The Campaign for Real Time, which I will tell you about later. I noticed that five pieces of jetsam which had in relatively recent times plopped back into existence seemed to correspond to the five pieces of the missing Key. Only two I could trace exactly the Wooden Pillar, which appeared on your planet, and the Silver Bail. It seems to be at some sort of party. We must go there to retrieve it before the Krikkit robots find it, or who knows what may hap?
No, said Ford firmly. We must go to the party in order to drink a lot and dance with girls.
But haven’t you understood everything I?…
Yes, said Ford, with a sudden and unexpected fierceness, I’ve understood it all perfectly well. That’s why I want to have as many drinks and dance with as many girls as possible while there are still any left. If everything you’ve shown us is true…
True? Of course it’s true.
–…then we don’t stand a whelk’s chance in a supernova.
A what? said Arthur sharply again. He had been following the conversation doggedly up to this point, and was keen not to lose the thread now.
A whelk’s chance in a supernova, repeated Ford without losing momentum. The…
What’s a whelk got to do with a supernova? said Arthur.
It doesn’t, said Ford levelly, stand a chance in one.
He paused to see if the matter was now cleared up. The freshly puzzled looks clambering across Arthur’s face told him that it wasn’t.
A supernova, said Ford as quickly and as clearly as he could, is a star which explodes at almost half the speed of light and burns with the brightness of a billion suns and then collapses as a super-heavy neutron star. It’s a star which burns up other stars, got it? Nothing stands a chance in a supernova.
I see, said Arthur.
The…
So why a whelk particularly?
Why not a whelk? Doesn’t matter.
Arthur accepted this, and Ford continued, picking up his early fierce momentum as best he could.
The point is, he said, that people like you and me, Slartibartfast, and Arthur particularly and especially Arthur are just dilletantes, eccentrics, layabouts, fartarounds if you like.
Slartibartfast frowned, partly in puzzlement and partly in umbrage. He started to speak.
–… is as far as he got.
We’re not obsessed by anything, you see, insisted Ford.
–…
adj. 困惑的;搞糊涂的;茫然的