經典科幻文學:《銀河系漫遊指南》第4章 Part 3

The crowd gasped, dazzled by sun and seemanship, as the Presidential speedboat zipped round the headland into the bay. It flashed and shone as it came skating over the sea in wide skidding turns.
In fact it didn't need to touch the water at all, because it was supported on a hazy cushion of ionized atoms — but just for effect it was fitted with thin finblades which could be lowered into the water. They slashed sheets of water hissing into the air, carved deep gashes into the sea which swayed crazily and sank back foaming into the boat's wake as it careered across the bay.
Zaphod loved effect: it was what he was best at.
He twisted the wheel sharply, the boat slewed round in a wild scything skid beneath the cliff face and dropped to rest lightly on the rocking waves.
Within seconds he ran out onto the deck and waved and grinned at over three billion people. The three billion people weren't actually there, but they watched his every gesture through the eyes of a small robot tri-D camera which hovered obsequiously in the air nearby. The antics of the President always made amazingly popular tri-D; that's what they were for.
He grinned again. Three billion and six people didn't know it, but today would be a bigger antic than anyone had bargained for.
The robot camera homed in for a close up on the more popular of his two heads and he waved again. He was roughly humanoid in appearance except for the extra head and third arm. His fair tousled hair stuck out in random directions, his blue eyes glinted with something completely unidentifiable, and his chins were almost always unshaven.
To tremendous applause Zaphod Beeblebrox stepped out of the bubble, his orange sash blazing in the light.
The President of the Galaxy had arrived.
He waited for the applause to die down, then raised his hands in greeting.
"Hi," he said.

總統駛進海灣時，人羣一下子屏住了呼吸，他們被陽光晃了眼，更被他的駕駛技術鎮住了。快艇閃耀着光芒，像是裝了寬闊的滑輪一樣滑行在海面上。
實際上，快艇根本就不用接觸水面，因爲它是靠一層電離化了的原子氣墊支撐的，而看上去伸進水中的鰭翼只不過是爲了引人注目才裝上的。駛過海灣時，這些鰭翼把海水激到空中嘶嘶作響，深深地切開海面，在船尾的痕跡中留下大團泡沫。
贊福德喜歡引人注目：這正是他最擅長的。
他猛地打了一下舵，快艇劃出一道弧形後停在懸崖下面，在風浪中起伏。
幾秒鐘後，他來到甲板上，向30億人揮手微笑。這30億人並非真的在現場，但是他們通過一架正奉承似的在附近空中盤旋的遙控三維攝像機的鏡頭可以清楚地看到他的一舉一動。總統那些古怪的舉動是最受歡迎的三維圖像：三維攝像機就是專門記錄這些的。
他又笑了笑。這30億零6個人並不知道，今天會發生他們根本預料不到的更大的古怪。
那架遙控攝像機飛得更近了，鏡頭對準了他那很受歡迎的雙頭，他又開始揮手。他的外表完全是人類的，除了多出的一個腦袋和第三隻手。他的兩頭金髮亂七八糟地向四周炸開，藍色的眼睛中閃爍着一些完全無法辨別的東西，下巴則幾乎從來沒有刮過。
一片掌聲雷動中，贊福德·畢博布魯克斯走出快艇，他的橙色飾帶在陽光下閃耀着。
銀河系總統駕到！
掌聲停下來後，他舉起手，向人們致意。
“嗨。”他說。