Ford felt a rising sense of curiosity, and then a rising sense of panic. That was the complete list of rising feelings he had. In every other respect he was falling very rapidly. He really ought to turn his mind to wondering how he was going to get out of this situation alive.

福特感到自己的好奇心猛涨，随之而来的还有暴涨的惊恐。要说他还处于上行状态的感情，以上就是完整的清单。从其他任何方面看，他都在迅速下坠。如果想活着摆脱眼下的局面，他真的应该开始动动脑瓜了。

He glanced down. A hundred feet or so below him people were milling around, some of them beginning to look up expectantly. Clearing a space for him. Even temporarily calling off the wonderful and completely fatuous hunt for wockets.

他往下瞟了瞟。在大约一百尺之下，人群中好一阵骚动。有些人已经开始充满期待地抬起眼睛，为他腾块地方。连那么精彩激烈，蠢到极点的毛怪狩猎游戏也暂时陷入了停滞状态。

He would hate to disappoint them, but about two feet below him, he hadn’t realised before, was Colin. Colin had obviously been happily dancing attendance and waiting for him to decide what he wanted to do.

他可真不愿意让他们失望，但先前他没注意，自己下方两尺就是科林。科林显然一直高高兴兴地陪在他身边。等着福特决定要让自己干些什么。

‘Colin!’ Ford bawled.

“科林！”福特大喊。

Colin didn’t respond. Ford went cold. Then he suddenly realised that he hadn’t told Colin his name was Colin.

科林没有回答，福特浑身都凉了，然后他忽然意识到，自己还没告诉科林他的名字叫科林。

‘Come up here!’ Ford bawled.

“上这儿来！”福特大叫。

Colin bobbed up beside him. Colin was enjoying the ride down immensely and hoped that Ford was, too.

科林飞到他身边，他非常非常享受下落的过程，而且希望福特也一样。

Colin’s world went unexpectedly dark as Ford’s towel suddenly enveloped him. Colin immediately felt himself get much, much heavier. He was thrilled and delighted by the challenge that Ford had presented him with. Just not sure if he could handle it, that was all.

科林的世界毫无预兆地变成了漆黑一片，因为福特突然拿毛巾把它缠住了。它感到自己沉了许多许多，对福特带给自己的挑战又是兴奋又是欢喜。只是不大确定自己是不是应付得来，没别的。

The towel was slung over Colin. Ford was hanging from the towel, gripping to its seams. Other hitch hikers had seen fit to modify their towels in exotic ways, weaving all kinds of esoteric tools and utilities and even computer equipment into their fabric. Ford was a purist. He liked to keep things simple. He carried a regular towel from a regular domestic soft furnishings shop. It even had a kind of blue and pink floral pattern despite his repeated attempts to bleach and stone wash it. It had a couple of pieces of wire threaded into it, a bit of flexible writing stick, and also some nutrients soaked into one of the corners of the fabric so he could suck it in an emergency, but otherwise it was a simple towel you could dry your face on. The only actual modification he had been persuaded by a friend to make to it was to reinforce the seams.

毛巾挂在科林身上。福特抓紧毛巾的接缝吊在下头。对于毛巾，有些漫游者认为该把它们改造得古灵精怪些，他们把各式各样的小装备和秘密工具缝在毛巾里头，甚至连电脑设备也往里缝。福特是个纯净主义者，他喜欢把事情搞得简单明了。他的毛巾普普通通，而且出自一家同样普普通通的家具用品商店，上头甚至印着蓝色和粉色的花朵图案。尽管他不断企图用化学的，物理的方法进行处理，花儿始终不肯褪去。这条毛巾里缝了几根电线，一小截可弯曲的书写棒，其中一个角上还浸过些营养液，情况紧急时他可以吮一吮，但除此之外就再没别的了，它只是条平凡简单的小毛巾，你大可以用它来擦脸。福特只对它进行了一个真正的改造，那还是出自一个朋友的建议：他把它的接缝加固过了。