Chapters 1-3 Summary

In Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, private investigator Dirk Gently draws his old college friend Richard MacDuff, into a twisting investigation to ultimately save the world. A ghost, millions of years old, has been roaming the Earth in guilt and loneliness. Driven mad, he wants only to go back in time and correct the mistake that killed him and his friends, a group of aliens on their way to establish a utopian paradise on another planet. With the help of the only time machine on Earth, Dirk at first agrees to assist, until he realizes that the aliens' intended paradise is Earth itself. With some tricky time-travel, Dirk and Richard must stop the alien ghost from preventing the accident that started life itself on primordial Earth.

A light rain falls on primordial Earth, after an unrelenting rain. A tall object is...