'What do you mean?' he said.
'What do you mean, what do I mean?' shouted Ford. 'You know perfectly well what I mean. We're going to ride our way out of here.'
'Are you seriously suggesting we try to ride a Perfectly Normal Beast?'
'Yeah. See where it goes to.
'We'll be killed! No,' said Arthur, suddenly. 'We won't be killed. At least I won't. Ford, have you ever heard of a planet called Stavromula Beta?'
Ford frowned. 'Don't think so,' he said. He pulled out his own battered old copy of the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy and accessed it. 'Any funny spelling?' he said.
'Don't know. I've only ever heard it said, and that was by someone who had a mouthful of other people's teeth. You remember I told you about Agrajag?'
Ford thought for a moment. 'You mean the guy who was convinced you were getting him killed over and over again?'
'Yes. One of the places he claimed I'd got him killed was Stavromula Beta. Someone tries to shoot me, it seems. I duck and Agrajag, or at least, one of his many reincarnations, gets hit. It seems that this has definitely happened at some point in time so, I suppose, I can't get killed at least until after I've ducked on Stavromula Beta. Only no one's ever heard of it.'
'Hmm.' Ford tried a few other searches of the Hitch Hiker's Guide, but drew a blank.
'Nothing,' he said.
'I was just . . . no, I've never heard of it,' said Ford finally. He wondered why it was ringing a very, very faint bell, though.
'OK,' said Arthur. 'I've seen the way the Lamuellan hunters trap Perfectly Normal Beasts. If you spear one in the herd it just gets trampled, so they have to lure them out one at a time for the kill. It's very like the way a matador works, you know, with a brightly coloured cape. You get one to charge at you and then step aside and execute a rather elegant swing through with the cape. Have you got anything like a brightly coloured cape about you?'
'This do?' said Ford, handing him his towel.
Chapter 20
Leaping on to the back of a one-and-a-half-ton Perfectly Normal Beast migrating through your world at a thundering thirty miles an hour is not as easy as it might at first seem. Certainly it is not as easy as the Lamuellan hunters made it seem, and Arthur Dent was prepared to discover that this might turn out to be the difficult bit.
What he hadn't been prepared to discover, however, was how difficult it was even getting to the difficult bit. It was the bit that was supposed to be the easy bit which turned out to be practically impossible.
They couldn't even catch the attention of a single animal. The Perfectly Normal Beasts were so intent on working up a good thunder with their hooves, heads down, shoulders forward, back legs pounding the ground into porridge that it would have taken something not merely startling but actually geological to disturb them.
The sheer amount of thundering and pounding was, in the end. more than Arthur and Ford could deal with. After they had spent nearly two hours prancing about doing increasingly foolish things with a medium-sized floral patterned bath towel, they had not managed to get even one of the great beasts thundering and pounding past them to do so much as glance casually in their direction.
They were within three feet of the horizontal avalanche of sweating bodies. To have been much nearer would have been to risk instant death, chrono-logic or no chrono-logic. Arthur had seen what remained of any Perfectly Normal Beast which, as the result of a clumsy mis-throw by a young and inexperienced Lamuellan hunter, got speared while still thundering and pound– ing with the herd.
One stumble was all it took. No prior appointment with death on Stavromula Beta, wherever the hell Stavromula Beta was, would save you or anybody else from the thunderous, mangling pounding of those hooves.
At last, Arthur and Ford staggered back. They sat down, exhausted and defeated, and started to criticise each other's technique with the towel.
'You've got to flick it more,' complained Ford. 'You need more follow-through from the elbow if you're going to get those blasted creatures to notice anything at all.'
'Follow-through?' protested Arthur. 'You need more supple– ness in the wrist.'
'You need more after-flourish,' countered Ford.
'You need a bigger towel.'
'You need,' said another voice, 'a pikka bird.'
'You what?'
The voice had come from behind them. They turned, and there, standing behind them in the early morning sun, was Old Thrashbarg.
'To attract the attention of a Perfectly Normal Beast,' he said, as he walked forward towards them, 'you need a pikka bird. Like this.'
From under the rough, cassocky robe-like thing he wore he drew a small pikka bird. It sat restlessly on Old Thrashbarg's hand and peered intently at Bob knows what darting around about three feet six inches in front of it.
Ford instantly went into the sort of alert crouch he liked to do when he wasn't quite sure what was going on or what he ought to do about it. He waved his arms around very slowly in what he hoped was an ominous manner.
'Who is this?' he hissed.
'It's just Old Thrashbarg,' said Arthur quietly. 'And I wouldn't bother with all the fancy movements. He's just as experienced a bluffer as you are. You could end up dancing around each other all day.'
'The bird,' hissed Ford again. 'What's the bird?'
'It's just a bird!' said Arthur impatiently. 'It's like any other bird. It lays eggs and goes ark at things you can't see. Or kar or rit or something.'
'Have you seen one lay eggs?' said Ford, suspiciously.
'For heaven's sake of course I have,' said Arthur. 'And I've eaten hundreds of them. Make rather a good omelette. The secret is little cubes of cold butter and then whipping it lightly with . . .'
'I don't want a zarking recipe,' said Ford. 'I just want to be sure it's a real bird and not some kind of multi- dimensional cybernightmare. '
He slowly stood up from his crouched position and started to brush himself down. He was still watching the bird, though.
'So,' said Old Thrashbarg to Arthur. 'Is it written that Bob shall once more take back unto himself the benediction of his once-given sandwich maker?'
Ford almost went back into his crouch.
'It's all right,' muttered Arthur, 'he always talks like that.' Aloud, he said, 'Ah, venerable Thrashbarg. Um, yes. I'm afraid I think I'm going to have to be popping off now. But young Drimple, my apprentice, will be a fine sandwich maker in my stead. He has the aptitude, a deep love of sandwiches, and the skills he has acquired so far, though rudimentary as yet, will, in time mature and, er, well, I think he'll work out OK is what I'm trying to say.'
Old Thrashbarg regarded him gravely. His old grey eyes moved sadly. He held his arms aloft, one still carrying a bobbing pikka bird, the other his staff.
'O Sandwich Maker from Bob!' he pronounced. He paused, furrowed his brow, and sighed as he closed his eyes in pious contemplation. 'Life,' he said, 'will be a very great deal less weird without you!'
Arthur was stunned.
'Do you know,' he said, 'I think that's the nicest thing any– body's ever said to me?'
'Can we get on, please?' said Ford.
Something was already happening. The presence of the pikka bird at the end of Thrashbarg's outstretched
