Ford Prefect (outofworkactor) wrote in hotelhelllogs, @ 2013-04-06 17:53:00 |
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The Guide was not very accurate; that could be taken as an axiom, really. When his several gigabyte treatise on the Earth and it inhabitants had been reduced to two words ('mostly harmless'), he felt fairly certain the great publishing house of Ursa Minor, Megadodo Publications, was not particularly interested in detail. Fifteen bytes? Really? Perhaps that was how they managed to keep the book slightly cheaper than all their competitors in the niche market, but Ford couldn't help thinking that it would only hurt them in the long run. Like now, when he was looking through the library of this supposedly haunted hotel in the hopes of finding any books on electronics that he could decipher enough to make a new sub-etha device. Because as interesting as everyone here seemed to be -- both inside and outside the hotel -- he couldn't help thinking of Arthur, all alone, on a Vogon ship. He also couldn't help feeling responsible, and not only because he'd gotten Arthur into that mess in the first place. He hadn't even had the chance to warn him to always carry a towel, for photon's sake! What if he ran into the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast Of Traal? Arthur wouldn't know what to do, and it was all his fault. "Belgium!" he muttered under his breath, pulling yet another promising looking book from the shelves, only to toss it aside in disgust a minute or two later. Nothing on etha, even, in the index. Never mind sub-etha. It was probably hopeless. Earth had been so dreadfully backward when he'd arrived -- ironically, only a few years after the current time in their present location -- but he had hoped that if a time-traveling hotel was possible, so was making a new electronic thumb. Of course, his sense of responsibility wasn't the only reason. In truth, it was the same reason he'd come to Earth for a week and stayed for fifteen years. He'd caught loads of signals on his sub-etha before then, but always told himself he'd just stay a bit longer. To research this or that trifling subject. But none of them -- and there had been hundreds -- had been the real reason. The real reason had been those haunting sea green eyes staring into his own a bit too long. Almost long enough that he seemed to work out how Ford never needed to blink. Not that Arthur ever said anything about it, which, given Earthlings' collective talent for stating the obvious, was truly remarkable. Ford's reasons for staying, however, had less to do with research and more to do with Arthur. More and more, it seemed, with each passing day. He wasn't the most exciting of ape descendants, it was true. In fact, even amongst the ape descendents themselves, Arthur was considered rather tedious on the whole. But after years of aimlessly roaming the galaxy doing research for the Guide, hitching a lift with anyone and everyone and not caring where he ended up, Ford discovered an unnerving urge to simply ... stay put. At least until he'd picked up word of the Vogon constructor fleet's arrival. Then he'd had one and only one thought: not 'Get off this ruddy planet before it's destroyed!' as might be expected, but rather, 'Save Arthur!' And not only because Arthur had saved his life by pushing him out of the way of that car when he'd been trying to shake its non-existent hand. He'd never felt that way about another male before. He'd even had girlfriends back home, since that was expected. Oh, sure. He'd claimed that his greatest ambition in life was to get drunk and dance with girls, but that was only because for the most part, the male of any species couldn't dance at all. Not the heterosexual ones of binary species, at least. It was more the dancing that interested him, he realized now, and not the with girls part. Could Arthur even dance? He didn't know, to this day, and the very thought that he didn't know something so basic about someone for whom he'd come to care so deeply galled him. He had to get out of here and save Arthur. The Universe was a very scary place for someone who'd left home without a towel, and doubly so when he didn't even know why he needed one in the first place! With that thought in mind, Ford gave a determined nod and plucked another promising looking book of the shelf in front of him. If there was a way to make a new sub-etha device, he was going to find it. Arthur was counting on him. |