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Chapter 5 chapter Five

Beta Ursa Minor is, according to some, one of the most astounding places in the entire known universe. The planet is rich, sun-drenched, and full of delightful inhabitants - denser than the seeds of a plump pomegranate.But it's hard to miss one thing: A recent issue of Flower Creatures featured a headline, "When You're Tired of Ursa Minor Beta, You're Tired of Life Itself" — Article After publication, the planet's suicide rate quadrupled overnight. Of course, there is no night in Ursa Minor Beta. It is a West Side planet with an inexplicable, and to some extent puzzling, peculiar landscape consisting almost entirely of subtropical coastlines.An equally puzzling oddity is that, in time, it is almost always the Saturday afternoon before the beach bars close.

The dominant life-forms on Ursa Minor Beta have never properly explained such issues, and their time is mostly spent running around the pool in an attempt to gain spiritual enlightenment and inviting galactic geography- Investigating officers from the Time Control Commission come to "live a wonderful day every day is abnormal". There's only one city on Ursa Minor Beta, and it's called one only because the swimming pools are a little denser here than elsewhere. If you get the chance to fly to Glory (actually, there is no other way to get there. No roads, no ports. If you don't fly then they don't want to see you in Glory), you will see it Why did it get such a name.Here the sunbursts were at their strongest, glinting in the swimming pools, in the boulevards lined with white palm trees, in the bobbing bronze spectacles they wore.The twinkling lights even cover villas, airports, beach bars...

Where the sun shines the most is a building.It was a tall, handsome building, consisting of two white towers of thirty stories, connected at half the height by a bridge. The building, home to a book, was built with proceeds from a no-nonsense copyright lawsuit between the book's editor and a breakfast cereal company. This book is a guide, a travel book. It's one of the most extraordinary, and certainly most successful, books ever to come out of the great publishing houses of Ursa Minor—more popular than Life Begins 550 Years Ago, and more eccentric than Gallopbit (one of Erotic Six's). The Big Bang Theory—A Personal Viewpoint, The Whore With Three Breasts) outperformed Vernon Colafield's recent blockbuster, What You Never Wanted to Know About Sex But You're Forced to Find Out The Truth sparked more controversy.

(In many of the more open civilizations on the eastern outer rim of the galaxy, this book has long since supplanted the great Encyclopedia Galactica as the standard for all knowledge and wisdom. This is because, though lengthy and containing many falsehoods or at least is less accurate, but it outdoes the more stale and stodgy work in two extremely important respects. First, it is slightly less expensive; The words "Don't Panic" are written on it.) Undoubtedly, it is an invaluable companion for all those who wish to see the wonders of the entire known universe for less than thirty Altair dollars a day.Of course, this book is.

If you're standing with your back to the main entrance hall of the Guide Publishing Building (assuming you've landed by now and refreshed after a brief freshen-up shower), then head east, along the leafy trees of Life Avenue Head ahead and you'll be amazed at the stretch of pale gold sand stretching to your left, with surfers nonchalantly floating two feet above the waves.And what also surprises you, and eventually generates a tinge of anger, is that throughout the day, the giant palm tree hums meaninglessly and out of tune, in other words, humming incessantly. If you finish the Avenue of Life, you'll enter the Lalamatine business district, full of knife fruit trees and sidewalk cafes, where the Ursa Minor Betas come after a grueling afternoon relaxing on the beach Relax here.Larramartine is one of the very few areas that doesn't enjoy a permanent Saturday afternoon - it enjoys the coolness of the first half of a permanent Saturday evening.Behind it are rows of nightclubs.

If, on this very day, during the transition from afternoon to evening—whatever you want to call that period—you come to the second sidewalk café on the right, you will see Ursa Minor-Beta As usual, people chatted and drank in groups, looking very relaxed, just casually glanced at each other's watches to see how expensive each other's watches were. You'll also meet two disheveled, disheveled rovers from Alcatraz, hitchhiking on a recently arrived Arcturian megacargo ship, where they've made do for a few days.Here they were outraged and puzzled that right here, in view of the great Hitchhiker's Guide building, an ordinary glass of fruit juice cost the equivalent of more than sixty Altair dollars.

"It's a betrayal," said one of them bitterly. If you looked at the table next to you at this moment, you would see Zaphod Beeblebrox sitting there, looking around in utter amazement and bewilderment. He was confused because, just five seconds earlier, he had been sitting on the bridge of the Starship Heart of Gold. "This is definitely a betrayal," said the voice again. Zaphod glanced nervously at the two scruffy wanderers on a nearby table.Where the hell is he?How did he come here?Where is his spaceship?He used his hand to feel the armrest of the chair he was sitting on, and then the table in front of him.They are real.He sat there, barely able to move.

"How could they sit in a place like this and write a guidebook for wanderers?" the voice continued. "I mean, look at this place. Look at it!" Zaphod was watching.Nice place, he thought.But where is this?What's the matter with all this? He reached into his pocket for his sunglasses.At this time, he felt a hard, smooth, heavy metal block in his pocket, and he didn't know what it was.He pulled the thing out, looked at it, and blinked at it in surprise.Where did this thing come from?He put it back in his pocket and put on the sunglasses, only to find to his annoyance that the piece of metal had scratched one of the lenses.However, after wearing it, he still felt much more comfortable.This is a pair of Jo Jetta 200 Super Chroma Hazard Sensing Sunglasses designed to help people adopt a relaxed attitude in the face of danger.It goes completely black at the first sign of trouble, preventing you from seeing anything that might warn you.

Aside from scratches, the lenses are clear.He finally relaxed, but only a little. The angry rover continued to stare at his insanely expensive glass of juice. "Worse things could have happened to the Guide: Come to Beta Ursa Minor," he complained, "and they've all been softened. You know, I've even heard that in one office they created A fully electronically synthesized universe, so that they can easily research problems during the day and still go to parties at night. Of course, it doesn’t make much sense to distinguish between day and night in this place.” Ursa Minor Beta, Zaphod thought.Now he finally knew where he was.He guessed it must be his great-grandfather, but why?

What annoyed him even more was that a thought suddenly popped into his mind.It was very clear, very unique, and he realized now what such thoughts were.His instinct was to resist them.They were preordained calls and urgings from those dark locked parts of his brain. He sat there, motionless, trying desperately to dismiss the thought.It came to bother him, and he ignored it.It bothered him again, but he still ignored it.It bothered him again, and he finally gave in to it. What the hell is this, he thought, flooding him like a tide.He was too tired, too confused, too hungry to continue resisting.He didn't even know what the thought meant.

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