评论
打印
‘Let me put it another way,’ said the bird. ‘Reverse engineering enables us to shortcut all the business of waiting for one of the horribly few spaceships that passes through your galactic sector every year or so to make up its mind about whether or not it feels like giving you a lift. You want a lift, a ship arrives and gives you one. The pilot may think he has any one of a million reasons why he has decided to stop and pick you up. The real reason is that I have determined that he will.’
“让我换个讲法。”鸟说，“反向操控让我们可以抄条近道，把漫长无比的等待一笔勾销。每一年左右才会有可怜巴巴的几艘飞船路过你们的星区，而且人家乐不乐意让你搭车还是个问题。但现在，你想搭车，于是就有一艘飞船来让你搭。开飞船的家伙或许以为自己有这个或者那个理由停下来捎你一段，但真正的原因却是我决定了他的行动。”
‘This is you being extremely vain isn’t it, little bird?’
“这就是你极其自负的那部分了对吧，小东西？”
The bird was silent.
指南鸟保持沉默。
‘OK,’ said Random. ‘I want a ship to take me to Earth.’
“好吧。”兰登说，“我想要艘飞船载我去地球。”
‘Will this one do?’
“这艘你还满意吗？”
It was so silent that Random had not noticed the descending spaceship until it was nearly on top of her.
它飞行的时候是那么安静，以至于都快开到头顶了兰登才看见它。
Arthur had noticed it. He was a mile away now and closing. Just after the illuminated sausage display had drawn to its conclusion he had noticed the faint glimmerings of further lights coming down out of the clouds and had, to begin with, assumed it to be another piece of flashy son et lumiere.
阿瑟也看见它了。眼下他隔着他们一里远，正在不断接近中。闪闪发光的香肠表演刚结束他就注意到云上又出现了些微弱的亮光。一开始他还以为那又是一场光影效果。
It took a moment or so for it to dawn on him that it was an actual spaceship, and a moment or two longer for him to realise that it was dropping directly down to where he assumed his daughter to be. That was when, rain or no rain, leg injury or no leg injury, darkness or no darkness, he suddenly started really to run.
过了一两秒钟他才意识到，那是艘货真价实的宇宙飞船，之后再过了一两秒他又进一步意识到，那艘飞船正直挺挺地往他假设女儿所在的位置降落。就在这时候，他突然发力狂奔，下没下雨，腿疼不疼，天黑不黑，这些全都顾不上了。
He fell almost immediately, slid and hurt his knee quite badly on a rock. He slithered back up to his feet and tried again. He had a horrible cold feeling that he was about to lose Random for ever. Limping and cursing, he ran. He didn’t know what it was that had been in the box, but the name on it had been Ford Prefect, and that was the name he cursed as he ran.
他几乎立刻就摔了一跤，滑倒在地，撞上块石头狠狠地伤了膝盖。他歪歪曲曲地爬起来，试着继续往前跑。他有种可怕的预感，自己马上就要永远失去兰登了。他骂骂咧咧，跌跌撞撞地跑啊跑啊。他不知道那盒子里装的是什么，可上头的名字是福特.长官，这一路他骂的就是这个名字。
The ship was one of the sexiest and most beautiful ones that Random had ever seen.
那艘飞船是兰登见过最性感，最美丽的飞船之一。
It was astounding. Silver, sleek, ineffable.
实在让人震撼，华丽的银色，圆润的线条，简直无法言表。
If she didn’t know better she would have said it was an RW6. As it settled silently beside her she realised that it actually was an RW6 and she could scarcely breathe for excitement. An RW6 was the sort of thing you only saw in the sort of magazines that were designed to provoke civil unrest.
要是她没这么见多识广，她会说这是艘RW6，然后它悄无声息地降落在她身边，她意识到这的确是艘RW6，于是激动得简直喘不过气来。RW6这种东西，要想看它一眼，基本上唯一的办法就是去翻翻那些专门为了挑起公众不满而办的杂志。
She was also extremely nervous. The manner and timing of its arrival was deeply unsettling. Either it was the most bizarre coincidence or something very peculiar and worrying was going on. She waited a little tensely for the ship’s hatch to open. Her Guide – she thought of it as hers now – was hovering lightly over her right shoulder, its wings barely fluttering.
同时她也极其紧张。它抵达的方式和时机实在让人不安。这要么是个最最奇特的巧合，要么就是件非常，非常麻烦的事情。她有些僵硬地等待着舱门打开。她的指南——现在她已经把她当成自己的了——飘在她左肩上，翅膀几乎没有扇动。
