經典科幻文學:《宇宙盡頭的餐館》第3章12

“You go swanning your way round the Galaxy with your…” the ancestor waved a contemptuous hand, “with your disreputable friends, too busy to put flowers on my grave, plastic ones would have done, would have been quite appropriate from you, but no. Too busy. Too modern. Too sceptical – till you suddenly find yourself in a bit of a fix and come over suddenly all astrally-minded!”
He shook his head – carefully, so as not to disturb the slumber of the other one, which was already becoming restive.
“Well, I don’t know, young Zaphod,” he continued, “I think I’ll have to think about this one.”
“One minute ten,” said Ford hollowly.
Zaphod Beeblebrox the Fourth peered at him curiously.
“Why does that man keep talking in numbers?” he said.
“Those numbers,” said Zaphod tersely, “are the time we’ve got left to live.”
“Oh,” said his great grandfather. He grunted to himself. “Doesn’t apply to me, of course,” he said and moved off to a dimmer recess of the bridge in search of something else to poke around at.
Zaphod felt he was teetering on the edge of madness and wondered if he shouldn’t just jump over and have done with it.
“Great Grandfather,” he said, “It applies to us! We are still alive, and we are about to lose our lives.”
“Good job too.”

“你成天在銀河系裏遊蕩，和你的”——這位祖先揮了揮手，充分表示出他的輕蔑——“和你的這些邋遢朋友們在一起，忙得沒有時間在我的墳前獻花，這可是連塑料做的機器人也會記得的事啊。對你來說當然更有意義，但你卻沒有做。太忙了。太新潮了。太無神論了——直到你突然發覺自己陷入了某種困境，於是突然發瘋似的關心起我來！”
他晃了晃腦袋——很小心，免得打擾另外一個腦袋的睡眠，後者已經有點睡不安生了。
“好吧，我不知道，年輕的贊福德，”他繼續道，“我想我必須考慮一下這個問題。”
“一分十秒。”福特毫無表情地念道。
贊福德·畢博布魯克斯四世好奇地打量着他。
“爲什麼這傢伙不停地念叨數字？”他問。
“這些數字，”贊福德簡潔地回答說，“是我們還能活命的時間。”
“喔，”他的曾祖父說，自言自語地咕噥着，“對我不起作用，毫無疑問。”於是他走到一個更昏暗的角落，開始尋找別的東西來擺弄。
贊福德感到自己已經處於瘋狂的邊緣了，他不知自己是否應該跨出這一步，乾脆徹底瘋掉。
“曾祖父，”他說，“可這對我們起作用啊！我們還活着，但現在馬上就要失去我們的生命了。”
“好。”