A cloud passed overhead. It cast a shadow over Arthur Dent as he lay propped up on his elbow in the cold mud. It cast a shadow over Arthur Dent's house. Mr. Prosser frowned at it. "It's not as if it's a particularly nice house," he said. "I'm sorry, but I happen to like it." "You'll Mr. Prosser's mouth opened and closed a couple of times while his mind was for a moment filled with inexplicable but terribly attractive visions of Arthur Dent's house being consumed with fire and Arthur himself running screaming from the blazing ruin with at least three hefty spears protruding from his back. Mr Prosser was often bothered with visions like these and they made him feel very nervous. He stuttered for a moment and then pulled himself together. "Mr. Dent," he said. "Hello? Yes?" said Arthur. "Some factual information for you. Have you any idea how much damage that bulldozer would suffer if I just let it roll straight over you?" "How much?" said Arthur. "None at all," said Mr. Prosser, and stormed nervously off wondering why his brain was filled with a thousand hairy horsemen all shouting at him. By a curious coincidence, None at all is exactly how much suspicion the ape-descendant Arthur Dent had that one of his closest friends was not descended from an ape, but was in fact from a small planet in the vicinity of Betelgeuse and not from Guildford as he usually claimed. Arthur Dent had never, ever suspected this.
This friend of his had first arrived on the planet some fifteen Earth years previously, and he had worked hard to blend himself into Earth society - with, it must be said, some success. For instance, he had spent those fifteen years pretending to be an out-of-work actor, which was plausible enough. He had made one careless blunder though because he had skimped a bit on his preparatory research. The information he had gathered had led him to choose the name "Ford Prefect" as being nicely inconspicuous. He was not conspicuously tall, his features were striking but not conspicuously handsome. His hair was wiry and gingerish and brushed backward from the temples. His skin seemed to be pulled back from the nose. There was something very slightly odd about him, but it was difficult to say what it was. Perhaps it was that his eyes didn't blink often enough and when you talked to him for any length of time your eyes began involuntarily to water on his behalf. Perhaps it was that he smiled slightly too broadly and gave people the unnerving impression that he was about to go for their neck. He struck most of the friends he had made on Earth as an eccentric, but harmless one - an unruly boozer with some oddish habits. For instance, he would often gatecrash university parties, get badly drunk, and start making fun of any astrophysicist he could find till he got thrown out. Sometimes he would get seized with oddly distracted moods and stare into the sky as if hypnotized until someone asked him what he was doing.
Then he would start guiltily for a moment, relax and grin. "Oh, just looking for flying saucers," he would joke and everyone would laugh and ask him what sort of flying saucers he was looking for. "Green ones!" he would reply with a wicked grin, laugh wildly for a moment and then suddenly lunge for the nearest bar and buy an enormous round of drinks. Evenings like this usually ended badly. Ford would get out of his skull on whisky, huddle into a corner with some girl and explain to her in slurred phrases that honestly the color of the flying saucers didn't matter that much really. Thereafter, staggering semi-paralytic down the night streets he would often ask passing policemen if they knew the way to Betelgeuse. The policemen would usually say something like, "Don't you think it's about time you went off home sir?" "I'm trying to baby, I'm trying to," is what Ford invariably replied on these occasions. In fact, what he was really looking out for when he stared distractedly into the night sky was any kind of flying saucer at all.
The reason he said green was that green was the traditional space livery of the Betelgeuse trading scouts. Ford Prefect was desperate that any flying saucer at all would arrive soon because fifteen years was a long time to get stranded anywhere, particularly somewhere as mindbogglingly dull as the Earth. Ford wished that a flying saucer would arrive soon because he knew how to flag flying saucers down and get lifts from them. He knew how to see the Marvels of the Universe for less than thirty Altairan dollars a day.
In fact, Ford Prefect was a roving researcher for that wholly remarkable book The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Human beings are great adaptors, and by lunchtime life in the environs of Arthur's house had settled into a steady routine. It was Arthur's accepted role to lie squelching in the mud making occasional demands to see his lawyer, his mother or a good book; it was Mr. Prosser's accepted role to tackle Arthur with the occasional new ploy such as the For the Public Good talk, the March of Progress talk, the They Knocked My House Down Once You Know, Never Looked Backtalk and various other cajoleries and threats; and it was the bulldozer drivers' accepted role to sit around drinking coffee and experimenting with union regulations to see how they could turn the situation to their financial advantage.
The Earth moved slowly in its diurnal course. The sun was beginning to dry out the mud Arthur lay in. A shadow moved across him again. "Hello Arthur," said the shadow. Arthur looked up and squinting into the sun was startled to see Ford Prefect standing above him. "Ford! Hello, how are you?" "Fine," said Ford, "look, are you busy?" "Am I busy?" exclaimed Arthur. "Well, I've just got all these bulldozers and things to lie in front of because they'll knock my house down if I don't, but other than that... well, no not especially, why?" They don't have sarcasm on Betelgeuse, and Ford Prefect often failed to notice it unless he was concentrating. He said, "Good, is there anywhere we can talk?" "What?" said Arthur Dent. For a few seconds, Ford seemed to ignore him and stared fixedly into the sky like a rabbit trying to get run over by a car. Then suddenly he squatted down beside Arthur. "We've got to talk," he said urgently. "Fine," said Arthur, "talk." "And drink," said Ford. "It's vitally important that we talk and drink. Now. We'll go to the pub in the village." He looked into the sky again, nervous, expectant. "Look, don't you understand?" shouted Arthur.
He pointed at Prosser. "That man wants to knock my house down!" Ford glanced at him, puzzled. "Well he can do it while you're away can't he?" he asked. "But I don't want him to!" "Ah." "Look, what's the matter with you Ford?" said Arthur. "Nothing. Nothing's the matter. Listen to me - I've got to tell you the most important thing you've ever heard. I've got to tell you now, and I've got to tell you in the saloon bar of the Horse and Groom." "But why?" "Because you are going to need a very stiff drink." Ford stared at Arthur, and Arthur was astonished to find that his will was beginning to weaken. He didn't realize that this was because of an old drinking game that Ford learned to play in the hyperspace ports that served the marinate mining belts in the star system of Orion Beta.
The game was not unlike the Earth game called Indian Wrestling and was played like this: Two contestants would sit on either side of a table, with a glass in front of each of them. Between them would be placed a bottle of Janx Spirit (as immortalized in that ancient Orion mining song "Oh don't give me none more of that Old Janx Spirit/ No, don't you give me none more of that Old Janx Spirit/ For my head will fly, my tongue will lie, my eyes will fry and I may die/ Won't you pour me one more of that sinful Old Janx Spirit"). Each of the two contestants would then concentrate their will on the bottle and attempt to tip it and pour spirit into the glass of his opponent - who would then have to drink it. The bottle would then be refilled. The game would be played again. And again. Once you started to lose you would probably keep losing, because one of the effects of Janx's spirit is to depress telepsychic power. As soon as a predetermined quantity had been consumed, the final loser would have to perform a forfeit, which was usually obscenely biological. Ford Prefect usually played to lose. Ford stared at Arthur, who began to think that perhaps he did want to go to the Horse and Groom after all. "But what about my house?.." he asked plaintively. Ford looked across to Mr. Prosser, and suddenly a wicked thought struck him. "He wants to knock your house down?" "Yes, he wants to build..." "And he can't because you're lying in front of the bulldozers?" "Yes, and..." "I'm sure we can come to some arrangement," said Ford. "Excuse me!" he shouted.
Mr Prosser (who was arguing with a spokesman for the bulldozer drivers about whether or not Arthur Dent constituted a mental health hazard, and how much they should get paid if he did) looked around. He was surprised and slightly alarmed to find that Arthur had company. "Yes? Hello?" he called. "Has Mr. Dent come to his senses yet?" "Can we for the moment," called Ford, "assume that he hasn't?" "Well?" sighed Mr. Prosser. "And can we also assume," said Ford, "that he's going to be staying here all day?" "So?" "So all your men are going to be standing around all day doing nothing?" "Could be, could be..." "Well, if you're resigned to doing that anyway, you don't actually need him to lie here all the time do you?" "What?" "You don't," said Ford patiently, "actually need him here." Mr Prosser thought about this. "Well no, not as such...", he said, "not exactly need..." Prosser was worried.
He thought that one of them wasn't making a lot of sense. Ford said, "So if you would just like to take it as read that he's actually here, then he and I could slip off down to the pub for half an hour. How does that sound?" Mr. Prosser thought it sounded perfectly potty. "That sounds perfectly reasonable," he said in a reassuring tone of voice, wondering who he was trying to reassure. "And if you want to pop off for a quick one yourself later on," said Ford, "we can always cover up for you in return." "Thank you very much," said Mr. Prosser who no longer knew how to play this at all, "thank you very much, yes, that's very kind..." He frowned, then smiled, then tried to do both at once, failed, grasped hold of his fur hat, and rolled it fitfully round the top of his head. He could only assume that he had just won. "So," continued Ford Prefect, "if you would just like to come over here and lie down..." "What?" said Mr Prosser. "Ah, I'm sorry," said Ford, "perhaps I hadn't made myself fully clear. Somebody's got to lie in front of the bulldozers, haven't they? Or there won't be anything to stop them driving into Mr. Dent's house will there?" "What?" said Mr. Prosser again.
"It's very simple," said Ford, "my client, Mr. Dent, says that he will stop lying here in the mud on the sole condition that you come and take over from him." "What are you talking about?" said Arthur, but Ford nudged him with his shoe to be quiet. "You want me," said Mr. Prosser, spelling out this new thought to himself, "to come and lie there..." "Yes." "In front of the bulldozer?" "Yes." "Instead of Mr. Dent." "Yes." "In the mud." "In, as you say it, the mud." As soon as Mr Prosser realized that he was substantially the loser, after all, it was as if a weight lifted itself off his shoulders: this was more like the world as he knew it. He sighed. "In return for which you will take Mr. Dent with you down to the pub?" "That's it," said Ford. "That's it exactly." Mr. Prosser took a few nervous steps forward and stopped. "Promise?" "Promise," said Ford.
He turned to Arthur. "Come on," he said to him, "get up and let the man lie down." Arthur stood up, feeling as if he was in a dream. Ford beckoned to Prosser who sadly, awkwardly, sat down in the mud. He felt that his whole life was some kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it. The mud folded itself round his bottom and his arms and oozed into his shoes. Ford looked at him severely. "And no sneaky knocking down Mr. Dent's house whilst he's away, alright?" he said. "The mere thought," growled Mr. Prosser, "hadn't even begun to speculate," he continued, settling himself back, "about the merest possibility of crossing my mind." He saw the bulldozer driver's union representative approaching and let his head sink back and closed his eyes. He was trying to marshal his arguments for proving that he did not now constitute a mental health hazard himself. He was far from certain about this - his mind seemed to be full of noise, horses, smoke, and the stench of blood.
This always happened when he felt miserable and put upon, and he had never been able to explain it to himself. In a high dimension of which we know nothing the mighty Khan bellowed with rage, but Mr. Prosser only trembled slightly and whimpered. He began to feel little pricks of water behind the eyelids. Bureaucratic cock-ups, angry men lying in the mud, indecipherable strangers handing out inexplicable humiliations, and an unidentified army of horsemen laughing at him in his head - what a day. What a day. Ford Prefect knew that it didn't matter a pair of dingo's kidneys whether Arthur's house got knocked down or not now. Arthur remained very worried. "But can we trust him?" he said. "Myself I'd trust him to the end of the Earth," said Ford. "Oh yes," said Arthur, "and how far's that?" "About twelve minutes away," said Ford, "come on, I need a drink."
Here's what the Encyclopedia Galactica has to say about alcohol. It says that alcohol is a colorless volatile liquid formed by the fermentation of sugars and also notes its intoxicating effect on certain carbon-based life forms. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy also mentions alcohol. It says that the best drink in existence is the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster. It says that the effect of a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster is like having your brains smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped around a large gold brick. The Guide also tells you on which planets the best Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters are mixed, how much you can expect to pay for one, and what voluntary organizations exist to help you rehabilitate afterward.
The Guide even tells you how you can mix one yourself. Take the juice from one bottle of that Ol' Janx Spirit, it says. Pour into it one measure of water from the seas of Santraginus V - Oh that Santraginean seawater, it says. Oh, those Santraginean fish!!! Allow three cubes of Arcturan Mega-gin to melt into the mixture (it must be properly iced or the benzene is lost). Allow four liters of Fallian marsh gas to bubble through it, in memory of all those happy Hikers who have died of pleasure in the Marshes of Falla.
Over the back of a silver spoon float a measure of Qualactin Hypermint extract, redolent of all the heady odors of the dark Qualactin Zones, subtle sweet and mystic. Drop in the tooth of an Algolian Suntiger. Watch it dissolve, spreading the fires of the Algolian Suns deep into the heart of the drink. Sprinkle Zamphuor. Add an olive. Drink... but... very carefully... The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy sells rather better than the Encyclopedia Galactica. "Six pints of bitter," said Ford Prefect to the barman of the Horse and Groom. "And quickly please, the world's about to end." The barman of the Horse and Groom didn't deserve this sort of treatment, he was a dignified old man.
He pushed his glasses up his nose and blinked at Ford Prefect. Ford ignored him and stared out of the window, so the barman looked instead at Arthur who shrugged helplessly and said nothing. So the barman said, "Oh yes sir? Nice weather for it," and started pulling pints. He tried again. "Going to watch the match this afternoon then?" Ford glanced round at him. "No, no point," he said, and looked back out of the window. "What's that, foregone conclusion then you reckon sir?" said the barman. "Arsenal without a chance?" "No, no," said Ford, "it's just that the world's about to end." "Oh yes sir, so you said," said the barman, looking over his glasses this time at Arthur. "Lucky escape for Arsenal if it did." Ford looked back at him, genuinely surprised. "No, not really," he said. He frowned. The barman breathed in heavily. "There you are sir, six pints," he said. Arthur smiled at him wanly and shrugged again.
He turned and smiled wanly at the rest of the pub just in case any of them had heard what was going on. None of them had, and none of them could understand what he was smiling at them for. A man sitting next to Ford at the bar looked at the two men, looked at the six pints, did a swift burst of mental arithmetic, arrived at an answer he liked and grinned a stupid hopeful grin at them. "Get off," said Ford, "They're ours," giving him a look that would have an Algolian Suntiger get on with what it was doing. Ford slapped a five-pound note on the bar. He said, "Keep the change." "What, from a fiver? Thank you sir." "You've got ten minutes left to spend it." The barman simply decided to walk away for a bit. "Ford," said Arthur, "would you please tell me what the hell is going on?" "Drink up," said Ford,
"you've got three pints to get through." "Three pints?" said Arthur. "At lunchtime?" The man next to ford grinned and nodded happily. Ford ignored him. He said, "Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so." "Very deep," said Arthur, "you should send that in to the Reader's Digest. They've got a page for people like you." "Drink up." "Why three pints all of a sudden?" "Muscle relaxant, you'll need it." "Muscle relaxant?" "Muscle relaxant." Arthur stared into his beer. "Did I do anything wrong today," he said, "or has the world always been like this and I've been too wrapped up in myself to notice?" "Alright," said Ford, "I'll try to explain. How long have we known each other?" "How long?" Arthur thought. "Er, about five years, maybe six," he said. "Most of it seemed to make some sense at the time." "Alright," said Ford. "How would you react if I said that I'm not from Guildford after all, but from a small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse?" Arthur shrugged in a so-so sort of way. "I don't know," he said, taking a pull of beer. "Why - do you think it's the sort of thing you're likely to say?" Ford gave up. It really wasn't worth bothering at the moment, what with the world being about to end. He just said: "Drink up." He added, perfectly factually: "The world's about to end." Arthur gave the rest of the pub another wan smile.
The rest of the pub frowned at him. A man waved at him to stop smiling at them and mind his own business. "This must be Thursday," said Arthur musing to himself, sinking low over his beer, "I never could get the hang of Thursdays." 3 On this particular Thursday, something was moving quietly through the ionosphere many miles above the surface of the planet; several somethings in fact, several dozen huge yellow chunky slablike somethings, huge as office buildings, silent as birds. They soared with ease, basking in electromagnetic rays from the star Sol, biding their time, grouping, preparing. The planet beneath them was almost perfectly oblivious of their presence, which was just how they wanted it for the moment. The huge yellow somethings went unnoticed at Goonhilly, they passed over Cape Canaveral without a blip, Woomera and Jodrell Bank looked straight through them - which was a pity because it was exactly the sort of thing they'd been looking for all these years. The only place they registered at all was on a small black device called a Sub-Etha Sens-O-Matic which winked away quietly to itself.
It nestled in the darkness inside a leather satchel which Ford Prefect wore habitually round his neck. The contents of Ford Prefect's satchel were quite interesting in fact and would have made any Earth physicist's eyes pop out of his head, which is why he always concealed them by keeping a couple of dog-eared scripts for plays he pretended he was auditioning for stuff in the top. Besides the Sub-Etha Sens-O-Matic and the scripts he had an Electronic Thumb - a short squat black rod, smooth and matt with a couple of flat switches and dials at one end; he also had a device which looked rather like a largish electronic calculator. This had about a hundred tiny flat press buttons and a screen about four inches square on which any one of a million "pages" could be summoned at a moment's notice.
It looked insanely complicated, and this was one of the reasons why the snug plastic cover it fitted into had the words Don't Panic printed on it in large friendly letters. The other reason was that this device was in fact the most remarkable of all books ever to come out of the great publishing corporations of Ursa Minor - The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The reason why it was published in the form of a micro sub meson electronic component is that if it were printed in normal book form, an interstellar hitchhiker would require several inconveniently large buildings to carry it around in. Beneath that in Ford Prefect's satchel were a few biros, a notepad, and a largish bath towel from Marks and Spencer. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy has a few things to say on the subject of towels.
A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value - you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to hand-combat; wrap it around your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindbogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you - daft as a bush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough. More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc.
Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitchhiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitchhiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with. Hence a phrase which has passed into hitchhiking slang, as in "Hey, you sass that hoopy Ford Prefect? There's a frood who really knows where his towel is." (Sass: know, be aware of, meet, have sex with; hoopy: really together guy; frood: really amazingly together guy.) Nestling quietly on top of the towel in Ford Prefect's satchel, the Sub-Etha Sens-O-Matic began to wink more quickly. Miles above the surface of the planet the huge yellow somethings began to fan out. At Jodrell Bank, someone decided it was time for a nice relaxing cup of tea. "You got a towel with you?" said Ford Prefect suddenly to Arthur. Arthur, struggling through his third pint, looked round at him. "Why? What, no... should I have?" He had given up being surprised, there didn't seem to be any point any longer. Ford clicked his tongue in irritation.
"Drink up," he urged. At that moment the dull sound of a rumbling crash from outside filtered through the low murmur of the pub, through the sound of the jukebox, through the sound of the man next to Ford hiccupping over the whisky Ford had eventually bought him. Arthur choked on his beer, leapt to his feet. "What's that?" he yelped. "Don't worry," said Ford, "they haven't started yet." "Thank God for that," said Arthur and relaxed. "It's probably just your house being knocked down," said Ford, drowning his last pint. "What?" shouted Arthur. Suddenly Ford's spell was broken. Arthur looked wildly around him and ran to the window. "My God they are! They're knocking my house down.
What the hell am I doing in the pub, Ford?" "It hardly makes any difference at this stage," said Ford, "let them have their fun." "Fun?" yelped Arthur. "Fun!" He quickly checked out of the window again that they were talking about the same thing. "Damn their fun!" he hooted and ran out of the pub furiously waving a nearly empty beer glass. He made no friends at all in the pub that lunchtime. "Stop, you vandals! You home wreckers!" bawled Arthur. "You half-crazed Visigoths, stop will you!" Ford would have to go after him.
Turning quickly to the barman he asked for four packets of peanuts. "There you are sir," said the barman, slapping the packets on the bar, "twenty-eight pence if you'd be so kind." Ford was very kind - he gave the barman another five-pound note and told him to keep the change. The barman looked at it and then looked at Ford. He suddenly shivered: he experienced a momentary sensation that he didn't understand because no one on Earth had ever experienced it before. In moments of great stress, every life form that exists gives out a tiny subliminal signal.
This signal simply communicates an exact and almost pathetic sense of how far that being is from the place of his birth. On Earth, it is never possible to be further than sixteen thousand miles from your birthplace, which really isn't very far, so such signals are too minute to be noticed. Ford Prefect was at this moment under great stress, and he was born 600 light-years away in the near vicinity of Betelgeuse. The barman reeled for a moment, hit by a shocking, incomprehensible sense of distance. He didn't know what it meant, but he looked at Ford Prefect with a new sense of respect, almost awe. "Are you serious, sir?" he said in a small whisper which had the effect of silencing the pub. "You think the world's going to end?" "Yes," said Ford. "But, this afternoon?" Ford had recovered himself. He was at his most flip. "Yes," he said gaily, "in less than two minutes I would estimate." The barman couldn't believe the conversation he was having, but he couldn't believe the sensation he had just had either. "Isn't there anything we can do about it then?" he said. "No, nothing," said Ford, stuffing the peanuts into his pockets. Someone in the hushed bar suddenly laughed raucously at how stupid everyone had become.
The man sitting next to Ford was a bit sozzled by now. His eyes waved their way up to Ford. "I thought," he said, "that if the world was going to end we were meant to lie down or put a paper bag over our head or something." "If you like, yes," said Ford. "That's what they told us in the army," said the man, and his eyes began the long trek back down to his whisky. "Will that help?" asked the barman. "No," said Ford and gave him a friendly smile. "Excuse me," he said, "I've got to go." With a wave, he left. The pub was silent for a moment longer, and then, embarrassingly enough, the man with the raucous laugh did it again. The girl he had dragged along to the pub with him had grown to loathe him dearly over the last hour or so, and it would probably have been a great satisfaction to her to know that in a minute and a half or so he would suddenly evaporate into a whiff of hydrogen, ozone, and carbon monoxide. However, when the moment came she would be too busy evaporating herself to notice it. The barman cleared his throat. He heard himself say: "Last orders, please." The huge yellow machines began to sink downward and to move faster. Ford knew they were there.
This wasn't the way he had wanted it. Running up the lane, Arthur had nearly reached his house. He didn't notice how cold it had suddenly become, he didn't notice the wind, he didn't notice the sudden irrational squall of rain. He didn't notice anything but the caterpillar bulldozers crawling over the rubble that had been his home. "You barbarians!" he yelled. "I'll sue the council for every penny it's got! I'll have you hung, drawn, and quartered! And whipped! And boiled... until... until... until you've had enough." Ford was running after him very fast. Very very fast. "And then I'll do it again!" yelled Arthur. "And when I've finished I will take all the little bits, and I will jump on them!" Arthur didn't notice that the men were running from the bulldozers; he didn't notice that Mr. Prosser was staring hectically into the sky.
What Mr. Prosser had noticed was that huge yellow somethings were screaming through the clouds. Impossibly huge yellow somethings. "And I will carry on jumping on them," yelled Arthur, still running, "until I get blisters, or I can think of anything even more unpleasant to do, and then..." Arthur tripped, and fell headlong, rolled, and landed flat on his back. At last, he noticed that something was going on. His finger shot upwards. "What the hell's that?" he shrieked. Whatever it was raced across the sky in monstrous yellowness, tore the sky apart with mind-buggering noise, and leaped off into the distance leaving the gaping air to shut behind it with a bang that drove your ears six feet into your skull.
Another one followed and did the same thing only louder. It's difficult to say exactly what the people on the surface of the planet were doing now because they didn't really know what they were doing themselves. None of it made a lot of sense - running into houses, running out of houses, howling noiselessly at the noise. All around the world city streets exploded with people, cars slewed into each other as the noise fell on them and then rolled off like a tidal wave over hills and valleys, deserts and oceans, seeming to flatten everything it hit. Only one man stood and watched the sky, stood with a terrible sadness in his eyes and rubber bungs in his ears. He knew exactly what was happening and had known ever since his Sub-Etha Sens-OMatic had started winking in the dead of night beside his pillar and woken him with a start.
It was what he had waited for all these years, but when he had deciphered the signal pattern sitting alone in his small dark room a coldness had gripped him and squeezed his heart. Of all the races in all of the Galaxy who could have come and said a big hello to planet Earth, he thought, didn't it just have to be the Vogons. Still, he knew what he had to do. As the Vogon craft screamed through the air high above him he opened his satchel. He threw away a copy of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, he threw away a copy of Godspell: He wouldn't need them where he was going. Everything was ready, everything was prepared. He knew where his towel was. A sudden silence hit the Earth.
If anything it was worse than the noise. For a while, nothing happened. The great ships hung motionless in the air, over every nation on Earth. Motionless they hung, huge, heavy, steady in the sky, a blasphemy against nature. Many people went straight into shock as their minds tried to encompass what they were looking at. The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't. And still, nothing happened. Then there was a slight whisper, a sudden spacious whisper of open ambient sound. Every hi-fi set in the world, every radio, every television, every cassette recorder, every woofer, every tweeter, every mid-range driver in the world quietly turned itself on. Every tin can, every dust bin, every window, every car, every wine glass, every sheet of rusty metal became activated as an acoustically perfect sounding board. Before the Earth passed away it was going to be treated to the very ultimate in sound reproduction, the greatest public address system ever built. But there was no concert, no music, no fanfare, just a simple message. "People of Earth, your attention please," a voice said, and it was wonderful.
Wonderful perfect quadrophonic sound with distortion levels so low as to make a brave man weep. "This is Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz of the Galactic Hyperspace Planning Council," the voice continued. "As you will no doubt be aware, the plans for the development of the outlying regions of the Galaxy require the building of a hyperspatial express route through your star system, and regrettably your planet is one of those scheduled for demolition. The process will take slightly less than two of your Earth minutes. Thank you." The PA died away. Uncomprehending terror settled on the watching people of Earth. The terror moved slowly through the gathered crowds as if they were iron fillings on a sheet of board and a magnet was moving beneath them. Panic sprouted again, desperate fleeing panic, but there was nowhere to flee to. Observing this, the Vogons turned on their PA again.
It said: "There's no point in acting all surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display in your local planning department on Alpha Centauri for fifty of your Earth years, so you've had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and it's far too late to start making a fuss about it now." The PA fell silent again and its echo drifted off across the land.
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