The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
+Douglas Adams
+for + Jonny Brock and Clare Gorst + and all other Arlingtonians + for tea, sympathy, and a sofa+
Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a + small + unregarded yellow sun.
+Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue green + planet + whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty + neat + idea.
+This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people on it were unhappy for pretty + much of + the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the + movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green + pieces of + paper that were unhappy.
+And so the problem remained; lots of the people were mean, and most of them were miserable, even the ones + with + digital watches.
+Many were increasingly of the opinion that they'd all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees + in the + first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left + the + oceans.
+And then, one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how + great it + would be to be nice to people for a change, one girl sitting on her own in a small cafe in Rickmansworth + suddenly + realized what it was that had been going wrong all this time, and she finally knew how the world could be + made a + good and happy place. This time it was right, it would work, and no one would have to get nailed to + anything.
+Sadly, however, before she could get to a phone to tell anyone about it, a terribly stupid catastrophe + occ style="color: red"urred, and + the idea was lost forever.
+This is not her story.
+But it is the story of that terrible stupid catastrophe and some of its consequences.
+It is also the story of a book, a book called The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - not an Earth book, + never + pub style="color: red"lished on Earth, and until the terrible catastrophe occurred, never seen or heard of + by any Earthman.
+Nevertheless, a wholly remarkable book.
+in fact it was probably the most remarkable book ever to come out of the great publishing houses of Ursa + Minor - of + which no Earthman had ever heard either.
+Not only is it a wholly remarkable book, it is also a highly successful one - more popular than the + Celestial Home + Care Omnibus, better selling than Fifty More Things to do in Zero Gravity, and more controversial than Oolon + Colluphid's trilogy of philosophical blockbusters Where God Went Wrong, Some More of God's Greatest + Mistakes + and Who is this God Person Anyway? In many of the more relaxed civilizations on the Outer Eastern Rim of the + Galaxy, + the Hitch Hiker's Guide has already supplanted the great Encyclopedia Galactica as the standard + repository of + all knowledge
+and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly + inaccurate, it + scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects.
+First, it is slightly cheaper; and secondly it has the words Don't Panic inscribed in large friendly + letters on + its cover.
+But the story of this terrible, stupid Thursday, the story of its extraordinary consequences, and the story + of how + these consequences are inextricably intertwined with this remarkable book begins very simply.
+It begins with a house.
+Chapter 1
+ +The house stood on a slight rise just on the edge of the village. It stood on its own and looked over a broad + spread + of West Country farmland. Not a remarkable house by any means - it was about thirty years old, squattish, + squarish, + made of brick, and had four windows set in the front of a size and proportion which more or less exactly + failed to + please the eye.
+The only person for whom the house was in any way special was Arthur Dent, and that was only because it + happened to + be the one he lived in. He had lived in it for about three years, ever since he had moved out of London + because it + mad style="color: red"e him nervous and irritable. He was about thirty as well, dark haired and never quite + at ease with + himself. The + thing that used to worry him most was the fact that people always used to ask him what he was looking so + worried + about. He worked in local radio which he always used to tell his friends was a lot more interesting than + they + probably thought. It was, too - most of his friends worked in advertising.
+style="color: red" It hadn't properly registered with Arthur that the council wanted to knock down his + house and build an + bypass + instead.
+At eight o'clock on Thursday morning Arthur didn't feel very good. He woke up blearily, got up, + wan style="color: red"dered + blearily round his room, opened a window, saw a bulldozer, found his slippers, and stomped off to the + bathroom to + wash.
+Toothpaste on the brush - so. Scrub.
+Shaving mirror - pointing at the ceiling. He adjusted it. For a moment it reflected a second bulldozer + through the + bathroom window. Properly adjusted, it reflected Arthur Dent's bristles. He shaved them off, washed, + dried, and + stomped off to the kitchen to find something pleasant to put in his mouth.
+Kettle, plug, fridge, milk, coffee. Yawn.
+style="color: red" The word bulldozer wandered through his mind for a moment in search of something to + connect with.
+The bulldozer outside the kitchen window was quite a big one.
+style="color: red" He stared at it.
+"Yellow," he thought and stomped off back to his bedroom to get dressed.
+Passing the bathroom he stopped to drink a large glass of water, and another. He began to suspect that he + was hung + over. Why was he hung over? Had he been drinking the night before? He supposed that he must have been. He + caught a + glint in the shaving mirror. "Yellow," he thought and stomped on to the bedroom.
+style="color: red" He stood and thought. The pub, he thought. Oh dear, the pub. He vaguely remembered being + angry, angry about + something that seemed important. He'd been telling people about it, telling people about it at great + length, he + rather suspected: his clearest visual recollection was of glazed looks on other people's faces.
+Something about a new bypass he had just found out about. It had been in the pipeline for months only no one + seemed + to have known about it. Ridiculous. He took a swig of water. It would sort itself out, he'd decided, no + one + wanted a bypass, the council didn't have a leg to stand on. It would sort itself out.
+God what a terrible hangover it had earned him though. He looked at himself in the wardrobe mirror.
+style="color: red" He stuck out his tongue. "Yellow," he thought. The word yellow wandered through + his mind in search + of + something to connect with.
+Fifteen seconds later he was out of the house and lying in front of a big yellow bulldozer that was + advancing up his + garden path.
+Mr L Prosser was, as they say, only human. In other words he was a carbon-based life form descended from an + ape. + More specifically he was forty, fat and shabby and worked for the local council. Curiously enough, though he + didn't know it, he was also a direct male-line descendant of Genghis Khan, though intervening + generations and + racial mixing had so juggled his genes that he had no discernible Mongoloid characteristics, and the only + vestiges + lef style="color: red"t in Mr L Prosser of his mighty ancestry were a pronounced stoutness about the tum and + a predilection for + little + fur hats.
+He was by no means a great warrior: in fact he was a nervous worried man. Today he was particularly nervous + and + worried because something had gone seriously wrong with his job - which was to see that Arthur Dent's + house got + cle style="color: red"ared out of the way before the day was out.
+"Come off it, Mr Dent,", he said, "you can't win you know. You can't lie in front of + the + bulldozer indefinitely." He tried to make his eyes blaze fiercely but they just wouldn't do it.
+Arthur lay in the mud and squelched at him.
+"I'm game," he said, "we'll see who rusts first." "I'm afraid + you're going + to have to accept it," said Mr Prosser gripping his fur hat and rolling it round the top of his head, + "this bypass has got to be built and it's going to be built!" "First I've heard of + it," + said Arthur, "why's it going to be built?" Mr Prosser shook his finger at him for a bit, then + stopped + and put it away again.
+"What do you mean, why's it got to be built?" he said. "It's a bypass. You've got + to + build bypasses." Bypasses are devices which allow some people to drive from point A to point B very + fast whilst + other people dash from point B to point A very fast. People living at point C, being a point directly in + between, + are often given to wonder what's so great about point A that so many people of point B are so keen to + get there, + and what's so great about point B that so many people of point A are so keen to get there.
+They often wish that people would just once and for all work out where the hell they wanted to be.
+Mr Prosser wanted to be at point D. Point D wasn't anywhere in particular, it was just any convenient + point a + very long way from points A, B and C. He would have a nice little cottage at point D, with axes over the + door, and + spend a pleasant amount of time at point E, which would be the nearest pub to point D. His wife of course + wanted + climbing roses, but he wanted axes. He didn't know why - he just liked axes. He flushed hotly under the + derisive + grins of the bulldozer drivers.
+He shifted his weight from foot to foot, but it was equally uncomfortable on each. Obviously somebody had + been + appallingly incompetent and he hoped to God it wasn't him.
+Mr Prosser said: "You were quite entitled to make any suggestions or protests at the appropriate time + you + know." "Appropriate time?" hooted Arthur. "Appropriate time? The first I knew about it + was when + a workman arrived at my home yesterday. I asked him if he'd come to clean the windows and he said no + he'd + come to demolish the house. He didn't tell me straight away of course. Oh no. First he wiped a couple of + windows + and charged me a fiver. Then he told me." "But Mr Dent, the plans have been available in the local + planning office for the last nine month." "Oh yes, well as soon as I heard I went straight round + to see + them, yesterday afternoon. You hadn't exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them had you? I + mean + like actually telling anybody or anything." "But the plans were on display ..." "On + display? I + eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them." "That's the display department." + "With a torch."
+"Ah, well the lights had probably gone." "So had the stairs." "But look, you found + the + notice didn't you?" "Yes," said Arthur, "yes I did. It was on display in the bottom + of a + locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying Beware of the + Leopard." 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 like the bypass." "Oh shut + up," + said Arthur Dent. "Shut up and go away, and take your bloody bypass with you. You haven't got a leg + to + stand on and you know it." 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.
+style="color: red" 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 style="color: red"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 backwards from the temples. His skin seemed to be pulled backwards 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 a 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 + gir style="color: red"l and explain to her in slurred phrases that honestly the colour 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.
+style="color: red" 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 mindboggingly 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 Back talk 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.
+style="color: red" 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 + Gro style="color: red"om." "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 madranite + 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 + 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 spirit is to + depress + telepsychic power.
+style="color: red" 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.
+style="color: red" 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 + dre style="color: red"am 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 + whi style="color: red"mpered. He began to fell 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."
+ +