经典科幻文学:《基本上无害 Mostly Harmless》 第20章1

Leaping on to the back of a one-and-a-half-ton Perfectly Normal Beast migrating through your world at a thundering thirty miles an hour is not as easy as it might at first seem. Certainly it is not as easy as the Lamuellan hunters made it seem, and Arthur Dent was prepared to discover that this might turn out to be the difficult bit.

跳到一头一吨重的绝对正常兽的背上，随它一起轰隆隆地以每小时三十英里的速度穿过你的世界，这事多半没有看上去那么容易。拉姆拉猎人做这个动作的时候，外人看了觉得简直易如反掌，其实并非如此，而阿瑟.邓特已经做好心理准备，知道自己可能会发现这个部分稍微有些困难。

What he hadn’t been prepared to discover, however, was how difficult it was even getting to the difficult bit. It was the bit that was supposed to be the easy bit which turned out to be practically impossible.

不过，他没想到自己还会发现，哪怕只是想要抵达困难的这部分也一样困难重重。事实上，想象中应该轻松愉快的部分变成了几乎不可能完成的任务。

They couldn’t even catch the attention of a single animal. The Perfectly Normal Beasts were so intent on working up a good thunder with their hooves, heads down, shoulders forward, back legs pounding the ground into porridge that it would have taken something not merely startling but actually geological to disturb them.

他们甚至没法吸引任何一个大家伙注意自己。绝对正常兽铁了心要拿蹄子把轰隆隆的声音搞个响彻云霄，它们埋着脑袋，肩膀向前，后腿砰砰砰地把地面踏成了稀饭。要想吸引它们的注意，你需要的不仅仅是一点点惊吓，你非得有点地质学性质的手段。

The sheer amount of thundering and pounding was, in the end, more than Arthur and Ford could deal with. After they had spent nearly two hours prancing about doing increasingly foolish things with a medium-sized floral patterned bath towel, they had not managed to get even one of the great beasts thundering and pounding past them to do so much as glance casually in their direction.

到最后，单是“轰隆隆”和“砰砰砰”的音量就让阿瑟和福特受不了。他们上蹿下跳了差不多两个钟头，用一条中号带花图案的毛巾做了无数个动作，一个比一个傻，结果甚至没能让那些轰隆隆砰砰砰的大家伙往自己这边随便瞄上一眼。

They were within three feet of the horizontal avalanche of sweating bodies. To have been much nearer would have been to risk instant death, chrono-logic or no chrono-logic. Arthur had seen what remained of any Perfectly Normal Beast which, as the result of a clumsy mis-throw by a young and inexperienced Lamuellan hunter, got speared while still thundering and pounding with the herd. One stumble was all it took. No prior appointment with death on Stavromula Beta, wherever the hell Stavromula Beta was, would save you or anybody else from the thunderous, mangling pounding of those hooves.

他俩距离这汗水淋漓的水平山崩不过三尺。再靠近些似乎立刻就要面临送命的危险。类似的场景阿瑟见过。有时候，某个年轻，缺乏经验的拉姆拉猎人会笨手笨脚地抓时机，没等把猎物引出轰隆隆，砰砰砰就下手，阿瑟见识过那头绝对正常兽最后的下场。只需要一个失误就够了。就算跟死神在斯达弗洛穆拉贝塔约好了也没用；不管这个斯达弗洛穆拉贝塔在什么鬼地方，它就没法从这些轰隆隆，砰砰砰的压路机底下救下你或者任何人。

At last, Arthur and Ford staggered back. They sat down, exhausted and defeated, and started to criticise each other’s technique with the towel.

最后，阿瑟和福特摇摇晃晃地退了下去，他们坐下来，精疲力竭，挫败感上升到了极点，于是相互挑剔对方使用毛巾的技巧。

‘You’ve got to flick it more,’ complained Ford. ‘You need more follow-through from the elbow if you’re going to get those blasted creatures to notice anything at all.’

“你得多摇几下。”福特抱怨道，“胳膊肘不坚持跟进怎么能指望那些该死的家伙注意到哪怕一点动静呢？”

‘Follow-through?’ protested Arthur. ‘You need more suppleness in the wrist.’

“坚持跟进？”阿瑟抗议道，“你的手腕才需要柔和点。”