Mostly Harmless - Douglas Adams [64]
“What was that?” asked Random, in a small voice.
“A glimpse along the probability axis of a discontinuously probable object.”
“I see.”
“Most objects mutate and change along their axis of probability, but the world of your origin does something slightly different. It lies on what you might call a fault line in the landscape of probability, which means that at many probability coordinates the whole of it simply ceases to exist. It has an inherent instability, which is typical of anything that lies within what are usually designated the Plural sectors. Make sense?”
“No.”
“Want to go and see for yourself?”
“To … Earth?”
“Yes.”
“Is that possible?”
The bird Guide did not answer at once. It spread its wings and, with an easy grace, ascended into the air and flew out into the rain, which, once again, was beginning to lighten.
It soared ecstatically up into the night sky, lights flashed around it, dimensions dithered in its wake. It swooped and turned and looped and turned again and came at last to rest two feet in front of Random’s face, its wings beating slowly and silently.
It spoke to her again.
“Your universe is vast to you. Vast in time, vast in space. That’s because of the filters through which you perceive it. But I was built with no filters at all, which means I perceive the Mish Mash which contains all possible universes but which has, itself, no size at all. For me, anything is possible. I am omniscient and omnipotent, extremely vain and, what is more, I come in a handy self-carrying package. You have to work out how much of the above is true.”
A slow smile spread over Random’s face.
“You bloody little thing. You’ve been winding me up!”
“As I said, anything is possible.”
Random laughed “Okay,” she said. “Let’s try and go to Earth. Let’s go to Earth at some point on its, er …”
“Probability axis?”
“Yes. Where it hasn’t been blown up. Okay. So you’re the Guide. How do we get a lift?”
“Reverse engineering.”
“What?”
“Reverse engineering. To me the flow of time is irrelevant. You decide what you want. I then merely make sure that it has already happened.”
“You’re joking.”
“Anything is possible.”
Random frowned. “You are joking, aren’t you?”
“Let me put it another way,” said the bird. “Reverse engineering enables us to shortcut all the business of waiting for one of the horribly few spaceships that passes through your galactic sector every year or so to make up its mind about whether or not it feels like giving you a lift. You want a lift, a ship arrives and gives you one. The pilot may think he has any one of a million reasons why he has decided to stop and pick you up. The real reason is that I have determined that he will.”
“This is you being extremely vain, isn’t it, little bird?”
The bird was silent.
“Okay,” said Random. “I want a ship to take me to Earth.”
“Will this one do?”
It was so silent that Random had not noticed the descending spaceship until it was nearly on top of her.
Arthur had noticed it. He was a mile away now and closing. Just after the illuminated sausage display had drawn to its conclusion, he had noticed the faint glimmerings of further lights coming down out of the clouds and had, to begin with, assumed it to be another piece of flashy son et lumière.
It took a moment or so for it to dawn on him that it was an actual spaceship, and a moment or two longer for him to realize that it was dropping directly down to where he assumed his daughter to be. That was when, rain or no rain, old leg injury or no leg injury, darkness or no darkness, he suddenly started really to run.
He fell almost immediately, slid and hurt his knee quite badly on a rock. He slithered back up to his feet and tried again. He had a horrible cold feeling that he was about to lose Random forever. Limping and cursing, he ran. He didn’t know what it was that had been in the box, but the name on it had been