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

and you were on Earth, you must have been gathering material on it.”
    “Well, I was able to extend the original entry a bit, yes.”
    “Let me see what it says in this edition then, I’ve got to see it.”
    “Yeah, okay.” He passed it over again.
    Arthur grabbed hold of it and tried to stop his hands shaking. He pressed the entry for the relevent page. The screen flashed and swirled and resolved into a page of print. Arthur stared at it.
    “It doesn’t have an entry!” he burst out.
    Ford looked over his shoulder.
    “Yes, it does,” he said, “down there, see at the bottom of the screen, just above Eccentrica Gallumbits, the triple-breasted whore of Eroticon 6.”
    Arthur followed Ford’s finger, and saw where it was pointing. For a moment it still didn’t register, then his mind nearly blew up.
    “What?
Harmless?
Is that all it’s got to say?
Harmless!
One word!”
    Ford shrugged.
    “Well, there are a hundred billion stars in the Galaxy, and only a limited amount of space in the book’s microprocessors,” he said, “and no one knew much about the Earth, of course.”
    “Well, for God’s sake, I hope you managed to rectify that a bit.”
    “Oh yes, well, I managed to transmit a new entry off to the editor. He had to trim it a bit, but it’s still an improvement.”
    “And what does it say now?” asked Arthur.
    “Mostly harmless,”
admitted Ford with a slightly embarrassed cough.
    “Mostly harmless!”
shouted Arthur.
    “What was that noise?” hissed Ford.
    “It was me shouting,” shouted Arthur.
    “No! Shut up!” said Ford. “I think we’re in trouble.”
    “You
think we’re in trouble!”
    Outside the door were the clear sounds of marching footsteps.
    “The Dentrassis?” whispered Arthur.
    “No, those are steel-tipped boots,” said Ford.
    There was a sharp ringing rap on the door.
    “Then who is it?” said Arthur.
    “Well,” said Ford, “if we’re lucky it’s just the Vogons come to throw us into space.”
    “And if we’re unlucky?”
    “If we’re unlucky,” said Ford grimly, “the captain might be serious in his threat that he’s going to read us some of his poetry first.…”

Chapter 7
    V ogon poetry is of course the third worst in the Universe. The second worst is that of the Azgoths of Kria. During a recitation by their Poet Master Grunthos the Flatulent of his poem “Ode to a Small Lump of Green Putty I Found in My Armpit One Midsummer Morning” four of his audience died of internal hemorrhaging, and the President of the Mid-Galactic Arts Nobbling Council survived by gnawing one of his own legs off. Grunthos is reported to have been “disappointed” by the poem’s reception, and was about to embark on a reading of his twelve-book epic entitled
My Favorite Bathtime Gurgles
when his own major intestine, in a desperate attempt to save life and civilization, leaped straight up through his neck and throttled his brain.
    The very worst poetry of all perished along with its creator, Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings of Greenbridge, Essex, England, in the destruction of the planet Earth.
    Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz smiled very slowly. This was done not so much for effect as because he was trying to remember the sequence of muscle movements. He had had a terribly therapeutic yell at his prisoners and was now feeling quite relaxed and ready for a little callousness.
    The prisoners sat in Poetry Appreciation chairs—strapped in. Vogons suffered no illusions as to the regard their works were generally held in. Their early attempts at composition had been part of a bludgeoning insistence that they be accepted as a properly evolved and cultured race, but now the only thing that kept them going was sheer bloody-mindedness.
    The sweat stood out cold on Ford Prefect’s brow, and slid round the electrodes strapped to his temples. These were attached to a battery of electronic equipment—imagery intensifiers, rhythmic modulators, alliterative residulators and simile