"But relative to what we were doing when the ship picked them up ..."
Trillian punched up the figures. They showed tow-to-the power-of-Infinity-minus-one (an irrational number that only has a conventional meaning in Improbability physics).
"... it's pretty low," continued Zaphod with a slight whistle.
"Yes," agreed Trillian, and looked at him quizzically.
"That's one big whack of Improbability to be accounted for. Something pretty improbable has got to show up on the balance sheet if it's all going to add up into a pretty sum."
Zaphod scribbled a few sums, crossed them out and threw the pencil away.
"Bat's dots, I can't work it out."
"Well?"
Zaphod knocked his two heads together in irritation and gritted his teeth.
"OK," he said. "Computer!"
The voice circuits sprang to life again.
"Why hello there!" they said (ticker tape, ticker tape). "All I want to do is make your day nicer and nicer and nicer ..."
"Yeah well shut up and work something out for me."
"Sure thing," chattered the computer, "you want a probability forecast based on ..."
"Improbability data, yeah."
n. 口哨,汽笛,厂笛,啸啸声,用于召唤或发布命令的哨声