Mostly Harmless - Douglas Adams [82]
“Is there stuff going on here that I don’t know about?” said Arthur to Ford.
“Isn’t there usually?” said Ford.
“No need to be like that,” said Arthur. He began to wake up. “Shouldn’t we be going?” he said, suddenly. “Will that ship get us to Earth?”
“Sure will,” said Ford.
“That’s where Random will be going!” said Arthur with a start. “We can follow her! But … er …”
Ford let Arthur get on with thinking things out for himself while he got out his old edition of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
“But where are we on the probability axis thing?” said Arthur. “Will the Earth be there or not there? I spent so much time looking for it. All I found was planets that were a bit like it or not at all like it, though it was clearly the right place because of the continents. The worst version was called NowWhat, where I got bitten by some wretched little animal. That’s how they communicated, you know, by biting each other. Bloody painful. Then half the time, of course, the Earth isn’t even there because it’s been blown up by the bloody Vogons. How much sense am I making?”
Ford didn’t comment. He was listening to something. He passed the Guide over to Arthur and pointed at the screen. The active entry read “Earth. Mostly harmless.”
“You mean it’s there!” said Arthur, excitedly. “The Earth is there! That’s where Random will be going! The bird was showing her the Earth in the rainstorm!”
Ford motioned Arthur to shout a little less loudly. He was listening.
Arthur was growing impatient. He’d heard bar singers sing “Love Me Tender” before. He was a bit surprised to hear it here, right in the middle of wherever the hell this was, certainly not Earth, but then things tended not to surprise him these days as much as formerly. The singer was quite good, as bar singers went, if you liked that sort of thing, but Arthur was getting fretful.
He glanced at his watch. This only served to remind him that he didn’t have his watch anymore. Random had it, or at least the remains of it.
“Don’t you think we should be going?” he said, insistently.
“Shhh!” said Ford. “I paid to hear this song.” He seemed to have tears in his eyes, which Arthur found a bit disturbing. He’d never seen Ford moved by anything other than very, very strong drink. Probably the dust. He waited, tapping his fingers irritably, out of time with the music.
The song ended. The singer went on to do “Heartbreak Hotel.”
“Anyway,” Ford whispered, “I’ve got to review the restaurant.”
“What?”
“I have to write a review.”
“Write a review? Of this place?”
“Filing the review validates the expenses claim. I’ve fixed it so that it happens completely automatically and untraceable This bill is going to need some validation,” he added, quietly, staring into his beer with a nasty smirk.
“For a couple of beers and a roll?”
“And a tip for the singer.”
“Why, how much did you tip him?”
Ford named a figure again.
“I don’t know how much that is,” said Arthur. “What’s it worth in pounds sterling? What would it buy you?”
“It would probably buy you, roughly … er …” Ford screwed his eyes up as he did some calculations in his head. “Switzerland,” he said at last. He picked up his Hitchhiker’s Guide and started to type.
Arthur nodded intelligently. There were times when he wished he understood what on earth Ford was talking about, and other times, like now, when he felt it was probably safer not even to try. He looked over Ford’s shoulder. “This isn’t going to take long, is it?” he said.
“Nah,” said Ford. “Piece of piss. Just mention that the rolls were quite good, the beer good and cold, local wildlife nicely eccentric, the bar singer the best in the known universe and that’s about it. Doesn’t need much. Just a validation.”
He touched an area on the screen marked “ENTER” and the message vanished into