Chapter 5 chapter Five

Has great power.Indeed, the book was so influential that the editors had to institute strict rules to prevent its abuse.Its field researchers are therefore prohibited from accepting any services, discounts, or preferential treatment of any kind if the purpose is to get them a good word while writing an article.However, the following exceptions apply: A) They made an effort to pay in the normal way; B) their lives are in danger if they do not; C) They really want to. Since following the third rule often led editors to cut articles he wrote, Ford preferred the first two. He went out refreshed and out into the street.

The air was oppressive, and he liked it, because it was the air of this oppressive city, full of exciting smells, dangerous music, and different teams of the police fighting each other. He slung the bag over his shoulder in such a way that it swung easily so he could swing his arm and punch anyone who came to get it without saying hello.Although there were not many things in the bag, it was already all his belongings at that time. A limousine speeds down the street, weaving among the burning rubbish on the street.An elderly pack animal terrified, screaming, staggering out of the way, falling through the window of a herbal shop, uttering a wail, stumbling down the street, pretending to be on the steps of a pasta shop Falls - it knows it will be photographed and fed there.

Ford is heading north.He thought he was likely going to the spaceport, but he had thought so before.He knew he was in an area where people often change their plans suddenly. "Want to have fun?" A voice came from a door. "For all I know," said Ford, "I'm having fun with that. Thanks a lot." "Are you rich?" another voice asked. Ford couldn't help laughing. He turned around and spread his hands. "Do I look rich?" he said. "I don't know," said the girl, "maybe, maybe not. Maybe you'll get rich. I have a very special service for rich people..."

"Oh, really?" asked Ford, interested but cautiously. "What's that?" "I tell them it's good to have money." There was a sudden shot high above them, and a bassist was killed for playing a passage wrong three times in a row.Two bass players are worth a penny in Handowtown. Ford stopped and stared at the dark doorway. "What did you just say?" he said. The girl smiled and walked a little away.She was tall, with a calm shyness, but that was just an illusion. “I’m talking about my big clients,” she said. “I have a master’s degree in socioeconomics and I’m good at persuading people. People love that, especially in this city.”

"Gus," said Ford Prefect.This is a very special word in the language of Orion Prime, and Ford used this word to express that he knew what to say, but didn't know what to say. He sat down on a step, took out a bottle of Orgenx wine and a towel from his small bag, opened the bottle, and wiped the mouth of the bottle with the towel, which was even dirtier than before.In the stinky streaks of that towel, there used to be a complex and developed civilization slowly established by billions of microorganisms.Now these microbes were killed by the Orgenx wine. He took a sip himself, and then asked, "Will you have some?"

She shrugged and took the bottle. They sat for a while, listening peacefully to the blaring alarm bells from the next block. "Someone happens to owe me a good deal of money," said Ford, "and when I'm coming back, can I find you here again?" "Of course, I'll be here," said the girl. "What's a large sum you're talking about?" "Fifteen years' salary." "What's the salary for?" "Write four words." "My God," said the girl, "what word took you so long to write?" "The first two. After I figured out the first two words, I found the last two immediately after lunch."

An electronic drum set flew out of a window high above their heads and fell to pieces on the street in front of them. After a while they learned that the siren on the next block was sounded by one police unit ambushing another.Vehicles with sirens blaring huddled together, and helicopters roared through the city's towering buildings, shooting at immobilized police cars. "Actually," Ford had to say loudly over the din, "it's not quite like that. I wrote a lot and they deleted it." He took the book out of his pouch. "And then the planet was destroyed," he yelled. "What a rewarding job, huh? They still have to pay me anyway."

"Do you work for this?" the girl yelled too. "right." "pretty good." "Want to see the part I wrote?" he yelled, "before it gets deleted? The new revised edition is going to be online this evening. Someone must have found out that I'm living on it Fifteen years of planets have been destroyed. They didn't delete this entry when they revised the previous few editions, but they will find it anyway." "We can't talk anymore, can we?" "what?" She shrugged and pointed upwards. Above them was a helicopter that appeared to be involved in a faction clash with the band upstairs.The sound engineer was hanging out of the window with his fingertips on the ledge, and a frantic guitarist was pounding his hands with a burning guitar.The helicopter was firing on the band.

"Let's go?" They left the mess along the street.On the way, I met a street troupe who wanted to show them a play that reflected the problems of the city, but then they stopped performing and disappeared into the small restaurant on the side of the road. Ford kept poking at his operator panel.They ducked into an alley, and Ford crouched over a trash can as messages flooded the monitors. He found his entry. "Earth: mostly harmless." At this moment, a large amount of system information popped up on the screen. "Here we come," he said. "Please wait," the system information displayed, "The content of the entry is being updated through the remote network. This entry is being revised. The system will shut down for 10 seconds."

At the end of the alley, a blue-gray luxury car drove past slowly. "Hey," said the girl, "if you get the money, come see me. I have work to do, I've got someone over there. I gotta go." She ignored Ford's stammering protests and left him.Ford sat despondently on the trash can, waiting to see the fruits of his years of work disappear from the screen. It was quieter in the street outside.The police battle moves to other parts of the city; the rock band survivors recognize their mutual differences and continue to play; Said to take it to a bar where people would treat it with a little respect; the blue-gray car parked quietly on the side of the road a little further away.

The girl hurried to the car. In the dark alley behind her, Ford's face shone with green light, and the light kept flickering, and Ford's eyes widened in surprise. He had thought he would never see anything on the screen again, his entry deleted, closed.But now there’s a flood of data—articles, charts, numbers, and pictures, waves on Australian beaches, yogurt on Greek islands, restaurants to avoid in Los Angeles, currency transactions to avoid in Istanbul, The London weather to avoid, the pubs to visit everywhere.Many, many pages of content.Everything he wrote is there. Ford didn't quite understand, frowning, turned back and forth, and stopped to take a closer look at different places. "Tip to aliens in New York: Land anywhere, Central Park or something, anywhere. Nobody cares, nobody even notices you. "Survival: Get a job as a taxi driver immediately. A taxi driver's job is to take people where they want to go in a big yellow machine. Even if you don't know how to operate that machine, don't know the local language, It doesn’t matter if you’re not familiar with the local geography or even the basic laws of physics, or you have a big green antenna growing on your head. Believe me, it’s the best way to stay unknown.” "If your body is really weird, try showing it to people on the street to make money." "Amphibious life-forms from the Suvaria, Noxus, or Nosalia systems would be particularly fond of the East River on Earth, which is said to be more nutritious than the best and most poisonous artificial soils currently available." "Fun: This is an important chapter. It's impossible to find more fun on this planet without shocking your pleasure centers with high voltage..." Ford pressed a button lightly.It now says "COMPLETE MODE READY" instead of "CHANNEL READY" where it used to be; that long ago also replaced that stone-age-old word: "Shutdown." He had seen the planet destroyed before his own eyes.Or rather, when his eyes could see nothing in the light and gas of the devastation, he felt it through his feet, the floor hitting him like a hammer, throbbing, roaring, in Vogon Trembling in the torrent of energy pouring out of that ugly ship.Then, five seconds after what he thought was the final moment, he and Arthur Dent had been launched through the air like a sports radio set, sickened by the disappearance of their bodies. Nothing can be wrong, nothing can be wrong.Earth has been completely destroyed.Completely destroyed.evaporated in space.But here—he activated the Guide again—it clearly showed him writing entries about how to have fun in Bournemouth, Dorset, England.He is particularly proud of this one, which is the most baroque one he has ever written.Shaking his head in bewilderment, he read the entire entry again. Suddenly he realized the answer to the question, which was that something very weird had happened; and if something very weird happened, he wished it could happen to him. He closed the Guide, put it in his bag, and went out into the street again. He walked north and passed the blue-gray limousine parked on the street again, and a gentle voice could be heard from the closer door saying: "It's nothing, honey, it's really nothing. You have to learn to live with it. Think about how the whole economy is set up..." Ford smiled and circled a burning block ahead.Find an unattended police helicopter, slip open the door, buckle up, cross your fingers for luck, and sprint into the sky with unskilled piloting. He weaved his way up the valley formed by the city's tall buildings, and finally burst out of them, through the red and black smoke that hung forever above the city. Ten minutes later, Ford, driving the helicopter with its siren sounding and shooting randomly at the clouds, landed at Handold's airport.Between the flashing landing lights on the tarmac, his helicopter looked like a large, frightened insect. He didn't damage the plane too badly, so he successfully exchanged it for a first-class ticket on the next flight out of this galaxy, and sat in the huge and gorgeous wrap-around seat. This would be fun, he thought.The spaceship travels quietly in the crazy space of outer space, and various luxurious services are provided in the cabin. Whatever the waiter came up to offer him, he always replied, "Yes, give me some." He had a weird, manic smile on his face as the ship reentered the mysteriously restored portal to Earth.There was an important part of his entry on Earth that was left unfinished, and now he had a chance to finish it.And now he has purpose in his life to accomplish, which he is very happy about. Suddenly he thought of Arthur Dent, and wondered where he was now, and whether he had news from Earth. Arthur Dent was sitting anxiously in a Saab 1,437 light-years away. In the car seat behind him was a girl.As soon as Arthur saw her as he got into the car, he banged his head hard on the door.He didn't know why, if it was the first time he'd seen a woman of his own kind in years or something, but he felt numb to... numb to... "This is ridiculous." Say it yourself. "Calm down," he said to himself. "You are not in a good state now." He continued to use the most firm tone he could use, and said to himself in his heart with a rational attitude. "You've just hitchhiked a hundred thousand light-years away in the Milky Way, a bit disorganized, and very weak. Relax, don't panic, focus and breathe deeply." He turned from his seat. "Are you sure she's okay?" he asked again. Arthur felt a thrilling beauty in the girl.Beyond that, he couldn't tell how tall she was, how old she was, or even see her haircut.He also couldn't ask the girl, which is really sad, the girl is now completely unconscious. "She was just on drugs." Her brother shrugged, eyes still on the road ahead. "That's all right?" Arthur asked in horror. "It's fine with me," he said. "Ah," said Arthur.After thinking for a while, he added: "Yes." The conversation between the two has been surprisingly bad so far. After an initial awkward exchange of pleasantries, he and Russell—the pretty girl's older brother was named Russell, which in Arthur's mind usually meant a burly man with a blond mustache and neat hair. , a man who would wear a velvet tux and a lace shirt for little reason, and you had to do everything you could to keep him from commenting at a pool game—it soon became apparent that they didn't like each other at all. Russell was a burly man.He has a golden mustache.His hair is neat.To be fair—although Arthur didn't see any need to think about it other than mental exercise—Arthur himself didn't look very likeable.It is impossible for a person to stay in the cargo hold and travel through hundreds of thousands of light-years without feeling a little irritable, and Arthur is very irritable now. "She doesn't do drugs," Russell said suddenly, as if he knew someone else in the car was taking drugs. "She was sedated." "But that's not good," said Arthur, turning to look at her again.She seemed to be shaking slightly, her head slid to one side of her shoulders, her black hair hanging down her face. "What's wrong with her? Is she sick?" "No," Russell said, "just crazy." "What?" Arthur was taken aback. "Nervous, completely insane. I'm going to take her to the hospital and have them treat her again. They released her when she still thought she was a hedgehog." "hedgehog?" Russell honked his horn sharply, and the car coming toward them swerved back into its lane.The anger seemed to make him feel better. "Well, probably not a hedgehog," he said calmly, "but it would be easier if she thought she was a hedgehog. If someone thinks she's a hedgehog, usually you just give them a mirror and some hedgehog things." Let them identify the pictures by themselves, and they will get better after doing it a few times. At least medical technology can solve this, that's the point. But it's not enough for Fanny." "Fanny?" "Do you know what I gave her for Christmas?" "Well, I don't know." "Black's Medical Dictionary." "Good gift." "That's what I thought. It's listing thousands of conditions, all alphabetized." "You said her name was Fanny?" "Yes. You can be sick as you like, I said at the time. There are solutions, and there are prescriptions for the symptoms. But no, she insists on making something different, always making trouble. You know, she That's how it was when I was in school." "real?" "Really, fell down playing hockey and broke a bone nobody's ever heard of." "I can imagine how infuriating that would be," said Arthur doubtfully.He was disappointed when he learned that the girl's name was Fanny.It was a silly, discouraging name, one that conjures up images of a spinster who voted herself to keep using Fenara's name. "It's not that I'm hard-hearted," Russell went on. "It was kind of annoying. She was limping for months." His car slowed down. "You're going to get off at this intersection, right?" "Oh no," said Arthur, "five miles to go. If you can." "Okay." Russell paused before saying this, indicating that he was actually unwilling, and then accelerated again. Arthur should actually get off here, but he couldn't leave without knowing more about the girl who had captivated him before she woke up.He can also get off at the two intersections ahead. These intersections lead to the village that was once his home, but now he can't imagine what he'll see there.Familiar landmarks were illuminated by unfamiliar lights, and ghosts slipped through the darkness like ghosts, seeing very, very normal things unprepared, and this feeling caused Arthur to shudder slightly. According to the rotation and revolution of the alien planet he was in, based on the concept of time he could estimate so far, it has been eight years since he left.But how long it had been here, he couldn't guess.Really, what had happened was completely beyond his comprehension, because this planet, his home, was never supposed to be here. Eight years ago, the planet was destroyed at lunchtime, completely destroyed.The yellow ships of the Vogons who had destroyed it remained in the afternoon sky, as if gravity were not working for them at all. "Illusion." "What?" Arthur snapped out of his thoughts. "She said she always had a hallucination, thinking that she was living in the real world. I told her that she was indeed living in the real world, but it didn't work. She said that's what makes this hallucination strange. I don't know. What's going on with you, I'm exhausted from talking like this. I tossed her a pill and went out drinking. I said, there's only so much you can do, right?" Arthur frowned, not for the first time. "Ok……" "And these dreams and nightmares. And those doctors who were dealing with the strange throbbing of her brain waves." "beat?" "This," said Fanny. Arthur turned hastily and stared into her suddenly opened eyes, which were blank.Whatever she was looking at was definitely not in this car.Her eyes flickered, her head twitched, and she fell asleep peacefully again. "What did she say?" he asked uneasily. "She said 'this.'" "What is this?" "What the hell? How the hell do I know? This hedgehog, and that chimney-pipe, and Don Alfonso's tweezers. She's a madman, I think I've just said." "You don't seem particularly concerned," Arthur said, trying to be factual, but it didn't seem to work. "Listen, bastard..." "Well, I apologize. It's none of my business. I didn't mean to say that," Arthur said. "I know you care deeply, that's obvious." He began to lie, "I know you must Figured it out. You'll have to forgive me. I just hitchhiked from the other side of the Horsehead Nebula." He stared out the window manically. That night he returned to his hometown that he thought was gone forever, thoughts in his head fighting with each other, trying to occupy his brain.To his surprise, the most prominent of them turned out to be about this wonderful girl, whom he knew nothing about except hearing her say "this"; besides wishing her brother had been captured by a Vogon ship Walk. "So, uh, what are those jumps, the jumps you were talking about?" he went on rapidly. "Look, this is my sister, I don't even know why I'm talking to you..." "Okay, I'm sorry. Maybe you should let me out of the car. Here's…" As he said this, it became impossible to get out of the car, because the rainstorm that had left them just now suddenly fell again.Lightning streaked across the sky, as if someone had held the entire Atlantic Ocean on a sieve above their heads. Russell cursed a few words, and drove forward in the heavy rain.To vent his anger, he recklessly sped past a truck marked "McKenna 24/7 Freight."The rain subsided, and he relaxed a little. "It all started when they found that CIA agent in that reservoir, and that's when everyone started hallucinating, and that's how it all started, you remember?" Arthur hesitated, considering whether to repeat that he had just hitchhiked back from the Horsehead Nebula, which, among other shocking reasons, made him less aware of recent events.But in the end he felt that would only make things worse. "I don't remember," he said. "That's when she went crazy. She was in a café. In Rickmansworth. Don't know what she was doing there, but that's where she went. Seems like she got up and announced very calmly that she Made a great discovery or something, then wobbled, looked a little bewildered, and ended up screaming and breaking down over an egg sandwich. Arthur flinched. "I'm sorry to hear that," he said stiffly. Russell let out a grunt of complaint. "Also," Arthur tried to put things in order, "what was that CIA agent doing in the reservoir?" "Of course it's up and down. He's dead." "But……" "Forget it, you all remember. Those hallucinations. Everyone said it was total bullshit, that the CIA was doing chemical weapons testing or something. Some crazy theory that it's better to let all People think it's cheaper and more effective to be invaded." "What kind of hallucinations are they?" Arthur asked in a calm tone. "What do you mean? What kind of hallucinations? I'm talking about the ones about the giant yellow spaceships and everyone goes crazy thinking they're going to die, then bang, they're gone, and the effect Eliminated. The CIA’s denial of such a thing means it’s absolutely true.” Arthur's head was a little dizzy.He reached out and grabbed something to steady himself, and he held on tight.His mouth moved as if he wanted to say something, but no words came out. "Anyway," continued Russell, "whatever that chemical weapon is, it doesn't seem to be wearing off on Fanny that quickly. I want to sue the CIA, but a lawyer friend of mine says, It's like attacking a madhouse with a banana, so..." He shrugged. "The Vogons..." Arthur said sharply, "those yellow ships... disappeared?" "Uh, of course they disappeared, they were hallucinations." Russell looked at Arthur a little strangely, "You want to say that you don't remember anything? God, where did you go?" It was too good a question for Arthur to ask.He almost fell off his seat in shock at the question. "God!" Russell yelled, trying desperately to control the car that stopped suddenly, trying to avoid the path of an approaching truck, and turned around and rushed to a grass field.When the car finally came to a stop, the girl in the back seat was thrown from her seat and crashed awkwardly into the back of Russell's seat. Arthur turned away in horror. "Is she all right?" he blurted out. Russell combed his neat hair with both hands angrily, and stroked his blond mustache.He turned to face Arthur. "Could you please," he said, "release the handbrake?"