Chapter 20 Chapter Twenty

Jumping on the back of a perfectly normal one-ton beast and rumbling with it through your world at thirty miles an hour is probably not as easy as it seems.When the Ramla hunter did this action, outsiders thought it was easy, but it was not. Arthur Dent was already mentally prepared, knowing that he might find this part a little difficult. However, he didn't expect that he would find that even if he just wanted to reach the difficult part, it would be just as difficult.In fact, what should have been an easy and fun part of the imagination turned out to be an almost impossible task. They couldn't even get any of the big guys to pay attention to themselves.Absolutely normal beasts are determined to use their hooves to make the rumbling sound resound through the sky. They bury their heads, shoulders forward, and their hind legs thump the ground into porridge.To attract their attention, you need more than a little scare, you have to have a bit of geology.

By the end, the volume of the "boom boom" and "thump boom" alone became too much for Arthur and Ford.They jumped up and down for almost two hours, using a medium-sized floral patterned towel to do countless moves, each more silly than the other, but in the end they couldn't even get those big rumbling guys to take a casual glance in their direction . They were only three feet away from the sweaty horizontal landslide.Any closer seemed to be in immediate danger of death.Arthur had seen similar scenes.Occasionally a young, inexperienced Ramla hunter would make a fumbling, bang bang bang bang before he could lure his prey out of Rumble, and Arthur had seen what happened to that perfectly normal beast.All it takes is one mistake.It's no use making an appointment with Death at Stavro Murabetta; wherever the hell this Stavro Murabetta is, it can't save you from under these rumbling, thumping steamrollers or anyone.

Finally, Arthur and Ford staggered back, and they sat back, exhausted and frustrated at their height, to criticize each other for their towel-handling skills. "You need to shake it a few more times," Ford grumbled. "How can you expect those goddamn guys to notice even a little movement if the elbow doesn't keep following?" "Follow up?" Arthur protested. "Your wrist needs to be softened." "You need more follow-up swings." "You need a bigger towel." "You need," said another voice, "to keep the Picka."

"What?" The voice came from behind them.Arthur and Ford turned around, and standing in the morning sun was old Shiba. "To get the attention of absolutely normal beasts," he said as he walked towards them, "you need to keep peckering. Like this." He drew a pica from under his vestment-like robes.The little bird fidgeted in Old Brush Sheba's hand, staring intently at a distance of three feet and six inches in front of him, and only Bob knew what to see there. Ford immediately fell into his alert lurking stance, a standard one he used whenever he wasn't quite sure what the situation was or what he should do.He waved his arms from side to side, hoping to make a menacing impression.

"Who is this?" he hissed. "It's just old Shiba," Arthur replied calmly, "and, if I were you, I wouldn't do the tricks, he's about as experienced at bluffing as you are. You two can probably go around like this all day." circle." "That bird," Ford hissed again, "what's that bird?" "It's just a bird!" Arthur said impatiently. "It's just like any other bird. It lays eggs or yells at things you can't see, and bleats and cheeps and whatnot." "Have you ever seen it lay eggs?" Ford was quite suspicious.

"For heaven's sake I've seen it," Arthur said. "Have eaten hundreds of them. They're actually quite good as an omelet. The secret is in the little pats of cold butter and stirring them lightly." ..." "I'm not interested in the damn recipe," Ford said. "I just want to make sure it's a real bird and not some polycomputer nightmare." Slowly, he relaxed his guard posture and began to pat his clothes.But his eyes were still on the pica. "So," said Old Brush Sheba to Arthur, "is it fate that Bob will recall the gospel he bestowed, and make us lose our Sandwich Master?"

Ford almost went back on alert. "Don't worry," murmured Arthur, "he's always talked like that." Then he said aloud, "Ah, my lord Sheba. Well, yes. I'm afraid my departure was a bit sudden indeed. But young Drimple, my apprentice, will take my place as a good sandwich master. He has brains and loves sandwiches, and the skills he has acquired so far, though immature, will mature with time. , and, uh, that, I guess I meant to say he's going to do a good job." Old Sheba looked at him gravely, his old eyes full of sorrow, and he raised his arms, still holding the Pica in one hand, and his staff in the other.

"Oh, sandwich master down from Bob!" he said clearly.Then he stopped, frowned hard, sighed, closed his eyes, and meditated reverently. "Without you," he said at last, "how much less queer life would be!" Arthur was stunned. "You know," he said, "I think that's the sweetest thing ever said to me?" "Can we go on, please?" Ford said. Something has happened.The pika at the end of Shiba's arm caused tremors in the rumbling herd.From time to time, a few heads turned to look at them, and Arthur recalled the hunting scene he had seen before.He remembered that besides the cape-wielding hunter and bullfighter, there was always someone else standing behind with a pica.In the past, he always thought that everyone was here to join in the fun just like him.

Old Brush Shiba took a few steps forward and got a little closer to the galloping beasts. Now some big guys started to turn their heads, looking at the Pika with great interest. Old Brush Sheba's outstretched arms were trembling. Only Picca himself seemed indifferent to all this, and just concentrated all his attention on a few unknown molecules in the air. "Now!" roared old Sheba, "now you can lure them here with towels." Arthur walked forward with Ford's towel, trying to strut like a hunter's matador with his head held high and gracefully, which didn't feel natural to him at all.But now he knew what to do, and he knew he was doing the right thing.He waved the towel a few times, getting ready for the next move, and then opened his eyes wide.

A little further away he found the end he wanted.It was at the very end of the herd, heading straight for him with its head buried.Old Brush Shiba shook the pica, it glanced up, jerked its head up, and then, just as it was about to sink its head again, Arthur shook the towel within its sight.It raised its head again, looking confused, its eyes following the movement of the towel. He caught the attention of this absolutely normal beast. From that moment on, everything seemed so natural.Arthur patiently coaxed it into his side; it held its head up, turned slightly to one side, then slowed down to a trot and then a brisk walk.A few seconds later, the big guy was among them, snorting, panting, sweating, and sniffing excitedly at the pecker, who didn't even notice it approaching.Old Brush Shiba's arms flailed grotesquely, keeping Picaca in front of him, but never letting him reach it, and always moving downward.Arthur's towel waved oddly, too, directing his attention this way or that—all the way down, of course.

"I'm afraid I've never seen anything so stupid in my life," whispered Ford to himself. Finally the big guy knelt down, dazed, but remarkably docile. "Go!" Old Sheba whispered to Ford, with urgency in his voice, "Go! Now!" Ford hopped onto the big guy's back, groping around in its thick, tangled fur for support, and when he was seated he grabbed a handful of fur to steady himself. "Now, Sandwich Master! Go!" Sheba made some intricate gestures, and shook Arthur's hand in ancient etiquette.Arthur didn't understand this set at all, because they were obviously improvised by the old brush Shiba.Then Shiba pushed him forward, and Arthur took a deep breath, climbed onto the hot, heaving, wide back, sat behind Ford and held on.Under his buttocks, the huge muscle mass like a sea lion is undulating and folding. Old Shu Xiba suddenly lifted the pica up, and the beast's head followed suit, and Shu Xiba kept lifting his arms and the pica up.Slowly, the absolutely normal beast stood up with its bulky body, shaking slightly.Uneasy, the two knights held on tighter. As far as Arthur looked, there was a raging sea of ​​galloping perfectly normal beasts; he looked far and wide to see where they were going, but there was nothing in sight but a puff of steaming heat. "See anything?" he asked Ford. "No," Ford said, glancing back over his shoulder to see if he could figure out where they were coming from, but couldn't find any. Arthur bowed his head and shouted at Sheba. "Do you know where they come from?" he cried, "or where are they going?" "The king's territory!" Old Brush Shiba shouted back. "King?" Arthur was taken aback, "What king?" The absolutely normal beast under them had already started to fidget and wobble. "What do you mean, what king?" Old Brush Shiba shouted, "It's the king!" "It's just that you never mentioned the king, did you?" Arthur was a little confused. "What?" Old Brush Shiba shouted.With the sound of thousands of hooves beating the ground, it was really difficult to hear other people talking, and the old man had to concentrate on the work in hand. Still holding the pica, he slowly turned the absolutely normal beasts back, again leveling with the direction the herd was heading.He goes forward, it keeps up, he goes forward, it keeps up again.Finally, some momentum began to emerge in its clumsy movements. "I said you never mentioned a king!" cried Arthur again. "I didn't say king," cried Old Sheba, "I said king!" He withdrew his arm, and then with all his might he threw the Picca into the herd, a move which seemed entirely unexpected to the Picca, for he was evidently not paying attention to what had been going on lately.It took a second or two to figure out what was going on, and then flapped its little wings and flew away. "Go!" Shouted Sheba, "to meet your destiny, Sandwich Master!" Arthur wasn't so sure he wanted to meet his fate.He just wanted to get where they were going so he could get off that guy quickly, he didn't feel safe up there.Their mounts sped up behind the Picca's tail, then merged into the fringe of the herd, and in a second or two they were running again with their companions, completely forgetting the Picca.They quickly approached the position where the herd disappeared out of thin air.Arthur and Ford were surrounded by mountains of big guys, and they could only hold on tightly. "Go! Ride!" The voice of Xiba came from a distance, echoing weakly in their ears, "Ride on the absolutely normal beast! Go! Go!" Ford called into Arthur's ear, "Where does he say we're going?" "What did he say the king is coming?" Arthur yelled back, grasping desperately. "What king?" "I also asked here, and he said it was the king." "I've never heard of a king!" exclaimed Ford. "Me neither!" cried Arthur back. "Except the king, of course," cried Ford, "of course I don't think he meant him!" "What king?" cried Arthur. The exit is almost here.Not far in front of them, the absolutely normal beast was rushing into the air, disappearing without a trace. "What do you mean, what king?" cried Ford. "I don't know what king, I just said he couldn't mean that king, so I don't know what he means." "Ford, I don't know what you're talking about." "So?" Ford said.Then they suddenly dashed, and the stars appeared, turned and twisted around their heads, and then, as suddenly as before, they disappeared again.