經典科幻文學:《 基本上無害 Mostly Harmless》 第7章1

Arthur Dent had been in some hell-holes in his life, but he had never before seen a spaceport which had a sign saying, ‘Even travelling despondently is better than arriving here.’ To welcome visitors the arrivals hall featured a picture of the President of NowWhat, smiling. It was the only picture anybody could find of him, and it had been taken shortly after he had shot himself so although the photo had been retouched as well as could be managed the smile it wore was rather a ghastly one. The side of his head had been drawn back in in crayon. No replacement had been found for the photograph because no replacement had been found for the President. There was only one ambition which anyone on the planet ever had, and that was to leave.

阿瑟.鄧特這輩子也算見識過不少悽悽慘慘的破地方，但他還從沒看過哪個航空港會豎塊牌子說：“就算毫無希望地旅行也比上這裏強。”爲了歡迎遊客，入境處的大廳裏掛了幅“現在咋整國”總統的畫像，而且臉上還帶着微笑。大家能找到的總統照片就這麼一張。由於是在他吞槍自盡之後拍的，因此儘管後期製作下足了力氣，那笑容還是慘的慌。他腦袋的一側是用鉛筆畫上去的。大家沒能把照片復原。整個星球的人，無論男女老少，從古到今都只有一個野心，那就是逃之夭夭。

Arthur checked himself into a small motel on the outskirts of town, and sat glumly on the bed, which was damp, and flipped through the little information brochure, which was also damp. It said that the planet of NowWhat had been named after the opening words of the first settlers to arrive there after struggling across light years of space to reach the furthest unexplored outreaches of the Galaxy. The main town was called OhWell. There weren’t any other towns to speak of. settlement on NowWhat had not been a success and the sort of people who actually wanted to live on NowWhat were not the sort of people you would want to spend time with.

阿瑟住進鎮邊的一間汽車旅館，悶悶不樂地坐在潮氣十足的牀上，翻了翻同樣潮氣十足的旅遊小冊子。上頭說，在好多光年艱苦卓絕的旅程之後，星球的第一批定居者終於來到了銀河系最遠的這片處女地，“現在咋整”這個名字就取自他們抵達之後的頭一句話。星球上最重要的鎮子叫做“哦媽的”，其他次要的鎮子則根本不存在。殖民現在咋整的運動並不成功。倒也有人真正打心眼裏想來到現在咋整，可個個都是你絕對不願意遇上的那一種。

Trading was mentioned in the brochure. The main trade that was carried out was in the skins of the NowWhattian boghog but it wasn’t a very successful one because no one in their right minds would want to buy a NowWhattian boghog skin. The trade only hung on by its fingernails because there was always a significant number of people in the Galaxy who were not in their right minds. Arthur had felt very uncomfortable looking around at some of the other occupants of the small passenger compartment of the ship.

小冊子裏提到了貿易。這裏的商品主要就是現在咋整澤豬皮，但是賣的並不太好，因爲只要精神正常，誰也不會爲現在咋整澤豬皮花錢。這項貿易從來都命懸一線，可也一直沒垮，因爲銀河系裏總能找到一大堆精神不正常的傢伙。先前坐在飛船狹小的船艙時阿瑟發現，同行的乘客老讓他覺得特別的不自在。

The brochure described some of the history of the planet. Whoever had written it had obviously started out trying to drum up a little enthusiasm for the place by stressing that it wasn’t actually cold and wet all the time, but could find little positive to add to this so the tone of the piece quickly degenerated into savage irony.

小冊子還描述了些星球的歷史。雖然不知道它的作者究竟是誰，但此人剛開始的時候顯然很想幫這地方招攬生意，所以一個勁兒地強調這兒其實也不是一直又冷又潮的；可說到後來，由於再也找不出別的什麼正面因素，那語氣很快就退化成了野蠻的冷嘲熱諷。

It talked about the early years of settlement. It said that the major activities pursued on NowWhat were those of catching, skinning and eating NowWhattian boghogs, which were the only extant form of animal life on NowWhat, all other having long ago died of despair. The boghogs were tiny, vicious creatures, and the small margin by which they fell short of being completely inedible was the margin by which life on the planet subsisted. So what were the rewards, however small, that made life on NowWhat worth living? Well, there weren’t any. Not a one. Even making yourself some protective clothing out of boghog skins was an exercise in disappointment and futility, since the skins were unaccountably thin and leaky. This caused a lot of puzzled conjecture amongst the settlers. What was the boghog’s secret of keeping warm? If anyone had ever learnt the language the boghogs spoke to each other they would have discovered that there was no trick. The boghogs were as cold and wet as anyone else on the planet. No one had had the slightest desire to learn the language of the boghogs for the simple reason that these creatures communicated by biting each other very hard on the thigh. Life on NowWhat being what it was, most of what a boghog might have to say about it could easily be signified by these means.

它談到早期的殖民史。它說最早到現在咋整所進行的主要活動就是抓現在的咋整澤豬，然後剝皮，吃掉，因爲澤豬是現在咋整上唯一尚未滅絕的動物生命形式，其他的動物老早就都絕望死了。澤豬這種東西又小又兇，離完全沒法下嚥只差一丁點兒，在這一丁點兒就是整個星球的生命賴以生存的源泉。既然生活如此艱辛，那麼理所當然，在現在咋整上苟延殘喘總該有點回報纔對。這些回報又是什麼呢？實話實說吧，這種東西根本不存在。一個也沒有。哪怕你只是想用澤豬皮給自己做件防護衣，就算這樣的小事你也只能大失所望，無功而返，因爲天曉得爲什麼，它們的皮又薄又容易漏。這在殖民者中間引發了不知所云的猜測：這些澤豬保暖的祕密究竟在哪兒？其實，如果有人願意學會澤豬的語言，它們就會發現這裏頭根本沒什麼祕密。澤豬就跟現在咋整上的其他人一樣又冷又溼。不過很可惜，從來都沒人對學習澤豬語表現出哪怕一丁點兒興趣，因爲這些生物溝通的方式就是狠狠咬對方的屁股。現在咋整上的生活就是這麼回事，澤豬想說的話基本上都能用這種方法搞定。

Arthur flipped through the brochure till he found what he was looking for. At the back there were a few maps of the planet. They were fairly rough and ready because they weren’t likely to be of much interest to anyone, but they told him what he wanted to know.

阿瑟迅速往下翻，直到發現自己要找的東西。小冊子最後附了幾張現在咋整的地圖。地圖稍顯粗糙簡陋，因爲誰也想不到還會有人對它們感興趣，不過上頭倒並不缺少阿瑟需要的情報。

He didn’t recognise it at first because the maps were the other way up from the way he would have expected and looked, therefore, thoroughly unfamiliar. Of course, up and down, north and south, are absolutely arbitrary designations, but we are used to seeing things the way we are used to seeing them, and Arthur had to turn the maps upside-down to make sense of them.

剛開始的時候他沒把它認出來，因爲這些地圖的方向跟他記憶中的恰好相反，以至於看上去陌生極了。當然，上和下，南和北，這些根本就是人任意指定的，可我們都慣於看見事情按照自己的習慣的模式發生，所以阿瑟只好將地圖來了個上下顛倒，這樣才能看懂。

There was one huge landmass off on the upper left-hand side of the page which tapered down to a tiny waist and then ballooned out again like a large comma. On the right-hand side was a collection of large shapes jumbled familiarly together. The outlines were not exactly the same, and Arthur didn’t know if this was because the map was so rough, or because the sea-level was higher or because, well, things were just different here. But the evidence was inarguable.

地圖的左首上半邊有一大塊陸地，他漸漸縮水，最後成了一點點細腰，然後又像個大逗號一樣漲開。右邊，一大堆挺眼熟的形狀繪在一起。這些部分的外形其實跟他很熟悉的那些輪廓並不太一樣。阿瑟不知道這是因爲地圖太粗糙還是因爲這兒的海平面高些，又或者，唔，東西在這兒就是不一樣。可他知道，證據確鑿，毋庸置疑。

This was definitely the Earth.

這絕對就是地球。