英文原版

“Yes, about half I’d say. Anyway – where’s the soap?” He fished around and found it.
“Yes, so anyway,” he resumed, “the idea was that into the first ship, the ‘A’ ship, would go all the brilliant leaders, the scientists, the great artists, you know, all the achievers; and into the third, or ‘C’ ship, would go all the people who did the actual work, who made things and did things, and then into the ‘B’ ship – that’s us – would go everyone else, the middlemen you see.”
He smiled happily at them.
“And we were sent off first,” he concluded, and hummed a little bathing tune.
The little bathing tune, which had been composed for him by one of his world’s most exciting and prolific jingle writer (who was currently asleep in hold thirty-six some nine hundred yards behind them) covered what would otherwise have been an awkward moment of silence. Ford and Arthur shuffled their feet and furiously avoided each other’s eyes.
“Er…” said Arthur after a moment, “what exactly was it that was wrong with your planet then?”
“Oh, it was doomed, as I said,” said the Captain, “Apparently it was going to crash into the sun or something. Or maybe it was that the moon was going to crash into us. Something of the kind. Absolutely terrifying prospect whatever it was.”
“Oh,” said the first officer suddenly, “I thought it was that the planet was going to be invaded by a gigantic swarm of twelve foot piranha bees. Wasn’t that it?”
Number Two span around, eyes ablaze with a cold hard light that only comes with the amount of practice he was prepared to put in.
“That’s not what I was told!” he hissed, “My commanding officer told me that the entire planet was in imminent danger of being eaten by an enormous mutant star goat!”
“Oh really…” said Ford Prefect.
“是的，我想，大概是一半。反正——香皂在哪儿，”说着，他游来游去地找到了香皂。
“是的……反正，”他接着说，“计划是这样的：第一艘飞船，也就是‘A’飞船，搭载所有卓越的领袖、科学家、伟大的艺术家·你知道，所有有成就的人；接下来是第一艘飞船，或者说‘C’飞船，搭载所有那些实际工作的人，那些制造东西的人；然后就到了‘B’船－－也就足我们——负责搭载所有其他的人，那些‘中等’的人，你明白了吧？”
他对他们愉快地笑着，
“我们是最先出发的。”他结束了介绍，开始哼一支洗澡的小曲。
这支小曲是他那个世界里最激动人心、最多产的押韵作家（他目前正沉睡在他们后面一千六百码至三千九百码处的船舱里）为他创作的，这时恰好掩盖了可能出现的尴尬的沉默。福特和阿瑟挪动着步子，神经质地避开彼此的目光。
“嗯，”过了一会儿，阿瑟说道，“那么，你们的行星出了什么问题呢？”
“喔，它注定要毁灭了，正像我刚才说的。”舰长说，“它届然即将坠毁到太阳或者别的什么东西上。或者，也有可能是月亮即将坠毁到我们的星球上。总之就是这一类的事情吧。不许具体是什么，都绝对是一幅可怕的景象。”
“哦，”大副突然说，“我听说，邢颗行星即将遭到长达二英尺的杀人蜂组成的巨大蜂群的袭击。不是吗？”
二号转过身味，眼里闪烁着冷酷的光芒，这是他通过大量练爿才得出的成果。
“我昕到的情况不是这样！”他嘶嘶地说，“我的指挥官告诉我，整个行星正面临着迫在眉睫的危险，即将被一只巨大无比的变种星际山羊给吃掉。”
“是吗”福特说。

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