Life, the Universe and Everything - Douglas Adams [59]
Trillian shuddered, and frowned as she looked into the sky.
This, too, was not the same. It was no longer blank and empty.
While the countryside around them had changed little in the two thousand years of the Krikkit Wars, and the mere five years that had elapsed locally since Krikkit was sealed in its Slo-Time envelope ten billion years ago, the sky was dramatically different.
Dim lights and heavy shapes hung in it.
High in the sky, where no Krikkiter ever looked, were the War Zones, the Robot Zones—huge warships and tower blocks floating in the Nil-O-Grav fields far above the idyllic pastoral lands of the surface of Krikkit.
Trillian stared at them and thought.
“Trillian,” whispered Ford Prefect to her.
“Yes?” she said.
“What are you doing?”
“Thinking.”
“Do you always breathe like that when you’re thinking?”
“I wasn’t aware that I was breathing.”
“That’s what worried me.”
“I think I know….” said Trillian.
“Shhhh!” said Slartibartfast in alarm, and his thin trembling hand motioned them farther back beneath the shadow of the tree.
Suddenly, as before in the tape, there were lights coming along the hill path, but this time the dancing beams were not from lanterns but flashlights—not in itself a dramatic change, but every detail made their hearts thump with fear. This time there were no lilting whimsical songs about flowers and farming and dead dogs, but hushed voices in urgent debate.
A light moved in the sky with slow weight. Arthur was clenched with a claustrophobic terror and the warm wind caught at his throat.
Within seconds a second party became visible, approaching from the other side of the dark hill. They were moving swiftly and purposefully, their flashlights swinging and probing around them.
The parties were clearly converging, and not merely with each other. They were converging deliberately on the spot where Arthur and the others were standing.
Arthur heard the slight rustle as Ford Prefect raised his Zap gun to his shoulder, and the slight whimpering cough as Slartibartfast raised his. He felt the cold unfamiliar weight of his own gun, and with shaking hands he raised it.
His fingers fumbled to release the safety catch and engage the extreme danger catch as Ford had shown him. He was shaking so much that if he’d fired at anybody at that moment he probably would have burnt his signature on them.
Only Trillian didn’t raise her gun. She raised her eyebrows, lowered them again and bit her lip in thought.
“Has it occurred to you …” she began, but nobody wanted to discuss anything much at the moment.
A light stabbed through the darkness from behind them and they spun around to find a third party of Krikkiters behind them, searching them out with their flashlights.
Ford Prefect’s gun crackled viciously, but fire spat back at it and it crashed from his hands.
There was a moment of pure fear, a frozen second before anyone fired again.
And at the end of the second nobody fired.
They were surrounded by pale-faced Krikkiters and bathed in bobbing light.
The captives stared at their captors, the captors stared at their captives.
“Hello,” said one of the captors, “excuse me, but are you … aliens?”
Chapter 28
eanwhile, more millions of miles away than the mind can comfortably encompass, Zaphod Beeblebrox was feeling bored.
He had repaired his ship—that is, he’d watched with alert interest while a service robot had repaired it for him. It was now, once again, one of the most powerful and extraordinary ships in existence. He could go anywhere, do anything. He fiddled with a book, and then tossed it away. It was the one he’d read before.
He walked over to the communications bank and opened an all-frequencies emergency channel.
“Anyone want a drink?” he asked.
“This an emergency, feller?” crackled a voice from halfway across the Galaxy.
“Got any mixers?” said Zaphod.
“Go take a ride on a comet.”
“Okay, okay,” said Zaphod, and flipped the channel shut again.