經典科幻文學:《銀河系漫遊指南》第23章

He looked at the old man, his face illuminated by the dull glow of tiny lights on the instrument panel.
"Excuse me," he said to him, "what is your name by the way?"
"My name?" said the old man, and the same distant sadness came into his face again. He paused. "My name," he said, "... is Slartibartfast."
Arthur practically choked.
"I beg your pardon?" he spluttered.
"Slartibartfast," repeated the old man quietly.
"Slartibartfast?"
The old man looked at him gravely.
"I said it wasn't important," he said.
The aircar sailed through the night.
It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what they seem. For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much — the wheel, New York, wars and so on — whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man — for precisely the same reasons.
Curiously enough, the dolphins had long known of the impending destruction of the planet Earth and had made many attempts to alert mankind of the danger; but most of their communications were misinterpreted as amusing attempts to punch footballs or whistle for tidbits, so they eventually gave up and left the Earth by their own means shortly before the Vogons arrived.
The last ever dolphin message was misinterpreted as a surprisingly sophisticated attempt to do a double-backwards-somersault through a hoop whilst whistling the "Star Sprangled Banner", but in fact the message was this: So long and thanks for all the fish.
In fact there was only one species on the planet more intelligent than dolphins, and they spent a lot of their time in behavioural research laboratories running round inside wheels and conducting frighteningly elegant and subtle experiments on man. The fact that once again man completely misinterpreted this relationship was entirely according to these creatures' plans.

他看着老人，他的臉被儀表盤上微弱的燈光照亮了。
“對不起，”他對老人說，“你叫什麼名字？”
“我的名字？”老人說，同樣的悲傷又出現在他的臉上。他頓了一下，“我的名字，”他說，“叫做司拉提巴特法斯特。”
阿瑟哽了一下。
“能請你再說一遍嗎？”他說。
“司拉提巴特法斯特。”老人平靜地重複了一遍。
“司拉提巴特法斯特？”
老人陰沉地看着他。
“我說過，這些並不重要。”他說。
空中飛車在夜色中航行着。
一個重要而普遍的事實是，事物並非總是如它們所看上去的那樣。比如，在那顆叫做地球的行星上，人類總是認爲自己比海豚聰明，因爲他們創造瞭如此之多的成就——車輪、紐約、戰爭等等——而海豚所做的全部事情就是在水中游蕩。但另一方面，海豚總是認爲自己比人類聰明得多——基於幾乎完全相同的原因。
非常奇怪的是，海豚早就知道了地球日益迫近的毀滅命運，而且費了很大的努力來警告人類這一危機。但是它們大部分的信息傳遞都被人類誤讀爲有趣的頂球嘗試，或者是爲了求得美味而吹的口哨。所以，它們最終放棄了努力，在沃貢人到達地球之前不久通過它們自己的方式離開了地球。
海豚的最後一條信息被誤讀爲一種複雜得讓人吃驚的嘗試，即一邊吹着“星條旗”的口哨，一邊向後翻兩個筋斗穿過一個鐵環。實際上，這條信息是在說：再見了所有魚類，感謝你們。
實際上，在這顆行星上只有一個物種比海豚聰明，他們在行爲科學研究實驗室裏花費了大量時間，在人類身上進行着極其文明、極其精細的實驗。但人類又一次完全錯誤地解讀了雙方之間的這種關係，之所以會出現這樣的誤讀其實完全出於這些生物的精心安排。