Free Mostly Harmless by Douglas Adams
Authors: Douglas Adams
start to hyperventilate and put out a seal-all-exits security alert when Ford handed in his expenses claim, then Ford felt he wasn’t doing his job properly. But actually
stealing
was another thing. That was biting the hand that feeds you. Sucking very hard on it, even nibbling it in an affectionate kind of a way was okay, but you didn’tactually bite it. Not when that hand was the
Guide
. The
Guide
was something sacred and special.
But that, thought Ford as he ducked and weaved his way down through the building, was about to change. And they had only themselves to blame. Look at all this stuff. Lines of neat gray office cubicles and executive workstation pods. The whole place was dreary with the hum of memos and minutes of meetings flitting through its electronic networks. Out in the street they were playing Hunt the Wocket, for Zark’s sake, but here in the very heart of the
Guide
offices no one was even recklessly kicking a ball around the corridors or wearing inappropriately colored beachware.
“InfiniDim Enterprises,” Ford snarled to himself as he stalked rapidly down one corridor after another. Door after door magically opened to him without question. Elevators took him happily to places they should not. Ford was trying to pursue the most tangled and complicated route he could, heading generally downward through the building. His happy little robot took care of everything, spreading waves of acquiescent joy through all the security circuits it encountered.
Ford thought it needed a name and decided to call it Emily Saunders, after a girl he had very fond memories of. Then he thought that Emily Saunders was an absurd name for a security robot, and decided to call it Colin instead, after Emily’s dog.
He was moving deep into the bowels of the building now, into areas he had never entered before, areas of higher and higher security. He was beginning to encounter puzzled looks from the operatives he passed. At this level of security youdidn’t even call them people anymore. And they were probably doing stuff that only operatives would do. When they went home to their families in the evening they became people again, and when their little children looked up to them with their sweet shining eyes and said, “Daddy, what did you do all day today?” they just said, “I performed my duties as an operative,” and left it at that.
The truth of the matter was that all sorts of highly dodgy stuff went on behind the cheery, happy-go-lucky front that the
Guide
liked to put up — or used to like to put up before this new InfiniDim Enterprises bunch marched in and started to make the whole thing highly dodgy. There were all kinds of tax scams and rackets and graft and shady deals supporting the shining edifice, and down in the secure research and data processing levels of the building was where it all went on.
Every few years the
Guide
would set up its business, and indeed its building, on a new world, and all would be sunshine and laughter for a while as the
Guide
would put down its roots in the local culture and economy, provide employment, a sense of glamour and adventure and, in the end, not quite as much actual revenue as the locals had expected.
When the
Guide
moved on, taking its building with it, it left a little like a thief in the night. Exactly like a thief in the night in fact. It usually left in the very early hours of the morning, and the following day there always turned out to be a very great deal of stuff missing. Whole cultures and economies would collapse in its wake, often within a week, leaving oncethriving planets desolate and shell-shocked but still somehow feeling they had been part of some great adventure.
The “operatives” who shot puzzled glances at Ford as he marched on into the depths of the building’s most sensitive areas were reassured by the presence of Colin, who was flying along with him in a buzz of emotional fulfillment and easing his path for him at every stage.
Alarms were
stealing
was another thing. That was biting the hand that feeds you. Sucking very hard on it, even nibbling it in an affectionate kind of a way was okay, but you didn’tactually bite it. Not when that hand was the
Guide
. The
Guide
was something sacred and special.
But that, thought Ford as he ducked and weaved his way down through the building, was about to change. And they had only themselves to blame. Look at all this stuff. Lines of neat gray office cubicles and executive workstation pods. The whole place was dreary with the hum of memos and minutes of meetings flitting through its electronic networks. Out in the street they were playing Hunt the Wocket, for Zark’s sake, but here in the very heart of the
Guide
offices no one was even recklessly kicking a ball around the corridors or wearing inappropriately colored beachware.
“InfiniDim Enterprises,” Ford snarled to himself as he stalked rapidly down one corridor after another. Door after door magically opened to him without question. Elevators took him happily to places they should not. Ford was trying to pursue the most tangled and complicated route he could, heading generally downward through the building. His happy little robot took care of everything, spreading waves of acquiescent joy through all the security circuits it encountered.
Ford thought it needed a name and decided to call it Emily Saunders, after a girl he had very fond memories of. Then he thought that Emily Saunders was an absurd name for a security robot, and decided to call it Colin instead, after Emily’s dog.
He was moving deep into the bowels of the building now, into areas he had never entered before, areas of higher and higher security. He was beginning to encounter puzzled looks from the operatives he passed. At this level of security youdidn’t even call them people anymore. And they were probably doing stuff that only operatives would do. When they went home to their families in the evening they became people again, and when their little children looked up to them with their sweet shining eyes and said, “Daddy, what did you do all day today?” they just said, “I performed my duties as an operative,” and left it at that.
The truth of the matter was that all sorts of highly dodgy stuff went on behind the cheery, happy-go-lucky front that the
Guide
liked to put up — or used to like to put up before this new InfiniDim Enterprises bunch marched in and started to make the whole thing highly dodgy. There were all kinds of tax scams and rackets and graft and shady deals supporting the shining edifice, and down in the secure research and data processing levels of the building was where it all went on.
Every few years the
Guide
would set up its business, and indeed its building, on a new world, and all would be sunshine and laughter for a while as the
Guide
would put down its roots in the local culture and economy, provide employment, a sense of glamour and adventure and, in the end, not quite as much actual revenue as the locals had expected.
When the
Guide
moved on, taking its building with it, it left a little like a thief in the night. Exactly like a thief in the night in fact. It usually left in the very early hours of the morning, and the following day there always turned out to be a very great deal of stuff missing. Whole cultures and economies would collapse in its wake, often within a week, leaving oncethriving planets desolate and shell-shocked but still somehow feeling they had been part of some great adventure.
The “operatives” who shot puzzled glances at Ford as he marched on into the depths of the building’s most sensitive areas were reassured by the presence of Colin, who was flying along with him in a buzz of emotional fulfillment and easing his path for him at every stage.
Alarms were