经典科幻文学:《基本上无害 Mostly Harmless》 第20章7

‘It’s just that you never mentioned a King,’ shouted Arthur back, in some consternation.

“只不过你从来没提过什么王不是吗？”阿瑟有些迷糊了。

‘What?’ shouted Old Thrashbarg. The thrumming of a thousand hooves was very hard to hear over, and the old man was concentrating on what he was doing.

“什么？”老刷希巴喊。耳边有几千只蹄子敲打地面的声响，实在很难再听到其他人讲话，况且老头还要集中精神干手里的活儿。

Still holding the bird aloft, he led the Beast slowly round till it was once more parallel with the motion of its great herd. He moved forward. The Beast followed. He moved forward again. The Beast followed again. At last, the Beast was lumbering forward with a little momentum.

他仍然举着噼卡鸟，引着绝对正常兽慢慢转回去，再次跟兽群行进的方向平齐。他往前走，它跟上，他在往前走，它再跟上。最后，它笨重的动作里开始有了些冲劲。

‘I said you never mentioned a King!’ shouted Arthur again.

“我说你从来没提过什么王！”阿瑟又喊。

‘I didn’t say a King,’ shouted Old Thrashbarg, ‘ I said the King.’

“我没说什么王。”老刷希巴喊道，“我说的就是王！”

He drew back his arm and then hurled it forward with all his strength, casting the pikka bird up into the air above the herd. This seemed to catch the pikka bird completely by surprise as it had obviously not been paying any attention at all to what was going on. It took it a moment or two to work out what was happening, then it unfurled its little wings, spread them out, and flew.

他收回胳膊，接着用尽全力往前一甩，把噼卡鸟扔到了兽群跟前，这招似乎完全出乎噼卡鸟的意料，因为它显然根本没有留意最近都发生了些什么。它花了一两秒钟才弄明白眼下的情况，然后舒展开自己的小翅膀扑腾几下飞走了。

‘Go!’ shouted Thrashbarg. ‘Go and meet your destiny, Sandwich Maker!’

“去吧！”刷希巴喊道，“去迎接你的命运，三明治大师！”

Arthur wasn’t so sure about wanting to meet his destiny as such. He just wanted to get to wherever it was they were going so he could get back off this creature again. He didn’t feel at all safe up there. The Beast was gathering speed as it followed in the wake of the pikka bird. And then it was in at the fringes of the great tide of animals, and in a moment or two, with its head down, the pikka bird forgotten, it was running with the herd again and rapidly approaching the point at which the herd was vanishing into thin air. Arthur and Ford held on to the great monster for dear life, surrounded on all sides by hurtling mountains of bodies.

阿瑟倒并不那么确定自己是不是愿意去迎接他的命运。他只想赶紧到它们要到的地方去，好让他可以快点从那家伙背上下来，在这儿上头他觉得一点也不安全。他俩的坐骑跟在噼卡鸟尾巴后边开始加速，然后融入兽群边缘，再一两秒钟便重新跟同伴一道埋头跑起来，完全把噼卡鸟抛在了脑后。他们迅速接近了兽群凭空消失的位置。阿瑟和福特四周全是山一样的大家伙，他俩只能死命抓紧不放手。