Feeling increasingly puzzled, Arthur let her left foot down on the floor and moved himself around so that he could take her right foot. She moved forward, put her arms round him and kissed him, because the record had got to that bit which, if you knew the record, you would know made it impossible not to do this.
Then she gave him her right foot.
He stroked it, ran his fingers around her ankle, under her toes, along her instep, could find nothing wrong with it.
She watched him with great amusement, laughed and shook her head.
“No, don’t stop,” she said, “but it’s not that one now.”
Arthur stopped, and frowned at her left foot on the floor.
“Don’t stop.”
He stroked her right foot, ran his fingers around her ankle, under her toes, along her instep, and said, “You mean it’s something to do with which leg I’m holding …?”
She did another of the shrugs which would have brought such joy into the life of a simple cushion from Sqornshellous Beta.
He frowned.
“Pick me up,” she said quietly.
He let her right foot down on the floor and stood up. So did she. He picked her up in his arms and they kissed again. This went on for a while, then she said, “Now put me down again.”
Still puzzled, he did so.
“Well?”
She looked at him almost challengingly.
“So what’s wrong with my feet?” she said.
Arthur still did not understand. He sat on the floor, then got down on his hands and knees to look at her feet, in situ, as it were, in their normal habitat. And as he looked closely, something odd struck him. He put his head right down to the ground and peered. There was a long pause. He sat back heavily.
“Yes,” he said, “I see what’s wrong with your feet. They don’t touch the ground.”
“So … so what do you think …?”
Arthur looked up at her quickly and saw the deep apprehension making her eyes suddenly dark. She bit her lip and was trembling.
“What do … ” she stammered, “ … are you …?” She shook the hair forward over her eyes that were filling with dark fearful tears.
He stood up quickly, put his arms around her and gave her a single kiss.
“Perhaps you can do what I can do,” he said, and walked straight out of her upstairs front door.
The record got to the good bit.
Chapter 23
The battle raged on about the star of Xaxis. Hundreds of the fierce and horribly beweaponed Zirzla ships had now been smashed and wrenched to atoms by the withering forces the huge silver Xaxisian ship was able to deploy. Part of the moon had gone, too, blasted away by those same blazing force guns that ripped the very fabric of space as they passed through it.
The Zirzla ships that remained, horribly beweaponed though they were, were now hopelessly outclassed by the devastating power of the Xaxisian ship, and were fleeing for cover behind the rapidly disintegrating moon, when the Xaxisian ship, in hurtling pursuit behind them, suddenly announced that it needed a holiday and left the field of battle.
All was redoubled fear and consternation for a moment, but the ship was gone.
With the stupendous powers at its command it flitted across vast tracts of irrationally shaped space, quickly, effortlessly, and above all, quietly.
Deep in his greasy, smelly bunk, fashioned out of a maintenance hatchway, Ford Prefect slept among his towels, dreaming of old haunts. He dreamed at one point in his slumbers of New York. In his dreams he was walking late at night along the East Side, beside the river which had become so extravagantly polluted that new life forms were now emerging from it spontaneously, demanding welfare and voting rights.
One of these floated past, waving. Ford waved back.
The thing thrashed to the shore and struggled up the bank.
“Hi,” it said, “I’ve just been created. I’m completely new to the Universe in all respects. Is there anything you can tell me?”
“Phew,” said Ford, a little nonplussed, “I can tell you where some bars are, I guess.”
“What about love and happiness? I sense deep needs for things like that,” it said, waving its tentacles. “Got any leads there?”
“You can get some of that,” said Ford, “on Seventh Avenue.”
“I instinctively feel,” said the creature, urgently, “that I need to be beautiful. Am I?”
“You’re pretty direct, aren’t you?”
“No point in mucking about. Am I?”
The thing was oozing all over the place now, squelching and blubbering. A nearby wino was getting interested.
“To me?” said Ford. “No. But listen,” he added after a moment, “most people make out, you know. Are there any more like you down there?”
“Search me, buster,” said the creature. “As I said, I’m new here. Life is entirely strange to me. What’s it like?”
Here was something that Ford felt he could speak about with authority.
“Life,” he said, “is like a grapefruit.”
“Er, how so?”
“Well, it’s sort of orangy-yellow and dimpled on the outside, wet and squidgy in the middle. It’s got pips inside, too. Oh, and some people have half a one for breakfast.”
“Is there anyone else out there I can talk to?”
“I expect so,” said Ford; “ask a policeman.”
Deep in his bunk, Ford Prefect wriggled and turned onto his other side. It wasn’t his favorite type of dream because it didn’t have Eccentrica Gallumbits (the triple-breasted whore of Eroticon Six) in it, whom many of his dreams did feature. But at least it was a dream. At least he was asleep.
Chapter 24
Luckily there was a strong updraft in the alley because Arthur hadn’t done this sort of thing for a while, at least not deliberately, and deliberately is exactly the way you are not meant to do it.
He swung down sharply, nearly catching himself a nasty crack on the jaw with the doorstep, and tumbled through the air, so suddenly stunned with what a profoundly stupid thing he had just done that he completely forgot the bit about hitting the ground and didn’t.
A nice trick, he thought to himself, if you can do it.
The ground was hanging menacingly above his head.
He tried not to think about the ground, what an extraordinarily big thing it was and how much it would hurt him if it decided to stop hanging there and suddenly fell on him. He tried to think nice thoughts about lemurs instead, which was exactly the right thing to do because he couldn’t at that moment remember precisely what a lemur was, if it was one of those things that sweep in great majestic herds across the plains of wherever it was or if that was wildebeests, so it was a tricky kind of thing to think nice thoughts about without simply resorting to an icky sort of general well-disposedness toward things, and all this kept his mind well occupied while his body tried to adjust to the fact that it wasn’t touching anything.
A Mars bar wrapper fluttered down the alleyway.
After a seeming moment of doubt and indecision it eventually allowed the wind to ease it, fluttering, between him and the ground.
“Arthur…”
The ground was still hanging menacingly above his head, and he thought it was probably time to do something about that, such as fall away from it, which is what he did. Slowly. Very, very slowly.
As he fell, slowly, very, very slowly, he closed his eyes — carefully, so as not to jolt anything.
The feel of his eyes closing ran down his whole body. Once it had reached his feet, and the whole of his body was alerted to the fact that his eyes were now closed and was not panicked by it, he slowly, very, very slowly revolved his body one way and his mind the other.
That should sort the ground out.
He could feel the air clear about him now, breezing around him quite cheerfully, untroubled by his being there, and slowly, very, very slowly, as from a deep and distant sleep, he opened his eyes.