经典科幻文学:《银河系漫游指南》第12章 Part3

"OK," the computer continued. "Here's an interesting little notion. Did you realize that most people's lives are governed by telephone numbers?"
A pained look crawled across one of Zaphod's faces and on to the other one.
"Have you flipped?" he said.
"No, but you will when I tell you that ..."
Trillian gasped. She scrabbled at the buttons on the Improbability flight path screen.
"Telephone number?" she said. "Did that thing say telephone number?"
Numbers flashed up on the screen.
The computer had paused politely, but now it continued.
"What I was about to say was that ..."
"Don't bother please," said Trillian.
"Look, what is this?" said Zaphod.
"I don't know," said Trillian, "but those aliens — they're on the way up to the bridge with that wretched robot. Can we pick them up on any monitor cameras?"

“好的，”电脑说，“有一种有趣的观点。你知道大多数人的命运是由电话号码掌握的吗？”
痛苦的表情出现在赞福德的一张脸上，随后转移到另一张。
“你疯了吗？”他说。
“没有，不过你会疯掉的，如果我告诉你……”
崔莉恩大口喘着气说，一边在非概率航行轨道扫描屏幕的按钮上一阵乱抓。
“电话号码？”她说，“那东西说‘电话号码’？”
数字在屏幕上闪烁着。
电脑一度礼貌地停了一会儿，现在又拾起了话头：

“我想说的是……”
“别打岔，拜托。”崔莉恩说。
“你瞧，这是什么？”赞福德问。
“我不知道，”崔莉恩说，“不过，那些陌生人——他们正在跟着那个可怜的机器人朝控制桥走。我们要先看看监视器镜头吗？”