First, the context. This was a desert world. The dusty earth was packed hard and had neatly bruised every last bit of Arthur that hadn’t already been bruised by the festivities of the previous night. Some way ahead of them were great cliffs that looked like sandstone, eroded by the wind and what little rain presumably fell in those parts into wild and fantastic shapes, which matched the fantastic shapes of the giant cacti that sprouted here and there from the arid, orange landscape.
For a moment Arthur dared to hope they had unexpectedly arrived in Arizona or New Mexico or maybe South Dakota, but there was plenty of evidence that this was not the case.
The Perfectly Normal Beasts, for a start, still thundering, still pounding. They swept up in their tens of thousands from the far horizon, disappeared completely for about half a mile, then swept off, thundering and pounding to the distant horizon opposite.
Then there were the spaceships parked in front of the Bar \& Grill. Ah. The Domain of the King Bar \& Grill. Bit of an anti-climax, thought Arthur to himself.
In fact only one of the spaceships was parked in front of the Domain of the King Bar \& Grill. The other three were in a parking lot by the side of the Bar and Grill. It was the one in front that caught the eye, though. Wonderful looking thing. Wild fins all over it, far, far too much chrome all over the fins and most of the actual bodywork painted in a shocking pink. It crouched there like an immense brooding insect and looked as if it was at any moment about to jump on something about a mile away.
The Domain of the King Bar \& Grill was slap bang in the middle of where the Perfectly Normal Beasts would be charging if they didn’t take a minor transdimensional diversion on the way. It stood on its own, undisturbed. An ordinary Bar \& Grill. A truckstop diner. Somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Quiet. The Domain of the King.
`Gonna buy that spaceship,’ said Ford quietly.
`Buy it?’ said Arthur. `That’s not like you. I thought you usually pinched them.’
`Sometimes you have to show a little respect,’ said Ford.
`Probably have to show a little cash as well,’ said Arthur. `How the hell much is that thing worth?’
With a tiny movement, Ford brought his Dine-O-Charge credit card up out of his pocket. Arthur noticed that the hand holding it was trembling very slightly.
`I’ll teach them to make me the restaurant critic…’ breathed Ford.
`What do you mean?’ asked Arthur.
`I’ll show you,’ said Ford with a nasty glint in his eye.
`Let’s go and run up a few expenses shall we?’
`Couple beers,’ said Ford, `and, I dunno, a couple bacon rolls, whatever you got, oh and that pink thing outside.’
He flipped his card on the top of the bar and looked around casually.
There was a kind of silence.
There hadn’t been a lot of noise before, but there was defi- nitely a kind of silence now. Even the distant thunder of the Perfectly Normal Beasts carefully avoiding the Domain of the King seemed suddenly a little muted.
`Just rode into town,’ said Ford as if nothing was odd about that or about anything else. He was leaning against the bar at an extravagantly relaxed angle.
There were about three other customers in the place, sitting at tables, nursing beers. About three. Some people would say there were exactly three, but it wasn’t that kind of a place, not the kind of a place that you felt like being that specific in. There was some big guy setting up some stuff on the little stage as well. Old drum kit. Couple guitars. Country and Western kind of stuff.
The barman was not moving very swiftly to get in Ford’s order. In fact he wasn’t moving at all.
`Not sure that the pink thing’s for sale,’ he said at last in the kind of accent that went on for quite a long time.
`Sure it is,’ said Ford. `How much you want?’
`Well…’
`Think of a number, I’ll double it.’