| Hurling |
| Ford hurled himself at the door of the editor-in cheif's office, tucked himself into a tight ball as the fram splintered and gave way, rolled rapidly across the floor to where the drinks trolley laden with some of the Galaxy's most potent and expensive beverages habitually sottd, seized hold of the trolley and, using it to give himself cover, trundled it and himself across the main exposed part of the office floor to where the octopus stood and took shelter behind it. Meanwhile the security robot, entering and chest height, was suicidally delighted to draw gunfire away from Frod. That, at least, was the plan, and a necessary one. The current editor-in cheif, Stagyar-zil-Doggo, was a dangerously unbalanced man who took a homicidal view of contributing staff turning up in his office without pages of fresh, proofed copy. And had a batter of laser-guided guns linked to special scanning devices in the door frame to deter anybody who was merely bringing extrememly good reasons why they hadn't written any. Thus was a high level of output maintained. Unfortunately, the drinks trolley wasn't there. Ford hurled himself desperately sideways and somersaulted toward the statue of Leda and the Octopus, which also wasn't there. He rolled and hurtled around the room in akind of random panic, tripped, spun, hit the window, which fortunately was built to withstand rocket attacks, rebounded and fell in a bruised and winded heap behind a smart gray crushed leather sofa, which hadn't been there before. After a few seconds he slowly peeked up above the top of the sofa. As well as there being no drinks trolley and no Leda and the Octopus, there had also been a startling absence of gunfire. He frowned. This was all utterly wrong. "Mr. Prefect, I assume," said a voice. |
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