經典科幻文學:《 基本上無害 Mostly Harmless》 第7章2

Or rather, it most definitely was not.

或者更準確的說，這絕對不是。

It merely looked a lot like the Earth and occupied the same co-ordinates in space/time. What co-ordinates it occupied in Probability was anybody’s guess.

它只是長的特別像地球，而且在空間/時間裏佔據了相同的座標。至於在概率世界裏它的座標是啥就只有天曉得了。

He sighed.

他長嘆一聲。

This, he realised, was about as close to home as he was likely to get. Which meant that he was about as far from home as he could possibly be. Glumly he slapped the brochure shut and wondered what on earth he was going to do next.

這兒，他意識到，就是他能找到的最接近家的地方。換句話說，如今他離家已經遠的不能再遠了。他“啪”的一聲合上旅遊手冊，悶悶不樂地琢磨起自己下一步到底應該咋整纔好。

He allowed himself a hollow laugh at what he had just thought. He looked at his old watch, and shook it a bit to wind it. It had taken him, according to his own time-scale, a year of hard travelling to get here. A year since the accident in hyperspace in which Fenchurch had completely vanished. One minute she had been sitting there next to him in the SlumpJet; the next minute the ship had done a perfectly normal hyperspace hop and when he had next looked she was not there. The seat wasn’t even warm. Her name wasn’t even on the passenger list.

阿瑟腦子裏淨是些亂七八糟的念頭，他勉強笑了一聲。他瞅瞅自己的老古董手錶，輕輕晃了晃，給它上緊發條。按照阿瑟自己的時間尺度計算，他辛辛苦苦地跑了一年纔到了這地方。也就是說，距離芬切其在超空間裏遇上事故已經一年了。上一秒鐘她還跟他一起坐在蹦彈噴射機上；下一秒飛船來了個再正常不過的超空間蹦，他扭過頭去時她卻已經不見了。座位甚至都沒有溫度。她的名字甚至都不在旅客名單裏。

The spaceline had been wary of him when he had complained. A lot of awkward things happen in space travel, and a lot of them make a lot of money for lawyers. But when they had asked him what Galactic Sector he and Fenchurch had been from and he had said ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha they had relaxed completely in a way that Arthur wasn’t at all sure he liked. They even laughed a little, though sympathetically, of course. They pointed to the clause in the ticket contract which said that the entities whose lifespans had originated in any of the Plural zones were advised not to travel in hyperspace and did so at their own risk. Everybody, they said, knew that. They tittered slightly and shook their heads.

他跑去申訴，航空公司對此非常緊張。太空旅行時總會發生大把的怪事，其中不少都能讓大把律師賺個盆滿。他們問阿瑟他和芬切其來自哪個銀河星區，他回答說ZZ9復阿爾法，結果他們立即完全放鬆下來，那模樣阿瑟一點都拿不準自己是不是喜歡。他們甚至還笑了笑，不過當然是很有同情心的那種笑法。然後，他們把票務合同裏的條款指給他看，上頭寫着，建議任何產生於復區的生命形式都不要做超空間旅行，否則後果自負。這事兒，他們說，宇宙人都知道。然後他們搖着腦袋，輕聲哧哧笑了。

As Arthur had left their offices he found he was trembling slightly. Not only had he lost Fenchurch in the most complete and utter way possible, but he felt that the more time he spent away out in the Galaxy the more it seemed that the number of things he didn’t know anything about actually increased.

阿瑟離開他們的辦公室，他發現自己有些發抖，他不僅以一種最徹底絕對的方式失去了芬切其，他還感覺到，自己在銀河系裏待得越長久，他一無所知的事情好像就越是增加了數量。

Just as he was lost for a moment in these numb memories a knock came on the door of his motel room, which then opened immediately. A fat and dishevelled man came in carrying Arthur’s one small case.

他沉浸在這些回憶裏，正痛的麻木，突然聽見有人敲門。沒等他說話，門就開了，一個頭發蓬亂的胖子拿來了阿瑟唯一的小箱子。

He got as far as, ‘Where shall I put—’ when there was a sudden violent flurry and he collapsed heavily against the door, trying to beat off a small and mangy creature that had leapt snarling out of the wet night and buried its teeth in his thigh, even through the thick layers of leather padding he wore there. There was a brief, ugly confusion of jabbering and thrashing. The man shouted frantically and pointed. Arthur grabbed a hefty stick that stood next to the door expressly for this purpose and beat at the boghog with it.

他剛說到“我該把它放……”，突然就一陣騷動：從溼漉漉的夜色裏衝出來一個又小又髒，張牙舞爪的東西，一口咬住了胖子的屁股，也不管那地方還有好幾層老厚的皮襯墊。胖子重重地靠到了門上，拼命想要掙脫。接下來是一陣醜陋混亂的嘰嘰喳喳和踢踢打打。胖子瘋了似的又吼又指。阿瑟趕緊抓起門邊那根沉甸甸的棍子——它顯然是專爲這類場合預備的——用力朝澤豬打下去。

The boghog suddenly disengaged and limped backwards, dazed and forlorn. It turned anxiously in the corner of the room, its tail tucked up right under its back legs, and stood looking nervously up at Arthur, jerking its head awkwardly and repeatedly to one side. Its jaw seemed to be dislocated. It cried a little and scraped its damp tail across the floor. By the door, the fat man with Arthur’s suitcase was sitting and cursing, trying to staunch the flow of blood from his thigh. His clothes were already wet from the rain.

澤豬被揍得暈頭轉向，猛地張開嘴，可憐巴巴地跛着腿退到了房間一角。它焦急不安地轉個身，尾巴在後腿中間摺疊起來，然後緊張兮兮地擡頭望着阿瑟，不但腦袋怪模怪樣地朝一邊抽搐，下巴好像還錯了位。它叫喚幾聲，被雨水淋溼的尾巴在地板上拖來拖去，而門邊，那個給阿瑟提箱子來的胖子正坐在地上罵罵咧咧，手捂着屁股上的傷口想要止血，他的衣服也早已被雨水浸溼了。

Arthur stared at the boghog, not knowing what to do. The boghog looked at him questioningly. It tried to approach him, making mournful little whimpering noises. It moved its jaw painfully. It made a sudden leap for Arthur’s thigh, but its dislocated jaw was too weak to get a grip and it sank, whining sadly, down to the floor. The fat man jumped to his feet, grabbed the stick, beat the boghog’s brains into a sticky, pulpy mess on the thin carpet, and then stood there breathing heavily as if daring the animal to move again, just once.

阿瑟瞪着澤豬，不知道該怎麼辦纔好。澤豬也滿腹狐疑地望着他，一面發出哼哼唧唧的嗚咽聲，一面動動下巴，好像覺得很痛。突然，它衝着阿瑟的屁股猛撲上去，可脫臼的下巴使不上力，於是又尖叫着落回地上。胖子跳了起來，一把抓過棍子，把澤豬的腦袋打成黏糊糊，溼漉漉的一團，整個糊在薄薄的地毯上，自己則站在旁邊使勁喘着粗氣，就好像在挑釁：看你再敢動試試，來啊。

A single boghog eyeball sat looking reproachfully at Arthur from out of the mashed ruins of its head.

在那堆爛糟糟的腦袋裏，一隻澤豬眼球望着阿瑟，滿眼的責備。