"Adams, Douglas - - Life the Universe and everything (3)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Adams Douglas)

"Arthur Dent?" it said.

Arthur nodded helplessly.

"Arthur Philip Dent?" pursued the alien in a kind of efficient
yap.

"Er ... er ... yes ... er ... er," confirmed Arthur.

"You're a jerk," repeated the alien, "a complete asshole."

"Er ..."

The creature nodded to itself, made a peculiar alien tick on its
clipboard and turned briskly back towards the ship.

"Er ..." said Arthur desperately, "er ..."

"Don't give me that!" snapped the alien. It marched up the ramp,
through the hatchway and disappeared into the ship. The ship
sealed itself. It started to make a low throbbing hum.

"Er, hey!" shouted Arthur, and started to run helplessly towards
it.

"Wait a minute!" he called. "What is this? What? Wait a minute!"

The ship rose, as if shedding its weight like a cloak to the
ground, and hovered briefly. It swept strangely up into the
evening sky. It passed up through the clouds, illuminating them
briefly, and then was gone, leaving Arthur alone in an immensity
of land dancing a helplessly tiny little dance.

"What?" he screamed. "What? What? Hey, what? Come back here and
say that!"

He jumped and danced until his legs trembled, and shouted till
his lungs rasped. There was no answer from anyone. There was no
one to hear him or speak to him.

The alien ship was already thundering towards the upper reaches
of the atmosphere, on its way out into the appalling void which
separates the very few things there are in the Universe from each
other.

Its occupant, the alien with the expensive complexion, leaned
back in its single seat. His name was Wowbagger the Infinitely
Prolonged. He was a man with a purpose. Not a very good purpose,
as he would have been the first to admit, but it was at least a
purpose and it did at least keep him on the move.