經典科幻文學:《銀河系漫遊指南》第12章 Part3

"OK," the computer continued. "Here's an interesting little notion. Did you realize that most people's lives are governed by telephone numbers?"
A pained look crawled across one of Zaphod's faces and on to the other one.
"Have you flipped?" he said.
"No, but you will when I tell you that ..."
Trillian gasped. She scrabbled at the buttons on the Improbability flight path screen.
"Telephone number?" she said. "Did that thing say telephone number?"
Numbers flashed up on the screen.
The computer had paused politely, but now it continued.
"What I was about to say was that ..."
"Don't bother please," said Trillian.
"Look, what is this?" said Zaphod.
"I don't know," said Trillian, "but those aliens — they're on the way up to the bridge with that wretched robot. Can we pick them up on any monitor cameras?"

“好的，”電腦說，“有一種有趣的觀點。你知道大多數人的命運是由電話號碼掌握的嗎？”
痛苦的表情出現在贊福德的一張臉上，隨後轉移到另一張。
“你瘋了嗎？”他說。
“沒有，不過你會瘋掉的，如果我告訴你……”
崔莉恩大口喘着氣說，一邊在非概率航行軌道掃描屏幕的按鈕上一陣亂抓。
“電話號碼？”她說，“那東西說‘電話號碼’？”
數字在屏幕上閃爍着。
電腦一度禮貌地停了一會兒，現在又拾起了話頭：

“我想說的是……”
“別打岔，拜託。”崔莉恩說。
“你瞧，這是什麼？”贊福德問。
“我不知道，”崔莉恩說，“不過，那些陌生人——他們正在跟着那個可憐的機器人朝控制橋走。我們要先看看監視器鏡頭嗎？”