The cheery quality of Ford’s voice was beginning to grate on the barman’s ears. It sounded like someone relentlessly playing the kazoo during one of the more somber passages of a war requiem.

One of the bones in Ford’s shoulder began to grate against another one of the bones in his shoulder in a way that suggested the hand had learned the principles of pain from a highly skilled chiropractor. He hoped he could get this business settled before the hand started to grate one of the bones in his shoulder against any of the bones in different parts of his body. Luckily, the shoulder it was holding was not the one he had his satchel slung over.

The barman slid the card back across the bar at Ford.

“We have never,” he said with muted savagery, “heard of this thing.”

This was hardly surprising.

Ford had only acquired it through a serious computer error toward the end of the fifteen-year sojourn he had spent on the planet Earth. Exactly how serious, the American Express Company had gotten to know very rapidly, and the increasingly strident and panic-stricken demands of its debt collection department were only silenced by the unexpected demolition of the entire planet by the Vogons, to make way for a new hyperspace bypass.

He had kept it ever since because he found it useful to carry a form of currency that no one would accept.

“Credit?” he said. “Aaaargggh …”

These two words were usually coupled in the Old Pink Dog Bar.

“I thought,” gasped Ford, “that this was meant to be a class establishment.…”

He glanced around at the motley collection of thugs, pimps, and record company executives that skulked on the edges of the dim pools of light with which the dark shadows of the bar’s inner recesses were pitted. They were all very deliberately looking in any direction but his, carefully picking up the threads of their former conversations about murders, drug rings, and music publishing deals. They knew what would happen now and didn’t want to watch in case it put them off their drinks.

“You gonna die, boy,” murmured the barman quietly at Ford Prefect, and the evidence was on his side. The bar used to have hanging up one of those signs that read “Please don’t ask for credit as a punch in the mouth often offends,” but in the interest of strict accuracy this was altered to “Please don’t ask for credit because having your throat torn out by a savage bird while a disembodied hand smashes your head against the bar often offends.” However, this made an unreadable mess of the notice and anyway didn’t have the same ring to it, so it was taken down again. It was felt that the story would get about of its own accord, and it had.

“Lemme look at the bill again,” said Ford. He picked it up and studied it thoughtfully under the malevolent gaze of the barman, and the equally malevolent gaze of the bird, which was currently gouging great furrows in the bar top with its talons.

It was a rather lengthy piece of paper.

At the bottom of it was a number that looked like one of those serial numbers you find on the underside of stereo sets which always take so long to copy on to the registration form. He had, after all, been in the bar all day, he had been drinking a lot of stuff with bubbles in it, and he had bought an awful lot of rounds for all the pimps, thugs, and record executives who suddenly couldn’t remember who he was.

He cleared his throat rather quietly and patted his pockets. There was, as he knew, nothing in them.

He rested his left hand lightly but firmly on the half-opened flap of his satchel. The disembodied hand renewed its pressure on his right shoulder.

“You see,” said the barman, and his face seemed to wobble evilly in front of Ford’s, “I have a reputation to think of. You see that, don’t you?”

This is it, thought Ford. There was nothing else for it. He had obeyed the rules, he had made a bona fide attempt to pay his bill, it had been rejected. He was now in danger of his life.

“Well,” he said quietly, “if it’s your reputation …”

With a sudden flash of speed he opened his satchel and slapped down on the bar top his copy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and the official card which said that he was a field researcher for the Guide and absolutely not allowed to do what he was now doing.

“Want a write-up?”

The barman’s face stopped in midwobble. The bird’s talons stopped in midfurrow. The hand slowly released its grip.

“That,” said the barman in a barely audible whisper, from between dry lips, “will do nicely, sir.”

Chapter 5

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a powerful organ. Indeed, its influence is so prodigious that strict rules had to be drawn up by its editorial staff to prevent its misuse. So none of its field researchers is allowed to accept any kind of services, discounts, or preferential treatment of any kind in return for editorial favors unless:

a. they have made a bona fide attempt to pay for a service in the normal way;

b. their lives would be otherwise in danger; or

c. they really want to.

Since invoking the third rule involved giving the editor a cut, Ford always preferred to muck about with the first two.

He stepped out along the street, walking briskly.

The air was stifling, but he liked it because it was stifling city air, full of excitingly unpleasant smells, dangerous music, and the distant sound of warring police tribes.

He carried his satchel with an easy swaying motion so that he could get a good swing at anybody who tried to take it from him without asking. It contained everything he owned, which at the moment wasn’t much.

A limousine careened down the street, dodging between the piles of burning garbage, and frightening an old pack animal which lurched, screeching, out of its way, stumbled against the window of a herbal remedies shop, set off a wailing alarm, blundered off down the street, and then pretended to fall down the steps of a small Italian restaurant where it knew it would get photographed and fed.

Ford was walking north. He thought he was probably on his way to the spaceport, but he had thought that before. He knew he was going through that part of the city where people’s plans often changed quite abruptly.

“Do you want to have a good time?” said a voice from a doorway.

“As far as I can tell,” said Ford, “I’m having one. Thanks.”

“Are you rich?” said another.

This made Ford laugh.

He turned and opened his arms in a wide gesture.

“Do I look rich?” he said.

“Don’t know,” said the giri. “Maybe, maybe not. Maybe you’ll get rich. I have a very special service for rich people.…”

“Oh yes,” said Ford, intrigued but careful, “and what’s that?”

“I tell them it’s okay to be rich.”

Gunfire erupted from a window high above them, but it was only a bass player getting shot for playing the wrong riff three times in a row, and bass players are two a penny in Han Dold City.

Ford stopped and peered into the dark doorway.

“You what?” he said.

The girl laughed and stepped forward a little out of the shadow. She was tall, and had that kind of self-possessed shyness which is a great trick if you can do it.

“It’s my big number,” she said. “I have a master’s degree in social economics and can be very convincing. People love it. Especially in this city.”

“Goosnargh,” said Ford Prefect, which was a special Betelgeusian word he used when he knew he should say something but didn’t know what it should be.

He sat on a step, took from his satchel a bottle of that Ol’ Janx Spirit and a towel. He opened the bottle and wiped the top of it with the towel, which had the opposite effect to the one intended, in that the Ol’ Janx Spirit instantly killed off millions of the germs which had been slowly building up quite a complex and enlightened civilization on the smellier patches of his towel.