Chapter 36

The flying saucer in which Ford Prefect had stowed away had stunned the world.

Finally there was no doubt, no possibility of mistake, no hallucinations, no mysterious CIA agents found floating in reservoirs.

This time it was real, it was definite. It was quite definitely definite.

It had come down with a wonderful disregard for anything beneath it and crushed a large area of some of the most expensive real estate in the world, including much of Harrods.

The thing was massive, nearly a mile across, some said, dull silver in colour, pitted, scorched and disfigured with the scars of unnumbered vicious space battles fought with savage forces by the light of suns unknown to man.

A hatchway opened, crashed down through the Harrods Food Halls, demolished Harvey Nicholls, and with a final grinding scream of tortured architecture, toppled the Sheraton Park Tower.

After a long, heart-stopping moment of internal crashes and grumbles of rending machinery, there marched from it, down the ramp, an immense silver robot, a hundred feet tall.

It held up a hand.

I come in peace, it said, adding after a long moment of further grinding, take me to your Lizard.

Ford Prefect, of course, had an explanation for this, as he sat with Arthur and watched the non-stop frenetic news reports on the television, none of which had anything to say other than to record that the thing had done this amount of damage which was valued at that amount of billions of pounds and had killed this totally other number of people, and then say it again, because the robot was doing nothing more than standing there, swaying very slightly, and emitting short incomprehensible error messages.

It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see…

You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?

No, said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards role the people.

Odd, said Arthur, I thought you said it was a democracy.

I did, said Ford. It is.

第36章

福特·长官免费搭乘的那艘飞碟震惊了世界。

最后，毫无疑问地、没有任何可能会误会地、绝对不是幻觉地、没有秘密地，有人发现中情局的特工在水库里漂浮。

这次是真的，是明确的。非常明确这是明确的。

飞碟落下来，完全无视于下面的一切，压坏了一大片世界上最昂贵的房产，其中也包括很多哈罗德（伦敦著名百货公司）的。

这个东西体型巨大，直径几乎有一英里，有人说，呈银灰色，通体布满了无数次战斗胜利所留下的凹坑、焦痕和伤疤，这些战斗都是在人类未知的恒星的照耀下与野蛮力量进行的。

一道舱门打开，落下来砸穿了哈罗德食品馆，毁掉了哈维·尼克斯（与哈罗德一样是伦敦三大百货公司之一），最后伴随着饱受摧残的建筑物一声刺耳的尖叫，撞倒了喜来登公园宝塔。

在一阵长时间的、令人心悸的机械撕扯的爆裂和轰鸣声之后，沿着舱门放下的坡道，从里面出来了一个巨大的银色机器人，足有一百英尺高。

它举起了一只手。

“我为和平而来，”它说，在有一阵长时间刺耳的声音之后又补充说，“带我去见你们的蜥蜴。”

福特·长官，当然了，对此有一个解释，当时他正和阿瑟一起坐着看电视上看持续报道的疯狂的新闻，其实这些报道都没讲什么，只是记录了那个东西作出了那么巨大的破坏，损失达到了几十亿英镑，而且杀了那么多人，然后重新报道一遍，因为那个机器人什么也不做，就是站在那里，轻轻地来回摇晃，并且发出一些简短的，令人无法理解的错误讯息。

“它来自一个非常古老的民主世界，你知道……”

“你是说，它来自一个蜥蜴的世界？”

“不是，”福特说。在终于被强行灌了一杯咖啡之后，这会儿他已经比之前稍微理性并且协调了一点，“没那么简单的事儿。没有什么事儿是那么直接的。在它的世界里面，老百姓是人。领导者是蜥蜴。人憎恨蜥蜴而蜥蜴领导人。”

“奇怪。”阿瑟说，“我以为你说它们民主来着。”

“我是说了，”福特说，“是民主。”