經典科幻文學:《宇宙盡頭的餐館》第2章3

Within a few seconds the face of Gag Halfrunt appeared on the screen, smiling the smile of a man who knew he was ten light years away from the Vogon face he was looking at. Mixed up somewhere in the smile was a glint of irony too. Though the Vogon persistently referred to him as “my private brain care specialist” there was not a lot of brain to take care of, and it was in fact Halfrunt who was employing the Vogon. He was paying him an awful lot of money to do some very dirty work. As one of the Galaxy’s most prominent and successful psychiatrists, he and a consortium of his colleagues were quite prepared to spend an awful lot of money when it seemed that the entire future of psychiatry might be at stake.
“Well,” he said, “hello my Captain of Vogons Prostetnic, and how are we feeling today?”
The Vogon captain told him that in the last few hours he had wiped out nearly half his crew in a disciplinary exercise.
Halfrunt’s smile did not flicker for an instant.
“Well,” he said, “I think this is perfectly normal behaviour for a Vogon, you know? The natural and healthy channelling of the aggressive instincts into acts of senseless violence.”
“That,” rumbled the Vogon, “is what you always say.”
“Well again,” said Halfrunt, “I think that this is perfectly normal behaviour for a psychiatrist. Good. We are clearly both very well adjusted in our mental attitudes today. Now tell me, what news of the mission?”
“We have located the ship.”
“Wonderful,” said Halfrunt, “wonderful! and the occupants?”
“The Earthman is there.”
“Excellent! And…?”
“A female from the same planet. They are the last.”
“Good, good,” beamed Halfrunt, “Who else?”
“The man Prefect.”
“Yes?”

幾秒鐘之內，伽葛·哈爾佛蘭特的臉出現在屏幕上。這張臉上的笑容表明，他完全清楚自己和麪前的這張沃貢人的臉之間隔了整整十光年。混合在這笑容裏的，還有那麼一絲嘲諷。這個沃貢人堅持把他稱爲“我的私人腦保健醫師”，其實並沒有多少腦子需要他來照看。實際上，是哈爾佛蘭特僱用了這個沃貢人。他付給他一大筆錢，讓他去幹一件非常骯髒的工作。作爲銀河系中最傑出、最成功的精神病醫生，在精神病學的整個前途看上去危機重重的時刻，他和由他的同事們所組成的協會當然很願意破費一大筆錢。
“嗨，”他說，“我的沃貢艦長，咱們今天感覺如何？”
沃貢艦長告訴他，在過去的幾個小時裏，自己在一次紀律訓練中幹掉了幾乎一半船員。
哈爾佛蘭特的笑容甚至沒有絲毫改變。
“哦，”他說，“我認爲，對一個沃貢人來說，這種舉動再正常不過了。既出於天性，也是一種保持身體健康的宣泄，將體內的攻擊本能轉化爲毫無意義的暴力行爲。”
“又是這句話，”沃貢人嘟噥道，“你總是這麼說。”
“是的，”哈爾佛蘭特說，“我認爲，對一個精神病醫生來說，這種舉動同樣再正常不過了。好吧，咱們顯然已經把今天的精神狀態調整好了。現在告訴我，任務有什麼新進展嗎？”
“我們已經找到了那艘飛船。”
“很好，”哈爾佛蘭特說，“很好！裏面的人呢？”
“那個地球人在裏面。”
“好極了！還有呢？”
“還有一個女人，來自同一顆星球。他們是僅存的兩個。”
“好的，好的，”哈爾佛蘭特微笑着說，“其他還有些什麼人？”
“那個叫做長官的。”
“嗯？”