經典科幻文學:《銀河系漫遊指南》第6章 Part 7
Ford looked up from where he was sitting in a corner humming to himself. He always found the actual travelling-through-space part of space travel rather trying.
"Yeah?" he said.
"If you're a researcher on this book thing and you were on Earth, you must have been gathering material on it."
"Well, I was able to extend the original entry a bit, yes."
"Let me see what it says in this edition then, I've got to see it."
"Yeah OK." He passed it over again.
Arthur grabbed hold of it and tried to stop his hands shaking. He pressed the entry for the relevant page. The screen flashed and swirled and resolved into a page of print. Arthur stared at it.
"It doesn't have an entry!" he burst out.
Ford looked over his shoulder.
"Yes it does," he said, "down there, see at the bottom of the screen, just under Eccentrica Gallumbits, the triple-breasted whore of Eroticon 6."
Arthur followed Ford's finger, and saw where it was pointing. For a moment it still didn't register, then his mind nearly blew up.
"What? Harmless? Is that all it's got to say? Harmless! One word!"
Ford shrugged.
"Well, there are a hundred billion stars in the Galaxy, and only a limited amount of space in the book's microprocessors," he said, "and no one knew much about the Earth of course."
"Well for God's sake I hope you managed to rectify that a bit."
"Oh yes, well I managed to transmit a new entry off to the editor. He had to trim it a bit, but it's still an improvement."
"And what does it say now?" asked Arthur.
"Mostly harmless," admitted Ford with a slightly embarrassed cough.
"Mostly harmless!" shouted Arthur.
福特擡起頭，他正坐在一個角落裏自己哼哼着什麼。他一直覺得空間旅行過程中實際穿越空間那部分非常難受，讓人相當疲憊。
“什麼事？”他問。
“如果你是這本書所收錄內容的研究者，又在地球上，那你肯定爲它收集過地球的資料吧。”
“噢，是的，我確實能幫着對原始條目作一點擴充。”
“讓我看看關於地球這上面都說了些什麼，我一定得看看。”
“好吧，隨便你。”這一次福特又同意了。
阿瑟捧着書，努力想讓自己的手不要顫抖。他按下相應頁碼的條目。屏幕開始閃爍，出現旋渦狀的圖案，最後顯示出一個打印頁。阿瑟盯着看了半天。
“這個條目是空的啊！”他大叫一聲。
福特從他肩膀上看過來。
“不可能，有內容的，”他說，“往下看，看屏幕的底部，就在‘奇異Gallumbits’的上邊，就是那些長着三個乳房的妓女。”
阿瑟順着福特的指頭看過去，找準了位置。一時間他還是沒有反應過來，然後才突然爆發了。
“什麼！‘無害’？這就是它的全部內容嗎？‘無害’！就這麼一個詞！”
福特聳了聳肩。
“噢，是這樣的，銀河系裏有幾千億顆星球，而這本書的微處理器容量有限，”他說，“所以當然不可能講多少地球了。”
“好吧，可看在上帝的份上，你就不能稍稍調整一丁點兒嗎？”
“哦，是的，我當然調整了。我給編輯傳送了一個新的條目。他可能會刪改一點兒，但這已經是一種改進了。”
“那麼現在最新的解釋是什麼呢？”阿瑟問道。
“‘基本上無害’。”福特尷尬地輕咳了一聲，然後說道。
“‘基本上無害’！”阿瑟叫起來。
