經典科幻文學:《 基本上無害 Mostly Harmless》 第12章2

Ford felt a rising sense of curiosity, and then a rising sense of panic. That was the complete list of rising feelings he had. In every other respect he was falling very rapidly. He really ought to turn his mind to wondering how he was going to get out of this situation alive.

福特感到自己的好奇心猛漲，隨之而來的還有暴漲的驚恐。要說他還處於上行狀態的感情，以上就是完整的清單。從其他任何方面看，他都在迅速下墜。如果想活着擺脫眼下的局面，他真的應該開始動動腦瓜了。

He glanced down. A hundred feet or so below him people were milling around, some of them beginning to look up expectantly. Clearing a space for him. Even temporarily calling off the wonderful and completely fatuous hunt for wockets.

他往下瞟了瞟。在大約一百尺之下，人羣中好一陣騷動。有些人已經開始充滿期待地擡起眼睛，爲他騰塊地方。連那麼精彩激烈，蠢到極點的毛怪狩獵遊戲也暫時陷入了停滯狀態。

He would hate to disappoint them, but about two feet below him, he hadn’t realised before, was Colin. Colin had obviously been happily dancing attendance and waiting for him to decide what he wanted to do.

他可真不願意讓他們失望，但先前他沒注意，自己下方兩尺就是科林。科林顯然一直高高興興地陪在他身邊。等着福特決定要讓自己幹些什麼。

‘Colin!’ Ford bawled.

“科林！”福特大喊。

Colin didn’t respond. Ford went cold. Then he suddenly realised that he hadn’t told Colin his name was Colin.

科林沒有回答，福特渾身都涼了，然後他忽然意識到，自己還沒告訴科林他的名字叫科林。

‘Come up here!’ Ford bawled.

“上這兒來！”福特大叫。

Colin bobbed up beside him. Colin was enjoying the ride down immensely and hoped that Ford was, too.

科林飛到他身邊，他非常非常享受下落的過程，而且希望福特也一樣。

Colin’s world went unexpectedly dark as Ford’s towel suddenly enveloped him. Colin immediately felt himself get much, much heavier. He was thrilled and delighted by the challenge that Ford had presented him with. Just not sure if he could handle it, that was all.

科林的世界毫無預兆地變成了漆黑一片，因爲福特突然拿毛巾把它纏住了。它感到自己沉了許多許多，對福特帶給自己的挑戰又是興奮又是歡喜。只是不大確定自己是不是應付得來，沒別的。

The towel was slung over Colin. Ford was hanging from the towel, gripping to its seams. Other hitch hikers had seen fit to modify their towels in exotic ways, weaving all kinds of esoteric tools and utilities and even computer equipment into their fabric. Ford was a purist. He liked to keep things simple. He carried a regular towel from a regular domestic soft furnishings shop. It even had a kind of blue and pink floral pattern despite his repeated attempts to bleach and stone wash it. It had a couple of pieces of wire threaded into it, a bit of flexible writing stick, and also some nutrients soaked into one of the corners of the fabric so he could suck it in an emergency, but otherwise it was a simple towel you could dry your face on. The only actual modification he had been persuaded by a friend to make to it was to reinforce the seams.

毛巾掛在科林身上。福特抓緊毛巾的接縫吊在下頭。對於毛巾，有些漫遊者認爲該把它們改造得古靈精怪些，他們把各式各樣的小裝備和祕密工具縫在毛巾裏頭，甚至連電腦設備也往裏縫。福特是個純淨主義者，他喜歡把事情搞得簡單明瞭。他的毛巾普普通通，而且出自一家同樣普普通通的傢俱用品商店，上頭甚至印着藍色和粉色的花朵圖案。儘管他不斷企圖用化學的，物理的方法進行處理，花兒始終不肯褪去。這條毛巾裏縫了幾根電線，一小截可彎曲的書寫棒，其中一個角上還浸過些營養液，情況緊急時他可以吮一吮，但除此之外就再沒別的了，它只是條平凡簡單的小毛巾，你大可以用它來擦臉。福特只對它進行了一個真正的改造，那還是出自一個朋友的建議：他把它的接縫加固過了。