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.
'Excuse me,' he said. He got some breath back. 'I really am most dreadfully sorry. I feel a complete idiot and . . .' He gestured helplessly towards the small pile of his own vomit Iying spread around the entrance to her cave.
'What can I say?' he said. 'What can I possibly say?'
This at least had gained her attention. She looked round at him suspiciously, but, being half blind, had difficulty finding him in the blurred and rocky landscape.
He waved, helpfully. 'Hello!' he called.
At last she spotted him, grunted to herself and turned back to whacking flies.
It was horribly apparent from the way that currents of air moved when she did, that the major source of the smell was in fact her. The drying bladders, the festering bodies and the noxious potage may all have been making violent contributions to the atmosphere, but the major olfactory presence was the woman herself.
She got another good thwack at a fly. It smacked against the rock and dribbled its insides down it in what she clearly regarded, if she could see that far, as a satisfactory manner.
Unsteadily, Arthur got to his feet and brushed himself down with a fistful of dried grass. He didn't know what else to do by way of announcing himself. He had half a mind just to wander off again, but felt awkward about leaving a pile of his vomit in front of the entrance to the woman's home. He wondered what to do about it. He started to pluck up more handsful of the scrubby dried grass that was to be found here and there. He was worried, though, that if he ventured nearer to the vomit he might simply add to it rather than clear it up.
Just as he was debating with himself as to what the right course of action was he began to realise that she was at last saying something to him.
'I beg your pardon?' he called out.
'I said, can I help you?' she said, in a thin, scratchy voice, that he could only just hear.
'Er, I came to ask your advice,' he called back, feeling a bit ridiculous.
She turned to peer at him, myopically, then turned back, swiped at a fly and missed.
'What about?' she said.
'I beg your pardon?' he said.
'I said, what about?' she almost screeched. 'Well,' said Arthur. 'Just sort of general advice, really. It said in the brochure– '
'Ha! Brochure!' spat the old woman. She seemed to be waving her bat more or less at random now.
Arthur fished the crumpled-up brochure from his pocket. He wasn't quite certain why. He had already read it and she, he expected, wouldn't want to. He unfolded it anyway in order to have something to frown thoughtfully at for a moment or two. The copy in the brochure wittered on about the ancient mystical arts of the seers and sages of Hawalius, and wild– ly over-represented the level of accommodation available in Hawalion. Arthur still carried a copy of The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy with him but found, when he consulted it, that the entries were becoming more abstruse and paranoid and had lots of x's and j's and {'s in them. Something was wrong somewhere. Whether it was in his own personal unit, or whether it was something or someone going terribly amiss, or perhaps just hallucinating, at the heart of the Guide organisation itself, he didn't know. But one way or another he was even less inclined to trust it than usual, which meant that he trusted it not one bit, and mostly used it for eating his sandwiches off when he was sitting on a rock staring at something.
The woman had turned and was walking slowly towards him now. Arthur tried, without making it too obvious, to judge the wind direction, and bobbed about a bit as she approached.
'Advice,' she said. 'Advice, eh?'
'Er, yes,' said Arthur. 'Yes, that is– '
He frowned again at the brochure, as if to be certain that he hadn't misread it and stupidly turned up on the wrong planet or something. The brochure said 'The friendly local inhabitants will be glad to share with you the knowledge and wisdom of the ancients. Peer with them into the swirling mysteries of past and future time!' There were some coupons as well, but Arthur had been far too embarrassed actually to cut them out or try to present them to anybody.
'Advice, eh,' said the old woman again. 'Just sort of general advice, you say. On what? What to do with your life, that sort of thing?'
'Yes,' said Arthur. 'That sort of thing. Bit of a problem I sometimes find if I'm being perfectly honest.' He was trying desperately, with tiny darting movements, to stay upwind of her. She surprised him by suddenly turning sharply away from him and heading off towards her cave.
'You'll have to help me with the photocopier, then,' she said.
'What?' said Arthur.
'The photocopier,' she repeated, patiently. 'You'll have to help me drag it out. It's solar-powered. I have to keep it in the cave, though, so the birds don't shit on it.
'I see,' said Arthur.
'I'd take a few deep breaths if I were you,' muttered the old woman, as she stomped into the gloom of the cave mouth.
Arthur did as she advised. He almost hyperventilated in fact. When he felt he was ready, he held his breath and followed her in.
The photocopier was a big old thing on a rickety trolley. It stood just inside the dim shadows of the cave. The wheels were stuck obstinately in different directions and the ground was rough and stony.
'Go ahead and take a breath outside,' said the old woman. Arthur was going red in the face trying to help her move the thing.
He nodded in relief. If she wasn't going to be embarrassed about it then neither, he was determined, would he. He stepped outside and took a few breaths, then came back in to do more heaving and pushing. He had to do this quite a few times till at last the machine was outside.