Mostly Harmless (Hitchhiker's Guide, #5)

by Douglas Adams

The history of the Galaxy has got a little muddled, for a number of reasons: partly because those who are trying to keep track of it have got a little muddled, but also because some very muddling things have been happening anyway. One of the problems has to do with the speed of light and the difficulties involved in trying to exceed it. You can’t. Nothing travels faster than the speed of light with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws. The Hingefreel people of Arkintoofle Minor did try to build spaceships that were powered by bad news but they didn’t work particularly well and were so extremely unwelcome whenever they arrived anywhere that there wasn’t really any point in being there.

One of the extraordinary things about life is the sort of places it’s prepared to put up with living. Anywhere it can get some kind of a grip, whether it’s the intoxicating seas of Santraginus V, where the fish never seem to care whatever the heck kind of direction they swim in, the fire storms of Frastra where, they say, life begins at 40,000 degrees, or just burrowing around in the lower intestine of a rat for the sheer unadulterated hell of it, life will always find a way of hanging on in somewhere.

It’s one thing to be the sort of life form that thrives on heat and finds, as the Frastrans do, that the temperature range between 40,000 and 40,004 is very equable, but it’s quite another to be the sort of animal that has to wrap itself up in lots of other animals at one point in your planet’s orbit, and then find, half an orbit later, that your skin’s bubbling.

Few things are worse than fall in New York. Some of the things that live in the lower intestines of rats would disagree, but most of the things that live in the lower intestines of rats are highly disagreeable anyway, so their opinion can and should be discounted.

What about all those star charts and planetary motions and so? We all knew (apparently) what happened when Neptune was in Virgo, and so on, but what about when Rupert was rising? Wouldn’t the whole of astrology have to be rethought? Wouldn’t now perhaps be a good time to own up that it was all just a load of hogwash and instead take up pig-farming, the principles of which were founded on some kind of rational basis?

‘I know that astrology isn’t a science,’ said Gail. ‘Of course it isn’t. It’s just an arbitrary set of rules like chess or tennis or, what’s that strange thing you British play?’ ‘Er, cricket? Self-loathing?’ ‘Parliamentary democracy.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has, in what we laughingly call the past, had a great deal to say on the subject of parallel universes. Very little of this is, however, at all comprehensible to anyone below the level of Advanced God, and since it is now well established that all known gods came into existence a good three millionths of a second after the Universe began rather than, as they usually claimed, the previous week, they already have a great deal of explaining to do as it is, and are therefore not available for comment on matters of deep physics at this time. One encouraging thing the Guide does have to say on the subject of parallel universes is that you don’t stand the remotest chance of understanding it. You can therefore say ‘What?’ and ‘Eh?’ and even go cross-eyed and start to blither if you like without any fear of making a fool of yourself. The first thing to realize about parallel universes, the Guide says, is that they are not parallel. It is also important to realize that they are not, strictly speaking, universes either, but it is easiest if you try and realize that a little later, after you’ve realized that everything you’ve realized up to that moment is not true. The reason they are not universes is that any given universe is not actually a thing as such, but is just a way of looking at what is technically known as the WSOGMM, or Whole Sort of General Mish Mash. The Whole Sort of General Mish Mash doesn’t actually exist either, but is just the su...

Once something actually happens somewhere in something as wildly complicated as the Universe, Kevin knows where it will all end up – where ‘Kevin’ is any random entity that doesn’t know nothin’ about nothin’.

The offices of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy were quite often shifted at very short notice to another planet, for reasons of local climate, local hostility, power bills or tax, but they were always reconstructed exactly the same way, almost to the very molecule.

Anything that thinks logically can be fooled by something else which thinks at least as logically as it does. The easiest way to fool a completely logical robot is to feed it the same stimulus sequence over and over again so it gets locked in a loop. This was best demonstrated by the famous Herring Sandwich experiments conducted millennia ago at MISPWOSO (the Maximegalon Institute of Slowly and Painfully Working Out the Surprisingly Obvious).

A robot was programmed to believe that it liked herring sandwiches. This was actually the most difficult part of the whole experiment.

He was sitting with his elbows resting on the table and holding his fingertips together in a manner which, inexplicably, has never been made a capital offence.

Trading was mentioned in the brochure. The main trade that was carried out was in the skins of the NowWhattian boghog but it wasn’t a very successful one because no one in their right minds would want to buy a NowWhattian boghog skin. The trade only hung on by its fingernails because there was always a significant number of people in the Galaxy who were not in their right minds.

You see, the quality of any advice anybody has to offer has to be judged against the quality of life they actually lead.

‘You come to me for advice, but you can’t cope with anything you don’t recognize. Hmmm. So we’ll have to tell you something you already know but make it sound like news, eh? Well, business as usual, I suppose.’

‘You cannot see what I see because you see what you see. You cannot know what I know because you know what you know. What I see and what I know cannot be added to what you see and what you know because they are not of the same kind. Neither can it replace what you see and what you know, because that would be to replace you yourself.’

“Protect me from knowing what I don’t need to know. Protect me from even knowing that there are things to know that I don’t know. Protect me from knowing that I decided not to know about the things that I decided not to know about. Amen.” That’s it. It’s what you pray silently inside yourself anyway, so you may as well have it out in the open.’ ‘Hmmm,’ said Arthur. ‘Well, thank you—’ ‘There’s another prayer that goes with it that’s very important,’ continued the old man, ‘so you’d better jot this down, too.’ ‘OK.’ ‘It goes, “Lord, lord, lord . . .” It’s best to put that bit in, just in case. You can never be too sure. “Lord, lord, lord. Protect me from the consequences of the above prayer. Amen.” And that’s it. Most of the trouble people get into in life comes from missing out that last part.’

A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.

As a result of this, all telephone operators were granted a constitutional right to say ‘Use BS&S and die!’ at least once an hour when answering the phone and all office buildings were required to have windows that opened, even if only a little bit. Another, unexpected result was a dramatic lowering of the suicide rate. All sorts of stressed and rising executives who had been forced, during the dark days of the Breathe-O-Smart tyranny, to jump in front of trains or stab themselves, could now just clamber out on to their own window ledges and leap off at their leisure. What frequently happened, though, was that in the moment or two they had to look around and gather their thoughts they would suddenly discover that all they had really needed was a breath of air and a fresh perspective on things, and maybe also a farm on which they could keep a few sheep.

The villagers had watched in consternation as the woman had marched boldly to the hut of the Sandwich Maker. The Sandwich Maker had been sent to them by Almighty Bob in a burning fiery chariot. This, at least, was what Thrashbarg said, and Thrashbarg was the authority on these things. So, at least, Thrashbarg claimed, and Thrashbarg was . . . and so on and so on. It was hardly worth arguing about. A few villagers wondered why Almighty Bob would send his onelie begotten Sandwich Maker in a burning fiery chariot rather than perhaps in one that might have landed quietly without destroying half the forest, filling it with ghosts and also injuring the Sandwich Maker quite badly. Old Thrashbarg said that it was the ineffable will of Bob, and when they asked him what ineffable meant he said look it up. This was a problem because Old Thrashbarg had the only dictionary and he wouldn’t let them borrow it. They asked him why not and he said that it was not for them to know the will of Almighty Bob, and when they asked him why not again he said because he said so. Anyway, somebody sneaked into Old Thrashbarg’s hut one day while he was out having a swim and looked up ineffable. Ineffable apparently meant ‘unknowable, indescribable, unutterable, not to be known or spoken about’. So that cleared that up. At least they had got the sandwiches. One day Old Thrashbarg said that Almighty Bob had decreed that he, Thrashbarg, was to have first pick of the sandwiches. The villagers asked him whe...

You know they’ve reintroduced the death penalty for insurance company directors?’ ‘Really?’ said Arthur. ‘No, I didn’t. For what offence?’ Trillian frowned. ‘What do you mean, offence?’ ‘I see.’

So everything was going well was it? Everything was working out as if the most extraordinary luck was on his side? Well, he’d see about that. In a spirit of scientific enquiry he hurled himself out of the window again.

It can be very dangerous to see things from somebody else’s point of view without the proper training.

You live and learn. At any rate, you live.

the Universe is a lot more complicated than you might think, even if you start from a position of thinking it’s pretty damn complicated in the first place.

The figure groaned again and slowly opened his eyes. It took him a while to focus, then he blinked and stiffened. ‘You!’ said Ford Prefect. ‘You!’ said Arthur Dent. Ford groaned again. ‘What do you need to have explained this time?’ he said, and closed his eyes in some kind of despair.

‘That’s probably it. Can happen. Ship’s cabin robots get destroyed. The cyberminds that control them survive and start infesting the local wildlife. Can turn a whole ecosystem into some kind of helpless thrashing service industry, handing out hot towels and drinks to passers-by. Should be a law against it. Probably is. Probably also a law against there being a law against it so everybody can get nice and worked up. Hey ho.

‘You have to get to know her,’ said Arthur. ‘She eases up, does she?’ ‘No,’ said Arthur, ‘but you get a better sense of when to duck.’ Ford held his head and tried to see straight. The sky was beginning to lighten in the west, which was where the sun rose. Arthur didn’t particularly want to see it. The last thing he wanted after a hellish night like this one was some blasted day coming along and barging about the place.

‘You don’t understand how important this is,’ he said. ‘What? You mean my daughter out there all alone in the Galaxy? You think I don’t—’ ‘Can we feel sorry for the Galaxy later?’ said Ford. ‘This is very, very serious indeed. The Guide has been taken over. It’s been bought out.’ Arthur leapt up. ‘Oh very serious,’ he shouted. ‘Please fill me in straight away on some corporate publishing politics! I can’t tell you how much it’s been on my mind of late!’ ‘You don’t understand! There’s a whole new Guide!’ ‘Oh!’ shouted Arthur again. ‘Oh! Oh! Oh! I’m incoherent with excitement! I can hardly wait for it to come out to find out which are the most exciting spaceports to get bored hanging about in in some globular cluster I’ve never heard of. Please, can we rush to a store that’s got it right this very instant?’ Ford narrowed his eyes. ‘This is that thing you call sarcasm, isn’t it?’ ‘Do you know,’ bellowed Arthur, ‘I think it is. I really think it might just be a crazy little thing called sarcasm seeping in at the edges of my manner of speech! Ford, I have had a fucking bad night! Will you please try and take that into account while you consider what fascinating bits of badger-sputumly inconsequential trivia to assail me with next?’

‘Temporal reverse engineering.’ Arthur put his head in his hands and shook it gently from side to side. ‘Is there any humane way,’ he moaned, ‘in which I can prevent you from telling me what temporary reverse bloody-whatsiting is?’ ‘No,’ said Ford, ‘because your daughter is caught up in the middle of it and it is deadly, deadly serious.’ Thunder rolled in the pause. ‘All right,’ said Arthur. ‘Tell me.’ ‘I leaped out of a high-rise office window.’ This cheered Arthur up. ‘Oh!’ he said. ‘Why don’t you do it again?’ ‘I did.’ ‘Hmmm,’ said Arthur, disappointed. ‘Obviously no good came of it.’ ‘The first time I managed to save myself by the most astonishing and – I say this in all modesty – fabulous piece of ingenious quick-thinking, agility, fancy footwork and self-sacrifice.’ ‘What was the self-sacrifice?’ ‘I jettisoned half of a much loved and I think irreplaceable pair of shoes.’

‘Right. Now because the bird can perceive every possible universe, it is present in every possible universe. Yes?’ ‘Y . . . e . . . e . . . s. Ish.’

No one knew where they came from, no one knew where they went. They were so important to the lives of the Lamuellans, it was almost as if nobody liked to ask. Old Thrashbarg had said on one occasion that sometimes if you received an answer, the question might be taken away. Some of the villagers had privately said that this was the only properly wise thing they’d ever heard Thrashbarg say, and after a short debate on the matter, had put it down to chance.

He had got the Beast’s attention. From that moment on, it seemed the most natural thing to coax and draw the animal towards him. Its head was up, cocked slightly to one side. It was slowing to a canter and then a trot. A few seconds later the huge thing was standing there amongst them, snorting, panting, sweating, and sniffing excitedly at the pikka bird, which appeared not to have noticed its arrival at all. With strange sort of sweeping movements of his arms Old Thrashbarg kept the pikka bird in front of the Beast, but always out of its reach and always downwards. With strange sort of sweeping movements of the towel, Arthur kept drawing the Beast’s attention this way and that – always downwards. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite so stupid in my life,’ muttered Ford to himself.

Ford shouted in Arthur’s ear, ‘Where did he say we were going?’ ‘He said something about a King,’ shouted Arthur in return, holding on desperately. ‘What King?’ ‘That’s what I said. He just said the King.’ ‘I didn’t know there was a the King,’ shouted Ford. ‘Nor did I,’ shouted Arthur back. ‘Except of course for the King,’ shouted Ford. ‘And I don’t suppose he meant him.’

‘Tricia! Where the haemorrhaging fuck are you?’

One of the troublesome circumstances was the Plural nature of this Galactic sector, where the possible continually interfered with the probable.