经典科幻文学:《宇宙尽头的餐馆》第2章6

At that same precise moment, Ford Prefect was in mid air. This was not because of anything wrong with the ship’s artificial gravity field, but because he was leaping down the stair-well which led to the ship’s personal cabins. It was a very high jump to do in one bound and he landed awkwardly, stumbled, recovered, raced down the corridor sending a couple of miniature service robots flying, skidded round the corner, burst into Zaphod’s door and explained what was on his mind.
“Vogons,” he said.
A short while before this, Arthur Dent had set out from his cabin in search of a cup of tea. It was not a quest he embarked upon with a great deal of optimism., because he knew that the only source of hot drinks on the entire ship was a benighted piece of equipment produced by the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation. It was called a Nutri-Matic Drinks Synthesizer, and he had encountered it before.
It claimed to produce the widest possible range of drinks personally matched to the tastes and metabolism of whoever cared to use it. When put to the test, however, it invariably produced a plastic cup filled with a liquid that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea.
He attempted to reason with the thing.
“Tea,” he said.
“Share and Enjoy,” the machine replied and provided him with yet another cup of the sickly liquid.
He threw it away.

在同一刻，福特长官正位于半空中。不是因为飞船的人造重力场出了什么毛病，而是他正从通往飞船居住区的楼梯井往下跳。这一跳的落差不低，所以他的落地姿势相当狼狈。跌跌绊绊地恢复了平衡之后，他冲进走廊，撞飞了两个微型服务机器人，在角落里来了个急转，一头闯进赞福德的房间，开始向他阐述自己的看法。
“沃贡人。”他说。
而在此之前一会儿，阿瑟·邓特刚刚走出自己的房间，想来上一杯茶。对于这个需求，他并没有抱很乐观的态度，因为他知道，整艘飞船上惟一的热饮来源是一台由天狼星控制系统公司生产的弱智装置。这台装置叫做自动营养饮料合成机，他以前曾经见识过。
这玩意儿宣称它能够调配出最多样化的饮料，以适应任何一位使用者的口味和新陈代谢情况。然而，一旦使用起来，它却总是一成不变地出来一塑料杯不太像但也并非完全不是茶的液体。
这次，他决定要就这个问题跟这台机器理论一番。
“茶。”他说。
“请分享，请享用。”机器回答说，又一次提供了这样一杯令人作呕的液体。
他把杯子扔到一边。