“Garden of Eden. Tree. Apple. That bit, remember?”
“Yes of course I do.”
“Your God person puts an apple tree in the middle of a garden and says do what you like guys, oh, but don't eat the apple. Surprise surprise, they eat it and he leaps out from behind a bush shouting `Gotcha'. It wouldn't have made any difference if they hadn't eaten it.”
“Why not?”
“Because if you're dealing with somebody who has the sort of mentality which likes leaving hats on the pavement with bricks under them you know perfectly well they won't give up. They'll get you in the end.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Never mind, eat the fruit.”
“You know, this place almost looks like the Garden of Eden.”
“Eat the fruit.”
“Sounds quite like it too.”
Arthur took a bite from the thing which looked like a pear.
“It's a pear,” he said.
A few moments later, when they had eaten the lot, Ford Prefect turned round and called out.
“Thank you. Thank you very much,” he called, “you're very kind.”
They went on their way.
For the next fifty miles of their journey eastward they kept on finding the occasional gift of fruit lying in their path, and though they once or twice had a quick glimpse of a native mancreature amongst the trees, they never again made direct contact. They decided they rather liked a race of people who made it clear that they were grateful simply to be left alone.
The fruit and berries stopped after fifty miles, because that was where the sea started.
Having no pressing calls on their time they built a raft and crossed the sea. It was reasonably calm, only about sixty miles wide and they had a reasonably pleasant crossing, landing in a country that was at least as beautiful as the one they had left.
Life was, in short, ridiculously easy and for a while at least they were able to cope with the problems of aimlessness and isolation by deciding to ignore them. When the craving for company became too great they would know where to find it, but for the moment they were happy to feel that the Golgafrinchans were hundreds of miles behind them.
Nevertheless, Ford Prefect began to use his Sub-Etha Sens-O-Matic more often again. Only once did he pick up a signal, but that was so faint and from such enormous distance that it depressed him more than the silence that had otherwise continued unbroken.
On a whim they turned northwards. After weeks of travelling they came to another sea, built another raft and crossed it. This time it was harder going, the climate was getting colder. Arthur suspected a streak of masochism in Ford Prefect – the increasing difficulty of the journey seemed to give him a sense of purpose that was otherwise lacking. He strode onwards relentlessly.
Their journey northwards brought them into steep mountainous terrain of breathtaking sweep and beauty. The vast, jagged, snow covered peaks ravished their senses. The cold began to bite into their bones.
They wrapped themselves in animal skins and furs which Ford Prefect acquired by a technique he once learned from a couple of ex-Pralite monks running a Mind-Surfing resort in the Hills of Hunian.
The galaxy is littered with ex-Pralite monks, all on the make, because the mental control techniques the Order have evolved as a form of devotional discipline are, frankly, sensational – and extraordinary numbers of monks leave the Order just after they have finished their devotional training and just before they take their final vows to stay locked in small metal boxes for the rest of their lives.
Ford's technique seemed to consist mainly of standing still for a while and smiling.
After a while an animal – a deer perhaps – would appear from out of the trees and watch him cautiously. Ford would continue to smile at it, his eyes would soften and shine, and he would seem to radiate a deep and universal love, a love which reached out to embrace all of creation. A wonderful quietness would descend on the surrounding countryside, peaceful and serene, emanating from this transfigured man. Slowly the deer would approach, step by step, until it was almost nuzzling him, whereupon Ford Prefect would reach out to it and break its neck.
“Pheromone control,” he said it was, “you just have to know how to generate the right smell.”
31
A few days after landing in this mountainous land they hit a coastline which swept diagonally before them from the south-west to the north-east, a coastline of monumental grandeur: deep majestic ravines, soaring pinnacles of ice – fjords.
For two further days they scrambled and climbed over the rocks and glaciers, awe-struck with beauty.
“Arthur!” yelled Ford suddenly.
It was the afternoon of the second day. Arthur was sitting on a high rock watching the thundering sea smashing itself against the craggy promontories.
“Arthur!” yelled Ford again.
Arthur looked to where Ford's voice had come from, carried faintly in the wind.
Ford had gone to examine a glacier, and Arthur found him there crouching by the solid wall of blue ice. He was tense with excitement – his eyes darted up to meet Arthur's.
“Look,” he said, “look!”
Arthur looked. He saw the solid wall of blue ice.
“Yes,” he said, “it's a glacier. I've already seen it.”
“No,” said Ford, “you've looked at it, you haven't seen it. Look!”
Ford was pointing deep into the heart of the ice.
Arthur peered – he saw nothing but vague shadows.
“Move back from it,” insisted Ford, “look again.”
Arthur moved back and looked again.
“No,” he said, and shrugged. “What am I supposed to be looking for?”
And suddenly he saw it.
“You see it?”
He saw it.
His mouth started to speak, but his brain decided it hadn't got anything to say yet and shut it again. His brain then started to contend with the problem of what his eyes told it they were looking at, but in doing so relinquished control of the mouth which promptly fell open again. Once more gathering up the jaw, his brain lost control of his left hand which then wandered around in an aimless fashion. For a second or so the brain tried to catch the left hand without letting go of the mouth and simultaneously tried to think about what was buried in the ice, which is probably why the legs went and Arthur dropped restfully to the ground.
The thing that had been causing all this neural upset was a network of shadows in the ice, about eighteen inches beneath the surface. Looked at it from the right angle they resolved into the solid shapes of letters from an alien alphabet, each about three feet high; and for those, like Arthur, who couldn't read Magrathean there was above the letters the outline of a face hanging in the ice.
It was an old face, thin and distinguished, careworn but not unkind.
It was the face of the man who had won an award for designing the coastline they now knew themselves to be standing on.
32
