經典科幻文學:《銀河系漫遊指南》第34章2

It was the Blagulon Kappa policecraft, a bulbous sharklike affair, slate green in colour and smothered with black stencilled letters of varying degrees of size and unfriendliness. The letters informed anyone who cared to read them as to where the ship was from, what section of the police it was assigned to, and where the power feeds should be connected.
It seemed somehow unnaturally dark and silent, even for a ship whose two-man crew was at that moment lying asphyxicated in a smoke-filled chamber several miles beneath the ground. It is one of those curious things that is impossible to explain or define, but one can sense when a ship is completely dead.
Ford could sense it and found it most mysterious — a ship and two policemen seemed to have gone spontaneously dead. In his experience the Universe simply didn't work like that.
The other three could sense it too, but they could sense the bitter cold even more and hurried back into the Heart of Gold suffering from an acute attack of no curiosity.
Ford stayed, and went to examine the Blagulon ship. As he walked, he nearly tripped over an inert steel figure lying face down in the cold dust.
"Marvin!" he exclaimed. "What are you doing?"

那是布拉古倫卡帕星的警用飛船，一個球狀的長得鯊魚的玩意兒，暗綠色，，船身上有些大小不一、張牙舞抓的黑色字母。這些字母像那些有耐心去讀它們的人提供了一些信息，諸如這艘飛船從哪兒來、屬於警察的哪個部門，以及燃料添加對接口在哪個位置。
它看上暗淡和安靜的有些不太正常。它的兩個船員現在正僵硬的躺在幾英里之外的地下一個佈滿煙霧的房間裏，但即便是對處於這種狀態的飛船來說，它也暗淡和安靜得太不正常了。這雖然屬於那種不可能去解釋和定義的古怪事情，但是當一艘飛船徹徹底底死去的時候，人們總是能夠感覺得到的。
福特現在就有這樣的感，他認爲這是最神祕的——一艘飛船和兩個警察就這麼不明不白的死了。在他的經驗裏，宇宙的法則似乎不是這樣的。
另外三個人也能感覺到，不過他們更能感覺到刺骨的寒冷，所以趕忙鑽進了“黃金之心”號，沒有一絲一毫出於好奇心的留戀。
福特卻留在外面，走過去檢查布拉古倫飛船。途中，他差點兒被一個臉朝下趴在寒冷灰塵中的鋼鐵玩意兒絆倒。
“馬文！”他叫了起來，“你在這兒幹嗎！”“請你不必管我。”一陣低沉的嗡嗡聲傳出。