Life, the Universe and Everything - Douglas Adams [50]
Chapter 21
he first thing Arthur noticed as they entered into the thick of the party, apart from the noise, the suffocating heat, the wild profusion of colors that protruded dimly through the atmosphere of heady smoke, the carpets thick with ground glass, ash and guacamole droppings, and the small group of pterodactyl-like creatures in Lurex who descended on his cherished bottle of retsina, squawking, “A new pleasure, a new pleasure,” was Trillian being chatted up by a Thunder God.
“Didn’t I see you at Milliways?” he was saying. “Were you the one with the hammer?” “Yes. I much prefer it here. So much less reputable, so much more fraught.”
Squeals of some hideous pleasure rang around the room, the outer dimensions of which were invisible through the heaving throng of happy noisy creatures, cheerfully yelling at each other things that nobody could hear and occasionally having crises.
“Seems fun,” said Trillian. “What did you say, Arthur?”
“I said, how the hell did you get here?”
“I was a row of dots flowing randomly through the Universe. Have you met Thor? He makes thunder.”
“Hello,” said Arthur. “I expect that must be very interesting.”
“Hi,” said Thor, “it is. Have you got a drink?”
“Er, no actually….”
“Then why don’t you go and get one?”
“See you later, Arthur,” said Trillian.
Something jogged Arthur’s mind, and he looked around huntedly.
“Zaphod isn’t here, is he?” he said.
“See you,” said Trillian firmly, “later.”
Thor glared at him with hard coal-black eyes, his beard bristling. What little light there was in the place mustered its forces briefly to glint menacingly off the horns on his helmet.
He took Trillian’s elbow in his extremely large hand and the muscles in his upper arm moved around each other like a couple of Volkswagens parking.
He led her away.
“One of the interesting things about being immortal,” he said, “is …”
“One of the interesting things about space,” Arthur heard Slartibartfast saying to a large and voluminous creature who looked like someone losing a fight with a pink comforter and was gazing raptly at the old man’s deep eyes and silver beard, “is how dull it is.”
“Dull?” said the creature, and blinked her rather wrinkled and bloodshot eyes.
“Yes,” said Slartibartfast, “staggeringly dull. Bewilderingly so. You see, there’s so much of it and so little in it. Would you like me to quote you some statistics?”
“Er, well …”
“Please, I would like to. They, too, are quite sensationally dull.”
“I’ll come back and hear them in a moment,” she said, patted him on the arm, lifted up her skirts like a Hovercraft and moved off into the heaving crowd.
“I thought she’d never go,” growled the old man. “Come, Earthman….”
“Arthur.”
“We must find the Silver Bail, it is here somewhere.”
“Can’t we just relax a little,” Arthur said. “I’ve had a tough day. Trillian’s here, incidentally, she didn’t say how; it probably doesn’t matter.”
“Think of the danger to the Universe….”
“The Universe,” said Arthur, “is big enough and old enough to look after itself for half an hour. All right,” he added, in response to Slartibartfast’s increasing agitation, “I’ll wander round and see if anybody’s seen it.”
“Good, good,” said Slartibartfast, “good.” He plunged into the crowd himself, and was told to relax by everybody he passed.
“Have you seen a bail anywhere?” said Arthur to a little man who seemed to be standing eagerly waiting to listen to somebody. “It’s made of silver, vitally important for the future safety of the Universe, and about this long.”
“No,” said the enthusiastically wizened little man, “but do have a drink and tell me all about it.”
Ford Prefect writhed past, dancing a wild, frenetic and not entirely unobscene dance with someone who looked as if she were wearing Sydney Opera House on her head. He was yelling a futile conversation at her above the din.
“I like the hat!” he bawled.
“What?”
“I said, I like the hat.”
“I’m not wearing a hat.”
“Well, I like the head, then.”
“What?”
“I said, I like the head. Interesting bone structure.”
“What?”
Ford worked a shrug into