"Anybody there?"

The signal, extremely primitive transmission at what the local life forms believed to be standard frequency, was the tumbleweed which Ford had stumbled upon.

Now, it irritated him like a bad allergy – the tears of frustration could not be anything but the dust. After all, he was dishing out in the windy afternoon.

Combined with the pans, the sub-Etha sense –o- matic was still nothing but deadpan silent. Even in the correct frequency of current events, the desperate "get me off this blasted planet" cries, he knew that the signal wouldn't be strong enough to tickle the sub-Etha net –when it finally would reach it – a gazillion shmillion years from now.

What could he really expect from a civilization that thought that worldwide computer networking was science fiction.

All he could do is just keep his head above the backwaters of the unfashionable part of the galaxy and hope somebody would come along and pull him out.

It was about time fortune started nodding his way too, he thought, he wasn't conspicuously handsome man by the local standard, but he was darn good in bed.

Being stuck on this bloody planet for a period of time long enough to wonder if he indeed was alone in the universe was enough to repair any karma he owed. If they just sent the check, he would even have gone and done the effort of taking a loan from the bank. His friend's bank, more likely so.

"Anybody there?"

He laughed bitterly. If only they knew.

"No" he replied in a deep authoritative voice. Couldn't help but to chuckle to himself; Now there is a piece of metaphysical exercise from animated bear. Of course, he made sure they would not be able to track the source.

'Emulating aliens, are we?' a voice asked

'No. I'm emulating an alien who is emulating a human who is emulating an alien'

'Oh. Lovely'

He threw back his head and downed a beer in one continuous stream. He threw the bottle over the fence where it crashed loudly.

Arthur Dent looked down at his friend; The man was a total mess. He looked as if he had been drinking to oblivion, hitchhiking to god knows where, waking up in a field with a mild inability to stand up, dragged across the same field and upon realizing that there is not a drop of booze on said field hitchhiked to the nearest bar, got drunk, got into a bar fight, got booted out, got sobered up by somebody spilling dirty sink water from the apartment above, got drunk again and somehow still managed to end up in square one.

'One of those days' Arthur thought 'I'll get to the bottom of this man, and when I'll get there I'll be sure to give it a good kick'

Ignoring Arthur, ford stared fixedly up at the sky like a deer searching for headlights to freeze in front of.

'Should we... Should we even be doing this?'

'Doing what? We aren't doing anything… but if you want to we could' he propped himself up on his elbows and wriggled his eyebrow suggestively.

'Ford!'

'What?' he asked with the sort of grin that would get most people locked away in a room with soft walls.

'Breaking and entering I mean! This is someone's private yard. Isn't it illegal?'

'Wouldn't be much fun if it was, would it now…?'

He looked over Arthur. 'Why aren't you at the party? I saw you talking to some girl and honestly I think you could use some…'

Arthur blushed hard.

'Some idiot talked her up'

'I can understand that' ford shrugged

'Can you!'

Ford looked up to the sky and Arthur's anger disintegrated as he was struck by a sense of great distance and loneliness.

'Ford, are you all right?' Arthur spoke quietly, sitting down beside him on a satellite dish in someone's back yard.

Ford looked back at him, again, and grasping his shoulder he leaned forward, brushing his lips gently with Arthur's.

'W h a –' Ford seemed to hit something in his speech centers for forming words suddenly became impossible.

'You're a good friend Arthur' Ford told him as he leaned back, looking as though nothing happened. 'One day I'll take you to a triple breasted whore, on me, you'll see'

For a few seconds Arthur sat in stunned silence as the sensations rushed around his mind and tried to find somewhere to settle down and make sense and then out of the scrambled mess of Arthur's brain crawled some words. The only ones who could find voice.

'Don't you think it's time to go home ford?'

'I'm trying man, I'm trying'