A/N: Oh, my.
"Stop— that— bicycle!"
"Whaddya mean, bicycle! I've only seen him go out with women!"
The alien's name was unpronounceable, he said, but people where he was from had called him Ix. Because his real name was unpronounceable. One of the most reasonable reasons I've ever heard of; except, why Ix?
I didn't get a chance to ask him, because he started another sentence with the word, "However."
"However," he went on, "you can call me Ford."
I frowned slightly. "That doesn't sound very alienish."
"I'm not an alien, though."
"Aren't you?" I frowned again. "Isn't that your ship?"
"Oh, that. No. That is, yes. That is, yes, I came on it, no, it isn't mine. But from my perspective, you're the alien, see—"
"Except," I objected, "that this is my home planet. Not yours."
"Ah— yes. And it is going to be destroyed."
"What?"
"Destroyed," repeated the one called occasionally Ix and more normally Ford, patiently. "Its happening in every dimension. The Vogons are working their way through the multiverse. I myself," he admitted modestly, "have already been blown up several times."
I stared at him with what I like to flatter myself were disbelieving eyes. And yet how could I not trust his words? This was no hallucination— he was indutibly an alien, on an alien ship, from an alien world. His hair was dark red, near black, longish and not so much wavy as corrugated; it stood out from his face like a halo, alien in the extreme. His eyes were the most piercing alien blue— I perceived at once that he never blinked. His skin was pale, a peculiar, translucent, alien paleness. Also, he was wearing a loincloth. And he had an absolutely hairless chest.
He noticed me staring— not at his chest, more in the loincloth area— and fidgeted, trying to cross his legs while standing up. "Sorry, er, I've just been to Africa."
"Africa?"
"Yes, I left something there when I lived there two million years ago. Silly, really, but one does wish to keep one's belongings with one. Its its own," he added.
"Beg your pardon?"
"The ship. Yes, I realize that was a bit confusing as I left the apostrophe out. The ship, though. Its its own. Nobody owns it, it runs itself. Somebody uploaded a man's brain into the main computer by mistake."
"A man's— brain? That's awful!"
"Not really. He was a smart man, and he knew what to do with an opportunity when he saw one. He hires himself out as a sort of intergalactic taxi now. I would have brought the Heart of Gold but Trillian said she couldn't spare it. She seemed to be able to spare it to Zaphod, however." Ford suddenly glowered savagely. "And her daughter," he growled. He lapsed into introspection while I stood and stared at him. Finally he snapped out of it, and his cool blue gaze returned to me.
"Lets go, please," he said. "Got everything you need?"
"But I—"
"No buts," said Ford hurriedly, "or at least, very few." He appeared to have acquired a rush. "It'd be easier on the whole if we had no buts at all, if you please."
"But—"
"Do you not get the no-but concept?"
"Where are we going?" I cried.
"I'll explain on the ship," he said shortly.
"But why me?"
"I'll explain on the ship."
"I need to say goodbye to my father!"
"I'll explain on the— oh—" He looked at me. "Are you that young? You look older. Come along, child, there's no time for that. Come along."
I looked back at the house. Inside sat Dirk, most likely scribbling away at his latest masterpiece. He called it, so far, The Salmon of Doubt, a name that sprung from a very late night and fish-flavored wine from Alaska. I wondered if he would ever finish it.
I had meant to move out by my eighteenth birthday anyway.
"No time!" shouted Ford, a bit randomly, hustling me towards the ramp leading to the space ship. From outer space. It was a space ship from outer space and I was three seconds, if he had anything to do with it, from stepping onto it and saying goodbye to life as I knew it. "No time!"
I allowed myself to be hustled, allowed my gaze to be turned away from the house I'd grown up in.
My father— Dirk believes in the interconnectedness of all things.
Surely he would understand.
Either that, or be eternally confused when I never came in from mowing the lawn.