It’s been years since I read Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. But I could swear there’s a passage early in the book where Adams describes how we all have a natural sense which tells us when we meet a stranger. Normally it’s not much more than a tingle because we only normally meet humans from this planet. But it goes off like gangbusters when we meet people from other planets. Have I totally buttered this memory? And if not any help nailing this down would be appreciated.

Please watch this space for an announcement that I got my answer so I don’t get HHGtG email for days on end. Thanks.

Update: Klang, Klang: This email rang the bell. I got it wrong. Nevermind:

“It was actually your impending death in a place far from your place of birth that gave you that freaky sensation. So, an earthling on his home planet wouldn’t feel it much, even in the antipodes, but Ford Prefect, from Betelgeuse 600 light years away felt it pretty bad.”

Another Update: Here’s the passage, from another reader:

“[The barman]
suddenly shivered: he experienced a momentary sensation that he didn’t
understand because no one on Earth had ever experienced it before. In moments
of great stress, every life form that exists gives out a tiny subliminal
signal. This signal simply communicates an exact and almost pathetic sense of
how far that being is from the place of his birth. On Earth it is never
possible to be farther than sixteen thousand miles from your birthplace, which
really isn’t very far, so such signals are too minute to be noticed. Ford
Prefect was at this moment under great stress, and he was born six hundred
light-years away in the near vicinity of Betelgeuse.
The barman reeled for a moment, hit by a shocking, incomprehensible sense of
distance. He didn’t know what it meant, but he looked at Ford Prefect with a
new sense of respect, almost awe.”