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

God,” said Arthur, “it looks just like the sea front at Southend.”
    “Hell, I’m relieved to hear you say that,” said Ford.
    “Why?”
    “Because I thought I must be going mad.”
    “Perhaps you are. Perhaps you only thought I said it.”
    Ford thought about this.
    “Well, did you say it or didn’t you?” he asked.
    “I think so,” said Arthur.
    “Well, perhaps we’re both going mad.”
    “Yes,” said Arthur, “we’d be mad, all things considered, to think this was Southend.”
    “Well, do you think this is Southend?”
    “Oh yes.”
    “So do I.”
    “Therefore we must be mad.”
    “Nice day for it.”
    “Yes,” said a passing maniac.
    “Who was that?” asked Arthur.
    “Who—the man with the five heads and the elderberry bush full of kippers?”
    “Yes.”
    “I don’t know. Just someone.”
    “Ah.”
    They both sat on the pavement and watched with a certain unease as huge children bounced heavily along the sand and wild horses thundered through the sky taking fresh supplies of reinforced railings to the Uncertain Areas.
    “You know,” said Arthur with a slight cough, “if this is Southend, there’s something very odd about it. . . .”
    “You mean the way the sea stays steady as a rock and the buildings keep washing up and down?” said Ford. “Yes, I thought that was odd too. In fact,” he continued as with a huge bang Southend split itself into six equal segments which danced and spun giddily round each other in lewd and licentious formations, “there is something altogether very strange going on.”
    Wild yowling noises of pipes and strings seared through the wind, hot doughnuts popped out of the road for ten pence each, horrid fish stormed out of the sky and Arthur and Ford decided to make a run for it.
    They plunged through heavy walls of sound, mountains of archaic thought, valleys of mood music, bad shoe sessions and footling bats and suddenly heard a girl’s voice.
    It sounded quite a sensible voice, but it just said, “Two to the power of one hundred thousand to one against and falling,” and that was all.
    Ford skidded down a beam of light and spun round trying to find a source for the voice but could see nothing he could seriously believe in.
    “What was that voice?” shouted Arthur.
    “I don’t know,” yelled Ford, “I don’t know. It sounded like a measurement of probability.”
    “Probability? What do you mean?”
    “Probability. You know, like two to one, three to one, five to four against. It said two to the power of one hundred thousand to one against. That’s pretty improbable, you know.”
    A million-gallon vat of custard upended itself over them without warning.
    “But what does it mean?” cried Arthur.
    “What, the custard?”
    “No, the measurement of improbability!”
    “I don’t know. I don’t know at all. I think we’re on some kind of spaceship.”
    “I can only assume,” said Arthur, “that this is not the firstclass compartment.”
    Bulges appeared in the fabric of space-time. Great ugly bulges.
    “Haaaauuurrgghhh . . .” said Arthur, as he felt his body softening and bending in unusual directions. “Southend seems to be melting away . . . the stars are swirling . . . a dustbowl . . . my legs are drifting off into the sunset . . . my left arm’s come off too.” A frightening thought struck him. “Hell,” he said, “how am I going to operate my digital watch now?” He wound his eyes desperately around in Ford’s direction.
    “Ford,” he said, “you’re turning into a penguin. Stop it.”
    Again came the voice.
    “Two to the power of seventy-five thousand to one against and falling.”
    Ford waddled around his pond in a furious circle.
    “Hey, who are you?” he quacked. “Where are you? What’s going on and is there any way of stopping it?”
    “Please relax,” said the voice pleasantly, like a stewardess in an airliner with only one wing and two engines, one of which is on fire, “you are perfectly