“Do you think they came today?” he said, “I do. There’s mud on the floor, cigarettes and whisky on the table, fish on a plate for you and a memory of them in my mind. Hardly conclusive evidence I know, but then all evidence is circumstantial. And look what else they’ve left me.”
He reached over to the table and pulled some things off it.
“Crosswords, dictionaries, and a calculator.”
He played with the calculator for an hour, whilst the cat went to sleep and the rain outside continued to pour. Eventually he put the calculator aside.
“I think I must be right in thinking they ask me questions,” he said, “To come all that way and leave all these things for the privilege of singing songs to you would be very strange behaviour. Or so it seems to me. Who can tell, who can tell.”
From the table he picked up a cigarette and lit it with a spill from the stove. He inhaled deeply and sat back.
“I think I saw another ship in the sky today,” he said at last. “A big white one. I’ve never seen a big white one, just the six black ones. And the six green ones. And the others who say they come from so far away. Never a big white one. Perhaps six small black ones can look like one big white one at certain times. Perhaps I would like a glass of whisky. Yes, that seems more likely.”
He stood up and found a glass that was lying on the floor by the mattress. He poured in a measure from his whisky bottle. He sat again.
“Perhaps some other people are coming to see me,” he said.
A hundred yards away, pelted by the torrential rain, lay the Heart of Gold.
Its hatchway opened, and three figures emerged, huddling into themselves to keep the rain off their faces.
“In there?” shouted Trillian above the noise of the rain.
“Yes,” said Zarniwoop.
“That shack?”
“Yes.”