經典科幻文學:《宇宙盡頭的餐館》第33章4

“I think he probably wants you to Scrabble with him again,” said Ford, “he’s pointing at the letters.”
“Probably spelt crzjgrdwldiwdc again, poor bastard. I keep on telling him there’s only one g in crzjgrdwldiwdc.”
The native banged on the rock again.
They looked over his shoulder.
Their eyes popped.
There amongst the jumble of letters were eight that had been laid out in a clear straight line.
They spelt two words.
The words were these:“Forty-Two.”
“Grrrurgh guh guh,” explained the native. He swept the letters angrily away and went and mooched under a nearby tree with his colleague.
Ford and Arthur stared at him. Then they stared at each other.
“Did that say what I thought it said?” they both said to each other.
“Yes,” they both said.
“Forty-two,” said Arthur.
“Forty-two,” said Ford.
Arthur ran over to the two natives.
“What are you trying to tell us?” he shouted. “What’s it supposed to mean?”
One of them rolled over on the ground, kicked his legs up in the air, rolled over again and went to sleep.
The other bounded up the tree and threw horse chestnuts at Ford Prefect. Whatever it was they had to say, they had already said it.
“You know what this means,” said Ford.
“Not entirely.”

“我想也許是想讓你繼續和他玩拼字遊戲，”福特說，“他在指着那些字母。”
“再拼出——個‘dwldiwdc’出來可憐的傢伙，我反覆告訴他們，那串字母裏只有一個g。”
土著人又砸了一下岩石。
他們從他的肩頭望過去。
他們的眼睛瞪大了。
那堆亂七八糟的字母中，有八個被抽了出來，排成了一條清晰的直線。
它們拼成了兩個單詞。
這兩個單詞是：“420。”
“咕哈咕哈，咕，咕，”土著人解釋道。他氣憤地把這些字母掃開，然後遛達到旁邊的一棵樹下，和他的同伴聚在一起。
福特和阿瑟盯着他。然後，他倆面面相覷。
“這是我認爲的那個意思嗎？”他倆同時問對方。
“是的。”他倆同時說。
“42。”阿瑟說。
“42。”福特說。
阿瑟跑到那兩個土著人身邊。
“你們想告訴我們什麼”他叫道，“這是什麼意思，”
其中一個土著人在地上翻了個身，朝空中踢了踢腿，然後又翻回去，睡着了。
另一個爬到樹上，朝福特長官扔七葉樹果。無論他們想說的足什麼，他們已經說完了。
“你知道這意味着什麼嗎？”福特說。
“不太知道。”