Mostly Harmless (27 page)
Authors: Douglas Adams
“You …” he said. Then slowly, horribly, he fell apart.
Random threw the gun down and fell to her knees, sobbing. “I’m sorry!” she said. “I’m so sorry! I’m so, so sorry …”
Tricia went to her. Trillian went to her.
Arthur sat on the stairs with his head between his hands and had not the faintest idea what to do. Ford was sitting on the stair beneath him. He picked something up, looked at it with interest and passed it up to Arthur.
“This mean anything to you?” he said.
Arthur took it. It was the book of matches that the dead man had dropped. It had the name of the club on it. It had the name of the proprietor of the club on it. It looked like this:
STAVRO MUELLER
BETA
He stared at it for some time as things began slowly to reassemble themselves in his mind. He wondered what he should do, but he only wondered it idly. Around him people were beginning to rush and shout a lot, but it was suddenly very clear to him that there was nothing to be done, not now or ever. Through the new strangeness of noise and light he could just make out the shape of Ford Prefect sitting back and laughing wildly.
A tremendous feeling of peace came over him. He knew that at last, for once and forever, it was now all, finally, over.
* * *
In the darkness of the bridge at the heart of the Vogon ship, Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz sat alone. Lights flared briefly across the external vision screens that lined one wall. In the air above him the discontinuities in the blue and green watery sausage shape resolved themselves. Options collapsed, possibilities folded into each other, and the whole at last resolved itself out of existence.
A very deep darkness descended. The Vogon Captain sat immersed in it for a few seconds.
“Light,” he said.
There was no response. The bird, too, had crumpled out of all possibility.
The Vogon turned on the light himself. He picked up the piece of paper again and placed a little tick in the little box.
Well, that was done. His ship slunk off into the inky void.
In spite of having taken what he regarded as an extremely positive piece of action, the Grebulon leader ended up having a very bad month after all. It was pretty much the same as all the previous months except that there was now nothing on the television anymore. He put on a little light music instead.
For Ron
With grateful thanks to Sue Freestone and Michael Bywater
for their support, help and constructive abuse
.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
Life, the Universe and Everything
So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish
Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency
The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul
Mostly Harmless
The Salmon of Doubt
The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
The Original Hitchhiker Radio Scripts
The Meaning of Liff (
with John Lloyd
)
Last Chance to See (
with Mark Cowardine
)
The Deeper Meaning of Liff (
with John Lloyd
)
D
OUGLAS
A
DAMS
was the bestselling author of the Hitchhiker books:
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe; Life, the Universe and Everything; So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish;
and
Mostly Harmless
.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
has appeared in more forms than one might reasonably expect, most of which flatly contradict each other. It has appeared as a BBC TV series, all sorts of different records, cassettes, and CDs, a computer game, and also, apathetically, a bath towel. A series of graphic novels is currently in preparation, and the motion picture version is confidently expected any decade now.
Adams died on May 11, 2001.