He limped his way at last to the cave where Random had sheltered and opened the box. The ground bore the indentations of the spacecraft that had landed there only minutes before, but of Random there was no sign. He wandered disconsolately into the cave, found the empty box and piles of missing matter pellets strewn around the place. He felt a little cross about that. He'd tried to teach her about cleaning up after herself. Feeling a bit cross with her about something like that helped him feel less desolate about her leaving. He knew he had no means of finding her.

His foot knocked against something unexpected. He bent down to pick it up, and was thoroughly surprised to discover what it was. It was his old Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. How did that come to be in the cave? He had never returned to collect it from the scene of the crash. He had not wanted to revisit the crash and he had not wanted the Guide again. He had reckoned he was here on Lamuella, making sandwiches for good. How did it come to be in the cave? It was active. The words on the cover flashed DON'T PANIC at him.

He went out of the cave again into the dim and damp moonlight. He sat on a rock to have a look through the old Guide, and then discovered it wasn't a rock, it was a person.

Chapter 18

Arthur leapt to his feet with a start of fear. It would be hard to say which he was more frightened of: that he might have hurt the person he had inadvertently sat on or that the person he had inadvertently sat on would hurt him back.

There seemed, on inspection, to be little immediate cause for alarm on the second count. Whoever it was he had sat on was unconscious. That would probably go a great deal of the way towards explaining what he was doing Iying there. He seemed to be breathing OK, though. Arthur felt his pulse. That was OK as well.

He was Iying on his side, half curled up. It was so long ago and far away when Arthur had last done First Aid that he really couldn't remember what it was he was supposed to do. The first thing he was supposed to do, he remembered, was to have a First Aid kit about his person. Damn.

Should he roll him on to his back or not? Suppose he had any broken bones? Suppose he swallowed his tongue? Suppose he sued him? Who, apart from anything else, was he?

At that moment the unconscious man groaned loudly and rolled himself over.

Arthur wondered if he should – He looked at him.

He looked at him again.

He looked at him again, just to make absolutely sure.

Despite the fact that he had been thinking he was feeling about as low as he possibly could, he experienced a terrible sinking feeling.

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.

Five minutes later he was sitting up and rubbing the side of his head, where he had quite a large swelling.

'Who the hell was that woman?' he said. 'Why are we sur– rounded by squirrels, and what do they want?'

'I've been pestered by squirrels all night,' said Arthur. 'They keep on trying to give me magazines and stuff.'

Ford frowned. 'Really?' he said.

'And bits of rag.'

Ford thought.

'Oh,' he said. 'Is this near where your ship crashed?'

'Yes,' said Arthur. He said it a little tightly.

'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 every– body can get nice and worked up. Hey ho. What did you say?'

'I said, and the woman is my daughter.'

Ford stopped rubbing his head.

'Say that one more time.'

'I said,' said Arthur huffily, 'the woman is my daughter.'

'I didn't know,' said Ford, 'that you had a daughter.'

'Well, there's probably a lot you don't know about me, said Arthur. 'Come to mention it, there's probably a lot I don't know about me either.'

'Well, well, well. When did this happen then?'

'I'm not quite sure.'

'That sounds like more familiar territory,' said Ford. 'Is there a mother involved?'

'Trillian'

'Trillian? I didn't think that . . .

'No. Look, it's a bit embarrassing.

'I remember she told me once she had a kid but only, sort of, in passing. I'm in touch with her from time to time. Never seen her with the kid.'

Arthur said nothing.

Ford started to feel the side of his head again in some bemusement.

'Are you sure this was your daughter?' he said.

'Tell me what happened.'

'Phroo. Long story. I was coming to pick up this parcel I'd sent to myself here care of you . . .

'Well, what was that all about?'

'I think it may be something unimaginably dangerous.

'And you sent it to me?' protested Arthur.

'Safest place I could think of. I thought I could rely on you to be absolutely boring and not open it. Anyway, coming in at night I couldn't find this village place. I was going by pretty basic information. I couldn't find any signal of any kind. I guess you don't have signals and stuff here.'

'That's what I like about it.'

'Then I did pick up a faint signal from your old copy of the Guide, so I homed in on that, thinking that would take me to you. I found I'd landed in some kind of wood. Couldn't figure out what was going on. I get out, and then see this woman standing there. I go up to say hello, then suddenly I see that she's got this thing!'

'What thing?'

'The thing I sent you! The new Guide! The bird thing! You were meant to keep it safe, you idiot, but this woman had the thing right there by her shoulder. I ran forward and she hit me with a rock.'

'I see,' said Arthur. 'What did you do?'

'Well, I fell over of course. I was very badly hurt. She and the bird started to make off towards my ship. And when I say my ship, I mean an RW6.'

'A what?'

'An RW6 for Zark's sake. I've got this great relationship going now between my credit card and the Guide's central computer. You would not believe that ship, Arthur, it's . . .

'So an RW6 is a spaceship, then?'

'Yes! It's – oh never mind. Look, just get some kind of grip will you, Arthur? Or at least get some kind of catalogue. At this point I was very worried. And, I think, semi-concussed. I was down on my knees and bleeding profusely, so I did the only thing I could think of, which was to beg. I said, please, for Zark's sake don't take my ship. And don't leave me stranded in the middle of some primitive zarking forest with no medical help and a head injury. I could be in serious trouble and so could she.'

'What did she say?'

'She hit me on the head with the rock again.'

'I think I can confirm that that was my daughter.'

'Sweet kid.'

'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.

'What are you doing in a place like this, Arthur?' demanded Ford.

'Well,' said Arthur, 'making sandwiches mostly.'

'What?'

'I am, probably was, the sandwich maker for a small tribe. It was a bit embarrassing really. When I first arrived, that is, when they rescued me from the wreckage of this super high-technology spacecraft which had crashed on their planet, they were very nice to me and I thought I should help them out a bit. You know, I'm an educated chap from a high-technology culture, I could show them a thing or two. And of course I couldn't. I haven't got the faintest idea, when it comes down to it, of how anything actually works. I don't mean like video-recorders, nobody knows how to work those. I mean just something like a pen or an artesian well or something. Not the foggiest. I couldn't help at all. One day I got glum and made myself a sandwich. That suddenly got them all excited. They'd never seen one before. It was just an idea that had never occurred to them, and I happen to quite like making sandwiches, so it all sort of developed from there.'