Life, the Universe and Everything - Douglas Adams [2]
That is, he would insult everybody in it. Individually, personally, one by one, and (this was the thing he really decided to grit his teeth over) in alphabetical order.
When people protested to him, as they sometimes had done, that the plan was not merely misguided but actually impossible because of the number of people being born and dying all the time, he would merely fix them with a steely look and say, “A man can dream, can’t he?”
And so he had started out. He equipped a spaceship that was built to last with a computer capable of handling all the data processing involved in keeping track of the entire population of the known Universe and working out the horrifically complicated routes involved.
His ship fled through the inner orbits of the Sol star system, preparing to slingshot around the sun and fling itself out into interstellar space.
“Computer,” he said.
“Here,” yipped the computer.
“Where next?”
“Computing that.”
Wowbagger gazed for a moment at the fantastic jewelry of the night, the billions of tiny diamond worlds that dusted the infinite darkness with light. Every one, every single one was on his itinerary. Most of them he would be going to millions of times over.
He imagined for a moment his itinerary connecting all the dots in the sky like a child’s numbered dots puzzle. He hoped that from some vantage point in the Universe it might be seen to spell a very, very rude word.
The computer beeped tunelessly to indicate that it had finished its calculations.
“Folfanga,” it said. It beeped.
“Fourth world of the Folfanga system,” it continued. It beeped again.
“Estimated journey time, three weeks,” it continued further. It beeped again.
“There to meet with a small slug,” it beeped, “of the genus A-Rth-Urp-Hil-Ipdenu.
“I believe,” it added, after a slight pause during which it beeped, “that you had decided to call it a brainless prat.”
Wowbagger grunted. He watched the majesty of creation outside his window for a moment or two.
“I think I’ll take a nap,” he said, and then added, “What network areas are we going to be passing through in the next few hours?”
The computer beeped.
“Cosmovid, Thinkpix and Home Brain Box,” it said, and beeped.
“Any movies I haven’t seen thirty thousand times already?”
“No.”
“Uh.”
“There’s Angst in Space. You’ve only seen that thirty-three thousand five hundred and seventeen times.”
“Wake me for the second reel.”
The computer beeped.
“Sleep well,” it said.
The ship sped on through the night.
Meanwhile, on Earth, it began to rain heavily and Arthur Dent sat in his cave and had one of the most rotten evenings of his entire life, thinking of things he could have said to the alien, and swatting flies, which also had a rotten evening.
The next day he made himself a pouch out of rabbit skin because he thought it would be useful to keep things in.
Chapter 2
his morning, two years later than that, was sweet and fragrant as he emerged from the cave he called home until he could think of a better name for it or find a better cave.
Though his throat was sore again from his early morning yell of horror, he was suddenly in a terrifically good mood. He wrapped his dilapidated dressing gown tightly around him and beamed at the bright morning. The air was clear and scented, the breeze flitted lightly through the tall grass around his cave, the birds were chirping at one another, the butterflies were flitting about prettily, and the whole of nature seemed to be conspiring to be as pleasant as it possibly could.
It wasn’t all the pastoral delights that were making Arthur feel so cheery, though. He had just had a wonderful idea about how to cope with the terrible lonely isolation, the nightmares, the failure of all his attempts at horticulture, and the sheer futurelessness and futility of his life here on prehistoric Earth, which was that he would go mad.
He beamed again and took a bite out of a rabbit leg left over from his supper. He chewed happily for a few moments and then decided formally to announce his decision.
He stood up straight and looked the world squarely