanted to be murdered. Ford Prefect sat still.
"We are not worried about the expiration date," repeated the
barman, satisfied that he now had Ford Prefect's full attention.
"We are worried about the entire piece of plastic."
"What?" said Ford. He seemed a little taken aback.
"This," said the barman, holding out the card as if it was a
small fish whose soul had three weeks earlier winged its way to
the Land Where Fish are Eternally Blessed, "we don't accept it."
Ford wondered briefly whether to raise the fact that he didn't
have any other means of payment on him, but decided for the
moment to soldier on. The disembodied hand was now grasping his
shoulder lightly but firmly between its finger and thumb.
"But you don't understand," said Ford, his expression slowly
ripening from a little taken abackness into rank incredulity.
"This is the American Express Card. It is the finest way of
settling bills known to man. Haven't you read their junk mail?"
The cheery quality of Ford's voice was beginning to grate on the
barman's ears. It sounded like someone relentlessly playing the
kazoo during one of the more sombre passages of a War Requiem.
One of the bones in Ford's shoulder began to grate against
another one of the bones in his shoulder in a way which suggested
that the hand had learnt the principles of pain from a highly
skilled chiropracter. He hoped he could get this business settled
before the hand started to grate one of the bones in his shoulder
against any of the bones in different parts of his body. Luckily,
the shoulder it was holding was not the one he had his satchel
slung over.
The barman slid the card back across the bar at Ford.
"We have never," he said with muted savagery, "heard of this
thing."
This was hardly surprising.
Ford had only acquired it through a serious computer error
towards the end of the fifteen years' sojourn he had spent on the
planet Earth. Exactly how serious, the American Express Company
had got to know very rapidly, and the increasingly strident and
panic-stricken demands of its debt collection department were
only silenced by the unexpected demolition of the entire planet
by the Vogons to make way for a new hyperspace bypass.
He had kept it ever since because he found it useful to carry a
form of currency that no one would accept.
"Credit?" he said. "Aaaargggh ..."
These two words were usually coupled together in the Old Pink Dog
Bar.
"I thought," gasped Ford, "that this was meant to be a class
establishment ..."
He glanced around at the motley collection of thugs, pimps and
record company executives that skulked on the edges of the dim
pools of light with which the dark shadows of the bar's inner
recesses were pitted. They were all very deliberately looking in
any direction but his now, carefully picking up the threads of
their former conversations about murders, drug rings and music
publishing deals. They knew what would happen now and didn't want
to watch in case it put them off their drinks.
"You gonna die, boy," the barman murmured quietly at Ford
Prefect, and the evidence was on his side. The bar used to have
one of those signs hanging up which said, "Please don't ask for
credit as a punch in the mouth often offends", but in the
interest of strict accuracy this was altered to, "Please don't
ask for credit because having your throat torn out by a savage
bird while a disembodied hand smashes your head against the bar
often offends". However, this made an unreadable mess of the
notice, and anyway didn't have the same ring to it, so it was
taken down again. It was felt that the story would get about of
its own accord, and it had.
"Lemme look at the bill again," said Ford. He picked it up and
studied it thoughtfully under the malevolent gaze of the barman,
and the equally malevolent gaze of the bird, which was currently
gouging great furrows in the bar top with its talons.
It was a rather lengthy piece of paper.
At the bottom of it was a number which looked like one of those
serial numbers you find on the underside of stereo sets which
always takes so long to copy on to the registration form. He had,
after all, been in the bar all day, he had been drinking a lot of
stuff with bubbles in it, and he had bought an awful lot of
rounds for all the pimps, thugs and record executives who
suddenly couldn't remember who he was.
He cleared his throat rather quietly and patted his pockets.
There was, as he knew, nothing in them. He rested his left hand
lightly but firmly on the half-opened flap of his satchel. The
disembodied hand renewed its pressure on his right shoulder.
"You see," said the barman, and his face seemed to wobble evilly
in front of Ford's, "I have a reputation to think of. You see
that, don't you?"
This is it, thought Ford. There was nothing else for it. He had
obeyed the rules, he had made a bona fide attempt to pay his
bill, it had been rejected. He was now in danger of his life.
"Well," he said quietly, "if it's your reputation ..."
With a sudden flash of speed he opened his satchel and slapped
down on the bar top his copy of the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the
Galaxy and the official card which said that he was a field
researcher for the Guide and absolutely not allowed to do what he
was now doing.
"Want a write-up?"
The barman's face stopped in mid-wobble. The bird's talons
stopped in mid-furrow. The hand slowly released its grip.
"That," said the barman in a barely audible whisper, from between
dry lips, "will do nicely, sir."
=================================================================
Chapter 5
The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a powerful organ.
Indeed, its influence is so prodigious that strict rules have had
to be drawn up by its editorial staff to prevent its misuse. So
none of its field researchers are allowed to accept any kind of
services, discounts or preferential treatment of any kind in
return for editorial favours unless:
a) they have made a bona fide attempt to pay for a service in the
normal way;
b) their lives would be otherwise in danger;
c) they really want to.
Since invoking the third rule always involved giving the editor a
cut, Ford always preferred to much about with the first two.
He stepped out along the street, walking briskly.
The air was stifling, but he liked it because it was stifling
city air, full of excitingly unpleasant smells, dangerous music
and the sound of warring police tribes.
He carried his satchel with an easy swaying motion so that he
could get a good swing at anybody who tried to take it from him
without asking. It contained everything he owned, which at the
moment wasn't much.
A limousine careered down the street, dodging between the piles
of burning garbage, and frightening an old pack animal which
lurched, screeching, out of its way, stumbled against the window
of a herbal remedies shop, set off a wailing alarm, blundered off
down the street, and then pretended to fall down the steps of a
small pasta restaurant where it knew it would get photographed
and fed.
Ford was walking north. He thought he was probably on his way to
the spaceport, but he had thought that before. He knew he was
going through that part of the city where people's plans often
changed quite abruptly.
"Do you want to have a good time?" said a voice from a doorway.
"As far as I can tell," said Ford, "I'm having one. Thanks."
"Are you rich?" said another.
This made Ford laugh.
He turned and opened his arms in a wide gesture. "Do I look
rich?" he said.
"Don't know," said the girl. "Maybe, maybe not. Maybe you'll get
rich. I have a very special service for rich people ..."
"Oh yes?" said Ford, intrigued but careful. "And what's that?"
"I tell them it's OK to be rich."
Gunfire erupted from a window high above them, but it was only a
bass player getting shot for playing the wrong riff three times
in a row, and bass players are two a penny in Han Dold City.
Ford stopped and peered into the dark doorway.
"You what?" he said.
The girl laughed and stepped forward a little out of the shadow.
She was tall, and had that kind of self-possessed shyness which
is a great trick if you can do it.
"It's my big number," she said. "I have a Master's degree in
Social Economics and can be very convincing. People love it.
Especially in this city."
"Goosnargh," said Ford Prefect, which was a special Betelgeusian
word he used when he knew he should say something but didn't know
what it should be.
He sat on a step, took from his satchel a bottle of that Ol' Janx
Spirit and a towel. He opened the bottle and wiped the top of it
with the towel, which had the opposite effect to the one
intended, in that the Ol' Janx Spirit instantly killed off
millions of the germs which had been slowly building up quite a
complex and enlightened civilization on the smellier patches of
the towel.
"Want some?" he said, after he'd had a swig himself.
She shrugged and took the proffered bottle.
They sat for a while, peacefully listening to the clamour of
burglar alarms in the next block.
"As it happens, I'm owed a lot of money," said Ford, "so if I
ever get hold of it, can I come and see you then maybe?"
"Sure, I'll be here," said the girl. "So how much is a lot?"
"Fifteen years' back pay."
"For?"
"Writing two words."
"Zarquon," said the girl. "Which one took the time?"
"The first one. Once I'd got that the second one just came one
afternoon after lunch."
A huge electronic drum kit hurtled through the window high above
them and smashed itself to bits in the street in front of them.
It soon became apparent that some of the burglar alarms on the
next block had been deliberately set off by one police tribe in
order to lay an ambush for the other. Cars with screaming sirens
converged on the area, only to find themselves being picked off
by copters which came thudding through the air between the city's
&
nbsp; mountainous tower blocks.
"In fact," said Ford, having to shout now above the din, "it
wasn't quite like that. I wrote an awful lot, but they just cut
it down."
He took his copy of the Guide back out of his satchel.
"Then the planet got demolished," he shouted. "Really worthwhile
job, eh? They've still got to pay me, though."
"You work for that thing?" the girl yelled back.
"Yeah."
"Good number."
"You want to see the stuff I wrote?" he shouted. "Before it gets
erased? The new revisions are due to be released tonight over the
net. Someone must have found out that the planet I spent fifteen
years on has been demolished by now. They missed it on the last
few revisions, but it can't escape their notice for ever."
"It's getting impossible to talk isn't it?"
"What?"
She shrugged and pointed upwards.
There was a copter above them now which seemed to be involved in
a side skirmish with the band upstairs. Smoke was billowing from
the building. The sound engineer was hanging out of the window by
his fingertips, and a maddened guitarist was beating on his
fingers with a burning guitar. The helicopter was firing at all