經典科幻文學:《銀河系漫遊指南》第31章2

"It's just life," they say.
A short aircar trip brought Arthur and the old Magrathean to a doorway. They left the car and went through the door into a waiting room full of glass-topped tables and perspex awards. Almost immediately, a light flashed above the door at the other side of the room and they entered. + "Arthur! You're safe!" a voice cried.
"Am I?" said Arthur, rather startled. "Oh good."
The lighting was rather subdued and it took him a moment or so to see Ford, Trillian and Zaphod sitting round a large table beautifully decked out with exotic dishes, strange sweetmeats and bizarre fruits. They were stuffing their faces.
"What happened to you?" demanded Arthur.
"Well," said Zaphod, attacking a boneful of grilled muscle, "our guests here have been gassing us and zapping our minds and being generally weird and have now given us a rather nice meal to make it up to us. Here," he said hoiking out a lump of evil smelling meat from a bowl, "have some Vegan Rhino's cutlet. It's delicious if you happen to like that sort of thing." "Hosts?" said Arthur. "What hosts? I don't see any ..." A small voice said, "Welcome to lunch, Earth creature." Arthur glanced around and suddenly yelped.
"Ugh!" he said. "There are mice on the table!" There was an awkward silence as everyone looked pointedly at Arthur.
He was busy staring at two white mice sitting in what looked like whisky glasses on the table. He heard the silence and glanced around at everyone.
"Oh!" he said, with sudden realization. "Oh, I'm sorry, I wasn't quite prepared for ...""Let me introduce you," said Trillian. "Arthur this is Benji mouse." "Hi," said one of the mice. His whiskers stroked what must have been a touch sensitive panel on the inside of the whisky-glass like affair, and it moved forward slightly.
"And this is Frankie mouse." The other mouse said, "Pleased to meet you," and did likewise.
Arthur gaped.
"But aren't they ..." "Yes," said Trillian, "they are the mice I brought with me from the Earth." She looked him in the eye and Arthur thought he detected the tiniest resigned shrug.
"Could you pass me that bowl of grated Arcturan Megadonkey?" she said.
Slartibartfast coughed politely.
"Er, excuse me," he said.

這就是生活。他們說。
空中飛車一段短暫的航程把阿瑟和曼格拉斯老人帶到了一扇門前。他們下了車，穿過門，走進一間到處都是玻璃桌面的桌子和有機玻璃獎狀的候見室裏。隨即，房間另一端的門上亮起了燈，於是他們走了進去。
“阿瑟！你平安無事！”一個聲音叫道。
“我嗎？”阿瑟說，嚇了一大跳，“哦，還好。”光線相當昏暗，他花了好一會兒纔看見福特、崔莉恩和贊福德正圍坐在一張大桌子旁，桌上擺放着異國情調的盤子、奇怪的甜肉和怪異的水果。他們正往嘴裏塞著食物。
“你們都遇到了些什麼？”阿瑟問。
“哦，”贊福德邊說邊啃着一塊帶骨烤肉，“這裏的主人讓我們吸了麻醉氣，擾亂了我們的思維，展示了一片光怪陸離的景象，現在終於提供了一頓豐盛的午餐作爲補償。來吧，”說着他從碗裏扯嚇一塊氣味很難聞的肉，“嚐嚐食草犀牛的肉排。如果你恰好喜歡這種口味的話，這可是一道美食。”“主人？”阿瑟說，“什麼主人？我怎麼沒看見什麼……”這時，一個細微的聲音說道：“歡迎加入我們的午宴，地球生物。”阿瑟四下張望了一番，突然驚呼起來。
“天哪！”他說，“桌子上有老鼠！”接下來是一陣尷尬的沉默，所有人的目光都嚴厲的盯着阿瑟。
他卻還直直的盯着桌上坐在看上去像是威士忌酒杯的東西里的兩隻小老鼠，直到意識到了這陣沉默，他纔開始環顧所有的人。
“噢！”他這時才猛然醒悟過來，“噢，對不起，我本來是準備……”“讓我來介紹一下，”崔莉恩說，“阿瑟，這位是本吉老鼠。”“嗨。”其中一隻老鼠象他打了個招呼，同時用鬍鬚碰了一下那個象是威士忌酒杯的玩意兒裏的一個顯然是觸摸感應面板的東西，於是酒杯朝前稍稍移動了一點兒。
“這位是弗蘭克老鼠。”另一隻老鼠說：“很高興見到你。”隨後做了相同的動作。
阿瑟目瞪口呆的立在原地。
“可是他們不就是……”“是的，”崔莉恩說，“他們就是我從地球上帶來的那兩隻老鼠。”她直視著阿瑟的眼睛，阿瑟覺得自己似乎覺察到了一個最細微的聽天由命的聳肩動作。
“你能把那碗大角星巨驢碎肉遞給我嗎？”她說。
斯拉提巴特法斯特禮貌的咳嗽了一聲。
“噢，請原諒我的打擾。”他說。