`Find another,’ barked the prophet, crossly. Arthur pushed the button again.
`…denied it categorically,’ said the radio. `Next month’s Royal Wedding between Prince Gid of the Soofling Dynasty and Princess Hooli of Raui Alpha will be the most spectacular ceremony the Bjanjy Territories has ever witnessed. Our reporter Trillian Astra is there and sends us this report.’
Arthur blinked.
The sound of cheering crowds and a hubbub of brass bands erupted from the radio. A very familiar voice said, `Well Krart, the scene here in the middle of next month is absolutely incred- ible. Princess Hooli is looking radiant in a…’
The prophet swiped the radio off the bench and on to the dusty ground, where it squawked like a badly tuned chicken.
`See what we have to contend with?’ grumbled the prophet. `Here, hold this. Not that, this. No, not like that. This way up. Other way round, you fool.’ `I was listening to that,’ complained Arthur, grappling help- lessly with the prophet’s hammer.
`So does everybody. That’s why this place is like a ghost town.’ He spat into the dust.
`No, I mean, that sounded like someone I knew.’
`Princess Hooli? If I had to stand around saying hello to everybody who’s known Princess Hooli I’d need a new set of lungs.’
`Not the Princess,’ said Arthur. `The reporter. Her name’s Trillian. I don’t know where she got the Astra from. She’s from the same planet as me. I wondered where she’d got to.’
`Oh, she’s all over the continuum these days. We can’t get the tri-d TV stations out here of course, thank the Great Green Arkleseizure, but you hear her on the radio, gallivanting here and there through space/time. She wants to settle down and find herself a steady era that young lady does. It’ll all end in tears. Probably already has.’ He swung with his hammer and hit his thumb rather hard. He started to speak in tongues.
The village of oracles wasn’t much better.
He had been told that when looking for a good oracle it was best to find the oracle that other oracles went to, but he was shut. There was a sign by the entrance saying, `I just don’t know any more. Try next door, but that’s just a suggestion, not formal oracular advice.’
`Next door’ was a cave a few hundred yards away and Arthur walked towards it. Smoke and steam were rising from, respec- tively, a small fire and a battered tin pot that was hanging over it. There was also a very nasty smell coming from the pot. At least Arthur thought it was coming from the pot. The distended bladders of some of the local goat-like things were hanging from a propped-up line drying in the sun, and the smell could have been coming from them. There was also, a worryingly small distance away, a pile of discarded bodies of the local goat-like things and the smell could have been coming from them.
But the smell could just as easily have been coming from the old lady who was busy beating flies away from the pile of bodies. It was a hopeless task because each of the flies was about the size of a winged bottle top and all she had was a table tennis bat. Also she seemed half blind. Every now and then, by chance, her wild thrashing would connect with one of the flies with a richly satisfying thunk, and the fly would hurtle through the air and smack itself open against the rock face a few yards from the entrance to her cave.
She gave every impression, by her demeanour, that these were the moments she lived for.
Arthur watched this exotic performance for a while from a polite distance, and then at last tried giving a gentle cough to attract her attention. The gentle cough, courteously meant, unfortunately involved first inhaling rather more of the local atmosphere than he had so far been doing and as a result, he erupted into a fit of raucous expectoration, and collapsed against the rock face, choking and streaming with tears. He struggled for breath, but each new breath made things worse. He vomited, half-choked again, rolled over his vomit, kept rolling for a few yards, and eventually made it up on to his hands and knees and crawled, panting, into slightly fresher air.