经典科幻文学:《宇宙尽头的餐馆》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.”

“我想也许是想让你继续和他玩拼字游戏，”福特说，“他在指着那些字母。”
“再拼出——个‘dwldiwdc’出来可怜的家伙，我反复告诉他们，那串字母里只有一个g。”
土著人又砸了一下岩石。
他们从他的肩头望过去。
他们的眼睛瞪大了。
那堆乱七八糟的字母中，有八个被抽了出来，排成了一条清晰的直线。
它们拼成了两个单词。
这两个单词是：“420。”
“咕哈咕哈，咕，咕，”土著人解释道。他气愤地把这些字母扫开，然后遛达到旁边的一棵树下，和他的同伴聚在一起。
福特和阿瑟盯着他。然后，他俩面面相觑。
“这是我认为的那个意思吗？”他俩同时问对方。
“是的。”他俩同时说。
“42。”阿瑟说。
“42。”福特说。
阿瑟跑到那两个土著人身边。
“你们想告诉我们什么”他叫道，“这是什么意思，”
其中一个土著人在地上翻了个身，朝空中踢了踢腿，然后又翻回去，睡着了。
另一个爬到树上，朝福特长官扔七叶树果。无论他们想说的足什么，他们已经说完了。
“你知道这意味着什么吗？”福特说。
“不太知道。”