UNDER THE WEATHER
Disclaimer: Hitchhiker's Guide and all related characters are the property of the late Douglas Adams, may he rest in froody peace.
(Note: this takes place two months before the destruction of the Earth.)
Despite living on the planet Earth for nearly fifteen years, Ford Prefect hadn't really made any close friends. The people he knew fell into three categories:
One, people he went drinking with. (There were about a dozen or so.)
Two, people he said hello to on the street. (His neighbors, his landlady, people he saw in the shops, and so forth.)
Three, people he didn't give a care about. (Pretty much the rest of humanity.)
When he thought about it, he put Arthur Dent in the first category, though Arthur didn't drink much. Mostly he just sat nursing a mineral water and nodding his head at whatever nonsense Ford was dribbling about at the moment.
There was no one, no one on the entire planet, whom Ford could trust completely and implicitly with all his secrets.
But Arthur probably came closest.
This was what had brought Ford to the door of Arthur's home, out in the middle of nowhere. He'd had to walk the entire way, having never quite mastered the art of driving a car. He would have called first, but Arthur's phone seemed to be having difficulties; every time Ford tried to ring him, he got a busy signal. Eventually he dialed the operator, who told him that the phone in question was off the hook.
There were two possibilities that sprang to Ford's mind: one, that Arthur had met a young lady and invited her back to his home to do something that warranted no interruptions; two, that something was terribly wrong. If it was the first, he'd apologize profusely, go home, and then phone up first thing in the morning and demand details, but if something was wrong he should do something about it.
Arthur's little car was still in the driveway, meaning he hadn't gone out and forgotten to hang the phone up. There were no lights on inside, even though it was just beginning to get dark. This was really starting to worry Ford. He rang the bell.
No one answered right away. He tried it again, a few moments later, and put his ear to the door to see if he could hear anyone moving about.
He thought he heard footsteps, and then someone called out, "I'm coming! Hang on!"
That didn't sound like Arthur. What was wrong with his voice?
Ford stepped back as the latch rattled and the door opened. The man on the other side was indeed Arthur Dent, but he looked terrible. "Oh, Ford. Hello. What are you doing here?"
"I tried to ring you but couldn't get through on the phone. Are you all right?"
Arthur started to answer but was suddenly hit by a fit of violent coughing. Ford rushed forward to hold him up before he fell on his face. "I'll take that as a no. Let me help you upstairs—you shouldn't be trying to walk about in your condition."
"What condition? It's only a slight case of the flu, that's all. I'm—" Arthur didn't get much further than that; his sinuses picked that inconvenient moment to start leaking like a faucet.
Ford handed over his own pocket handkerchief. "How long has this been going on?"
"Only since this morning. I woke up, phoned in sick to work, and then took the phone off the hook so I could get some sleep."
At the top of the stairs, Ford paused. He'd never been up here before. "Which way?"
"Left. Second door on the left."
"Thank you." Ford climbed the stairs, his arm around Arthur, which took some doing as there was a considerable height difference. As they passed the bathroom, Ford asked, "Got any aspirin?"
"I don't know. Why, do you think it would help?"
"It would help me. I'm still hung over from last night."
"Oh. What, again?" Arthur said, just before he passed out. Ford caught him and half-carried, half-dragged him into the bedroom, gently laying him on the bed and spreading the covers over him. Only when he was sure that Arthur was asleep did he reach into his satchel and pull out a rather extraordinary instrument.
Said instrument was a portable medi-scanner, not found anywhere on Earth, but invaluable to someone who couldn't exactly drop into a local hospital. The lack of an appendix might not be a problem (though the absence of an operation scar might puzzle some doctors), but the two hearts might cause a bit of a stir.
Ford kept the scanner on hand just in case anything happened, which wasn't often. In nearly fifteen years, he'd only had to use it about a dozen times—the last such incident had been a nasty case of food poisoning that had almost killed him. If he hadn't restocked his first-aid kit before reaching Earth, he might have suffered a very messy death instead of merely spending a week in bed, and then vowing never to visit that restaurant again.(1)
He ran the scanner over Arthur's body once before realizing that he'd failed to switch it on. "Oh, photons." After an adjustment, Ford tried again, and this time it worked splendidly. After a few minutes, it beeped to signal that it had finished collecting the data. Now all he had to do was wait for the final report.
That came two minutes later, after Ford had found the aspirin and washed them down with a beer from the fridge. He heard the different beep of the device going into diagnosis mode and rushed upstairs.
Sure enough, Arthur had the flu . . . quite the worst strain of flu Ford had seen in all his time on Earth. Fever, cough, congestion . . . all the symptoms matched. He pushed the button marked "Treatment Options" to find out what to do next.
"No known cure? What do I do then?"
A short list obligingly popped up on the screen. "Okay . . . number one: chicken soup."
Ford checked the pantry. There were several cans of soup on the top left shelf, and three of them were chicken varieties. "Check. What's next? Pseudo-eppa-what?"
The medicine suggested by the computer had a five-syllable name, and probably wouldn't be found at the chemist's. "Put that one on hold for now. What's next? Bed rest." He went back upstairs and looked in on Arthur, who was still sleeping, and didn't appear to be going anywhere soon. "Check. Anything else?"
(1)At least, not without a flamethrower.
There was one more. "Hot liquids . . ." That brought back some bad memories. When
Ford and Zaphod were kids, they shared a lot of germs, and once (was it Rigellian flu or Altairian mega-fever?), Zaphod had managed to spill an entire bowl of hot soup into Ford's lap. When it happened again, once with a cup of tea and again with a home remedy Ford's favorite mother, Marnie, had made, Ford had concluded that Zaphod hated him and demanded his own room. (He hadn't gotten it.) For a few days after that, Zaphod had avoided his semi-cousin as much as possible, but because he was Zaphod, and had both the memory and the attention span of an Arcturan housefly, he hadn't stayed mad for long.
Ford was jolted back to the present by the "Caution" icon flashing on the screen. He clicked it and read: "Possible complications . . ." The warning took ten minutes to read and had him rushing to the phone to make sure he had the number of the local hospital handy. This was serious stuff. There was no way he could just leave now. What if he wasn't here and something happened and--?
He found a couple of spare blankets and a pillow, and made himself a temporary bed on the sofa. Then, after one last check on Arthur (who was still sleeping), Ford turned in for the night, probably the first time he'd ever done so before midnight local time.
He woke suddenly in the darkness. Fumbling for his watch, he pressed a button: 2:13 A.M. What could have woken him at this hour?
And then he heard the steady pattering of rain on the windows, and far off, a grumble of thunder.
Ford lay there in his makeshift bed, listening to the rain and trying to fall back asleep, and then he heard a noise that had nothing to do with the storm. At first he thought it was a ship come to rescue him, but his hopes faded as he realized it was only a helicopter landing in a nearby field. Why anyone would land a helicopter in a thunderstorm at two in the morning was beyond his comprehension, but it also wasn't his problem.
He sank back down onto the sofa. Where have all the teasers gone? Not a crop circle to be found, let along any Betelgeuse Trading Scout Ships. I'm alone here, and I'm never going to get off this planet. I'll die here, six hundred light-years from home, and no one will ever know. Except a handful of pub goers, the lady behind me in Sainsbury's, and . . . the gentleman upstairs, if he lives through this.
He was about to drift off to sleep when he heard footsteps coming up Arthur's front walk. As two in the morning is not a customary time for visitors, this made him sit up and take notice. He went to the window and looked out.
Four or five men in dark suits were roaming over Arthur's front lawn. A few of them had set up what looked like surveying equipment, and were inspecting the property. The rest were scurrying around, making chalk marks on the ground.
This was not good. Not. One. Little. Bit.
Ford leaned out the front door and shouted as quietly as he could, "Excuse me! What do you think you're doing?"
The closest of the men said, without looking up, "We're very busy."
"But it's—" Another glance at his watch. "Two twenty-seven in the morning! What could be so important that it couldn't wait till normal business hours?"
One of the men, who was carrying a briefcase, approached. "Are you the owner?" he asked.
"Um . . . no, but—"
"Then give him this, will you?" The man handed Ford a stack of papers, bound together with three paper clips and an elastic band. Then he went back to his surveying.
"Wait a minute! You haven't told me what you—"
"We're very busy!" the first man repeated. He was now making chalk marks across Arthur's driveway.
Ford, having finally decided that this was one of those Earth things he'd never understand, closed the door, put the papers away in his satchel for safekeeping, promptly forgot all about them, and went back to sleep.
The morning sun shone down on a lot of chalk marks. It illuminated the holes in the lawn where the surveying equipment had been. It did not illuminate the men who had made them, as they were long gone.
Ford awoke to the clink of milk bottles landing on the front doorstep. When he saw the chalk marks, he had a rather unpleasant feeling that he couldn't quite define but nonetheless bothered him for some small reason. (2) He remembered Arthur telling him once about the phone calls he got at odd hours.
"They're trying to sell me a condominium in London," Arthur had explained. "I told them I'd moved out of London for a reason, and they went on and on about how nice it was now and how there was hardly any traffic. They were really quite insistent. Finally I told them I had no money, and that got rid of them."
"Salespeople," Ford said. "Can't beat them off with a stick."
"I'd try if I thought it would work. Really, I'm not in the market for a home right now. I wish they'd understand that!"
"It's not as if they're going to knock your house down, is it?"
"Of course not!" Arthur had said, and ordered another round.
Ford wasn't sure why he remembered this; it was one of those odd things that crop up in your mind long after the fact, for seemingly no reason whatsoever. He brought the milk in, and then had to go back for the newspaper.
(2)The stack of papers was eventually found in the ruins of Arthur's house.
The next few days were strikingly normal. Most of the time Ford spent either making tea, reading Arthur the newspaper, or trying to coax the television into staying functional for more than a few seconds at a time. And when the blasted machine did work, there was so much snow on the screen that even "Hawaii Five-0" looked like it took place in the wilds of Alaska.
Twice he had to run to the shops for supplies, but other than that he stayed with Arthur until he could be reasonably sure that complications wouldn't crop up suddenly. He had one of his neighbors drop over some extra clothes, a toothbrush, and a spare towel (in case something happened to the one he had with him).
And then, on the morning of the sixth day, he happened to glance at the date on the
newspaper, and Ford Prefect, nee (unpronounceable), commonly known on Betelgeuse V as Ix, realized that today was his birthday. He decided to go for a drink to celebrate.
He was walking along a back road towards town when a car pulled up alongside him. There were four men in it, and Ford knew two of them.
The driver's side window rolled down. "Need a lift?" said Toby Next Door.
Toby was Arthur's neighbor (next door being half a mile down the road), and on several occasions he had offered Ford a lift into town to do the shopping. Ford had spent most of the first trip in the Anglia of Doom clutching the armrest with both hands, his eyes squeezed shut to control the feeling of motion sickness that was second only to his feeling of absolute terror.
His second trip in the AOD was a little less harrowing, only because he knew what to expect.
On the third trip, he was distracted by Toby's stories of his new housemate, Kevin, who had the weird habit of putting hot sauce on everything he ate, even corn flakes. Other than that one quirk, Kevin was "an okay guy", which was Toby's second-highest term of praise (if he really, really liked you, you were "a real corker").
Kevin waved from the back seat, and then pushed over. "Hey, mate, hop in. Where're you headed?"
"Just down to the pub for a bit."
"Well, hey!" said the man in the front passenger seat. "We're going to this great club in the High Street, you'll love it! Pity your friend can't come as well."
Actually, Ford thought, he's the lucky one. Out loud he said, "Well, maybe he will when he's feeling better. He's not quite ready to rejoin society, or so he says."
"I know how that feels!" the fourth man said. "One night I got really ratted and I ended up with a hangover you wouldn't believe! Took me a week to get over it."
"Really?" said Ford, trying to avoid actually having to look out the window and see how fast they were traveling towards certain doom.
After about twenty minutes of this torture, the car came to a not-very-gentle stop in front of the grungiest pub known to mankind—or at least that segment of mankind with British passports.
Ford might have noticed that there weren't any women going into this club, but he hardly had time to look around before Toby dragged him inside to get "ratted" good and proper.
At some point on the perilous ride, he had let it slip that today was his birthday, and now everyone wanted to buy him a drink. Not your average drink, but the strongest beer he'd ever had on any planet. It stopped just short of Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster strength, and the major effect of all this beer was to loosen his tongue. Suddenly Ford found himself confessing things he wouldn't have told anyone on Earth (and it was lucky for him that no one remembered anything the following morning).
Some time later (it may have been hours, or minutes; thanks to the dodgy beer, Ford's sense of time was completely screwed up), Ford made his most shocking confession of all.
"I'm not from this planet, y'know."
"Excuse me?" Toby wasn't sure he'd heard that right.
"I'm from another planet. Near Beebuh . . . Beel . . . far from here," Ford said, trying to take another drink and missing. "I came here fifteen years ago to do some research, and ended up stuck here when nobody came back to pick me up. I've seen some crazy stuff out there, let me tell you."
"You might want to ease up on the drinks a bit there," Toby said. He wasn't sure whether or not to believe these crazy claims. On the one hand, the man was very, very drunk; on the other, he always had been a bit strange, hadn't he?
"'M fine. C'n I tell you something?"
"Sure, tell me anything you want," Toby said, making a "no more" signal behind his back to the waiter.
"I've been around, right? Some o' the things I've seen . . . wiiiiiiiiiild. Reeeeally wild! You wouldn't believe . . ."
"Sure I would!" Toby insisted, playing along for now. "I been all over, mate! Go on, give it a go."
"All right," said Ford. "What I want to tell you is—"
"Wanna dance, handsome?"
A man in metallic purple trousers sidled up to Ford and put his hand in a place that Ford would have preferred no one but Eccentrica Gallumbits venture. And then he leered at Ford in a way that suggested he wanted to do things that even the Triple-Breasted Whore of Eroticon VI left out of her repertoire.
"Push off," Toby said. "He's spoken for."
"Is he now? I thought you were going with Kevin 'ere."
"I am. He's got a guy, but he couldn't make it. He's home with the flu."
The man looked down at Ford. "I won't kiss you on the lips, then. Terribly contagious, flu is."
"Thass wha' he said," Ford slurred. "Said that all week."
"Just move along, will you?" Toby urged the man.
The man in the purple trousers wouldn't take a hint, however. "We could just cuddle a bit, and skip the snogging."
Toby grabbed him by the arm and hustled him to the door, where a very large man in a very small amount of leather escorted him the rest of the way. "That's got rid of him, then."
"Who was that?" Ford asked Kevin.
"Reg Valentine. He's always hanging around, chatting up anything with or without a pulse."
"What, you mean necker—necro-whatsis?" Ford gasped.
"I've heard stories," Kevin's mate said with a funny smile.
Ford was starting to feel like he needed to lie down for a bit. The alcohol, the smoky atmosphere, and the loud music had combined to make him thoroughly queasy. He felt like he'd been run over by a Vogon constructor ship. Clearly it was time to head home.
And then all of a sudden, he saw—or thought he saw—someone he knew. He jumped up out of his seat, which turned out to be a bad move because his legs didn't want to hold him. Only by gripping the back of the chair was he able to remain upright.
"Zaphod!" he shouted across the room. "Zaphod, it's me!"
"Zaphod?" one of the bartenders asked.
The person Ford had seen turned around, and it wasn't Zaphod. Wrong number of heads, for one thing. Ford blinked several times, a sure sign that he'd overindulged, and he lost his grip on the chair. The man next to Toby managed to catch Ford before he hit the floor.
"I think it's time we took you home," he said.
And the next thing Ford knew, he was sitting on Arthur's front doorstep, looking up at the stars. He knew he must have been brought home in Toby's car, but he had no memory of the ride, which was probably a good thing.
Looking upwards, he suddenly realized that he hadn't the slightest idea which of those little sparkly bits up there was Betelgeuse. He didn't know where home was. It depressed him that he couldn't even see a tiny point of light that marked the place where he had been born.
"Happy birthday . . . to . . . me," he sang in a drunken waver.
A thought bubbled up in his brain. Why'd that man want to kiss me? Why was he interested in me? He's not one of those—
And then he fell asleep.
The next thing he knew, the milkman was shaking him awake. "Good Lord, man, you been out here all night?"
"Unh?" Ford pried his eyelids open, then wished he hadn't. His head felt like someone had been holding atomic tests inside it. It hurt to zarking breathe!
"I said, have you been out here all night?"
"I—" He could barely talk. He tried clearing his throat, which turned into a serious coughing fit.
"That doesn't sound good," the milkman said. "Better get inside before you catch your death. If you haven't already."
"I think the door's locked," Ford rasped. "I don't have a key."
Fortunately, at that moment, Arthur opened the door to see what the fuss was about. "Ford! What the devil's happened to you?"
Ford coughed again and tried slowly to get up. "Oh, Arthur, I've had a rough night. Toby and Kevin took me to this club and I got really ratted—"
"Which club?" Arthur asked.
"I dunno . . . Green something." Ford groaned. "Some man named Reg in purple trousers wanted to snog me . . ."
"Oh, that club!" said Arthur. "Come on, let's get you inside and into some decent clothes."
The milkman set down the two bottles he was holding. "Your usual two pints, Mr. Dent, and if you don't mind me saying so, sir, your friend looks like he's in a bad way."
"Thanks, I can handle it." Arthur was already helping Ford over the threshold; fortunately, it wasn't far to the sofa.
"You just lie there and get comfortable," he said, "and I'll make some tea."
Arthur went into the kitchen, and Ford eased his shoes off and closed his eyes. A few minutes later, they flew open again.
"Oh, bloody hell! They thought . . . Arthur, they thought you and I were—were a couple!" Ford blurted in shock.
"What did you say?" Arthur was carrying a tray, which he put on the coffee table. "Who thinks we're a couple?"
"Toby and Kevin and their mates! That's how they got rid of that Reg prat who wanted to snog me!"
"Sounds like you had quite an evening," Arthur said. "I can't say I'm sorry I missed it. Not really fond of those sorts of clubs. Wait—they thought we were what?"
"A couple," Ford said. "You know, a gay couple."
"Oh, my God. I'll have to go and have a word with Toby."
"At least you're feeling better," Ford said. "That makes one of us."
"Be right back," Arthur said. As he left the room, he couldn't help but think that it was a good thing Ford was around; he took Arthur's mind off his own troubles, such as his inability to attract a decent woman, or at least one who would stick around till he finished his drink and not run off with the first stranger who crossed his path.
No wonder Toby thinks I'm gay, he thought. If I didn't know better I'd wonder myself.
He came back with a thermometer and stuck it in Ford's mouth.
Ford was about to ask for another pillow when he was suddenly violated orally by this long, slim glass tube thingie. He hadn't the slightest clue what it was, and when he tried to ask, Arthur said, "No talking. Just hold that there for a few minutes."
He went out of the room again and came back with a T-shirt and shorts that might be a little big, but at least were clean and would do for now.
At last he removed the thermometer and looked at it. "That can't be right," he said. "One hundred twenty degrees?"
"Is that Fahrenheit or Celsius?" Ford asked.
"The former." Arthur blinked, looked again, and this time it said one hundred two. That was more like it.
"I'll go make up the bed in the spare room," he said.
"Oh, no, this is fine."
"Are you sure? You might be here a while. I think you've caught the same flu I just had."
"I'm fine, really. I can sleep anywhere. I would like another pillow, though."
"Oh, sure. I'll be back."
Ford watched him go, thinking, You're too good for this planet, Arthur. If I ever get off this miserable ball of rock, I'm taking you with me.Everyone should have a friend like you, even penniless hitchhikers from Betelgeuse.
And with that, he drifted into sweet dreams of home.