Ford Prefect was irritated to be continually wakened by the sound of gunfire. He slid himself out of the maintenance hatchway which he had fashioned into a bunk for himself by disabling some of the noisier machinery in his vicinity and padding it with towels. He slung himself down the access ladder and prowled the corridors moodily. They were claustrophobic and ill-lit, and what light there was was continually flickering and dimming as power surged this way and that through the ship, causing heavy vibrations and rasping humming noises. That wasn’t it, though. He paused and leaned back against the wall as something that looked like a small silver power drill flew past him down the dim corridor with a nasty searing screech. That wasn’t it either. He clambered listlessly through a bulkhead door and found himself in a larger corridor, though still ill-lit. The ship lurched. It had been doing this a fair bit, but this was heavier. A small platoon of robots went by making a terrible clattering. Still not it, though. Acrid smoke was drifting up from one end of the corridor, so he walked along it in the other direction. He passed a series of observation monitors let into the walls behind plates of toughened but still badly scratched perspex. One of them showed some horrible green scaly reptilian figure ranting and raving about the Single Transferable Vote system. It was hard to tell whether he was for or against it, but he clearly felt very strongly about it. Ford turned the sound down. That wasn’t it, though. He passed another monitor. It was showing a commercial for some brand of toothpaste that would apparently make you feel free if you used it. There was nasty blaring music with it too, but that wasn’t it. He came upon another, much larger three-dimensional screen that was monitoring the outside of the vast silver Xaxisian ship. As he watched, a thousand horribly beweaponed Zirzla robot starcruisers came searing round the dark shadow of a moon, silhouetted against the blinding disc of the star Xaxis, and the ship simultaneously unleashed a vicious blaze of hideously incomprehensible forces from all its orifices against them. That was it. Ford shook his head irritably and rubbed his eyes. He slumped on the wrecked body of a dull silver robot which clearly had been burning earlier on, but had now cooled down enough to sit on. He yawned and dug his copy of The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy out of his satchel. He activated the screen, and flicked idly through some level three entries and some level four entries. He was looking for some good insomnia cures. He found Rest, which was what he reckoned he needed. He found Rest and Recuperation and was about to pass on when he suddenly had a better idea. He looked up at the monitor screen. The battle was raging more fiercely every second and the noise was appalling. The ship juddered, screamed, and lurched as each new bolt of stunning energy was delivered or received. He looked back down at the Guide again and flipped through a few likely locations. He suddenly laughed, and then rummaged in his satchel again. He pulled out a small memory dump module, wiped off the fluff and biscuit crumbs, and plugged it into an interface on the back of the Guide. When all the information that he could think was relevant had been dumped into the module, he unplugged it again, tossed it lightly in the palm of his hand, put the Guide away in his satchel, smirked, and went in search of the ship’s computer data banks. 福特.普里弗克特很不爽自己總是被槍炮聲吵醒。 他溜出維修艙，他把自己附近的一些吵人的機器關了並蓋上毛巾從而將維修艙打造成了自己的鋪位。他爬下入口的梯子然後在走廊心情煩躁地巡視着。 走廊裏充斥着幽閉恐懼症和糟糕的照明，那裏的燈受流向飛船的電力高峯影響，不停地閃爍和變暗，伴隨着沉重的震動和煩人的嗡嗡聲。 但這不是他要找的。 他停了下來靠回牆上，某個銀色的看上去像小型機械鑽的玩意兒從他身旁呼嘯而過飛下陰暗的走廊，伴隨着恐怖灼人的尖銳刮擦聲。 這也不是他要找的。 他無精打采地爬上艙壁門，置身於一個更大的走廊，但照明依然很糟糕。 這艘船突然傾斜了。這船早就傾斜了不少，但這次更嚴重。一小排機器人經過，弄出來一大堆噪音。 但這依然不是他要找的。 刺鼻的煙霧從走廊的一端飄起，於是他走向另一端。 他經過牆上的一系列觀測顯示器，那些顯示器裝在強化過但仍傷痕累累的塑料防護板後面。 其中一個屏幕上面有一些可怕的綠色爬蟲形帶鱗怪物，咆哮嘶吼着關於單記移讓式比例代表法（注）的事情。很難說他是支持還是反對這種投票制度，但他明顯地對它有種非常強烈的感情。福特把聲音調小了。 但這不是他要找的。 他經過了另一臺顯示器。上面是一個關於某種牌子的牙膏的廣告，聲稱你如果使用了它就會很快讓你感覺到自由。廣告裏面也有噁心的刺耳音樂，但這不是他要找的。 他經過另一臺顯示器，更加巨大的三維屏幕上顯示着外面龐大的銀色愛克西斯戰艦。 他看到一千艘全副武裝的吉爾拉機器人星際巡洋艦鏖戰在月亮的暗影中，輪廓掩映在愛克西斯星炫目的光環之下，與此同時那愛克西斯戰艦從所有的炮孔中釋放出可怕的難以理解的邪惡的能量束進行還擊。 要找的就是這個。 福特煩躁地搖了搖頭揉着眼睛。他一屁股倒在一個暗銀色機器人的殘骸上，那個機器人很明顯是剛纔燒燬的，但現在已經冷卻到能讓人坐在上面的地步了。 他打了個呵欠，從包裏翻出他的那本《銀河系漫遊指南》。他啓動屏幕，漫不經心地翻看一些三級條目和四級條目。他在找一些治療失眠的好方法。他找到“休息” 條目，覺得這可能是他所需要的。他找到了“休息”和“恢復”條目，正打算結束查找時，突然想到了一個更好的點子。他查看監視屏。戰鬥每秒都在逐漸白熱化，發出震耳欲聾的恐怖聲音。每發出一束能量波或被擊中一次都讓船顫抖，尖叫，傾斜。 他再一次回顧指南的內容，瀏覽了一些可能的位置。突然間，他爆發出大笑，接着又開始翻他的包。 他拽出一個小記憶存儲器，撣掉上面的絨毛和餅乾屑，把它插進了指南後面的面板上。 當所有他認爲有關的信息全都存了進去之後，他又把它拔了出來，在手掌上輕輕翻弄着。他把指南放回了包裏，得意地笑着，開始尋找飛船的數據庫。
