CHAPTER 5

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ambush for the other. Cars with screaming sirens converged on the area, only to find themselves being picked off by copters which came thudding through the air between the city’s mountainous tower blocks.

“In fact,” said Ford, having to shout now above the din, “it wasn’t quite like that. I wrote an awful lot, but they just cut it down.”

He took his copy of the Guide back out of his satchel.

“Then the planet got demolished,” he shouted. “Really worthwhile job, eh? They’ve still got to pay me, though.”

“You work for that thing?” the girl yelled back.

“Yeah.”

“Good number.”

“You want to see the stuff I wrote?” he shouted. “Before it gets erased?

The new revisions are due to be released tonight over the net. Someone must have found out that the planet I spent fifteen years on has been demolished by now. They missed it on the last few revisions, but it can’t escape their notice for ever.”

“It’s getting impossible to talk isn’t it?”

“What?”

She shrugged and pointed upwards.

There was a copter above them now which seemed to be involved in a side skirmish with the band upstairs. Smoke was billowing from the building. The sound engineer was hanging out of the window by his fingertips, and a maddened guitarist was beating on his fingers with a burning guitar. The helicopter was firing at all of them.

“Can we move?”

They wandered down the street, away from the noise. They ran into a street theatre group which tried to do a short play for them about the problems of the inner city, but then gave up and disappeared into the small restaurant most recently patronized by the pack animal. All the time, Ford was poking at the interface panel of the Guide. They ducked into an alleyway. Ford squatted on a garbage can while information began to flood over the screen of the Guide. He located his entry.

“Earth: Mostly harmless.”

Almost immediately the screen became a mass of system messages.

“Here it comes,” he said.

“Please wait,” said the messages. “Entries are being updated over the Sub-Etha Net. This entry is being revised. The system will be down for ten seconds.”

At the end of the alley a steel grey limousine crawled past.

“Hey look,” said the girl, “if you get paid, look me up. I’m a working girl, and there are people over there who need me. I gotta go.”

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