Resumo de So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish

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So long, and thanks for all the fish

Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable

end

of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small

unregarded yellow sun.

Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two

million

miles is an utterly insignificant little blue green

planet

whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly

primitive

that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat

idea.

This planet has ? or rather had ? a problem, which was

this:

most of the people on it were unhappy for pretty much of

the

time. Many solutions were suggested for this

problem,

but

most of these were largely concerned with the

movements

of

small green pieces of paper, which is odd
because on

the

whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper
that

were

unhappy.

And so the problem remained; lots of the people
were

mean,

and most of them were miserable, even the ones
with

digital

watches.

Many were increasingly of the opinion that
they'd

all

made a

big mistake in coming down from the trees in the

first

place. And some said that even the trees had
been a

bad

move, and that no one should ever have left the

oceans.

And then, one Thursday, nearly two thousand
years

after

one

man had been nailed to a tree for saying how
great

it

would

be to be nice to people for a change, one girl

sitting

on

her own in a small cafe in Rickmansworth
suddenly

realized

what it was that had been going wrong all this
time,

and

she

finally knew how the world could be made a good
and

happy

place. This time it was right, it would work,
and no

one

would have to get nailed to anything.

Sadly, however, before she could get to a phone
to

tell

anyone about it, a terribly stupid catastrophe

occurred,

and

the idea was lost forever.

This is her story.

Chapter 1

That evening it was dark early, which was normal
for

the

time of year. It was cold and windy, which was

normal.

It started to rain, which was particularly
normal.

A spacecraft landed, which was not.

There was nobody around to see it except some

spectacularly

stupid quadrupeds who hadn't the faintest idea
what

to

make

of it, or whether they were meant to make
anything

of

it, or

eat it, or what. So they did what they did to

everything

which was to run away from it and try to hide
under

each

other, which never worked.

It slipped down out of the clouds, seemingly

balanced on

a

single beam of light.

From a distance you would scarcely have noticed
it

through

the lightning and the storm clouds, but seen
from

close

to

it was strangely beautiful ? a grey craft of

elegantly

sculpted form: quite small.

Of course, one never has the slightest notion
what

size

or

shape different species are going to turn out to
be,

but

if

you were to take the findings of the latest

Mid-Galactic

Census report as any kind of accurate guide to

statistical

averages you would probably guess that the craft

would

hold

about six people, and you would be right.

You'd probably guessed that anyway. The Census

report,

like

most such surveys, had cost an awful lot of
money

and

didn't

tell anybody anything they didn't already know ?

except

that

every single person in the Galaxy had 2.4 legs
and

owned

a

hyena. Since this was clearly not true the whole

thing

had

eventually to be scrapped.

The craft slid quietly down through the rain,
its

dim

operating lights wrapping it in tasteful
rainbows.

It

hvery quietly, a hum which became gradually
louder

and

deeper

as it approached the ground, and which at an

altitude of

six

inches became a heavy throb.

At last it dropped and was quiet.

A hatchway opened. A short flight of steps
unfolded

itself.

A light appeared in the opening, a bright light

streaming

out into the wet night, and shadows moved
within.

A tall figure appeared in the light, looked
around,

flinched, and hurried down the steps, carrying a

large

shopping bag under its arm.

It turned and gave a single abrupt wave back at
the

ship.

Already the rain was streaming through its hair.

Thank you, he called out, thank you very ...

He was interrupted by a sharp crack of thunder.
He

glanced

up apprehensively, and in response to a sudden

thought

quickly started to rummage through the large
plastic

shopping bag, which he now discovered had a hole
in

the

bottom.

It had large characters printed on the side
which

read

(to

anyone who could decipher the Centaurian
alphabet)

Duty

free

Mega-Market, Port Brasta, Alpha Centauri. Be
Like

the

Twenty-Second Elephant with Heated Value in
Space ?

Bark!

Hold on! the figure called, waving at the ship.

The steps, which had started to fold themselves
back

through

the hatchway, stopped, re-unfolded, and allowed
him
back in.

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