The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams Read Free Book Online Page B

said.
    “Great guys,” said Ford. “They’re
the
best cooks and the best drink mixers and they don’t give a wet slap about anything else. And they’ll always help hitchhikers aboard, partly because they like the company, but mostly because it annoys the Vogons. Which is exactly the sort of thing you need to know if you’re an impoverished hitchhiker trying to see the marvels of the Universe for less than thirty Altairian dollars a day. And that’s my job. Fun, isn’t it?”
    Arthur looked lost.
    “It’s amazing,” he said, and frowned at one of the other mattresses.
    “Unfortunately I got stuck on the Earth for rather longer than I intended,” said Ford. “I came for a week and got stuck for fifteen years.”
    “But how did you get there in the first place then?”
    “Easy, I got a lift with a teaser.”
    “A teaser?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Er, what is . . .”
    “A teaser? Teasers are usually rich kids with nothing to do. They cruise around looking for planets that haven’t made interstellar contact yet and buzz them.”
    “Buzz them?” Arthur began to feel that Ford was enjoying making life difficult for him.
    “Yeah,” said Ford, “they buzz them. They find some isolated spot with very few people around, then land right by some poor unsuspecting soul whom no one’s ever going to believe and then strut up and down in front of him wearing silly antennas on their head and making
beep beep
noises. Rather childish really.” Ford leaned back on the mattress with his hands behind his head and looked infuriatingly pleased with himself.
    “Ford,” insisted Arthur, “I don’t know if this sounds like a silly question, but what am I doing here?”
    “Well, you know that,” said Ford. “I rescued you from the Earth.”
    “And what’s happened to the Earth?”
    “Ah. It’s been demolished.”
    “Has it,” said Arthur levelly.
    “Yes. It just boiled away into space.”
    “Look,” said Arthur, “I’m a bit upset about that.”
    Ford frowned to himself and seemed to roll the thought around his mind.
    “Yes, I can understand that,” he said at last.
    “Understand that!” shouted Arthur. “Understand that!”
    Ford sprang up.
    “Keep looking at the book!” he hissed urgently.
    “What?”
    “Don’t Panic.”
    “I’m not panicking!”
    “Yes, you are.”
    “All right, so I’m panicking, what else is there to do?”
    “You just come along with me and have a good time. The Galaxy’s a fun place. You’ll need to have this fish in your ear.”
    “I beg your pardon?” asked Arthur, rather politely he thought.
    Ford was holding up a small glass jar which quite clearly had a small yellow fish wriggling around in it. Arthur blinked at him. He wished there was something simple and recognizable he could grasp hold of. He would have felt safe if alongside the Dentrassis’ underwear, the piles of Sqornshellous mattresses and the man from Betelgeuse holding up a small yellow fish and offering to put it in his ear he had been able to see just a small packet of cornflakes. But he couldn’t, and he didn’t feel safe.
    Suddenly a violent noise leaped at them from no source that he could identify. He gasped in terror at what sounded like a man trying to gargle while fighting off a pack of wolves.
    “Shush!” said Ford. “Listen, it might be important.”
    “Im . . . important?”
    “It’s the Vogon captain making an announcement on the tannoy.”
    “You mean that’s how the Vogons talk?”
    “Listen!”
    “But I can’t speak Vogon!”
    “You don’t need to. Just put this fish in your ear.”
    Ford, with a lightning movement, clapped his hand to Arthur’s ear, and he had the sudden sickening sensation of the fish slithering deep into his aural tract. Gasping with horror he scrabbled at his ear for a second or so, but then slowly turned goggle-eyed with wonder. He was experiencing the aural equivalent of looking at a picture of two black silhouetted faces and suddenly seeing it as a