– Good, good, - said Slartibartfast, - good. - He plunged into the crowd himself, and was told to relax by everybody he passed.

– Have you seen a bail anywhere? - said Arthur to a little man who seemed to be standing eagerly waiting to listen to somebody. - It’s made of silver, vitally important for the future safety of the Universe, and about this long.

– No, - said the enthusiastically wizened little man, - but do have a drink and tell me all about it.

Ford Prefect writhed past, dancing a wild, frenetic and not entirely unobscene dance with someone who looked as if she was wearing Sydney Opera House on her head. He was yelling a futile conversation at her above the din.

– I like that hat! - he bawled.

– What?

– I said, I like the hat.

– I’m not wearing a hat.

– Well, I like the head, then.

– What?

– I said, I like the head. Interesting bone-structure.

– What?

Ford worked a shrug into the complex routine of other movements he was performing.

– I said, you dance great, - he shouted, - just don’t nod so much.

– What?

– It’s just that every time you nod, - said Ford, -…ow! - he added as his partner nodded forward to say - What? - and once again pecked him sharply on the forehead with the sharp end of her swept-forward skull.

– My planet was blown up one morning, - said Arthur, who had found himself quite unexpectedly telling the little man his life story or, at least, edited highlights of it, - that’s why I’m dressed like this, in my dressing gown. My planet was blown up with all my clothes in it, you see. I didn’t realize I’d be coming to a party.

The little man nodded enthusiastically.

– Later, I was thrown off a spaceship. Still in my dressing gown. Rather than the space suit one would normally expect. Shortly after that I discovered that my planet had originally been built for a bunch of mice. You can imagine how I felt about that. I was then shot at for a while and blown up. In fact I have been blown up ridiculously often, shot at, insulted, regularly disintegrated, deprived of tea, and recently I crashed into a swamp and had to spend five years in a damp cave.

– Ah, - effervesced the little man, - and did you have a wonderful time?

Arthur started to choke violently on his drink.

– What a wonderful exciting cough, - said the little man, quite startled by it, - do you mind if I join you?

And with that he launched into the most extraordinary and spectacular fit of coughing which caught Arthur so much by surprise that he started to choke violently, discovered he was already doing it and got thoroughly confused.

Together they performed a lung-busting duet which went on for fully two minutes before Arthur managed to cough and splutter to a halt.

– So invigorating, - said the little man, panting and wiping tears from his eyes. - What an exciting life you must lead. Thank you very much.

He shook Arthur warmly by the hand and walked off into the crowd. Arthur shook his head in astonishment.

A youngish-looking man came up to him, an aggressive-looking type with a hook mouth, a lantern nose, and small beady little cheekbones. He was wearing black trousers, a black silk shirt open to what was presumably his navel, though Arthur had learnt never to make assumptions about the anatomies of the sort of people he tended to meet these days, and had all sorts of nasty dangly gold things hanging round his neck. He carried something in a black bag, and clearly wanted people to notice that he didn’t want them to notice it.

– Hey, er, did I hear you say your name just now? - he said.

This was one of the many things that Arthur had told the enthusiastic little man.

– Yes, it’s Arthur Dent.

The man seemed to be dancing slightly to some rhythm other than any of the several that the band were grimly pushing out.

– Yeah, - he said, - only there was a man in a mountain wanted to see you.

– I met him.

– Yeah, only he seemed pretty anxious about it, you know.

– Yes, I met him.

– Yeah, well I think you should know that.

– I do. I met him.

The man paused to chew a little gum. Then he clapped Arthur on the back.

– OK, - he said, - all right. I’m just telling you, right? Good night, good luck, win awards.

– What? - said Arthur, who was beginning to flounder seriously at this point.

– Whatever. Do what you do. Do it well. - He made a sort of clucking noise with whatever he was chewing and then some vaguely dynamic gesture.

– Why? - said Arthur.

– Do it badly, - said the man, - who cares? Who gives a shit? - The blood suddenly seemed to pump angrily into the man’s face and he started to shout.

– Why not go mad? - he said. - Go away, get off my back will you, guy. Just zark off!!!

– OK, I’m going, - said Arthur hurriedly.

– It’s been real. - The man gave a sharp wave and disappeared off into the throng.

– What was that about? - said Arthur to a girl he found standing beside him. - Why did he tell me to win awards?

– Just showbiz talk, - shrugged the girl. - He’s just won an award at the Annual Ursa Minor Alpha Recreational Illusions Institute Awards Ceremony, and was hoping to be able to pass it off lightly, only you didn’t mention it, so he couldn’t.

– Oh, - said Arthur, - oh, well I’m sorry I didn’t. What was it for?

– The Most Gratuitous Use Of The Word “Fuck” In A Serious Screenplay. It’s very prestigious.

– I see, - said Arthur, - yes, and what do you get for that?

– A Rory. It’s just a small silver thing set on a large black base. What did you say?

– I didn’t say anything. I was just about to ask what the silver…

– Oh, I thought you said “wop”.

– Said what?

– Wop.

People had been dropping in on the party now for some years, fashionable gatecrashers from other worlds, and for some time it had occurred to the partygoers as they had looked out at their own world beneath them, with its wrecked cities, its ravaged avocado farms and blighted vineyards, its vast tracts of new desert, its seas full of biscuit crumbs and worse, that their world was in some tiny and almost imperceptible ways not quite as much fun as it had been. Some of them had begun to wonder if they could manage to stay sober for long enough to make the entire party spaceworthy and maybe take it off to some other people’s worlds where the air might be fresher and give them fewer headaches.

The few undernourished farmers who still managed to scratch out a feeble existence on the half-dead ground of the planet’s surface would have been extremely pleased to hear this, but that day, as the party came screaming out of the clouds and the farmers looked up in haggard fear of yet another cheese-and-wine raid, it became clear that the party was not going to be going anywhere else for a while, that the party would soon be over. Very soon it would be time to gather up hats and coats and stagger blearily outside to find out what time of day it was, what time of year it was, and whether in any of this burnt and ravaged land there was a taxi going anywhere.

The party was locked in a horrible embrace with a strange white spaceship which seemed to be half sticking through it. Together they were lurching, heaving and spinning their way round the sky in grotesque disregard of their own weight.

The clouds parted. The air roared and leapt out of their way.

The party and the Krikkit warship looked, in their writhings, a little like two ducks, one of which is trying to make a third duck inside the second duck, whilst the second duck is trying very hard to explain that it doesn’t feel ready for a third duck right now, is uncertain that it would want any putative third duck to be made by this particular first duck anyway, and certainly not whilst it, the second duck, was busy flying.