經典科幻文學:《宇宙盡頭的餐館》第4章1

Chapter 4
Ten light years away, Gag Halfrunt jacked up his smile by several notches. As he watched the picture on his vision screen, relayed across the sub-ether from the bridge of the Vogon ship, he saw the final shreds of the HeArt of Gold’s force-shield ripped away, and the ship itself vanish in a puff of smoke.
Good, he thought.
The end of the last stray survivors of the demolition he had ordered on the planet Earth, he thought.
The final end of this dangerous (to the psychiatric profession) and subversive (also to the psychiatric profession) experiment to find the Question to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything, he thought.
There would be some celebration with his fellows tonight, and in the morning they would meet again their unhappy, bewildered and highly profitable patients, secure in the knowledge that the Meaning of Life would not now be, once and for all, well and truly sorted out, he thought.
“Family’s always embarrassing isn’t it?” said Ford to Zaphod as the smoke began to clear.
He paused, then looked about.
“Where’s Zaphod?” he said.
Arthur and Trillian looked about blankly. They were pale and shaken and didn’t know where Zaphod was.
“Marvin?” said Ford, “Where’s Zaphod?”
A moment later he said: “Where’s Marvin?”

第四章
十光年以外，伽葛·哈爾佛蘭特用臉上的幾道凹痕撐起一個笑容。他正在看着屏幕上的畫面，那是通過亞以太從沃貢飛船的艦橋裏轉播過來的。他看到最後的防護力盾碎片從黃金之心號表面剝落下來，而飛船本身則在一團煙霧中消失了。
好極了，他想。
由他下令對地球實施的毀滅行動中，最後的倖存者終於完蛋了，他想。
那個危險（對精神病學這一專業來說）和顛覆性（同樣是對精神病學這一專業來說）的實驗，企圖找出那個確切的問題究竟是什麼——關於生命、宇宙以及一切的終極問題，終於也結束了，他想。
今晚要和自己的同事們搞點兒慶祝活動。明天一早，他們就又要面對他們那些鬱鬱寡歡、不知所措但卻非常有利可圖的病人了。他們大可以放心，生命的意義，現在絕對不會再被揭示出來了，他想。
“家裏的事兒總是最爲難的，對嗎？”煙霧開始消散時，福特對贊福德說。
他頓了頓，四下打量着。
“贊福德在哪兒？”他說。
阿瑟和崔莉恩也茫然地四下看着。他們臉色蒼白，渾身顫抖，同樣不知道贊福德在哪裏。
“馬文？”福特問到，“贊福德在哪兒？”
過了一會兒，他又問：“馬文又在哪兒？”