經典科幻文學:《生命 宇宙及一切》第19章1

Although it has been said that on Earth alone in our Galaxy is Krikkit (or cricket) treated as fit subject for a game, and that for this reason the Earth has been shunned, this does only apply to our Galaxy, and more specifically to our dimension. In some of the higher dimensions they feel they can more or less please themselves, and have been playing a peculiar game called Brockian Ultra-Cricket for whatever their transdimensional equivalent of billions of years is.
Let’s be blunt, it’s a nasty game (says The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) but then anyone who has been to any of the higher dimensions will know that they’re a pretty nasty heathen lot up there who should just be smashed and done in, and would be, too, if anyone could work out a way of firing missiles at right-angles to reality.
This is another example of the fact that The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy will employ anybody who wants to walk straight in off the street and get ripped off, especially if they happen to walk in off the street during the afternoon, when very few of the regular staff are e is a fundamental point here.
The history of The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is one of idealism, struggle, despair, passion, success, failure, and enormously long lunch-breaks.
The earliest origins of the Guide are now, along with most of its financial records, lost in the mists of time.
For other, and more curious theories about where they are lost, see below.
Most of the surviving stories, however, speak of a founding editor called Hurling Frootmig.
Hurling Frootmig, it is said, founded the Guide, established its fundamental principles of honesty and idealism, and went bust.
There followed many years of penury and heart-searching during which he consulted friends, sat in darkened rooms in illegal states of mind, thought about this and that, fooled about with weights, and then, after a chance encounter with the Holy Lunching Friars of Voondon (who claimed that just as lunch was at the centre of a man’s temporal day, and man’s temporal day could be seen as an analogy for his spiritual life, so Lunch should
(a) be seen as the centre of a man’s spiritual life, and
(b) be held in jolly nice restaurants), he refounded the Guide, laid down its fundamental principles of honesty and idealism and where you could stuff them both, and led the Guide on to its first major commercial success.
He also started to develop and explore the role of the editorial lunch-break which was subsequently to play such a crucial part in the Guide’s history, since it meant that most of the actual work got done by any passing stranger who happened to wander into the empty offices on an afternoon and saw something worth doing.
Shortly after this, the Guide was taken over by Megadodo Publications of Ursa Minor Beta, thus putting the whole thing on a very sound financial footing, and allowing the fourth editor, Lig Lury Jr., to embark on lunch-breaks of such breathtaking scope that even the efforts of recent editors, who have started undertaking sponsored lunch-breaks for charity, seem like mere sandwiches in comparison.
In fact, Lig never formally resigned his editorship he merely left his office late one morning and has never since returned. Though well over a century has now passed, many members of the Guide’s staff still retain the romantic notion that he has simply popped out for a ham croissant, and will yet return to put in a solid afternoon’s work.
Strictly speaking, all editors since Lig Lury Jr. have therefore been designated Acting Editors, and Lig’s desk is still preserved the way he left it, with the addition of a small sign which says:
Lig Lury Jr., Editor, Missing, presumed Fed.

前面提到：整個銀河系中，地球人是唯一把版求（或板球）當成健身活動的種族。因此別人都不想理地球人。不過，這只是對咱們的星系而言，尤其只對咱們的維度而言。在更高維度的世界裏，人們樂於進行一種遊戲，名叫“壞小子極端板球”——這是與原名隔了幾十億年之遠的超維度譯名。
“說白了，這是個討厭的遊戲，”（《銀河系漫遊指南》如是說）——“當然，如果如果有誰去過更高維度的世界裏，他會發現，那兒全是討厭的野蠻人，那幫人真正該死——要是誰能搞出向高維度世界發射導彈的技術的話，就太好了。”
也正因爲如此，如果誰願意走在大街上、然後被扒竊，那麼《銀河系漫遊指南》就會僱傭他。尤其是若他願意走在下午的大街上的話——那時普通員工都很少出現的。
《指南》的歷史，充滿着理想主義、奮鬥、絕望、激情、成功、失敗，以及格外長久的午餐休息時間。
《指南》的最初來源，已經和它大部分的財務記錄一起，遺失在時間的迷霧中了。
關於它們的蹤跡，更多新奇理論參見下文。
有位元老級編輯——赫令·弗盧米，常常出現在一些勵志故事裏。
據說，赫令·弗盧米創立了《指南》，爲其設立了誠信與理想主義的基本原則，然後就破產了。
多年來，他經歷了赤貧與自省、靠朋友過活、獨處暗室、神經紊亂、想東想西、體重巨幅變化。偶然間，他結識了巫頓聖午餐修行會的人（那些人宣稱：由於午餐是塵世生活一天的中心，而塵世生活約等於一個人的精神生活，所以，午餐應該：
a． 被視爲人的精神生活的中心，且
b． 在很棒的餐廳裏享用。）於是，他重新修訂了《指南》，爲其設立新的基本原則——誠信，理想主義、以及能把它倆都拋九霄雲外的地方。由此，《指南》迎來了第一次巨大的商業成功。
他開始充分利用作爲總編所享有的午餐時間，這在《指南》的歷史上影響深遠。這意味着，大多數實際工作都將由過客來完成。這些人恰好走進空蕩蕩的辦公室，看見有些活兒可以幹，於是就真的幹起來了。
不久，《指南》被小熊星座β星的巨渡渡鳥出版社接手，從而擁有了雄厚的經濟基礎，從而使它的第四任主編——小裏格·勒瑞，享有了無比綿長、不可思議的午餐時間。縱然，近幾年的主編甚至還有午餐時間贊助商，但與他相比也只是小蔥見大蔥。
實際上，裏格並未正式退下主編之位——他只是某天早上離開了辦公室，然後再也沒回來。一個多世紀過去了，《指南》的許多員工依然堅信，他不過是去買火腿牛角麪包而已，很快就會回來，繼續下午的工作。
嚴格說來，之後的主編都是代理主編。裏格的辦公桌仍保持他離開時的樣子，上面擺了一個小牌子：小裏格·勒瑞，失蹤中。估計已用餐。