經典科幻文學:《銀河系漫遊指南》第6章 Part 3

Ford was holding up a small glass jar which quite clearly had a small yellow fish wriggling around in it. Arthur blinked at him. He wished there was something simple and recognizable he could grasp hold of. He would have felt safe if alongside the Dentrassi underwear, the piles of Squornshellous mattresses and the man from Betelgeuse holding up a small yellow fish and offering to put it in his ear he had been able to see just a small packet of corn flakes. He couldn't, and he didn't feel safe.
Suddenly a violent noise leapt at them from no source that he could identify. He gasped in terror at what sounded like a man trying to gargle whilst fighting off a pack of wolves.
"Shush!" said Ford. "Listen, it might be important."
"Im ... important?"
"It's the Vogon captain making an announcement on the T'annoy."
"You mean that's how the Vogons talk?"
"Listen!"

"But I can't speak Vogon!"
"You don't need to. Just put that fish in your ear."
Ford, with a lightning movement, clapped his hand to Arthur's ear, and he had the sudden sickening sensation of the fish slithering deep into his aural tract. Gasping with horror he scrabbled at his ear for a second or so, but then slowly turned goggle-eyed with wonder. He was experiencing the aural equivalent of looking at a picture of two black silhouetted faces and suddenly seeing it as a picture of a white candlestick. Or of looking at a lot of coloured dots on a piece of paper which suddenly resolve themselves into the figure six and mean that your optician is going to charge you a lot of money for a new pair of glasses.
He was still listening to the howling gargles, he knew that, only now it had taken on the semblance of perfectly straightforward English.
This is what he heard ...

福特於裏舉着一個小玻璃罐，可以清楚地看到裏面有—條黃色的小魚正在游來游去。阿瑟開始衝着他眨眼。他很希望有點兒什麼東西足夠簡單並且是可以認知的，這樣他才能夠領會。在丹特拉斯人的這些內衣褲、這一大堆牀墊以及這個從參宿四來的拿着一條魚要放進他的耳朵的人旁邊，哪怕只見到一小包玉米片，他也會感到比較安全。但這是不可能的，所以他找不到安全感。
突然，一陣狂野的叫聲傳過來，他判斷不出方向。這聲音像是一個人在和狼羣搏鬥時從喉頭咕噥着發出的，這讓他很害怕。
“噓！”福特說，“聽好了，這可能很重要。”
“重……重要？”
“這是沃貢艦長在擴音器裏宣佈什麼東西。”
“你是說這聲音就是沃貢人的語言？”
“聽着！”

“可我根本就不懂沃貢話！”
“你不需要懂。你只需要把這條魚放進耳朵裏。”
福特稍微動了一步，一下子把手貼在阿瑟的耳朵上，然後阿瑟很噁心地感覺到那條魚深深地滑進了自己的聽覺孔道。出於一種本能的恐懼，他抓住耳朵抖了半天，但漸漸卻開始驚訝無比地瞪大了眼睛。如果用視覺來形容他此刻的聽覺，那就是，他彷彿是在看一幅畫着兩個黑色的臉部側面輪廓的畫，可這幅畫突然間變成了一具白色燭臺。或者說，在看一張紙上畫着的許多彩色圓點，它們突然間組成了數字“6”。眼睛真要出了這種事，你的眼鏡商就會爲了一副新眼鏡收你一大筆錢。
他仍然在聽咕噥般的嚎叫聲，現在他知道了，只有這樣這聲音才能呈現爲非常簡單明瞭的英語。
以下是他聽到的……