经典科幻文学:《基本上无害 Mostly Harmless》 第12章5

A great wump of hot air welled up from the explosion throwing Ford and Colin violently up into the sky. Ford fought desperately and blindly to hold on and failed. He turned helplessly upwards through the sky, reached the peak of a parabola, paused and then started to fall again. He fell and fell and fell and suddenly winded himself badly on Colin, who was still rising.

爆炸产生了一大团热气，猛地把福特和科林往天上抛。福特眼前一黑，拼命想要稳住科林，不过没有成功。他无助地往上翻滚，到达抛物线的顶点，停住片刻然后开始往下掉。他掉啊掉啊掉啊，突然重重地砸上了科林，这家伙还在上升中。

He clasped himself desperately on to the small spherical robot. Colin slewed wildly through the air towards the tower of the Guide offices, trying delightedly to control himself and slow down.

他死命抱紧圆乎乎的小机器人。科林疯了似的打着转，不断旋向《指南》的办公大楼，高高兴兴地尝试控制住身体放慢速度。

The world span sickeningly round Ford’s head as they span and twisted round each other and then, equally sickeningly, everything suddenly stopped.

他俩绕着对方旋转，福特胃里也是天旋地转一阵恶心，然后，恶心的感觉丝毫不减，一切都突然停住了。

Ford found himself deposited dizzily on a window ledge.

福特发现自己晕乎乎地瘫在窗台上。

His towel fell past and he grabbed at it and caught it.

他的毛巾从身边落下，他伸手把它抓住。

Colin bobbed in the air inches away from him.

科林就在离他几寸远的地方飘上飘下。

Ford looked around himself in a bruised, bleeding and breathless daze. The ledge was only about a foot wide and he was perched precariously on it, thirteen stories up.

福特透过一层伤痕累累，血迹斑斑，气喘吁吁的迷雾四下打量起来。窗台不过一尺来宽，他自己挺警惕地坐在上头，离地面足足十三层。

Thirteen.

十三层。

He knew they were thirteen stories up because the windows were dark. He was bitterly upset. He had bought those shoes for some absurd price in a store on the Lower East Side in New York. He had, as a result, written an entire essay on the joys of great footwear, all of which had been jettisoned in the ‘Mostly harmless’ debacle. Damn everything.

他知道他们在第十三层，因为旁边的窗户是黑的。他气得心烦意乱。那双鞋子是他在纽约东区买的，价格极其夸张。为此他还专门写了一篇评论，讲的就是穿好鞋带来的巨大乐趣。文章当然堙没在信息的洪流中了。这该死的生活。

And now one of the shoes was gone. He threw his head back and stared at the sky.

而现在其中一只鞋也已经没了。他猛地扬起脑袋，把目光投向苍穹。

It wouldn’t be such a grim tragedy if the planet in question hadn’t been demolished, which meant that he wouldn’t even be able to get another pair.

要不是那个星球已经毁灭，这事儿本来还不会那么悲情，现在他想重新在搞一双也办不到了。

Yes, given the infinite sideways extension of probability there was, of course, an almost infinite multiplicity of planets Earth, but, when you came down to it, a major pair of shoes wasn’t something you could just replace by mucking about in multi-dimensional space/time.

没错，既然可能性会分出无穷无尽的枝丫，那儿当然也存在数量无穷无尽的地球；但实际上，一双棒极了的好鞋，你真以为在多维空间/时间里随便混混就能为它找到替身吗？

He sighed.

福特叹了口气。