ADAMS, Douglas - So Long and Thanks for All the Fish
Page 12
terribly and tragically wrong with your left knee."
"My left knee," said Fenchurch, "is absolutely fine."
"Do it is."
"Did you know that ..."
"What?"
"Ahm, it's all right. I can tell you do. No, keep going."
"So it has to be something to do with your feet ..."
She smiled in the dim light, and wriggled her shoulders
noncommittally against the cushions. Since there are cushions in
the Universe, on Squornshellous Beta to be exact, two worlds in
from the swampland of the mattresses, that actively enjoy being
wriggled against, particularly if it's noncommittally because of
the syncopated way in which the shoulders move, it's a pity they
weren't there. They weren't, but such is life.
Arthur held her left foot in his lap and looked it over
carefully. All kinds of stuff about the way her dress fell away
from her legs was making it difficult for him to think
particularly clearly at this point.
"I have to admit," he said, "that I really don't know what I'm
looking for."
"You'll know when you find it," she said. "Really you will."
There was a slight catch in her voice. "It's not that one."
Feeling increasingly puzzled, Arthur let her left foot down on
the floor and moved himself around so that he could take her
right foot. She moved forward, put her arms round and kissed him,
because the record had got to that bit which, if you knew the
record, you would know made it impossible not to do this.
Then she gave him her right foot.
He stroked it, ran his fingers round her ankle, under her toes,
along her instep, could find nothing wrong with it.
She watched him with great amusement, laughed and shook her head.
"No, don't stop," she said, but it's not that one now."
Arthur stopped, and frowned at her left foot on the floor.
"Don't stop."
He stroked her right foot, ran his fingers around her ankle,
under her toes, along her instep and said, "You mean it's
something to do with which leg I'm holding ...?"
She did another of the shrugs which would have brought such joy
into the life of a simple cushion from Squornshellous Beta.
He frowned.
"Pick me up," she said quietly.
He let her right foot down to the floor and stood up. So did she.
He picked her up in his arms and they kissed again. This went on
for a while, then she said, "Now put me down again."
Still puzzled, he did so.
"Well?"
She looked at him almost challengingly.
"So what's wrong with my feet?" she said.
Arthur still did not understand. He sat on the floor, then got
down on his hands and knees to look at her feet, in situ, as it
were, in their normal habitat. And as he looked closely,
something odd struck him. He pit his head right down to the
ground and peered. There was a long pause. He sat back heavily.
"Yes," he said, "I see what's wrong with your feet. They don't
touch the ground."
"So ... so what do you think ...?"
Arthur looked up at her quickly and saw the deep apprehension
making her eyes suddenly dark. She bit her lip and was trembling.
"What do ..." she stammered. "Are you ...?" She shook the hair
forwards over her eyes that were filling with dark fearful tears.
He stood up quickly, put his arms around her and gave her a
single kiss.
"Perhaps you can do what I can do," he said, and walked straight
out of her upstairs front door.
The record got to the good bit.
=================================================================
Chapter 23
The battle raged on about the star of Xaxis. Hundreds of the
fierce and horribly beweaponed Zirzla ships had now been smashed
and wrenched to atoms by the withering forces the huge silver
Xaxisian ship was able to deploy.
Part of the moon had gone too, blasted away by those same blazing
forceguns that ripped the very fabric of space as they passed
through it.
The Zirzla ships that remained, horribly beweaponed though they
were, were now hopelessly outclassed by the devastating power of
the Xaxisian ship, and were fleeing for cover behind the rapidly
disintegrating moon, when the Xaxisian ship, in hurtling pursuit
behind them, suddenly announced that it needed a holiday and left
the field of battle.
All was redoubled fear and consternation for a moment, but the
ship was gone.
With the stupendous powers at its command it flitted across vast
tracts of irrationally shaped space, quickly, effortlessly, and
above all, quietly.
Deep in his greasy, smelly bunk, fashioned out of a maintenance
hatchway, Ford Prefect slept among his towels, dreaming of old
haunts. He dreamed at one point in his slumbers of New York.
In his dream he was walking late at night along the East Side,
beside the river which had become so extravagantly polluted that
new lifeforms were now emerging from it spontaneously, demanding
welfare and voting rights.
One of those now floated past, waving. Ford waved back.
The thing thrashed to the shore and struggled up the bank.
"Hi," it said, "I've just been created. I'm completely new to the
Universe in all respects. Is there anything you can tell me?"
"Phew," said Ford, a little nonplussed, "I can tell you where
some bars are, I guess."
"What about love and happiness. I sense deep needs for things
like that," it said, waving its tentacles. "Got any leads there?"
"You can get some like what you require," said Ford, "on Seventh
Avenue."
"I instinctively feel," said the creature, urgently, "that I need
to be beautiful. Am I?"
"You're pretty direct, aren't you?"
"No point in mucking about. Am I?"
"To me?" said Ford. "No. But listen," he added after a moment,
"most people make out, you know. Are there and like you down
there?"
"Search me, buster," said the creature, "as I said, I'm new here.
Life is entirely strange to me. What's it like?"
Here was something that Ford felt he could speak about with
authority.
"Life," he said, "is like a grapefruit."
"Er, how so?"
"Well, it's sort of orangey-yellow and dimpled on the outside,
wet and squidgy in the middle. It's got pips inside, too. Oh, and
some people have half a one for breakfast."
"Is there anyone else out there I can talk to?"
"I expect so," said Ford. "Ask a policeman."
Deep in his bunk, Ford Prefect wriggled and turned on to his
other side. It wasn't his favourite type of dream because it
didn't have Eccentrica Gallumbits, the Triple-Breasted Whore of
Eroticon VI in it, whom many of his dreams did feature. But at
least it was a dream. At least he was asleep.
=================================================================
Chapter 24
Luckily there was a strong updraft in the alley because Arthur
hadn't done this sort of thing for a while, at least, not
deliberately,
and deliberately is exactly the way you are not
meant to do it.
He swung down sharply, nearly catching himself a nasty crack on
the jaw with the doorstep and tumbled through the air, so
suddenly stunned with what a profoundly stupid thing he had just
done that he completely forgot the bit about hitting the ground
and didn't.
A nice trick, he thought to himself, if you can do it.
The ground was hanging menacingly above his head.
He tried not to think about the ground, what an extraordinarily
big thing it was and how much it would hurt him if it decided to
stop hanging there and suddenly fell on him. He tried to think
nice thoughts about lemurs instead, which was exactly the right
thing to do because he couldn't at that moment remember precisely
what a lemur was, if it was one of those things that sweep in
great majestic herds across the plains of wherever it was or if
that was wildebeests, so it was a tricky kind of thing to think
nice thoughts about without simply resorting to an icky sort of
general well-disposedness towards things, and all this kept his
mind well occupied while his body tried to adjust to the fact
that it wasn't touching anything.
A Mars bar wrapper fluttered down the alleyway.
After a seeming moment of doubt and indecision it eventually
allowed the wind to ease it, fluttering, between him and the
ground.
"Arthur ..."
The ground was still hanging menacingly above his head, and he
thought it was probably time to do something about that, such as
fall away from it, which is what he did. Slowly. Very, very
slowly.
As he fell slowly, very, very slowly, he closed his eyes -
carefully, so as not to jolt anything.
The feel of his eyes closing ran down his whole body. Once it had
reached his feet, and the whole of his body was alerted to the
fact that his eyes were now closed and was not panicked by it, he
slowly, very, very slowly, revolved his body one way and his mind
the other.
That should sort the ground out.
He could feel the air clear about him now, breezing around him
quite cheerfully, untroubled by his being there, and slowly,
very, very slowly, as from a deep and distant sleep, he opened
his eyes.
He had flown before, of course, flown many times on Krikkit until
all the birdtalk had driven him scatty, but this was different.
Here he was on his own world, quietly, and without fuss, beyond a
slight trembling which could have been attributable to a number
of things, being in the air.
Ten or fifteen feet below him was the hard tarmac and a few yards
off to the right the yellow street lights of Upper Street.
Luckily the alleyway was dark since the light which was supposed
to see it through the night was on an ingenious timeswitch which
meant it came on just before lunchtime and went off again as the
evening was beginning to draw in. He was, therefore, safely
shrouded in a blanket of dark obscurity.
He slowly, very, very slowly, lifted his head to Fenchurch, who
was standing in silent breathless amazement, silhouetted in her
upstairs doorway.
Her face was inches from his.
"I was about to ask you," she said in a low trembly voice, "what
you were doing. But then I realized that I could see what you
were doing. You were flying. So it seemed," she went on after a
slight wondering pause, "like a bit of a silly question."
Arthur said, "Can you do it?"
"No."
"Would you like to try?"
She bit her lip and shook her head, not so much to say no, but
just in sheer bewilderment. She was shaking like a leaf.
"It's quite easy," urged Arthur, "if you don't know how. That's
the important bit. Be not at all sure how you're doing it."
Just to demonstrate how easy it was he floated away down the
alley, fell upwards quite dramatically and bobbed back down to
her like a banknote on a breath of wind.
"Ask me how I did that."
"How ... did you do that?"
"No idea. Not a clue."
She shrugged in bewilderment. "So how can I ...?"
Arthur bobbed down a little lower and held out his hand.
"I want you to try," he said, "to step on my hand. Just one
foot."
"What?"
"Try it."
Nervously, hesitantly, almost, she told herself, as if she was
trying to step on the hand of someone who was floating in front
of her in midair, she stepped on to his hand.
"Now the other."
"What?"
"Take the weight off your back foot."
"I can't."
"Try it."
"Like this?"
"Like that."
Nervously, hesitantly, almost, she told herself, as if - She
stopped telling herself what what she was doing was like because
she had a feeling she didn't altogether want to know.
She fixed her eyes very very firmly on the guttering of the roof
of the decrepit warehouse opposite which had been annoying her
for weeks because it was clearly going to fall off and she
wondered if anyone was going to do anything about it or whether
she ought to say something to somebody, and didn't think for a
moment about the fact that she was standing on the hands of
someone who wasn't standing on anything at all.
"Now," said Arthur, "take your weight off your left foot."
She thought that the warehouse belonged to the carpet company who
had their offices round the corner, and took the weight off her
left foot, so she should probably go and see them about the
gutter.
"Now," said Arthur, "take the weight off your right foot."
"I can't."
"Try."
She hadn't seen the guttering from quite this angle before, and
it looked to her now as if as well as the mud and gunge up there
there might also be a bird's nest. If she leaned forward just a
little and took her weight off her right foot, she could probably
see it more clearly.
Arthur was alarmed to see that someone down in the alley was
trying to steal her bicycle. He particularly didn't want to get
involved in an argument at the moment and hoped that the guy
would do it quietly and not look up.
He had the quiet shifty look of someone who habitually stole
bicycles in alleys and habitually didn't expect to find their
owners hovering several feet above them. He was relaxed by both
these habits, and went about his job with purpose and
concentration, and when he found that the bike was unarguably
bound by hoops of tungsten carbide to an iron bar embedded in
concrete, he peacefully bent both its wheels and went on his way.
Arthur let out a long-held breath.
"See what a piece of eggshell I have found you," said Fenchurch
in his ear.
=================================================================
Chapter 25
Those who are regular followers of the doings of Arthur Dent may
have received an impression of his character and habits which,
&n
bsp; while it includes the truth and, of course, nothing but the
truth, falls somewhat short, in its composition, of the whole
truth in all its glorious aspects.
And the reasons for this are obvious. Editing, selection, the
need to balance that which is interesting with that which is
relevant and cut out all the tedious happenstance.
Like this for instance. "Arthur Dent went to bed. He went up the
stairs, all fifteen of them, opened the door, went into his room,
took off his shoes and socks and then all the rest of his clothes
one by one and left them in a neatly crumpled heap on the floor.
He put on his pyjamas, the blue ones with the stripe. He washed
his face and hands, cleaned his teeth, went to the lavatory,
realized that he had once again got this all in the wrong order,
had to wash his hands again and went to bed. He read for fifteen
minutes, spending the first ten minutes of that trying to work