經典科幻文學:《宇宙盡頭的餐館》第30章2
The tallest of the men stood a little over five feet high, they all stooped forward slightly, had longish arms and lowish foreheads, and clear bright eyes with which they stared intently at the strangers.
Seeing that they carried no weapons and made no move towards them, Ford and Arthur relaxed slightly.
For a while the two groups simply stared at each other, neither side making any move. The natives seemed puzzled by the intruders, and whilst they showed no sign of aggression they were quite clearly not issuing any invitations.
For a full two minutes nothing continued to happen.
After two minutes Ford decided it was time something happened.
“Hello,” he said.
The women drew their children slightly closer to them.
The men made hardly any discernible move and yet their whole disposition made it clear that the greeting was not welcome – it was not resented in any great degree, it was just not welcome.
One of the men, who had been standing slightly forward of the rest of the group and who might therefore have been their leader, stepped forward. His face was quiet and calm, almost serene.
“Ugghhhuuggghhhrrrr uh uh ruh uurgh,” he said quietly.
This caught Arthur by surprise. He had grown so used to receiving an instantaneous and unconscious translation of everything he heard via the Babel Fish lodged in his ear that he had ceased to be aware of it, and he was only reminded of its presence now by the fact that it didn’t seem to be working. Vague shadows of meaning had flickered at the back of his mind, but there was nothing he could get any firm grasp on. He guessed, correctly as it happens, that these people had as yet evolved no more than the barest rudiments of language, and that the Babel Fish was therefore powerless to help. He glanced at Ford, who was infinitely more experienced in these matters.
“I think,” said Ford out of the corner of his mouth, “he’s asking us if we’d mind walking on round the edge of the village.”
A moment later, a gesture from the man-creature seemed to confirm this.
“Ruurgggghhhh urrgggh; urgh urgh (uh ruh) rruurruuh ug,” continued the man-creature.
“The general gist,” said Ford, “as far as I can make out, is that we are welcome to continue our journey in any way we like, but if we would walk round his village rather than through it it would make them all very happy.”
“So what do we do?”
他們中最高的一個男人也纔剛剛超過五英尺。他們的身體都略微有些前傾，胳膊比較長，前額比較低，眼睛清晰而明亮，正專注地盯着面前這兩個陌生人。
見他們沒帶武器，也沒有朝自己逼過來，福特和阿瑟稍微放鬆了些。
有一段時間，雙方就這麼互相望着，都沒有做出任何舉動。土著們看來被聞人者給弄糊塗了。雖然這兩個人並沒有表現出要入侵的意思，但顯然也是不受歡迎的。什麼也沒發生。
整整兩分鐘，還是什麼也沒發生。
叉過了兩分鐘，福特決定是該發生點兒什麼的時候了。
“你們好。”他說。
女人把孩子往自己身邊稍微拉近了點兒。
男人們雖然沒有做出什麼可以察覺的舉動，但從他們的整體意向上看，很顯然，這樣的問候是不受歡迎的——倒也沒有引起太大的憤怒，僅僅是不受歡迎而已。
其中一個男人站在整個人羣稍微前面一點的地方，因此可能是他們的頭領。他往前走了幾步，臉上的表情平靜而鎮定，甚至可以安詳。
“鳴哇嗚哇嗚哇，嗚，嗚，畦，嗚畦。”他輕輕地說。
阿瑟吃了一驚。他的耳朵裏寄居着巴別魚，可以翻譯一切語言，巴別魚的翻譯即時同步，甚至察覺不到這個翻譯過程。阿瑟已經對此習以爲常了，完全忽略了翻澤的存在。而現在，他注意到了巴別魚的存在，因爲它這次似乎失去了作用。意思的模糊陰影在他頭腦的後部遊移，但他卻無法領會。他猜想，這些人可能還沒有進化出哪怕是最初級的語言，所以巴別魚也無能爲力。他瞟了一眼福特，畢竟他對這種事情有經驗得多。
“我想，”福特從嘴角擠出一句話，“他是在問我們是否介意繞着這個村子的邊緣前進。”
過了一會兒，這個人的手勢似乎證實了這一點。
“咕哈咕哈，嗚哇；嗚哇，嗚哇，（嗚，哇）咕哈咕哈，哈。”他繼續說道。
“就我所能弄明白的，”福特說，“他的大概意思是，我們可以按照我們喜歡的任何方式繼續我們的旅程，不過如果我們繞着村子走，而不是穿過它的話，這會讓他們所有人都非常高興。”
“那我們怎麼辦呢?”
