Mostly Harmless [56]
The robot drone got Arthur's signature and made its escape. Arthur bore the parcel back to his hut and sat and looked at it.
"Let's open it!' said Random, who was feeling much more cheerful this morning now that everything around her had got thoroughly weird, but Arthur said no.
"Why not?"
"It's not addressed to me.'
"Yes, it is."
"No, it isn't. It's addressed to... well, it's addressed to Ford Prefect, in care of me.'
"Ford Prefect? Is he the one who..."
"Yes," said Arthur tartly.
"I've heard about him.'
"I expect you have."
"Let" s open it anyway. What else are we going to do?'
"I don't know,' said Arthur, who really wasn't sure. He had taken his damaged knives over to the forge bright and early that morning and Strinder had had a look at them and said that he would see what he could do.
They had tried the usual business of waving the knives through the air, feeling for the point of balance and the point of flex and so on, but the joy was gone from it, and Arthur had a sad feeling that his sandwich making days were probably numbered.
He hung his head.
The next appearance of the Perfectly Normal Beasts was imminent, but Arthur felt that the usual festivities of hunting and feasting were going to be rather muted and uncertain. Something had happened here on Lamuella, and Arthur had a horrible feeling that it was him.
"What do you think it is?" urged Random, turning the parcel over in her hands.
"I don't know, said Arthur. "Something bad and worrying, though."
"How do you know?" Random protested.
"Because anything to do with Ford Prefect is bound to be worse and more worrying than something that isn't,' said Arthur. "Believe me."
"You're upset about something, aren't you?' said Random.
Arthur sighed.
"I'm just feeling a little jumpy and unsettled, I think,' said Arthur.
"I'm sorry,' said Random, and put the package down again. She could see that it really would upset him if she opened it. She would just have to do it when he wasn't looking.
Chapter 16
Arthur wasn't quite certain which he noticed as being missing first. When he noticed that the one wasn't there his mind instantly leapt to the other and he knew immediately that they were both gone and that something insanely bad and difficult to deal with would happen as a result.
Random was not there. And neither was the parcel.
He had left it up on a shelf all day, in plain view. It was an exercise in trust.
He knew that one of the things he was supposed to do as a parent was to show trust in his child, to build a sense of trust and confidence into the bedrock of relationship between them. He had had a nasty feeling that that might be an idiotic thing to do, but he did it anyway, and sure enough it had turned out to be an idiotic thing to do. You live and learn. At any rate, you live.
You also panic.
Arthur ran out of the hut. It was the middle of the evening. The light was getting dim and a storm was brewing. He could not see her anywhere, nor any sign of her. He asked. No one had seen her. He asked again. No one else had seen her. They were going home for the night . A little wind was whipping round the edge of the village, picking things up and tossing them around in a dangerously casual manner.
He found Old Thrashbarg and asked him. Thrashbarg looked at him stonily, and then pointed in the one direction that Arthur had dreaded, and had therefore instinctively known was the way she would