经典科幻文学:《 基本上无害 Mostly Harmless》 第7章2

Or rather, it most definitely was not.

或者更准确的说，这绝对不是。

It merely looked a lot like the Earth and occupied the same co-ordinates in space/time. What co-ordinates it occupied in Probability was anybody’s guess.

它只是长的特别像地球，而且在空间/时间里占据了相同的坐标。至于在概率世界里它的坐标是啥就只有天晓得了。

He sighed.

他长叹一声。

This, he reAlised, was about as close to home as he was likely to get. Which meant that he was about as far from home as he could possibly be. Glumly he slapped the brochure shut and wondered what on earth he was going to do next.

这儿，他意识到，就是他能找到的最接近家的地方。换句话说，如今他离家已经远的不能再远了。他“啪”的一声合上旅游手册，闷闷不乐地琢磨起自己下一步到底应该咋整才好。

He allowed himself a hollow laugh at what he had just thought. He looked at his old watch, and shook it a bit to wind it. It had taken him, according to his own time-scale, a year of hard travelling to get here. A year since the accident in hyperspace in which Fenchurch had completely vanished. One minute she had been sitting there next to him in the SlumpJet; the next minute the ship had done a perfectly normal hyperspace hop and when he had next looked she was not there. The seat wasn’t even warm. Her name wasn’t even on the passenger list.

阿瑟脑子里净是些乱七八糟的念头，他勉强笑了一声。他瞅瞅自己的老古董手表，轻轻晃了晃，给它上紧发条。按照阿瑟自己的时间尺度计算，他辛辛苦苦地跑了一年才到了这地方。也就是说，距离芬切其在超空间里遇上事故已经一年了。上一秒钟她还跟他一起坐在蹦弹喷射机上；下一秒飞船来了个再正常不过的超空间蹦，他扭过头去时她却已经不见了。座位甚至都没有温度。她的名字甚至都不在旅客名单里。

The spaceline had been wary of him when he had complained. A lot of awkward things happen in space travel, and a lot of them make a lot of money for lawyers. But when they had asked him what Galactic Sector he and Fenchurch had been from and he had said ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha they had relaxed completely in a way that Arthur wasn’t at all sure he liked. They even laughed a little, though sympathetically, of course. They pointed to the clause in the ticket contract which said that the entities whose lifespans had originated in any of the Plural zones were advised not to travel in hyperspace and did so at their own risk. Everybody, they said, knew that. They tittered slightly and shook their heads.

他跑去申诉，航空公司对此非常紧张。太空旅行时总会发生大把的怪事，其中不少都能让大把律师赚个盆满。他们问阿瑟他和芬切其来自哪个银河星区，他回答说ZZ9复阿尔法，结果他们立即完全放松下来，那模样阿瑟一点都拿不准自己是不是喜欢。他们甚至还笑了笑，不过当然是很有同情心的那种笑法。然后，他们把票务合同里的条款指给他看，上头写着，建议任何产生于复区的生命形式都不要做超空间旅行，否则后果自负。这事儿，他们说，宇宙人都知道。然后他们摇着脑袋，轻声哧哧笑了。

As Arthur had left their offices he found he was trembling slightly. Not only had he lost Fenchurch in the most complete and utter way possible, but he felt that the more time he spent away out in the Galaxy the more it seemed that the number of things he didn’t know anything about actually increased.

阿瑟离开他们的办公室，他发现自己有些发抖，他不仅以一种最彻底绝对的方式失去了芬切其，他还感觉到，自己在银河系里待得越长久，他一无所知的事情好像就越是增加了数量。

Just as he was lost for a moment in these numb memories a knock came on the door of his motel room, which then opened immediately. A fat and dishevelled man came in carrying Arthur’s one small case.

他沉浸在这些回忆里，正痛的麻木，突然听见有人敲门。没等他说话，门就开了，一个头发蓬乱的胖子拿来了阿瑟唯一的小箱子。

He got as far as, ‘Where shall I put—’ when there was a sudden violent flurry and he collapsed heavily against the door, trying to beat off a small and mangy creature that had leapt snarling out of the wet night and buried its teeth in his thigh, even through the thick layers of leather padding he wore there. There was a brief, ugly confusion of jabbering and thrashing. The man shouted frantically and pointed. Arthur grabbed a hefty stick that stood next to the door expressly for this purpose and beat at the boghog with it.

他刚说到“我该把它放……”，突然就一阵骚动：从湿漉漉的夜色里冲出来一个又小又脏，张牙舞爪的东西，一口咬住了胖子的屁股，也不管那地方还有好几层老厚的皮衬垫。胖子重重地靠到了门上，拼命想要挣脱。接下来是一阵丑陋混乱的叽叽喳喳和踢踢打打。胖子疯了似的又吼又指。阿瑟赶紧抓起门边那根沉甸甸的棍子——它显然是专为这类场合预备的——用力朝泽猪打下去。

The boghog suddenly disengaged and limped backwards, dazed and forlorn. It turned anxiously in the corner of the room, its tail tucked up right under its back legs, and stood looking nervously up at Arthur, jerking its head awkwardly and repeatedly to one side. Its jaw seemed to be dislocated. It cried a little and scraped its damp tail across the floor. By the door, the fat man with Arthur’s suitcase was sitting and cursing, trying to staunch the flow of blood from his thigh. His clothes were already wet from the rain.

泽猪被揍得晕头转向，猛地张开嘴，可怜巴巴地跛着腿退到了房间一角。它焦急不安地转个身，尾巴在后腿中间折叠起来，然后紧张兮兮地抬头望着阿瑟，不但脑袋怪模怪样地朝一边抽搐，下巴好像还错了位。它叫唤几声，被雨水淋湿的尾巴在地板上拖来拖去，而门边，那个给阿瑟提箱子来的胖子正坐在地上骂骂咧咧，手捂着屁股上的伤口想要止血，他的衣服也早已被雨水浸湿了。

Arthur stared at the boghog, not knowing what to do. The boghog looked at him questioningly. It tried to approach him, making mournful little whimpering noises. It moved its jaw painfully. It made a sudden leap for Arthur’s thigh, but its dislocated jaw was too weak to get a grip and it sank, whining sadly, down to the floor. The fat man jumped to his feet, grabbed the stick, beat the boghog’s brains into a sticky, pulpy mess on the thin carpet, and then stood there breathing heavily as if daring the animal to move again, just once.

阿瑟瞪着泽猪，不知道该怎么办才好。泽猪也满腹狐疑地望着他，一面发出哼哼唧唧的呜咽声，一面动动下巴，好像觉得很痛。突然，它冲着阿瑟的屁股猛扑上去，可脱臼的下巴使不上力，于是又尖叫着落回地上。胖子跳了起来，一把抓过棍子，把泽猪的脑袋打成黏糊糊，湿漉漉的一团，整个糊在薄薄的地毯上，自己则站在旁边使劲喘着粗气，就好像在挑衅：看你再敢动试试，来啊。

A single boghog eyeball sat looking reproachfully at Arthur from out of the mashed ruins of its head.

在那堆烂糟糟的脑袋里，一只泽猪眼球望着阿瑟，满眼的责备。