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

"Hello, Earthman," said Slartibartfast.
"After all," said Ford, "we can only die once."
The old man ignored this and stared keenly on to the pitch, with eyes that
seemed alive with expressions that had no apparent bearing on what was
happening out there. What was happening was that the crowd was gathering
itself into a wide circle round the centre of the pitch. What Slartibartfast
saw in it, he alone knew.
Ford was humming something. It was just one note repeated at intervals. He
was hoping that somebody would ask him what he was humming, but nobody did. If
anybody had asked him he would have said he was humming the first line of a
Noel Coward song called "Mad About the Boy" over and over again. It would then
have been pointed out to him that he was only singing one note, to which he
would have replied that for reasons which he hoped would be apparent, he was
omitting the "about the boy" bit. He was annoyed that nobody asked.
"It's just," he burst out at last, "that if we don't go soon, we might get
caught in the middle of it all again. And there's nothing that depresses me
more than seeing a planet being destroyed. Except possibly still being on it
when it happens. Or," he added in an undertone, "hanging around cricket
matches."
"Patience," said Slartibartfast again. "Great things are afoot."
"That's what you said last time we met," said Arthur.
"They were," said Slartibartfast.
"Yes, that's true," admitted Arthur.
All, however, that seemed to be afoot was a ceremony of some kind. It was
being specially staged for the benefit of tv rather than the spectators, and
all they could gather about it from where they were standing was what they
heard from a nearby radio. Ford was aggressively uninterested.
He fretted as he heard it explained that the Ashes were about to be
presented to the Captain of the English team out there on the pitch, fumed
when told that this was because they had now won them for the nth time,
positively barked with annoyance at the information that the Ashes were the
remains of a cricket stump, and when, further to this, he was asked to contend
with the fact that the cricket stump in question had been burnt in Melbourne,
Australia, in 1882, to signify the "death of English cricket", he rounded on
Slartibartfast, took a deep breath, but didn't have a chance to say anything
because the old man wasn't there. He was marching out on to the pitch with
terrible purpose in his gait, his hair, beard and robes swept behind him,
looking very much as Moses would have looked if Sinai had been a well-cut lawn
instead of, as it is more usually represented, a fiery smoking mountain.
"He said to meet him at his ship," said Arthur.
"What in the name of zarking fardwarks is the old fool doing?" exploded
Ford.
"Meeting us at his ship in two minutes," said Arthur with a shrug which
indicated total abdication of thought. They started off towards it. Strange
sounds reached their ears. They tried not to listen, but could not help
noticing that Slartibartfast was querulously demanding that he be given the
silver urn containing the Ashes, as they were, he said, "vitally important for
the past, present and future safety of the Galaxy", and that this was causing
wild hilarity. They resolved to ignore it.
What happened next they could not ignore. With a noise like a hundred