經典科幻文學:《 基本上無害 Mostly Harmless》 第10章1
Ford hurled himself at the door of the editor-in-chief’s office, tucked himself into a tight ball as the frame splintered and gave way once again, rolled rapidly across the floor to where the smart grey crushed leather sofa was and set up his strategic operational base behind it.
福特衝到總編辦公室門口，緊緊地縮成一個球往門上撞。門吱嘎吱嘎地裂開，福特迅速滾了進去，直滾到那張漂亮的灰色皺皮沙發背後，並在那裏設置起他的戰略行動基地。
That, at least, was the plan
至少他計劃如此。
Unfortunately the smart grey crushed leather sofa wasn’t there.
不幸的是，那張漂亮的灰色皺皮沙發也不見了。
Why, thought Ford, as he twisted himself round in mid-air, lurched, dived and scuttled for cover behind Harl’s desk, did people have this stupid obsession with rearranging their office furniture every five minutes?
福特在半空中一扭身，傾斜，俯衝，飛奔到哈爾的書桌背後尋找掩護，一路上他都在傷腦筋，爲什麼大家都逃不過這種愚蠢的偏執，每隔五分鐘就要把辦公室裏的擺設換個樣子？
Why, for instance, replace a perfectly serviceable if rather muted grey crushed leather sofa with what appeared to be a small tank?
爲什麼，比方說，要把一張明明挺合用——當然顏色或許稍微暗淡了些——的灰色皺皮沙發換成一個好像小坦克的東西？
And who was the big guy with the mobile rocket launcher on his shoulder? Someone from head office? Couldn’t be. This was head office. At least it was the head office of the Guide. Where these InfiniDim Enterprises guys came from Zarquon knew. Nowhere very sunny, judging from the slug-like colour and texture of their skins. This was all wrong, thought Ford. People connected with the Guide should come from sunny places.
還有，那個肩膀上扛着個便攜導彈發射器的大塊頭又是誰？總部的什麼人嗎？不可能。這兒就是總部。至少是《指南》的總部——只有天曉得那些無敵帥的傢伙從哪兒來，反正肯定不是什麼日照充足的地方，看看他們的皮膚就知道了，顏色和質地都活像鼻涕蟲。全錯了，福特想。跟《指南》有關的人應該來自陽光燦爛的地方。
There were several of them, in fact, and all of them seemed to be more heavily armed and armoured than you normally expected corporate executives to be, even in today’s rough and tumble business world.
事實上他們一共七個，個個武裝到牙齒，你絕對想不到大公司的主管會是這麼種形象，哪怕是在如今這樣粗暴兇險的商業環境裏。
He was making a lot of assumptions here, of course. He was assuming that the big, bull-necked, slug-like guys were in some way connected with InfiniDim Enterprises, but it was a reasonable assumption and he felt happy about it because they had logos on their armour-plating which said ‘InfiniDim Enterprises’ on them. He had a nagging suspicion that this was not a business meeting, though. He also had a nagging feeling that these slug-like creatures were familiar to him in some way. Familiar, but in an unfamiliar guise.
當然了，以上純粹只是他自己的設想，他是在假設這些牛脖子大鼻涕蟲跟無敵帥脫不了干係。但這確實是個挺合理的假設，而他對此也相當滿意，因爲他們的盔甲上都掛着名牌，上頭印着“無敵帥公司”幾個字。不過，他腦子裏也有些揮之不去的懷疑，懷疑這可能不是一次商務會晤。另一種揮之不去的感覺是，他跟這些鼻涕蟲應該是有些熟悉的，熟悉，卻又陌生的僞裝。
Well, he had been in the room for a good two and a half seconds now, and thought that it was probably about time to start doing something constructive. He could take a hostage. That would be good.
好吧，他已經在房間裏待了整整兩秒半，現在大概該乾點富有建設性的事了。他可以挾持一個人質。這主意不錯。
