Mostly Harmless - Douglas Adams [56]
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
“That’s all right,” said Arthur as gently as he knew how. “It’s good to, well, to have a little chat. There’s so much we have to learn and understand about each other, and life isn’t, well, it isn’t all just tea and sandwiches …”
“I’m so sorry,” she said again, sobbing.
Arthur went up to her and put his arm around her shoulder. She didn’t resist or pull away. Then Arthur saw what it was she was so sorry about.
In the pool of light thrown by a Lamuellan lantern lay Arthur’s watch. Random had forced the back off it with the back edge of the butter-spreading knife and all of the minute cogs and springs and levers were lying in a tiny cockeyed mess where she’d been fiddling with them.
“I just wanted to see how it worked,” said Random, “how it all fitted together. I’m so sorry! I can’t get it back together. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I don’t know what to do. I’ll get it repaired! Really! I’ll get it repaired!”
The following day Thrashbarg came around and said all sorts of Bob stuff. He tried to exert a calming influence by inviting Random to let her mind dwell on the ineffable mystery of the giant earwig, and Random said there was no giant earwig and Thrashbarg went very cold and silent and said she would be cast into outer darkness. Random said good, she had been born there, and the next day the parcel arrived.
This was all getting a bit eventful.
In fact, when the parcel arrived, delivered by a kind of robot drone that dropped out of the sky making droning robot noises, it brought with it a sense, which gradually began to permeate through the whole village, that it was almost one event too many.
It wasn’t the robot drone’s fault. All it required was Arthur Dent’s signature or thumbprint, or just a few scrapings of skin cells from the nape of his neck, and it would be on its way again. It hung around waiting, not quite sure what all this resentment was about. Meanwhile, Kirp had caught another fish with a head at both ends, but on closer inspection it turned out that it was in fact two fish cut in half and sewn together rather badly, so not only had Kirp failed to rekindle any great interest in two-headed fish, but he had seriously cast doubt on the authenticity of the first one. Only the pikka birds seemed to feel that everything was exactly normal.
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 that’s 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,