經典科幻文學:《宇宙盡頭的餐館》第24章7

“Yes, about half I’d say. Anyway – where’s the soap?” He fished around and found it.
“Yes, so anyway,” he resumed, “the idea was that into the first ship, the ‘A’ ship, would go all the brilliant leaders, the scientists, the great artists, you know, all the achievers; and into the third, or ‘C’ ship, would go all the people who did the actual work, who made things and did things, and then into the ‘B’ ship – that’s us – would go everyone else, the middlemen you see.”
He smiled happily at them.
“And we were sent off first,” he concluded, and hummed a little bathing tune.
The little bathing tune, which had been composed for him by one of his world’s most exciting and prolific jingle writer (who was currently asleep in hold thirty-six some nine hundred yards behind them) covered what would otherwise have been an awkward moment of silence. Ford and Arthur shuffled their feet and furiously avoided each other’s eyes.
“Er…” said Arthur after a moment, “what exactly was it that was wrong with your planet then?”
“Oh, it was doomed, as I said,” said the Captain, “Apparently it was going to crash into the sun or something. Or maybe it was that the moon was going to crash into us. Something of the kind. Absolutely terrifying prospect whatever it was.”
“Oh,” said the first officer suddenly, “I thought it was that the planet was going to be invaded by a gigantic swarm of twelve foot piranha bees. Wasn’t that it?”
Number Two span around, eyes ablaze with a cold hard light that only comes with the amount of practice he was prepared to put in.
“That’s not what I was told!” he hissed, “My commanding officer told me that the entire planet was in imminent danger of being eaten by an enormous mutant star goat!”
“Oh really…” said Ford Prefect.

“是的，我想，大概是一半。反正——香皂在哪兒，”說着，他游來游去地找到了香皂。
“是的……反正，”他接着說，“計劃是這樣的：第一艘飛船，也就是‘A’飛船，搭載所有卓越的領袖、科學家、偉大的藝術家·你知道，所有有成就的人；接下來是第一艘飛船，或者說‘C’飛船，搭載所有那些實際工作的人，那些製造東西的人；然後就到了‘B’船－－也就足我們——負責搭載所有其他的人，那些‘中等’的人，你明白了吧？”
他對他們愉快地笑着，
“我們是最先出發的。”他結束了介紹，開始哼一支洗澡的小曲。
這支小曲是他那個世界裏最激動人心、最多產的押韻作家（他目前正沉睡在他們後面一千六百碼至三千九百碼處的船艙裏）爲他創作的，這時恰好掩蓋了可能出現的尷尬的沉默。福特和阿瑟挪動着步子，神經質地避開彼此的目光。
“嗯，”過了一會兒，阿瑟說道，“那麼，你們的行星出了什麼問題呢？”
“喔，它註定要毀滅了，正像我剛纔說的。”艦長說，“它屆然即將墜毀到太陽或者別的什麼東西上。或者，也有可能是月亮即將墜毀到我們的星球上。總之就是這一類的事情吧。不許具體是什麼，都絕對是一幅可怕的景象。”
“哦，”大副突然說，“我聽說，邢顆行星即將遭到長達二英尺的殺人蜂組成的巨大蜂羣的襲擊。不是嗎？”
二號轉過身味，眼裏閃爍着冷酷的光芒，這是他通過大量練爿才得出的成果。
“我昕到的情況不是這樣！”他嘶嘶地說，“我的指揮官告訴我，整個行星正面臨着迫在眉睫的危險，即將被一隻巨大無比的變種星際山羊給吃掉。”
“是嗎”福特說。