英文原版

“Turn around slowly,” barked the voice, “and put your hands up. Any other move and I blast you into tiny tiny bits.”
“Hello?” said Ford, turning round slowly, putting his hands up and not making any other move.
“Why,” said Arthur Dent, “isn’t anyone ever pleased to see us?”
Standing silhouetted in the doorway through which they had entered the vault was the man who wasn’t pleased to see them. His displeasure was communicated partly by the barking hectoring quality of his voice and partly by the viciousness with which he waved a long silver Kill-O-Zap gun at them. The designer of the gun had clearly not been instructed to beat about the bush. “Make it evil,” he’d been told. “Make it totally clear that this gun has a right end and a wrong end. Make it totally clear to anyone standing at the wrong end that things are going badly for them. If that means sticking all sort of spikes and prongs and blackened bits all over it then so be it. This is not a gun for hanging over the fireplace or sticking in the umbrella stand, it is a gun for going out and making people miserable with.”
Ford and Arthur looked at the gun unhappily.
The man with the gun moved from the door and circled round them. As he came into the light they could see his black and gold uniform on which the buttons were so highly polished that they shone with an intensity that would have made an approaching motorist flash his lights in annoyance.
He gestured at the door.
“Out,” he said. People who can supply that amount of fire power don’t need to supply verbs as well. Ford and Arthur went out, closely followed by the wrong end of the Kill-O-Zap gun and the buttons.
Turning into the corridor they were jostled by twenty-four oncoming joggers, now showered and changed, who swept on past them into the vault. Arthur turned to watch them in confusion.
“Move!” screamed their captor.
Arthur moved.
Ford shrugged and moved.
In the vault the joggers went to twenty-four empty sarcophagi along the side wall, opened them, climbed in, and fell into twenty-four dreamless sleeps.
”慢慢地转过身来，”这声音大声命令道，“举起双手。只要你敢乱动一下，当心我把你轰成碎片，”
“喂？”福特一边说，一边慢慢转过身来，举起双手，然后再没有其他动作了。
“为什么，”阿瑟·邓特说，”会有人不乐意看见我们呢，”
这个不乐意看见他们的人站在他们进人这间地窖的那扇门边，只看得出一个轮廓。他的不乐意，一部分是通过大喊大叫的威胁传达出来的他们挥舞一枝长长的银色蒸发轰击枪来传达的这种枪的设计者显然接到了指令，要尽可能认真对待这件工作。“要把它造得邪恶，”他被这样告知，“正确的一端和错误的一端要能够清清楚楚地分辨出来。要让站在错误一端的任何人清清楚楚地明白，即将发生在他们身上的事是多么糟糕。如果这意味着要在它上面装上钉子、尖刺和暗黑色的小零件，那就装吧：这不是一把拿来挂在壁炉上方或者插在伞架里的枪，这是一把拿出去让人惨不可言的枪。”
福特和阿瑟盯着这把枪，当然快活不起来。
拿着这把枪的那个人从门边走过来，开始围着他们转圈。当他走到灯光下时，他们这才看清了他穿着黑色和金色相配的制服，上面的钮扣打磨得如此光滑，以至它们闪耀的亮度足以使一个正在驶近的驾车者恼火地大闪前灯以示抗议。
他朝门口比了个手势。
“外面。”他说。对于这样一个能爆发出如此猛烈火力的人来说，根本不需要使用任何动词。福特和阿瑟走了出去，身后紧跟着蒸发轰击枪错误的一端和那些钮扣。
刚返回走廊，他们就被二十四个迎面而来的慢跑者推操了一番。这些家伙这会儿已经洗过澡，换过了衣服，慢跑者冲过他们身边，进入地窖。阿瑟回过头，困惑不解地望着他们。
“走！”他们的抓捕者叫道。
阿瑟只好继续前进。
福特耸了耸肩，朝前走去。
地窖里，那些慢跑锻炼的家伙来到墙边的二十四具空石棺前，打开盖子，爬进去，开始了二十四个无梦的睡眠。

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