經典科幻文學:《基本上無害 Mostly Harmless》 第15章4

He suddenly realised she had been talking to him and he hadn’t noticed. Or rather he had not recognised her voice.

他突然意識到她在跟自己講話，而他根本沒發覺。或者其實是他沒有聽出她的聲音。

Instead of the usual tone of voice in which she spoke to him, which was bitter and truculent, she was just asking him a simple question.

不是平時跟他說話時那種敵視，尖銳的聲音，只是一個簡簡單單的問題。

He looked round in surprise.

他吃驚地看看四周。

She was sitting there on a stool in the corner of the hut in that rather hunched way she had, knees together, feet splayed out, with her dark hair hanging down over her face as she looked at something she had cradled in her hands.

她坐在茅屋角落裏的一張板凳上，擺出自己特有的那種彎腰駝背的姿勢，膝蓋並在一起，兩腳成八字形張開，黑色的頭髮垂下來遮住面孔，雙手捧着個什麼東西正看得認真。

Arthur went over to her, a little nervously.

阿瑟走到她身邊，稍微有點緊張。

Her mood swings were very unpredictable but so far they’d all been between different types of bad ones. Outbreaks of bitter recrimination would give way without warning to abject self-pity and then long bouts of sullen despair which were punctuated with sudden acts of mindless violence against inanimate objects and demands to go to electric clubs.

她的情緒一直都是說變就變，但迄今爲止都是在各種類型的壞心情之間轉移。完全沒有一點徵兆，怨恨和挖苦就會變成可憐巴巴的自憐自傷，然後又進行好幾個回合漫長的苦悶絕望，中間還夾雜着對生命物體的毫無理由的暴力行爲以及立即前往電子俱樂部的強烈慾望。

Not only were there no electric clubs on Lamuella, there were no clubs at all and, in fact, no electricity. There was a forge and a bakery, a few carts and a well, but those were the high water mark of Lamuellan technology, and a fair number of Random’s unquenchable rages were directed against the sheer incomprehensible backwardness of the place.

在拉姆拉，別說沒有電子俱樂部，這兒壓根就沒有任何俱樂部，而且，事實上，也沒有電。村裏有個鐵匠鋪，一個麪包房，幾輛手推車和一口井，但這些就是拉姆拉科技的頂點，蘭登的怒氣很大一部分都是針對這地方完全無法理解的落後狀態。

She could pick up Sub-Etha TV on a small Flex-O-Panel which had been surgically implanted in her wrist, but that didn’t cheer her up at all because it was full of news of insanely exciting things happening in every other part of the Galaxy than here. It would also give her frequent news of her mother, who had dumped her to go off and cover some war which now seemed not to have happened, or at least to have gone all wrong in some way because of the absence of any proper intelligence gathering. It also gave her access to lots of great adventure shows featuring all sorts of fantastically expensive spaceships crashing into each other.

她的手腕上植入了一塊彈性面板，可以接收到亞以太電視節目，但這並不能讓她開心起來，因爲那上頭全是各種讓人激動得發瘋的事情，它們發生在銀河系的每個角落，只除了這兒。上頭還頻繁出現那個把她丟下自己跑去報道什麼戰爭的老媽。現在看來，那場戰爭似乎根本沒有發生，或者至少是情報工作搞得亂七八糟，引起什麼地方出了大岔子。它還讓蘭登得以觀賞到許多場面宏大的驚險片，看貴的駭人的宇宙飛船迎面相撞。

The villagers were absolutely hypnotised by all these wonderful magic images flashing over her wrist. They had only ever seen one spaceship crash, and it had been so frightening, violent and shocking and had caused so much horrible devastation, fire and death that, stupidly, they had never realised it was entertainment.

所有這些富有魔力的美妙畫面都浮動在她的手腕上，村民們完全被迷住了。他們只見過一艘飛船墜毀，那情景過於驚險恐怖，激烈震撼，而且引發了那麼多可怕的災難，例如大火和死亡，所以大家壓根沒意識到那原來是一種娛樂。

Old Thrashbarg had been so astonished by it that he had instantly seen Random as an emissary from Bob, but had fairly soon afterwards decided that in fact she had been sent as a test of his faith, if not of his patience. He was also alarmed at the number of spaceship crashes he had to start incorporating into his holy stories if he was to hold the attention of the villagers, and not have them rushing off to peer at Random’s wrist all the time.

老刷希巴也給驚得目瞪口呆，於是立即把蘭登看成了鮑伯派來的使者；但很快他又改變主意，認定其實鮑伯派她來是爲了考驗自己的信仰，如果說不是考驗自己的耐心的話。失事飛船的數量也讓他心驚，如果想繼續抓住村民們的注意力，不讓他們一天到晚去瞅蘭登的手腕，他就只好把所有的飛船全都編進他的聖史裏。