经典科幻文学:《银河系漫游指南》第22章3

He pointed down into the crater.
"Is that robot yours?" he said.
"No," came a thin metallic voice from the crater, "I'm mine."
"If you'd call it a robot," muttered Arthur. "It's more a sort of electronic sulking machine."
"Bring it," said the old man. Arthur was quite surprised to hear a note of decision suddenly present in the old man's voice. He called to Marvin who crawled up the slope making a big show of being lame, which he wasn't.
"On second thoughts," said the old man, "leave it here. You must come with me. Great things are afoot." He turned towards his craft which, though no apparent signal had been given, now drifted quietly towards them through the dark.
Arthur looked down at Marvin, who now made an equally big show of turning round laboriously and trudging off down into the crater again muttering sour nothings to himself.
"Come," called the old man, "come now or you will be late."
"Late?" said Arthur. "What for?"
"What is your name, human?"
"Dent. Arthur Dent," said Arthur.
"Late, as in the late Dentarthurdent," said the old man, sternly. "It's a sort of threat you see." Another wistful look came into his tired old eyes. "I've never been very good at them myself, but I'm told they can be very effective."
Arthur blinked at him.
"What an extraordinary person," he muttered to himself.
"I beg your pardon?" said the old man.
"Oh nothing, I'm sorry," said Arthur in embarrassment. "Alright, where do we go?"
"In my aircar," said the old man motioning Arthur to get into the craft which had settled silently next to them. "We are going deep into the bowels of the planet where even now our race is being revived from its five-million-year slumber. Magrathea awakes."
Arthur shivered involuntarily as he seated himself next to the old man. The strangeness of it, the silent bobbing movement of the craft as it soared into the night sky quite unsettled him.

他指指坑底。
“那是你的机器人吗？”他问。
“不是。”一个金属声音从下面传来，“我是我自己的。”
“如果你把它叫做机器人的话，”阿瑟喃喃道，“这玩意儿更像是某种电子愤怒机器。”
“带它上来。”老人说。老人突然发出一句命令，让阿瑟吃了一惊。他招呼了马文，于是他开始往斜坡上爬，一瘸一拐装出瘸子的模样，实际上他并不瘸。
“我改主意了。”老人说，“还是把它留在这儿。你必须跟我走，马上就会出大事。”他转向他的飞行器，虽然并没有给出什么明显的信号，但它正从黑暗中向他们飘来。
阿瑟低头朝马文看去，他正在艰难地转身，重新回到坑底，一边还在咕哝着什么。
“来吧。”老人对他喊道，“快来，不然就晚了。”
“晚了？”阿瑟问，“什么晚了？”
“你叫什么名字，人类？”
“邓特。阿瑟·邓特。”阿瑟回答说。
“我说的晚了，指的是不赶快的话，你就会成为已故的邓特、阿瑟·邓特。”老人严厉地说，“这是一种威胁，你瞧。”他疲倦而衰老的眼中又一次流露出一丝忧伤，“我自己从来就不太擅长干这种事，但我听说它们非常有效。”
阿瑟直眨巴眼睛。
“真是个怪人。”他自言自语地说。
“你说什么？”老人问。
“哦，没什么，对不起。”阿瑟窘迫地说，“好了，我们去哪儿呢？”
“上我的空中飞车。”老人说，让阿瑟跨进静静地停在他们身旁的飞行器里，“我们将进入这颗行星的地下深处，在那里，我们的种族正在从500万年的沉睡中苏醒过来。曼格拉斯醒过来了。”
坐在老人身边，阿瑟不由自主地开始颤抖起来。一阵无声的震动之后，这架奇怪的飞行器飞向夜空。他感到相当不安。