ADAMS, Douglas - So Long and Thanks for All the Fish

by So Long

  "Who was that?"

  "Called Ford Prefect."

  He caught himself doing something he had never really expected to

  do again.

  He wondered where Ford Prefect was.

  By an extraordinary coincidence, the following day there were two

  reports in the paper, one concerning the most astonishing

  incidents with a flying saucer, and the other about a series of

  unseemly riots in pubs.

  Ford Prefect turned up the day after that looking hung over and

  complaining that Arthur never answered the phone.

  In fact he looked extremely ill, not merely as if he'd been

  pulled through a hedge backwards, but as if the hedge was being

  simultaneously pulled backwards through a combine harvester. He

  staggered into Arthur's sitting room, waving aside all offers of

  support, which was an error, because the effort caused him to

  lose his balance altogether and Arthur had eventually to drag him

  to the sofa.

  "Thank you," said Ford, "thank you very much. Have you ..." he

  said, and fell asleep for three hours.

  "... the faintest idea" he continued suddenly, when he revived,

  "how hard it is to tap into the British phone system from the

  Pleiades? I can see that you haven't, so I'll tell you," he said,

  "over the very large mug of black coffee that you are about to

  make me."

  He followed Arthur wobbily into the kitchen.

  "Stupid operators keep asking you where you're calling from and

  you try and tell them Letchworth and they say you couldn't be if

  you're coming in on that circuit. What are you doing?"

  "Making you some black coffee."

  "Oh." Ford seemed oddly disappointed. He looked about the place

  forlornly.

  "What's this?" he said.

  "Rice Crispies."

  "And this?"

  "Paprika."

  "I see," said Ford, solemnly, and put the two items back down,

  one on top of the other, but that didn't seem to balance

  properly, so he put the other on top of the one and that seemed

  to work.

  "A little space-lagged," he said. "What was I saying?"

  "About not phoning from Letchworth."

  "I wasn't. I explained this to the lady. `Bugger Letchworth,' I

  said, `if that's your attitude. I am in fact calling from a sales

  scoutship of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation, currently on the

  sub-light-speed leg of a journey between the stars known on your

  world, though not necessarily to you, dear lady.' - I said `dear

  lady'," explained Ford Prefect, "because I didn't want her to be

  offended by my implication that she was an ignorant cretin ..."

  "Tactful," said Arthur Dent.

  "Exactly," said Ford, "tactful."

  He frowned.

  "Space-lag," he said, "is very bad for sub-clauses. You'll have

  to assist me again," he continued, "by reminding me what I was

  talking about."

  "`Between the stars,'" said Arthur, "`known on your world, though

  not necessarily to you, dear lady, as ...'"

  "`Pleiades Epsilon and Pleiades Zeta,'" concluded Ford

  triumphantly. "This conversation lark is quite gas isn't it?"

  "Have some coffee."

  "Thank you, no. `And the reason,' I said, `why I am bothering you

  with it rather than just dialling direct as I could, because we

  have some pretty sophisticated telecommunications equipment out

  here in the Pleiades, I can tell you, is that the penny pinching

  son of a starbeast piloting this son of a starbeast spaceship

  insists that I call collect. Can you believe that?'"

  "And could she?"

  "I don't know. She had hung up," said Ford, "by this time. So!

  What do you suppose," he asked fiercely, "I did next?"

  "I've no idea, Ford," said Arthur.

  "Pity," said Ford, "I was hoping you could remind me. I really

  hate those guys you know. They really are the creeps of the

  cosmos, buzzing around the celestial infinite with their junky

  little machines that never work properly or, when they do,

  perform functions that no sane man would require of them and," he

  added savagely, "go beep to tell you when they've done it!"

  This was perfectly true, and a very respectable view widely held

  by right thinking people, who are largely recognizable as being

  right thinking people by the mere fact that they hold this view.

  The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, in a moment of reasoned

  lucidity which is almost unique among its current tally of five

  million, nine hundred and seventy-five thousand, five hundred and

  nine pages, says of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation product

  that "it is very easy to be blinded to the essential uselessness

  of them by the sense of achievement you get from getting them to

  work at all.

  "In other words - and this is the rock solid principle on which

  the whole of the Corporation's Galaxy-wide success is founded -

  their fundamental design flaws are completely hidden by their

  superficial design flaws."

  "And this guy," ranted Ford, "was on a drive to sell more of

  them! His five-year mission to seek out and explore strange new

  worlds, and sell Advanced Music Substitute Systems to their

  restaurants, elevators and wine bars! Or if they didn't have

  restaurants, elevators and wine bars yet, to artificially

  accelerate their civilization growth until they bloody well did

  have! Where's that coffee!"

  "I threw it away."

  "Make some more. I have now remembered what I did next. I saved

  civilization as we know it. I knew it was something like that."

  He stumbled determinedly back into the sitting room, where he

  seemed to carry on talking to himself, tripping over the

  furniture and making beep beep noises.

  A couple of minutes later, wearing his very placid face, Arthur

  followed him.

  Ford looked stunned.

  "Where have you been?" he demanded.

  "Making some coffee," said Arthur, still wearing his very placid

  face. He had long ago realized that the only way of being in

  Ford's company successfully was to keep a large stock of very

  placid faces and wear them at all times.

  "You missed the best bit!" raged Ford. "You missed the bit where

  I jumped the guy! Now," he said, "I shall have to jump him, all

  over him!"

  He hurled himself recklessly at a chair and broke it.

  "It was better," he said sullenly, "last time," and waved vaguely

  in the direction of another broken chair which he had already got

  trussed up on the dining table.

  "I see," said Arthur, casting a placid eye over the trussed up

  wreckage, "and, er, what are all the ice cubes for?"

  "What?" screamed Ford. "What? You missed that bit too? That's the

  suspended animation facility! I put the guy in the suspended

  animation facility. Well I had to didn't I?"

  "So it would seem," said Arthur, in his placid voice.

  "Don't touch that!!!" yelled Ford.

  Arthur, who was about to replace the phone, which was for some

  mysterious reason lying on the table, off the hook, paused,

  placidly.

  "OK," said Ford, calming down, "listen to it."r />
  Arthur put the phone to his ear.

  "It's the speaking clock," he said.

  "Beep, beep, beep," said Ford, "is exactly what is being heard

  all over that guy's ship, while he sleeps, in the ice, going

  slowly round a little-known moon of Sesefras Magna. The London

  Speaking Clock!"

  "I see," said Arthur again, and decided that now was the time to

  ask the big one.

  "Why?" he said, placidly.

  "With a bit of luck," said Ford, "the phone bill will bankrupt

  the buggers."

  He threw himself, sweating, on to the sofa.

  "Anyway," he said, "dramatic arrival don't you think?"

  =================================================================

  Chapter 36

  The flying saucer in which Ford Prefect had stowed away had

  stunned the world.

  Finally there was no doubt, no possibility of mistake, no

  hallucinations, no mysterious CIA agents found floating in

  reservoirs.

  This time it was real, it was definite. It was quite definitely

  definite.

  It had come down with a wonderful disregard for anything beneath

  it and crushed a large area of some of the most expensive real

  estate in the world, including much of Harrods.

  The thing was massive, nearly a mile across, some said, dull

  silver in colour, pitted, scorched and disfigured with the scars

  of unnumbered vicious space battles fought with savage forces by

  the light of suns unknown to man.

  A hatchway opened, crashed down through the Harrods Food Halls,

  demolished Harvey Nicholls, and with a final grinding scream of

  tortured architecture, toppled the Sheraton Park Tower.

  After a long, heart-stopping moment of internal crashes and

  grumbles of rending machinery, there marched from it, down the

  ramp, an immense silver robot, a hundred feet tall.

  It held up a hand.

  "I come in peace," it said, adding after a long moment of further

  grinding, "take me to your Lizard."

  Ford Prefect, of course, had an explanation for this, as he sat

  with Arthur and watched the non-stop frenetic news reports on the

  television, none of which had anything to say other than to

  record that the thing had done this amount of damage which was

  valued at that amount of billions of pounds and had killed this

  totally other number of people, and then say it again, because

  the robot was doing nothing more than standing there, swaying

  very slightly, and emitting short incomprehensible error

  messages.

  "It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see ..."

  "You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?"

  "No," said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and

  coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced

  down him, "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so

  straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders

  are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards role the

  people."

  "Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."

  "I did," said Ford. "It is."

  "So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse,

  "why don't people get rid of the lizards?"

  "It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got

  the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government

  they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they

  want."

  "You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"

  "Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."

  "But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"

  "Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong

  lizard might get in. Got any gin?"

  "What?"

  "I said," said Ford, with an increasing air of urgency creeping

  into his voice, "have you got any gin?"

  "I'll look. Tell me about the lizards."

  Ford shrugged again.

  "Some people say that the lizards are the best thing that ever

  happened to them," he said. "They're completely wrong of course,

  completely and utterly wrong, but someone's got to say it."

  "But that's terrible," said Arthur.

  "Listen, bud," said Ford, "if I had one Altairan dollar for every

  time I heard one bit of the Universe look at another bit of the

  Universe and say `That's terrible' I wouldn't be sitting here

  like a lemon looking for a gin. But I haven't and I am. Anyway,

  what are you looking so placid and moon-eyed for? Are you in

  love?"

  Arthur said yes, he was, and said it placidly.

  "With someone who knows where the gin bottle is? Do I get to meet

  her?"

  He did because Fenchurch came in at that moment with a pile of

  newspapers she'd been into the village to buy. She stopped in

  astonishment at the wreckage on the table and the wreckage from

  Betelgeuse on the sofa.

  "Where's the gin?" said Ford to Fenchurch. And to Arthur, "What

  happened to Trillian by the way?"

  "Er, this is Fenchurch," said Arthur, awkwardly. "There was

  nothing with Trillian, you must have seen her last."

  "Oh, yeah," said Ford, "she went off with Zaphod somewhere. They

  had some kids or something. At least," he added, "I think that's

  what they were. Zaphod's calmed down a lot you know."

  "Really?" said Arthur, clustering hurriedly round Fenchurch to

  relieve her of the shopping.

  "Yeah," said Ford, "at least one of his heads is now saner than

  an emu on acid."

  "Arthur, who is this?" said Fenchurch.

  "Ford Prefect," said Arthur. "I may have mentioned him in

  passing."

  =================================================================

  Chapter 37

  For a total of three days and nights the giant silver robot stood

  in stunned amazement straddling the remains of Knightsbridge,

  swaying slightly and trying to work out a number of things.

  Government deputations came to see it, ranting journalists by the

  truckload asked each other questions on the air about what they

  thought of it, flights of fighter bombers tried pathetically to

  attack it - but no lizards appeared. It scanned the horizon

  slowly.

  At night it was at its most spectacular, floodlit by the teams of

  television crews who covered it continuously as it continuously

  did nothing.

  It thought and thought and eventually reached a conclusion.

  It would have to send out its service robots.

  It should have thought of that before, but it was having a number

  of problems.

  The tiny flying robots came screeching out of the hatchway one

  afternoon in a terrifying cloud of metal. They roamed the

  surrounding terrain, frantically attacking some things and

  defending others.

  One of them at last found a pet shop with some lizards, but it

  instantly defended the pet shop for democracy so savagely that

  little in the area survived.

  A turning point came when a crack team of flying screechers

  discovered the Zoo in Regent's Park, and most particularly the

  reptile house.

  Learning a little caution from their pr
evious mistakes in the

  petshop, the flying drills and fretsaws brought some of the

  larger and fatter iguanas to the giant silver robot, who tried to

  conduct high-level talks with them.

  Eventually the robot announced to the world that despite the

  full, frank and wide-ranging exchange of views the high level

  talks had broken down, the lizards had been retired, and that it,

  the robot would take a short holiday somewhere, and for some

  reason selected Bournemouth.

  Ford Prefect, watching it on TV, nodded, laughed, and had another

  beer.

  Immediate preparations were made for its departure.

  The flying toolkits screeched and sawed and drilled and fried

  things with light throughout that day and all through the night

  time, and in the morning, stunningly, a giant mobile gantry

  started to roll westwards on several roads simultaneously with

  the robot standing on it, supported within the gantry.

  Westward it crawled, like a strange carnival buzzed around by its