經典科幻文學:《宇宙盡頭的餐館》第8章2

He picked up five small plastic squares and laid them on the board that lay just in front of the rack.
The five squares had on them the five letters E, X, Q, U and I. He laid them next to the letters S, I, T, E.
“Exquisite,” he said, “on a triple word score. Scores rather a lot I’m afraid.”
The ship bumped and scattered some of the letters for the n’th time.
Trillian sighed and started to sort them out again.
Up and down the silent corridors echoed Ford Prefect’s feet as he stalked the ship thumping dead instruments.
Why did the ship keep shaking? he did it rock and sway?Why could he not find out where they were?Where, basically, were they?The left-hand tower of The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy offices streaked through interstellar space at a speed never equalled either before or since by any other office block in the a room halfway up it, Zaphod Beeblebrox strode angrily.
Roosta sat on the edge of the desk doing some routine towel maintenance.
“Hey, where did you say this building was flying to?” demanded Zaphod.
“The Frogstar,” said Roosta, “the most totally evil place in the Universe.”
“Do they have food there?” said Zaphod.
“Food? You’re going to the Frogstar and you’re worried about whether they got food?”
“Without food I may not make it to the Frogstar.”
Out of the window, they could see nothing but the flickering light of the force beams, and vague green streaks which were presumably the distorted shapes of the Frogstar Fighters. At this speed, space itself was invisible, and indeed unreal.
“Here, suck this,” said Roosta, offering Zaphod his towel.
Zaphod stared at him as if he expected a cuckoo to leap out of his forehead on a small spring.
“It’s soaked in nutrients,” explained Roosta.
“What are you, a messy eater or something?” said Zaphod.
“The yellow stripes are high in protein, the green ones have vitamin B and C complexes, the little pink flowers contain wheatgerm extracts.”
Zaphod took and looked at it in amazement.
“What are the brown stains?” he asked.

他從一堆塑料小方塊中拴出五個，把它們擺放在架子前面的地板上0。
這五個小方塊上各有一個字母，E、x、O、u和I。他把他們放在另外四個字母s、I、T和E旁邊。
“Exoui，精緻，”他說，“三乘三，三倍分疽。恐怕這個分值太高了。”
飛船顛簸了一下，第n次弄亂了字母。
崔莉恩嘆了口氣，又一次把它們重新排列好。
安靜的走廊裏迴盪着福特長官的腳步聲。他在飛船內大步走！毫無生命的設備。
爲什麼飛船總在不停地震顫？他想。爲什麼它在搖擺、晃動，爲什麼他搞不清楚他們這是在哪兒，最基本的問題：他們這是在哪兒，《銀河系漫遊指南》辦公大樓左邊的那座塔樓，飛陝地穿行在星際空間之中，和整個宇宙中其他所有的力公大樓相比，那種速度簡直是空前絕後的，塔樓中部的一個房間裏，贊福德·畢博布魯克斯正氣憤地大步踱着。
羅斯塔坐在桌緣，正在爲他的毛巾做日常保養。
“嘿，你剛纔說這棟樓要飛到哪兒來着？”贊福德問。
“蛙星，”羅斯塔回答說，“宇宙中晟邪惡的地方。”
“那兒有吃的嗎，”贊禍德說。
“吃的？你都快去蛙星了，居然還操心他們那兒有沒有吃的！”
“要是沒有吃的，我足不會去蛙星的。”
窗戶外面，他們什麼也看不見，除了強力光束的閃爍，以及一該足蛙星戰鬥艦被扭曲了的輪廓，在這樣的高速下，空間本身是看不見的，同時也是不真實的。
“來吧，舔舔這個。”羅斯塔說，把毛巾遞給他。
贊福德盯着他，彷彿期待着一隻布穀鳥從他的前額輕輕一躍跳出來。
“這是在營養液裏泡過的。”羅斯塔解釋說。
“你究竟是誰，一個邋遢食客，還是別的什麼東西？”贊福德說，
“這些黃色的條紋富含蛋白質，綠色的含有維他命B和C的混合物，這些粉紅色小花則含有麥芽提取物。”
贊福德接過毛巾，驚訝地看着。
“這些褐色斑點呢，”他問。