Ford hurled himself at the door of the editor-in-chief’s office, tucked himself into a tight ball as the frame splintered and gave way once again, rolled rapidly across the floor to where the smart grey crushed leather sofa was and set up his strategic operational base behind it.

福特冲到总编办公室门口，紧紧地缩成一个球往门上撞。门吱嘎吱嘎地裂开，福特迅速滚了进去，直滚到那张漂亮的灰色皱皮沙发背后，并在那里设置起他的战略行动基地。

That, at least, was the plan

至少他计划如此。

Unfortunately the smart grey crushed leather sofa wasn’t there.

不幸的是，那张漂亮的灰色皱皮沙发也不见了。

Why, thought Ford, as he twisted himself round in mid-air, lurched, dived and scuttled for cover behind Harl’s desk, did people have this stupid obsession with rearranging their office furniture every five minutes?

福特在半空中一扭身，倾斜，俯冲，飞奔到哈尔的书桌背后寻找掩护，一路上他都在伤脑筋，为什么大家都逃不过这种愚蠢的偏执，每隔五分钟就要把办公室里的摆设换个样子？

Why, for instance, replace a perfectly serviceable if rather muted grey crushed leather sofa with what appeared to be a small tank?

为什么，比方说，要把一张明明挺合用——当然颜色或许稍微暗淡了些——的灰色皱皮沙发换成一个好像小坦克的东西？

And who was the big guy with the mobile rocket launcher on his shoulder? Someone from head office? Couldn’t be. This was head office. At least it was the head office of the Guide. Where these InfiniDim Enterprises guys came from Zarquon knew. Nowhere very sunny, judging from the slug-like colour and texture of their skins. This was all wrong, thought Ford. People connected with the Guide should come from sunny places.

还有，那个肩膀上扛着个便携导弹发射器的大块头又是谁？总部的什么人吗？不可能。这儿就是总部。至少是《指南》的总部——只有天晓得那些无敌帅的家伙从哪儿来，反正肯定不是什么日照充足的地方，看看他们的皮肤就知道了，颜色和质地都活像鼻涕虫。全错了，福特想。跟《指南》有关的人应该来自阳光灿烂的地方。

There were several of them, in fact, and all of them seemed to be more heavily armed and armoured than you normally expected corporate executives to be, even in today’s rough and tumble business world.

事实上他们一共七个，个个武装到牙齿，你绝对想不到大公司的主管会是这么种形象，哪怕是在如今这样粗暴凶险的商业环境里。

He was making a lot of assumptions here, of course. He was assuming that the big, bull-necked, slug-like guys were in some way connected with InfiniDim Enterprises, but it was a reasonable assumption and he felt happy about it because they had logos on their armour-plating which said ‘InfiniDim Enterprises’ on them. He had a nagging suspicion that this was not a business meeting, though. He also had a nagging feeling that these slug-like creatures were familiar to him in some way. Familiar, but in an unfamiliar guise.

当然了，以上纯粹只是他自己的设想，他是在假设这些牛脖子大鼻涕虫跟无敌帅脱不了干系。但这确实是个挺合理的假设，而他对此也相当满意，因为他们的盔甲上都挂着名牌，上头印着“无敌帅公司”几个字。不过，他脑子里也有些挥之不去的怀疑，怀疑这可能不是一次商务会晤。另一种挥之不去的感觉是，他跟这些鼻涕虫应该是有些熟悉的，熟悉，却又陌生的伪装。

Well, he had been in the room for a good two and a half seconds now, and thought that it was probably about time to start doing something constructive. He could take a hostage. That would be good.

好吧，他已经在房间里待了整整两秒半，现在大概该干点富有建设性的事了。他可以挟持一个人质。这主意不错。