'And I want to know,' said Ford, 'if you can see it.'

'You do?'

'Yes.'

'What,' said Arthur, 'does it look like?'

'Well, how should I know, you fool?' shouted Ford. 'If you can see it, you tell me.'

Arthur experienced that dull throbbing sensation just behind the temples which was a hallmark of so many of his conversations with Ford. His brain lurked like a frightened puppy in its kennel. Ford took him by the arm.

'An SEP,' he said, 'is something that we can't see, or don't see, or our brain doesn't let us see, because we think that it's somebody else's problem. That's what SEP means. Somebody Else's Problem. The brain just edits it out; it's like a blind spot. If you look at it directly you won't see it unless you know precisely what it is. Your only hope is to catch it by surprise out of the corner of your eye.' 'Ah,' said Arthur, 'then that's why ...'

'Yes,' said Ford, who knew what Arthur was going to say. .. You’ve been jumping up and ...'

'Yes.'

‘.. down, and blinking...'

'Yes.'

'... and

'I think you've got the message.'

1 can see it,' said Arthur, 'it's a spaceship.'

For a moment Arthur was stunned by the reaction this revelation provoked. A roar erupted from the crowd, and from every direction people were running, shouting, yelling, tumbling over each other in a tumult of confusion. He stumbled back in astonishment and glanced fearfully around. Then he glanced around again in even greater astonishment.

'Exciting, isn't it?' said an apparition. The apparition wobbled in front of Arthur's eyes, though the truth of the matter is probably that Arthur's eyes were wobbling in front of the apparition. His mouth wobbled as well.

'W ... w ... w ... W...' his mouth said.

'I think your team has just won,' said the apparition.

'W ... w ... w ... w ...' repeated Arthur, and punctuated each wobble with a prod at Ford Prefect's back. Ford was staring at the tumult in trepidation.

'You are English, aren't you?' said the apparition.

'W ... W... w ... w ... yes,' said Arthur.

'Well, your team, as I say, has just won. the match. It means they retain the Ashes. You must be very pleased. I must say, I'm rather fond of cricket, though I wouldn't like anyone outside this planet to hear me saying that. Oh dear no.'

The apparition gave what looked as if it might have been a mischievous grin, but it was hard to tell because the sun was directly behind him, creating a blinding halo round his head and illuminating his silver hair and beard in a way which was awesome, dramatic and hard to reconcile with mischievous grins.

'Still,' he said, 'it'll all be over in a couple of days, won't it?' Though as I said to you when we last met, I was very sorry about that. Still, whatever will have been, will have been.'

Arthur tried to speak, but gave up the unequal struggle. He prodded Ford again.

'I thought something terrible had happened,' said Ford, 'but it's just the end of the game. We ought to get out. Oh, hello, Slartibartfast, what are you doing here?'

'Oh, pottering, pottering,' said the old man gravely.

'That your ship? Can you give us a lift anywhere?'

'Patience, patience,' the old man admonished.

'OK,' said Ford. 'It's just that this planet's going to be demolished pretty soon.'

'I know that,' said Slartibartfast.

'And, well, I just wanted to make that point,' said Ford. 'The point is taken.'

'And if you feel that you really want to hang around a cricket pitch at this point . .

'I do.'

'Then it's your ship.'

'It is.'

'I suppose.' Ford turned away sharply at this point.

'Hello, Slartibartfast,' said Arthur at last.

'Hello, Earthman,' said Slartibartfast.

'After all,' said Ford, 'we can only die once.'

The old man ignored this and stared keenly on to the pitch, with eyes which seemed alive with expressions that had no apparent bearing on what was happening out there. What was happening was that the crowd was gathering itself into a wide circle round the centre of the pitch. What Slartibartfast saw in it, he alone knew.

Ford was humming something. It was just one note repeated at intervals. He was hoping that somebody would ask him what he was humming, but nobody did. If anybody had asked him he would have said he was humming the first line of a Noel Coward song called 'Mad About the Boy' over and over again. It would then have been pointed out to him that he was only singing one note, to which he would have replied that for reasons which he hoped would be apparent, he was omitting the 'about the boy' bit. He was annoyed that nobody asked.

'It's just,' he burst out at last, 'that if we don't go soon, we might get caught in the middle of it all again. And there's nothing that depresses me more than seeing a planet being destroyed. Except possibly still being on it when it happens. Or,' he added in an undertone, 'hanging around cricket matches.'

'Patience,' said Slartibartfast again. 'Great things are afoot.' 'That's what you said last time we met,' said Arthur. 'They were,' said Slartibartfast.

'Yes, that's true,' admitted Arthur.

All, however, that seemed to be afoot was a ceremony of some kind. It was being specially staged for the benefit of tv rather than the spectators, and all they could gather about it from where they were standing was what they heard from a nearby radio. Ford was aggressively uninterested.

He fretted as he heard it explained that the Ashes were about to be presented to the captain of the English team out there on the pitch, fumed when told that this was because they had now won them for the nth time, positively barked with annoyance at the information that the Ashes were the remains of a cricket stump, and when, further to this, he was asked to contend with the fact that the cricket stump in question had been burnt in Melbourne, Australia, in 1882, to signify the 'death of English cricket', he rounded on Slartibartfast, took a deep breath, but didn't have a chance to say anything because the old man wasn't there. He was marching out on to the pitch with terrible purpose in his gait, his hair, beard and robes swept behind him, looking very much as Moses would have looked if Sinai had been a well-cut lawn instead of, as it is more usually represented, a fiery smoking mountain.

'He said to meet him at his ship,' said Arthur.

'What in the name of zarking fardwarks is the old fool doing?' exploded Ford.

'Meeting us at his ship in two minutes,' said Arthur with a shrug which indicated total abdication of thought. They started off towards it, strange sounds reached their ears. They tried not to listen, but could not help noticing that Slartibartfast was querulously demanding that he be given the silver urn containing the Ashes, as they were, he said, 'vitally important for the past, present and future safety of the Galaxy', and that this was causing wild hilarity. They resolved to ignore it.

What happened next they could not ignore. With a noise like a hundred thousand people saying 'wop', a steely white spaceship suddenly seemed to create itself out of nothing in the air directly above the cricket pitch and hung there with infinite menace and a slight hum.

Then for a while it did nothing, as if it expected everybody to go about their normal business and not mind it just hanging there.

Then it did something quite extraordinary. Or rather, it opened up and let something quite extraordinary come out of it, eleven quite extraordinary things.

They were robots, white robots.

What was most extraordinary about them was that they appeared to have come dressed for the occasion. Not only were they white, but they carried what appeared to be cricket bats, and not only that, but they also carried what appeared to be cricket balls, and not only that but they wore white ribbing pads round the lower parts of their legs. These last were extraordinary because they appeared to contain jets which allowed these curiously civilized robots to fly down from their hovering spaceship and start to kill people, which is what they did.

'Hello,' said Arthur, 'something seems to be happening.'

`Get to the ship,' shouted Ford. 'I don't want to know, just get to the ship.' He started to run. 'I don't want to know, I don't want to see, I don't want to hear,' he yelled as he ran, 'this is not my planet, I didn't choose to be here, I don't want to get involved, just get me out of here, and get me to a party, with people I can relate to!'

Smoke and flame billowed from the pitch.--

'Well, the supernatural brigade certainly seems to be out in force here today ...' burbled a radio happily to itself.

'What I need,' shouted Ford, by way of clarifying his previous remarks, 'is a strong drink and a peer-group.' He continued to run, pausing only for a moment to grab Arthur's arm and drag him along with him. Arthur had adopted his normal crisis role, which was to stand with his mouth hanging open and let it all wash over him.

'They're playing cricket,' muttered Arthur, stumbling along after Ford. 'I swear they are playing cricket. I do not know why they are doing this, but that is what they are doing. They're not just killing people, they're sending them up,' he shouted, 'Ford，‘they're sending us up!'

It would have been hard to disbelieve this without knowing a great deal more Galactic history than Arthur had so far managed to pick up in his travels. The ghostly but violent shapes that could be seen moving within the thick pall of smoke seemed to be performing a series of bizarre parodies of batting strokes, the difference being that every ball they struck with their bats exploded wherever it landed. The very first one of these had dispelled Arthur's initial reaction, that the whole thing might just be a publicity stunt by Australian margarine manufacturers.

And then, as suddenly as it had all started, it was over. The eleven white robots ascended through the seething cloud in a tight formation, and with a few last flashes of flame entered the bowels of their hovering white ship, which, with the noise of a hundred thousand people saying'foop', promptly vanished into the thin air out of which it had wopped.

For a moment there was a terrible stunned silence, and then out of the drifting smoke emerged the pale figure of Slartibartfast looking even more like Moses because in spite of the continued absence of the mountain he was at least now striding across a fiery and smoking well-mown lawn.

He stared wildly about him until he saw the hurrying figures of Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect forcing their way through the frightened crowd which was for the moment busy stampeding in the opposite direction. The crowd was clearly thinking to itself about what an unusual day this was turning out to be, and not really knowing which way, if any, to turn.

Slartibartfast was gesticulating urgently at Ford and Arthur and shouting at them, as the three of them gradually converged on his ship, still parked behind the sight-screens and still apparently unnoticed by the crowd stampeding past it who presumably had enough of their own problems to cope with at that time.

'They've garble warble farble!' shouted Slartibartfast in his thin tremulous voice.

'What did he say?' panted Ford as he elbowed his way onwards. Arthur shook his head.

"'They've..." something or other,' he said.

'They've table warble farble!' shouted Slartibartfast again. Ford and Arthur shook their heads at each other.

'It sounds urgent,' said Arthur. He stopped and shouted.

`What?'

`They've garble warble fashes!' cried Slartibartfast, still waving at them.

'He says,' said Arthur, 'that they've taken the Ashes. That is what I think he says.' They ran on.

`The ...?' said Ford.

'Ashes,' said Arthur tersely. 'The burnt remains of a cricket stump. It's a trophy. That . . .' he was panting, 'is ... apparently ... what they ... have come and taken.' He shook his head very slightly as if he was trying to get his brain to settle down lower in his skull.

'Strange thing to want to tell us,' snapped Ford.

`Strange thing to take.'

'Strange ship.'

They had arrived at it. The second strangest thing about the ship was watching the Somebody Else's Problem field at work. They could now clearly see the ship for what it was simply because they knew it was there. It was quite apparent, however, that nobody else could. This wasn't because it was actually invisible or anything hyper-impossible like that. The technology involved in making anything invisible is so infinitely complex that nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand million, nine hundred and ninety-nine million, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine times out of a billion it is much simpler and more effective just to take the thing away and do without it. The ultra-famous scientomagician Effrafax of Wug once bet his life that, given a year, he could render the great megamountain Magramal entirely invisible.

Having spent most of the year jiggling around with immense Lux-O-Valves and Refracto-Nullifiers and Spectrum-Bypass-0- Matics, he realized, with nine hours to go, that he wasn't going to make it.

So, he and his friends, and his friends' friends, and his friends' friends' friends, and his friends' friends' friends' friends, and some rather less good friends of theirs who happened to own a major stellar trucking company, put in what is now widely recognized as being the hardest night's work in history, and, sure enough, on the following day, Magramal was no longer visible. Effrafax lost his bet – and therefore his life – simply because some pedantic adjudicating official noticed (a) that when walking around the area that Magramal ought to be he didn't trip over or break his nose on anything, and (b) a suspicious-looking extra moon.

The Somebody Else's Problem field is much simpler and more effective, and what is more can be run for over a hundred years on a single torch battery. This is because it relies on people's natural predisposition not to see anything they don't want to, weren't expecting, or can't explain. If Effrafax had painted the mountain pink and erected a cheap and simple Somebody Else's Problem field on it, then people would have walked past the mountain, round it, even over it, and simply never have noticed that the thing was there.

And this is precisely what was happening with Slartibartfast's ship. It wasn't pink, but if it had been, that would have been the cast of its visual problems and people were simply ignoring it like anything.

The most extraordinary thing about it was that it looked only partly like a spaceship with guidance fins, rocket engines and escape hatches and so on, and a great deal like a small upended Italian bistro.

Ford and Arthur gazed up at it with wonderment and deeply offended sensibilities.

'Yes, I know,' said Slartibartfast, hurrying up to them at that point, breathless and agitated, 'but there is a reason. Come, we must go. The ancient nightmare is come again. Doom confronts us all. We must leave at once.'

'I fancy somewhere sunny,' said Ford.

Ford and Arthur followed Slartibartfast into the ship and were so perplexed by what they saw inside it that they were totally unaware of what happened next outside.

A spaceship, yet another one, but this one sleek and silver, descended from the sky on to the pitch, quietly, without fuss, its long legs unlocking in a smooth ballet of technology.

It landed gently. It extended a short ramp. A tall grey-green figure marched briskly out and approached the small knot of people who were gathered in the centre of the pitch tending to the casualties of the recent bizarre massacre. It moved people aside with quiet, understated authority, and came at last to a man lying in a desperate pool of blood, clearly now beyond the reach of any Earthly medicine, breathing, coughing his last. The figure knelt down quietly beside him.

'Arthur Philip Deodat?' asked the figure.

The man, with horrified confusion in eyes, nodded feebly. 'You're a no-good dumbo nothing,' whispered the creature. 'I thought you should know that before you went.'

Chapter 5

Important facts from Galactic history, number two:

(Reproduced from the Siderial Daily Mentioner's Book of Popular Galactic History.)

Since this Galaxy began, vast civilizations have risen and fallen, risen and fallen, risen and fallen so often that it's quite tempting to think that life in the Galaxy must be

(a) something akin to seasick, space-sick, time sick, history sick or some such thing, and

(b) Stupid.

Chapter 6

It seemed to Arthur as if the whole sky suddenly just stood aside and let them through.

It seemed to him that the atoms of his brain and the atoms of the cosmos were streaming through each other.

It seemed to him that he was blown on the wind of the Universe, and that the wind was him.

It seemed to him that he was one of the thoughts of the Universe and that the Universe was a thought of his.

It seemed to the people at Lord's Cricket Ground that another North London restaurant had just come and gone as they so often do, and that this was Somebody Else's Problem.

'What happened?' whispered Arthur in considerable awe. 'We took off,' said Slartibartfast.

Arthur lay in startled stillness on the acceleration couch. He wasn't certain whether he had just got space-sickness or religion. 'Nice mover,' said Ford in an unsuccessful attempt to disguise the degree to which he had been impressed by what Slartibartfast's ship had just done, 'shame about the decor.'

For a moment or two the old man didn't reply. He was staring at the instruments with the air of one who is trying to convert Fahrenheit to centigrade in his head whilst his house is burning down. Then his brow cleared and he stared for a moment at the wide panoramic screen in front of him, which displayed a bewildering complexity of stars streaming like silver threads around them.

His lips moved as if he was trying to spell something. Suddenly his eyes darted in alarm back to his instruments, but then his expression merely subsided into a steady frown. He looked back up at the screen. He felt his own pulse. His frown deepened for a moment, then he relaxed.

'It's a mistake to try and understand machines,' he said, 'they only worry me. What did you say?'

'Decor,' said Ford. 'Pity about it.'

'Deep in the fundamental heart of mind and Universe,' said Slartibartfast, 'there is a reason.'

Ford glanced sharply around. He clearly thought this was taking an optimistic view of things.

The interior of the flight deck was dark green, dark red, dark brown, cramped and moodily fit. Inexplicably, the resemblance to a small Italian bistro had failed to end at the hatchway. Small pools of light picked out pot plants, glazed tiles and all sorts of little -Pjdcntifiable brass things.

Rafia-wrapped bottles lurked hideously in the shadows.

The instruments which had occupied Slartibartfast's attention seemed to be mounted in the bottom of bottles which were set in concrete.

Ford reached out and touched it.

Fake concrete. Plastic. Fake bottles set in fake concrete. 

'Good,' said Arthur.

'See?' said Ford.

'No,' said Arthur.

There was a quiet pause.

'The difficulty with this conversation,' said Arthur after a sort of pondering look had crawled slowly across his face like a mountaineer negotiating a tricky outcrop, 'is that it's very different from most of the ones I've had of late. Which, as I explained, have mostly been with trees. They weren't like this. Except perhaps some of the ones I've had with elms which sometimes get a bit bogged down.'

'Arthur,' said Ford.

'Hello? Yes?' said Arthur.

'Just believe everything I tell you, and it will all be very, very simple.'

'Ah, well I'm not sure I believe that.'

They sat down and composed their thoughts.

Ford got out his Sub-Etna Sens-O-Matic. It was making vague humming noises and a tiny light on it was flickering faintly. 'Flat battery?' said Arthur.

'No,' said Ford, 'there is a moving disturbance in the fabric of space-time, an eddy, a pool of instability, and it's somewhere in our vicinity.'

'Where?'

Ford moved the device in a slow lightly bobbing semi-circle. Suddenly the light flashed.

'There!' said Ford, shooting out his arm. 'There, behind that sofa!'

Arthur looked. Much to his surprise, there was a velvet paisley-covered Chesterfield sofa in the field in front of them. He boggled intelligently at it. Shrewd questions sprang into his mind. 'Why,' he said, 'is there a sofa in that field?'

'I told you!' shouted Ford, leaping to his feet. 'Eddies in the space-time continuum!'

'And this is his sofa, is it?’ asked Arthur, struggling to his feet and, he hoped, though not very optimistically, to his senses.

'Arthur!' shouted Ford at him, 'that sofa is there because of the space-time instability I've been trying to get your terminally softened brain to get to grips with. It's been washed up out of the continuum, it's space-time jetsam, it doesn't matter what it is, we've got to catch it, it's our only way out of here!'

He scrambled rapidly down the rocky outcrop and made off across the field.

'Catch it?' muttered Arthur, then frowned in bemusement as he saw that the Chesterfield was lazily bobbing and wafting away across the grass.

With a whoop of utterly unexpected delight he leapt down the rock and plunged off in hectic pursuit of Ford Prefect and the irrational piece of furniture.

They careered wildly through the grass, leaping, laughing, shouting instructions to each other to head the thing off this way or that way. The sun shone dreamily on the swaying grass, tiny field animals scattered crazily in their wake.

Arthur felt happy. He was terribly pleased that the day was for once working out so much according to plan. Only twenty minutes ago he had decided he would go mad, and now here he was already chasing a Chesterfield sofa across the fields of prehistoric Earth.

The sofa bobbed this way and that and seemed simultaneously to he as solid as the trees as it drifted past some of them and hazy as a billowing dream as it floated like a ghost through others.

Ford and Arthur pounded chaotically after it, but it dodged and weaved as if following its own complex mathematical topography, which it was. Still they pursued, still it danced and span, and suddenly turned and dipped as if crossing the lip of a catastrophe graph, and they were practically on top of it. With a heave and a shout they leapt on it, the sun winked out, they fell through a sickening nothingness, and emerged unexpectedly in the middle of the pitch at Lord's Cricket Ground, St John's Wood, London, towards the end of the last Test Match of the Australian Series in the year 198-, with England needing only twenty-eight runs to win.

Chapter 3

Important facts from Galactic history, number one:

(Reproduced from the Sidereal Daily Mentioner's Book of Popular Galactic History)

The night sky over the planet Krikkit is the least interesting sight in the entire Universe.

Chapter 4

It was a charming and delightful day at Lord's as Ford and Arthur tumbled haphazardly out of a space-time anomaly and hit the immaculate turf rather hard.

The applause of the crowd was tremendous. It wasn't for them, but instinctively they bowed anyway, which was fortunate because the small red heavy ball which the crowd actually had been applauding whistled mere millimeter over Arthur's head. In the crowd a man collapsed.

They threw themselves back to the ground which seemed to spin hideously around them.

'What was that?' hissed Arthur.

'Something red,' hissed Ford back at him.

'Where are we?'

'Er, somewhere green.'

'Shapes,' muttered Arthur. 'I need shapes.'

The applause of the crowd had been rapidly succeeded by gasps of astonishment, and the awkward titters of hundreds of people who could not yet make up their minds about whether to believe what they had just seen or not.

'This your sofa?' said a voice.

'What was that?' whispered Ford.

Arthur looked up.

'Something blue,' he said.

'Shape?' said Ford.

Arthur looked again.

'It is shaped,' he hissed at Ford, with his brow savagely furrowed, 'like a policeman.'

They remained crouched there for a few moments, frowning deeply. The blue thing shaped like a policeman tapped them both on the shoulders.

`Come on, you two,' the shape said, 'let's be having you.'

These words had an electrifying effect on Arthur. He leapt to his feet like an author hearing the phone ring and shot a series of startled glances at the panorama around him which had suddenly settled down into something of quite terrifying ordinariness.

'Where did you get, this from?' he yelled at the policeman shape. 'What did you say?' said the startled shape.

'This is Lord's Cricket Ground, isn't it?' snapped Arthur. 'Where did you find it, how did you get it here? I think,' he added, clasping his hand to his brow, 'that I had better calm down.' He squatted down abruptly in front of Ford.

'It is a policeman,' he said. 'What do we do?'

Ford shrugged.

'What do you want to do?' he said.

'I want you,' said Arthur, 'to tell me that I have been dreaming for the last five years.'

Ford shrugged again, and obliged.

'You've been dreaming for the last five years,' he said. Arthur got to his feet.

'It's all right, officer,' he said. 'I've been dreaming for the last five years. Ask him,' he added, pointing at Ford, 'he was in it.'

Having said this, he sauntered off towards the edge of the pitch, brushing down his dressing gown. He then noticed his dressing gown and stopped. He stared at it. He flung himself at the policeman.

'So where did I get these clothes from?' he howled.

He collapsed and lay twitching on the grass.

Ford shook his head.

'He's had a bad two million years,' he said to the policeman, and together they heaved Arthur on to the sofa and carried him off the pitch and were only briefly hampered by the sudden disappearance of the sofa on the way.

Reactions to all this from the crowd were many and various. Most of them couldn't cope with watching it, and listened to it on the radio instead.

'Well, this is an interesting incident, Brian,' said one radio commentator to another. 'I don't think there have been any mysterious materialization on the pitch since, oh since, well I don't think there have been any – have there? – that I recall?'

'Edgbaston, 1932?'

'Ah, now what happened then ...?’

'Well, Peter, I think it was Canter facing Willcox coming up to bowl from the pavilion end when a spectator suddenly ran straight across the pitch.'

There was a pause whilst the first commentator considered this. 'Ye ... e ... s ...' he said, 'yes, there's nothing actually very mysterious about that, is there? He didn't actually materialize, did he? Just ran on.'

'No, that's true, but he did claim to have seen something materialize on the pitch.'

'Ah, did he?’

'Yes. An alligator, I think, of some description.'

'Ah. And had anyone else noticed it?'

'Apparently not. And no one was able to get a very detailed description from him, so only the most perfunctory search was made.'

'And what happened to the man?'

'Well, I think someone offered to take him off and give him some lunch, but he explained that he'd already had a rather good one, so the matter was dropped and Warwickshire went on to win by three wickets.'

'So, not very like this current instance. For those of you who've just tuned in, you may be interested to know that, er ... two men, two rather scruffily attired men, and indeed a sofa – a Chesterfield I think?'

'Yes, a Chesterfield.'

'Have just materialized here in the middle of Lord's Cricket Ground. But I don't think they meant any harm, they've been very good-natured about it, and ...'

'Sorry, can I interrupt you a moment Peter and say that the sofa has just vanished.'

'So it has. Well, that's one mystery less. Still, it's definitely one for the record books I think, particularly occurring at this dramatic moment in play, England now needing only twenty-four runs to win the series. The men are leaving the pitch in the company of a police officer, and I think everyone's settling down now and play is about to resume.'

'Now, sir,' said the policeman after they had made a passage through the curious crowd and laid Arthur's peacefully inert body on a blanket, 'perhaps you'd care to tell me who you are, where you come from, and what that little scene was all about?'

Ford looked at the ground for a moment as if steadying himself for something, then he straightened up and aimed a look at the policeman which hit him with the full force of every inch of the six light-years' distance between Earth and Ford's home near Betelgeuse.

'All right,' said Ford, very quietly, 'I'll tell you.'

'Yes, well, that won't be necessary,' said the policeman hurriedly, 'just don't let whatever it was happen again.' The policeman turned around and wandered off in search of anyone who wasn't from Betelgeuse. Fortunately, the ground was full of them.

Arthur's consciousness approached his body as from a great distance, and reluctantly. It had had some bad times in there. Slowly, nervously, it entered and settled down in to its accustomed position.

Arthur sat up.

'Where am I?’ he said.

'Lord's Cricket Ground,' said Ford.

'Fine,' said Arthur, and his consciousness stepped out again for a quick breather. His body flopped back on the grass.

Ten minutes later, hunched over a cup of tea in the refreshment tent, the color started to come back to his haggard face. 'How’re you feeling?' said Ford.

'I'm home,' said Arthur hoarsely. He closed his eyes and greedily inhaled the steam from his tea as if it was – well, as far as Arthur was concerned, as if it was tea, which it was.

'I'm home,' he repeated, 'home. It's England, it's today, the nightmare is over.' He opened his eyes again and smiled serenely. 'I'm where I belong,' he said in an emotional whisper.

'There are two things I feel I should tell you,' said Ford, tossing a copy of the Guardian over the table at him.

I'm home,' said Arthur.

'Yes,' said Ford. 'One is,' he said pointing at the date at the top of the paper, 'that the Earth will be demolished in two days' time.'

'I'm home,' said Arthur. 'Tea,' he said, 'cricket,' he added with pleasure, 'mown grass, wooden benches, white linen jackets, beer cans . . .'

Slowly he began to focus on the newspaper. He cocked his head on one side with a slight frown.

'I've seen that one before,' he said. His eyes wandered slowly up to the date, which Ford was idly tapping at. His face froze for a second or two and then began to do that terribly slow crashing trick which Arctic ice-floes do so spectacularly in the spring.

'And the other thing,' said Ford, 'is that you appear to have a bone in your beard.' He tossed back his tea.

Outside the refreshment tent, the sun was shining on a happy crowd. It shone on white hats and red faces. It shone on ice lollies and melted them. It shone on the tears of small children whose ice lollies had just melted and fallen off the stick. It shone on the trees, it flashed off whirling cricket bats, it gleamed off the utterly extraordinary object which was parked behind the sight-screens and which nobody appeared to have noticed. It beamed on Ford and Arthur as they emerged blinking from the refreshment tent and surveyed the scene around them.

Arthur was shaking.

`Perhaps,' he said, 'I should...'

'No,' said Ford sharply.

'What?' said Arthur.

'Don't try and phone yourself up at home.'

'How did you know ... T

Ford shrugged.

'But why not?' said Arthur.

'People who talk to themselves on the phone,' said Ford, 'never learn anything to their advantage.'

‘But  ...'

'Look,' said Ford. He picked up an imaginary phone and dialed an imaginary dial.

'Hello?' he said into the imaginary mouthpiece. 'Is that Arthur Dent? Ah, hello, yes. This is Arthur Dent speaking. Don't hang up.'

He looked at the imaginary phone in disappointment.

'He hung up,' he said, shrugged, and put the imaginary phone neatly back on its imaginary hook.

'This is not my first temporal anomaly,' he added.

A glummer look replaced the already glum look on Arthur Dent's face.

'So we're not home and dry,' he said.

'We could not even be said,' replied Ford, 'to be home and vigorously toweling ourselves off.'

The game continued. The bowler approached the wicket at a lope, a trot, and then a run. He suddenly exploded in a flurry of arms and legs, out of which flew a ball. The batsman swung and thwacked it behind him over the sight-screens. Ford's eyes followed the trajectory of the ball and jogged momentarily. He stiffened. He looked along the flight path of the ball again and his eyes twitched again.

'This isn't my towel,' said Arthur, who was rummaging in his rabbit-skin bag.

‘Shhh,' said Ford. He screwed his eyes up in concentration.

'I had a Golgafrinchan jogging towel,' continued Arthur, 'it was blue with yellow stars on it. This isn't it.'

`Shhh,'said Ford again. He covered one eye and looked with the other.

'This one's pink,' said Arthur, 'it isn't yours is it?'

'I would like you to shut up about your towel,' said Ford.

'It isn't my towel,' insisted Arthur, 'that is the point I am trying to...'

'And the time at which I would like you to shut up about it,' continued Ford in a low growl, 'is now.'

'All right,' said Arthur, starting to stuff it back into the primitively stitched rabbit-skin bag. 'I realize that it is probably not important in the cosmic scale of things, it's just odd, that's all. A pink towel suddenly, instead of a blue one with yellow stars.'

Ford was beginning to behave rather strangely, or rather not actually beginning to behave strangely but beginning to behave in a way which was strangely different from the other strange ways in which he more regularly behaved. What he was doing was this. Regardless of the bemused stares it was provoking from his fellow members of the crowd gathered round the pitch, he was waving his hands in sharp movements across his face, ducking down behind some people, leaping up behind others, then standing still and blinking a lot. After a moment or two of this he started to stalk forward slowly and stealthily wearing a puzzled frown of concentration, like a leopard that is not sure whether it's just seen a half-empty tin of cat food half a mile away across a hot and dusty plain.

'This isn't my bag either,' said Arthur suddenly.

Ford's spell of concentration was broken. He turned angrily on Arthur.

'I wasn't talking about my towel,' said Arthur. 'We've established that that isn't mine. It's just that the bag into which I was putting the towel which is not mine is also not mine, though it is extraordinarily similar. Now personally I think that that is extremely odd, especially as the bag was one I made myself on prehistoric Earth. These are also not my stones,' he added, pulling a few flat grey stones out of the bag. 'I was making a collection of interesting stones and these are clearly very dull ones.'

A roar of excitement thrilled through the crowd and obliterated whatever it was that Ford said in reply to this piece of information. The cricket ball which had excited this reaction fell out of the sky and dropped neatly into Arthur's mysterious rabbit-skin bag.

'Now I would say that that was also a very curious event,' said Arthur, rapidly closing the bag and pretending to look for the ball on the ground.

'I don't think it's here,' he said to the small boys who immediately clustered round him to join in the search, 'it probably rolled off somewhere. Over there I expect.' He pointed vaguely in the direction in which he wished they would push off. One of the boys looked at him quizzically.

'You all right?' said the boy.

'No,' said Arthur.

'Then why you got a bone in your beard?" said the boy.

'I'm training it to like being wherever it's put.' Arthur prided himself on saying this. It was, he thought, exactly the sort of thing which would entertain and stimulate young minds.

'Oh,' said the small boy, putting his head on one side and thinking about it. 'What's your name?'

'Dent,' said Arthur, 'Arthur Dent.'

'You're a jerk, Dent,' said the boy, 'a complete asshole.' The boy looked past him at something else, to show that he wasn't in any particular hurry to run away, and then wandered off scratching his nose. Suddenly Arthur remembered that the Earth was going to be demolished again in two days' time, and just this once didn't feel too bad about it.

Play resumed with a new ball, the sun continued to shine and Ford continued to jump up and down shaking his head and blinking.

'Something's on your mind, isn't it?' said Arthur.

'I think,' said Ford in a tone of voice which Arthur by now recognized as one which presaged something utterly unintelligible, 'that there's an SEP over there.'

He pointed. Curiously enough, the direction he pointed in was not the one in which he was looking. Arthur looked in the one direction, which was towards the sight-screens, and in the other which was at the field of play. He nodded, he shrugged. He shrugged again.

'A what?' he said.

'An SEP.'

'An S ...?’

'... EP.'

'And what's that?'

'Somebody Else's Problem,' said Ford.

'Ah, good,' said Arthur and relaxed. He had no idea what all that was about, but at least it seemed to be over. It wasn't.

'Over there,' said Ford, again pointing at the sight-screens and looking at the pitch.

'Where?' said Arthur.

'There!' said Ford.

'I see,' said Arthur, who didn't.

'You do?' said Ford.

'What?' said Arthur.

'Can you see,' said Ford patiently, 'the SEP?'

'I thought you said that was someone else's problem.' 'That's right.'

Arthur nodded slowly, carefully and with an air of immense stupidity.

让维吉帮助我做毕业设计，其实是将她推到了一个很不利的位置上，而她自己显然完全不知情。这位天使在为我弄来轴承，钢管，平底锅，科多兽，榴莲，纯铀，蟾蜍卵，回城卷，　九头蛇之弓，发电机还有大量的防晒油的过程中，从来没有认真地问过我究竟想干什么。

“无所谓。我只思考抽象的，形而上的东西。”她自己说：“至于这些琐碎的玩意儿，我完全不关心。”

“但是我感到有必要提醒你：我们做的东西可能会犯错误。”我说。

“没有关系，错误这东西，我已经犯过了。”她说：“不过是当不了天使罢了。妈的，不当就不当，反正这个世界也没得救了！”

毕业设计的过程是愉快的。同学们的设计纷纷成形了，大部分受到了辅导员得鼓励与夸赞，个别一些拿出“要你命－２００６”，“粘上拿不下”，“含笑半步癫”之类作品的家伙，很快就失踪了。

我的作品始终是众人心目中的一个谜。辅导员老师多次派人来到我的寝室。这些人都是学生干部。他们的样子很恭敬，殷勤的问我生活上是否有困难，当我回答“有”的时候，他们又转移话题，谈谈足球，见我完全不感兴趣，就掏出烟来问我抽不抽。我说你想抽么？你出去抽吧。他们很尴尬的把烟收起来，踌躇良久，会说：“今天的天气真不错啊”。然后窗外就会突然打雷，然后瓢泼大雨。最终，这些可怜的家伙会说“丫！你今天穿的衣服真是很棒啊！”我会提醒他们不要没话找话了，一身校服你都没见过啊~~~

无论如何，他们最后会把话题落到我正在敲打的东西上：

“——这到底是个什么东西？”　

“对不起。我不想公开我的设计内容。”我态度很坚决的对他们说，然后示意藏在暗处的维吉做好准备。

当绝望的他们试图亲自研究一下的时候，他们就会不小心被点着，最终冒着浓烟，狂呼着消失在楼道里。

当我的作品越来越大，不得不在楼下搭个棚子，继续制造的时候。辅导员亲自登门了。他把一袋子苹果放到我的床头，拉着我的手，语重心长地问：“王同学，你是不是对组织有什么意见？”

我说：“组织很关心我。我很满意。”

他点点头，披上了一件随身带的聚合材料自造的防火斗篷，来研究我的那台机器。

在他刚打开一个盖子的时候，一大群科多兽从里面冲了出来。浓烟中，这些体重数吨的家伙从辅导员的身上踏过。

在被抬上救护车之前，辅导员拉着我的手，亲切地说：“王同学，如果对学校有什么意见，一定不要憋在心里，一定要提出来啊。”

不久以后，在我的工棚对面，一家房子被人租了下来，改装成蛋糕店。经常有望远镜的镜头从店里伸出来。在店里香喷喷的蛋糕掩护下，配备了先进的译码机，监听器，红外线摄像仪，二十四小时不间断地监视我的工棚。老板是一位东北口音的南方人。从他蹩脚的假做的胡子和皱纹之间，依稀能看出辅导员的影子。

这家蛋糕店开业不久就被打劫了。劫匪是一对蒙面的雌雄大盗。根据店主回忆，杀进来之后，那位雌性劫匪尤其的兴奋，也非常的专业，她一边挥舞着菜刀，用她那发育不完全的嗓音高喊：“打劫！不许动！”一边冲上前去，对老板一顿拳打脚踢，眼睛死死的盯着刚出炉的蛋塔。另一个劫匪略显拘谨，在她的指挥下敲碎了柜台，把热乎乎糕点往口袋里装……

整个蛋糕店被洗劫一空，整个过程干净利落。老板身负重伤，下落全无。

后来我们听说辅导员又住院了。即使在住院期间，他依然念念不忘打听我的毕业设计，可见辅导员实在是一位执著的人。

我帮维吉租了个地方住了下来，又借给她一些钱。我的意思是让她想法子找个工作，学会自立。我还给了她一些名片，都是我曾经接济过的外星人，吸血鬼，人狼，圣斗士，忍者龟之类的家伙，他们算是维吉的前辈，现在工作在大连的各个行业里，应给能帮得上她。

不久以后，维吉再次找到了我，她的样子似乎不开心。

“老王，你帮帮我吧，我找不着工作，坐吃山空啦。”

“不能吧，你长得这么可爱，又机灵，哪个老板不想要你？”

“不行，我当惯了天使，有些习惯实在是改不了了。我送外卖的时候，看到迷路的小猫小狗，一定要先送它们回家。当服务员就把厨房里的小鸟小鱼都偷偷放生了。买糖果的时候把糖都分给小朋友们。上门推销又不会说谎话。后来，一个小区把我雇去打扫街道，我一领到工资就发给穷人，结果把半个大连的乞丐都招到那儿了，最后还是被辞退了。”

我皱着眉头听她讲着悲惨的经历，发现她的嗓音不对劲：“你的声音怎么怪怪的？？”

“我昨天到孤儿院给小朋友们唱了一天的歌，嗓子好像唱哑了……”

“行了行了，你的问题我明白了。”我点了点头：“显然，你不可能在这个世界里生存，还是想办法回天上去吧。”

“那怎么成？”维吉愤愤不平的说：“说什么也不能让老猴子看笑话！”

“问题是，你要先找得到工作啊，不然就饿死了！”

“说的是…”，维吉想了一会儿，突然高兴得说：“我看你小子人还不错，不行你雇我吧！”

“那怎么成！？我都大四了，也就是做做毕业设计。雇你干嘛？”

“没事没事！我要求不高，管饭就行! 我什么都能干，不就是区区的毕业设计嘛，交给我好啦！”

“你不明白~~ 我要做的东西比较危险~~”

“不怕！还能要了我的命不成？”维吉哀求道：“求你啦老王，我实在是走投无路了。”

“这个这个~~”，我感到十分的为难，“你不明白…，我真的不能让你帮忙，你还是想别的办法吧。”

我看见维吉非常的失望，心里很难受。她跟我道了再见，转身走了。我看见她的背影越走越远，步伐恍恍惚惚，最后撞到了一面墙上，梆的一声。

我连忙跑过去，看见她倒在地上，脸色苍白，神志不清。

“喂！你怎么啦这是？”我扯着她一顿摇。她慢慢的清醒过来，告诉我，不久前看了医院公益广告，这些天来，她天天坚持着去医院义务献血。可能是由于失血过多，最近经常在各种场合突然的晕倒。

“不过没关系，每次都能抢救回来。你别担心。”她安慰我。

于是我对这位天使的自立能力终于有了彻底的认识。

半生辛苦半生醉，又有谁能陪我晚起早睡。

满嘴鬼话谁不会，时间长了也累。

看窗外，冠盖如云，双双对对。斯人独憔悴。

一天天学习太累，找对象太贵，也就是吹牛不用上税。

忆旧事如水，无色无味。江汉路远，唯有好梦留人睡。

自觉多情，单相思世界之最，其实死了也没人下泪。

所谓伊人，已有人配，大骂那小子狼心狗肺，汪汪眼泪。

看身边有谁，秀丽珠蕾，胖子他妹，连这都得排队。

好在二锅头也不贵，酒入愁肠，化作相思泪。

仰天大唱天仙配，天作人语：不希扯淡，赶快去睡。

壬戌之秋，七月既望，苏子与客泛舟游于赤壁之下。清风徐来，水波不兴。举酒属客，诵明月之诗，歌窈窕之章。少焉，月出于东山之上，徘徊于斗牛之间。白露横江，水光接天。纵一苇之所如，凌万顷之茫然。浩浩乎如冯虚御风，而不知其所止；飘飘乎如遗世独立，羽化而登仙。

　　于是饮酒乐甚，扣舷而歌之。歌曰：“桂棹兮兰桨，击空明兮溯流光。渺渺兮于怀，望美人兮天一方。”客有吹洞萧者，倚歌而和之，其声呜呜然：如怨如慕，如泣如诉；余音袅袅，不绝如缕；舞幽壑之潜蛟，泣孤舟之嫠妇。

　　苏子愀然，正襟危坐，而问客曰：“何为其然也？”客曰：“月明星稀，乌鹊南飞，此非曹孟德之诗乎？西望夏口，东望武昌。山川相缪，郁乎苍苍；此非孟德之困于周郎者乎？方其破荆州，下江陵，顺流而东也，舳舻千里，旌旗蔽空，酾酒临江，横槊赋诗；固一世之雄也，而今安在哉？况吾与子，渔樵于江渚之上，侣鱼虾而友糜鹿，驾一叶之扁舟，举匏樽以相属；寄蜉蝣与天地，渺沧海之一粟。哀吾生之须臾，羡长江之无穷；挟飞仙以遨游，抱明月而长终；知不可乎骤得，托遗响于悲风。”

　　苏子曰：“客亦知夫水与月乎？逝者如斯，而未尝往也；盈虚者如彼，而卒莫消长也。盖将自其变者而观之，而天地曾不能一瞬；自其不变者而观之，则物于我皆无尽也。而又何羡乎？且夫天地之间，物各有主。苟非吾之所有，虽一毫而莫取。惟江上之清风，与山间之明月，耳得之而为声，目遇之而成色。取之无禁，用之不竭。是造物者之无尽藏也，而吾与子之所共适。”

　　客喜而笑，洗盏更酌，肴核既尽，杯盘狼藉。相与枕藉乎舟中，不知东方之既白。

   熄灯了，寝室里一片寂静。只剩下钟表滴滴答答的声音,伴随着室友们轻轻的鼾声。
   一豆烛光在桌上摇曳。我再吃面，有人在敲窗。
  “谁呀？这是六楼！”
  “你好，拜托让我进去好吗？”
  “你是小偷还是外星人？”
  “我是外星人。”
  我放下筷子，打开了窗。只见窗外果然悬停着一艘宇宙飞船。这是我第一次看到宇宙飞      船，跟电影里演得的差不太多。尽管如此，我还是感到异常的震惊。
  刚才说话的家伙轻捷的窜进了屋子。
  “哈罗！我的朋友。按照你们的习惯，我想我该跟你握握手…”
  我怀疑我最近实在太累了，在迷瞪与无助中我木然的依次握了握他八只柔软的触手。
  “我来自遥远的八肢星球，经过遥远艰苦的旅途，中间遇到过3次打劫，一次飞船租金欠费还有一只红龙，很辛苦来到地球，希望你能帮助我完成毕业论文。”
  这个外星人大约一米高，有一双纯情的大眼睛，除此之外完全是一只穿着T恤的大章鱼。
  “哦…”我努力的措辞，毕竟我代表的是全人类的：“这么辛苦…我给你搬把椅子吧…”
  “不必了，像我们这样的八足高等生物不必折起来——我是说“坐”——我只是来研究一下你们这些低等生物的生理与文化。没办法，大四了，我也要毕业。”
  “不要绑架我…也别把我剖开…”
  “过虑了，我们可是高等文明呀，嗯…不过你们这种生物也太有趣了！”
  他兴冲冲地凑上前，仔细打量我，同时用触手到处拍拍打打，另几只手扯着游标卡尺什么的来回比划。
  看到他做事情那么认真，我不好意思打断他，只是不安的四下张望，我觉得自己在做一件很蠢的事。也许明天睡醒后感觉能好些。
  “哦…”他口中念念有词：“地球智能生命，高1米73，重58公斤…”
  心中窃喜，自己有着地球人的标准身高体重。但后面的话就不堪入耳了。
  “哈，太有趣了。身体靠一堆粗重僵硬的内骨骼支撑，脑袋小得可怜，上面居然还长毛！…有着巨大的躯干，装着一大堆效率低下而又恶心的内脏——对不起，我就是这么直——不过你们地球人也真是迟钝呀……只有四肢，嗬嗬，我猜你看到我们一定很自卑吧……雌雄异体…真是差劲，你们恐怕连自慰都做不到……”
“……”
“你这只蠢章鱼！”因为不想惹出涉外事件，我强压着火气：“闭嘴！否则我把你卖给吉普赛人！”
“对不起……对不起……”他一见我生气了，赶忙道歉：“我一直没想到你们这些没有开化的生物有这么敏感……别生气，我还见过一种犀牛，比你们低级多了……他们……”
  我铁青着脸，从床底下抽出了一根双节棍。上面还留有血迹。
“让我完成这篇论文吧！”他一看我要动家伙，顿时慌了，泪水夺眶而出：“不然我毕不了业，人人从此鄙视我，嘲笑我。……找不到工作，父母也不认我了，女朋友会跑掉……没钱买吃的，露宿街头……从此颓废，吸毒，酗酒……走上犯罪的道路……我完了……求求你，求求你了！”
   看着他悲痛欲绝的样子，我沉吟半晌，终于心有不忍：“好吧，你继续好了，只是不要那么多废话！”
   他说了一大堆感激的话，又继续他的研究工作。……
   ……
   他要求我用最大的声音吼叫。我做完之后，看着他皱眉的样子，就主动加唱了一首地球歌曲。
   他委婉的表示了难听之后问我什么是歌曲，我赌气地说这是人类求偶时叫声。他认真地用笔记下了。
   他为了考察人类“补充能量的方式”，吃掉了我的泡面。一边抱怨“低效而无聊”，一边连汤都没有给我剩下。为了不显得地球人很小气，我强忍泪水听他数落。
   随后，他又问了很多很蠢的问题，拿出很多很恶心的玩意儿。按他的意思是要测量我的智商与审美。我越来越感到无助。我觉得这只肥章鱼不想再开玩笑，但我始终想不通人类会比这样的白痴还要低等。
   突然，我与他同时听到一阵哈欠声，回头一看，原来胖子起夜床了。
　　他迷迷糊糊，完全还是在梦里。他摸索着进了厕所。
　　“他干什么？”外星人问。
　　“小便。也就是排泄……”
　　“哇！”那小子兴奋得尖叫一声，像被开水烫了一般冲了过去，钻进了厕所。
　　“你在干什么？”我听到厕所里传来的对话声。
　　“你继续，我研究研究……”
　　“你哪来的？”
　　“我来自遥远的八肢星球，经过漫长……”
　　“咣！”我听到里面一声巨响，随后是可怜的章鱼的惨叫声。
　　“哗……”随着冲水的声音响起，胖子走了出来，依然迷迷瞪瞪得。他爬上了床，继续睡了。好像还说了句梦话：“二哥，以后睡觉前把窗关好，……最近有外星人摸进来……呼呼……”