经典科幻文学:《银河系漫游指南》第9章 Part 8

"How can you tell?" asked Arthur. "Have you got some exotic device for measuring the age of metal?"
"No, I just found this sales brochure lying on the floor. It's a lot of `the Universe can be yours' stuff. Ah! Look, I was right."
Ford jabbed at one of the pages and showed it to Arthur.
"It says: Sensational new breakthrough in Improbability Physics. As soon as the ship's drive reaches Infinite Improbability it passes through every point in the Universe. Be the envy of other major governments. Wow, this is big league stuff."
Ford hunted excitedly through the technical specs of the ship, occasionally gasping with astonishment at what he read — clearly Galactic astrotechnology had moved ahead during the years of his exile.
Arthur listened for a short while, but being unable to understand the vast majority of what Ford was saying he began to let his mind wander, trailing his fingers along the edge of an incomprehensible computer bank, he reached out and pressed an invitingly large red button on a nearby panel. The panel lit up with the words Please do not press this button again. He shook himself.
"Listen," said Ford, who was still engrossed in the sales brochure, "they make a big thing of the ship's cybernetics. A new generation of Sirius Cybernetics Corporation robots and computers, with the new GPP feature."
"GPP feature?" said Arthur. "What's that?"
"Oh, it says Genuine People Personalities."
"Oh," said Arthur, "sounds ghastly."

“你怎么知道？”阿瑟问，“难道你带着什么稀奇古怪的仪器，可以测量金属的年龄？”
“没有，我只是在地上发现了这本销售小册子。里面净是‘一旦拥有，宇宙在握’之类的话。噢！你瞧，我是对的。”
福特翻到其中一页，指给阿瑟看。
“它说，‘非概率物理学方面全新的重大突破。一旦飞船的驱动达到无限非概率状态，它就能穿越宇宙中的每一个点。让其他主要政府嫉妒你吧。’哇，口气还真不小。”
福特兴奋地翻看着飞船的技术说明，不时对在他背井离乡流浪期间所错过的东西气喘吁吁地发表几句惊讶无比的评论。
阿瑟注意听了一会儿，但是对福特所说的绝大部分内容都不理解，于是他开始任由自己的思想四处转悠，同时用手指触摸着一排弄不清用途的电脑的边缘。他抬起手，按下身边控制面板上的一个引人注目的红色大按钮。控制面板亮了起来，显示出一行字，“请不要再按这个按钮”。他吓得一哆嗦。
“听着，”福特说，他还在钻研那本销售小册子，“他们在这艘飞船的控制系统上可下了大功夫。‘天狼星控制系统公司最新一代的机器人和电脑，具备新型的GPP特征。’”
“GPP特征？”阿瑟问道，“什么玩意儿？”
“哦，它的意思是‘真实的人类个性’。”
“哦，”阿瑟说，“听上去有点儿糟糕。”