經典科幻文學:《基本上無害 Mostly Harmless》 第20章1

Leaping on to the back of a one-and-a-half-ton Perfectly Normal Beast migrating through your world at a thundering thirty miles an hour is not as easy as it might at first seem. Certainly it is not as easy as the Lamuellan hunters made it seem, and Arthur Dent was prepared to discover that this might turn out to be the difficult bit.

跳到一頭一噸重的絕對正常獸的背上，隨它一起轟隆隆地以每小時三十英里的速度穿過你的世界，這事多半沒有看上去那麼容易。拉姆拉獵人做這個動作的時候，外人看了覺得簡直易如反掌，其實並非如此，而阿瑟.鄧特已經做好心理準備，知道自己可能會發現這個部分稍微有些困難。

What he hadn’t been prepared to discover, however, was how difficult it was even getting to the difficult bit. It was the bit that was supposed to be the easy bit which turned out to be practically impossible.

不過，他沒想到自己還會發現，哪怕只是想要抵達困難的這部分也一樣困難重重。事實上，想象中應該輕鬆愉快的部分變成了幾乎不可能完成的任務。

They couldn’t even catch the attention of a single animal. The Perfectly Normal Beasts were so intent on working up a good thunder with their hooves, heads down, shoulders forward, back legs pounding the ground into porridge that it would have taken something not merely startling but actually geological to disturb them.

他們甚至沒法吸引任何一個大傢伙注意自己。絕對正常獸鐵了心要拿蹄子把轟隆隆的聲音搞個響徹雲霄，它們埋着腦袋，肩膀向前，後腿砰砰砰地把地面踏成了稀飯。要想吸引它們的注意，你需要的不僅僅是一點點驚嚇，你非得有點地質學性質的手段。

The sheer amount of thundering and pounding was, in the end, more than Arthur and Ford could deal with. After they had spent nearly two hours prancing about doing increasingly foolish things with a medium-sized floral patterned bath towel, they had not managed to get even one of the great beasts thundering and pounding past them to do so much as glance casually in their direction.

到最後，單是“轟隆隆”和“砰砰砰”的音量就讓阿瑟和福特受不了。他們上躥下跳了差不多兩個鐘頭，用一條中號帶花圖案的毛巾做了無數個動作，一個比一個傻，結果甚至沒能讓那些轟隆隆砰砰砰的大傢伙往自己這邊隨便瞄上一眼。

They were within three feet of the horizontal avalanche of sweating bodies. To have been much nearer would have been to risk instant death, chrono-logic or no chrono-logic. Arthur had seen what remained of any Perfectly Normal Beast which, as the result of a clumsy mis-throw by a young and inexperienced Lamuellan hunter, got speared while still thundering and pounding with the herd. One stumble was all it took. No prior appointment with death on Stavromula Beta, wherever the hell Stavromula Beta was, would save you or anybody else from the thunderous, mangling pounding of those hooves.

他倆距離這汗水淋漓的水平山崩不過三尺。再靠近些似乎立刻就要面臨送命的危險。類似的場景阿瑟見過。有時候，某個年輕，缺乏經驗的拉姆拉獵人會笨手笨腳地抓時機，沒等把獵物引出轟隆隆，砰砰砰就下手，阿瑟見識過那頭絕對正常獸最後的下場。只需要一個失誤就夠了。就算跟死神在斯達弗洛穆拉貝塔約好了也沒用；不管這個斯達弗洛穆拉貝塔在什麼鬼地方，它就沒法從這些轟隆隆，砰砰砰的壓路機底下救下你或者任何人。

At last, Arthur and Ford staggered back. They sat down, exhausted and defeated, and started to criticise each other’s technique with the towel.

最後，阿瑟和福特搖搖晃晃地退了下去，他們坐下來，精疲力竭，挫敗感上升到了極點，於是相互挑剔對方使用毛巾的技巧。

‘You’ve got to flick it more,’ complained Ford. ‘You need more follow-through from the elbow if you’re going to get those blasted creatures to notice anything at all.’

“你得多搖幾下。”福特抱怨道，“胳膊肘不堅持跟進怎麼能指望那些該死的傢伙注意到哪怕一點動靜呢？”

‘Follow-through?’ protested Arthur. ‘You need more suppleness in the wrist.’

“堅持跟進？”阿瑟抗議道，“你的手腕才需要柔和點。”