Unfortunately the drinks trolley wasn’t there.
Ford hurled himself desperately sideways and somersaulted towards the statue of Leda and the Octopus, which also wasn’t there. He rolled and hurtled around the room in a kind of random panic, tripped, span, hit the window, which fortunately was built to withstand rocket attacks, rebounded, and fell in a bruised and winded heap behind a smart grey crushed leather sofa, which hadn’t been there before.
After a few seconds he slowly peeked up above the top of the sofa. As well as there being no drinks trolley and no Leda and the Octopus, there had also been a startling absence of gunfire. He frowned. This was all utterly wrong.
`Mr Prefect, I assume,’ said a voice.
The voice came from a smooth-faced individual behind a large ceramo-teak-bonded desk. Stagyar-zil-Doggo may well have been a hell of an individual, but no one, for a whole variety of reasons, would ever have called him smooth-faced. This was not Stagyar-zil-Doggo.
`I assume from the manner of your entrance that you do not have new material for the, er, Guide, at the moment,’ said the smooth-faced individual. He was sitting with his elbows resting on the table and holding his fingertips together in a manner which, inexplicably, has never been made a capital offence.
`I’ve been busy,’ said Ford, rather weakly. He staggered to his feet, brushing himself down. Then he thought, what the hell was he saying things weakly for? He had to get on top of this situation. He had to find out who the hell this person was, and he suddenly thought of a way of doing it.
`Who the hell are you?, he demanded.
`I am your new editor-in-chief. That is, if we decide to retain your services. My name is Vann Harl.’ He didn’t put his hand out. He just added, `What have you done to that security robot?’
The little robot was rolling very, very slowly round the ceiling and moaning quietly to itself.
`I’ve made it very happy,’ snapped Ford. `It’s a kind of mission I have. Where’s Stagyar? More to the point, where’s his drinks trolley?’
`Mr zil-Doggo is no longer with this organisation. His drinks trolley is, I imagine, helping to console him for this fact.’
`Organisation?’ yelled Ford. `Organisation? What a bloody stupid word for a set-up like this!’
`Precisely our sentiments. Under-structured, over-resourced, under-managed, over-inebriated. And that,’ said Harl, `was just the editor.’
`I’ll do the jokes,’ snarled Ford.
`No,’ said Harl. `You will do the restaurant column.’
He tossed a piece of plastic on to the desk in front of him. Ford did not move to pick it up.
`You what?’ said Ford.
`No. Me Harl. You Prefect. You do restaurant column. Me editor. Me sit here tell you you do restaurant column. You get?’
`Restaurant column?’ said Ford, too bewildered to be really angry yet.
`Siddown, Prefect,’ said Harl. He swung round in his swivel chair, got to his feet, and stood staring out at the tiny specks enjoying the carnival twenty-three stories below.
`Time to get this business on its feet, Prefect,’ he snapped.
`We at InfiniDim Enterprises are…’
`You at what?’
`InfiniDim Enterprises. We have bought out the Guide.’
`InfiniDim?’
`We spent millions on that name, Prefect. Start liking it or start packing.’
Ford shrugged. He had nothing to pack.
`The Galaxy is changing,’ said Harl. `We’ve got to change with it. Go with the market. The market is moving up. New aspirations. New technology. The future is…’
`Don’t tell me about the future,’ said Ford. `I’ve been all over the future. Spend half my time there. It’ s the same as anywhere else. Anywhen else. Whatever. Just the same old stuff in faster cars and smellier air.’
`That’s one future,’ said Harl. `That’s your future, if you accept it. you’ve got to learn to think multi-dimensionally. There are limitless futures stretching out in every direction from this moment – and from this moment and from this. Billions of them, bifurcating every instant! Every possible position of every possible electron balloons out into billions of probabilities! Bil- lions and billions of shining, gleaming futures! you know what that means?’
`You’re dribbling down your chin.’