經典科幻文學:《宇宙盡頭的餐館》第2章5

At that precise moment Zaphod Beeblebrox was in his cabin swearing very loudly. Two hours ago, he had said that they would go for a quick bite at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, whereupon he had had a blazing row with the ship’s computer and stormed off to his cabin shouting that he would work out the Improbability factors with a pencil.
The Heart of Gold’s Improbability Drive made it the most powerful and unpredictable ship in existence. There was nothing it couldn’t do, provided you knew exactly how improbable it was that the thing you wanted it to do would ever happen.
He had stolen it when, as President, he was meant to be launching it. He didn’t know exactly why he had stolen it, except that he liked it.
He didn’t know why he had become President of the Galaxy, except that it seemed a fun thing to be.
He did know that there were better reasons than these, but that they were buried in a dark, locked off section of his two brains. He wished the dark, locked off section of his two brains would go away because they occasionally surfaced momentarily and put strange thoughts into the light, fun sections of his mind and tried to deflect him from what he saw as being the basic business of his life, which was to have a wonderfully good time.
At the moment he was not having a wonderfully good time. He had run out of patience and pencils and was feeling very hungry.
“Starpox!” he shouted.

此時此刻，贊福德·畢博布魯克斯正在他的房間裏大聲咒罵。兩個小時以前，他說他們很快就會到宇宙盡頭餐館美美地吃上一頓，可現在已經過去了整整兩個小時。所以他衝飛船的電腦狠狠地發了一通火，怒氣衝衝地離開控制室，衝向自己的房間，一路大聲咆哮，揚言要用鉛筆和本子將非概率系統計算個明明白白。
黃金之心號的非概率驅動系統使它成爲現有飛船中最強有力的一艘，也是最無法預測的。它無所不能，你會確確實實地看到，無論你要求它做的事有多麼不可思議，最終都會成爲現實。
偷走它時，他還是總統，應邀參加它的啓用典禮。除了喜歡之外，他自己都弄不明白自己爲什麼要偷走它。
他也弄不明白自己爲什麼要當銀河系的總統，除了覺得這件事很好玩之外。
他不知道，這些理由之外其實還存在着更好的理由，只是它們被埋藏在他兩個大腦中的一塊黑暗區域裏，被鎖得死死的。他希望能把這塊被鎖閉的黑暗區域清除掉，因爲它們不時會短暫地浮現出來，在他的思想中那些明亮的、歡快的區域裏投下奇怪的念頭，試圖使他偏離他所認定的人生基本方向，即，尋歡作樂。
此刻，他的感覺一點兒也不歡樂。他已經用完了所有耐心，還有所有鉛筆，他已經飢腸轆轆了。
“混蛋！”他叫道。