Chapter 3

he next two lorries were not driven by Rain Gods, but they did exactly the same thing.

The figure trudged, or rather sloshed, onward till the hill resumed and the treacherous sheet of water was left behind.

After a while the rain began to ease and the moon put in a brief appearance from behind the clouds.

A Renault drove by, and its driver made frantic and complex signals to the trudging figure to indicate that normally he would have been delighted to give the figure a lift, only he couldn’t this time because he wasn’t going in the direction that the figure wanted to go, whatever direction that might be, and he was sure the figure would understand. He concluded the signaling with a cheery thumbs-up sign as if to say that he hoped the figure felt really fine about being cold and almost terminally wet, and he would catch him next time around.

The figure trudged on. A Fiat passed and did exactly the same as the Renault.

A Maxi passed on the other side of the road and flashed its lights at the slowly plodding figure, though whether this was meant to convey a “Hello” or a “Sorry, we’re going the other way” or a “Hey look, there’s someone in the rain, what a jerk” was entirely unclear. A green strip across the top of the windshield indicated that whatever the message was, it came from Steve and Carola.

The storm had now definitely abated, and what thunder there was now grumbled over more distant hills, like a man saying “And another thing …” twenty minutes after admitting he’d lost the argument.

The air was clearer now, the night cold. Sound traveled rather well. The lost figure, shivering desperately, presently reached a junction, where a side road turned off to the left. Opposite the turning stood a signpost and this the figure suddenly hurried to and studied with feverish curiosity, only twisting away from it as another car passed suddenly.

And another.

The first whisked by with complete disregard, the second flashed meaninglessly. A Ford Cortina passed and put on its brakes.

Lurching with surprise, the figure bundled his bag to his chest and hurried forward toward it, but at the last moment the Cortina spun its wheels in the wet and careened off up the road rather amusingly.

The figure slowed to a stop and stood there, lost and dejected.

As it chanced, the following day the driver of the Cortina went into the hospital to have his appendix out, only due to a rather amusing mix-up the surgeon removed his leg in error and before the appendectomy could be rescheduled, the appendicitis complicated into an entertainingly serious case of peritonitis, and justice, in its way, was served.

The figure trudged on.

A Saab drew to a halt beside him.

Its window wound down and a friendly voice said, “Have you come far?”

The figure turned toward it. He stopped and grasped the handle of the door.

The figure, the car, and its door handle were all on a planet called the Earth, a world whose entire entry in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was comprised of two words “Mostly harmless.”

The man who wrote this entry was called Ford Prefect, and he was at this precise moment on a far from harmless world, sitting in a far from harmless bar, recklessly causing trouble.