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Colin reported that the doors had been getting generally a lot grimmer down in these lower reaches of the building.
科林早就报告说，越往下走这些门就越是阴沉的厉害。
They were about ten stories below ground level now. The air was refrigerated and the tasteful grey hessian wall-weave had given way to brutal grey bolted steel walls. Colin’s rampant euphoria had subsided into a kind of determined cheeriness. He said that he was beginning to tire a little. It was taking all his energy to pump the slightest bonhomie whatsoever into the doors down here.
现在他们已经到了地下十层左右。地面上的大楼里是冷却过的空气和品位十足的灰色条纹墙纸，这里则只有凶巴巴的灰色钢墙。科林暴风雨般的喜悦已经消解为一种毅然决然的快乐。他说他有点累了，要使出吃奶的力气才能搜刮出星星点点的和善，输进这底下的门里。
Ford kicked at the door. It opened.
福特对准大门飞起一脚。它开了。
‘Mixture of pleasure and pain,’ he muttered. ‘Always does the trick.’
“糖和鞭子。”他喃喃道，“从来都奏效。”
He walked in and Colin flew in after him. Even with a wire stuck straight into his pleasure electrode his happiness was a nervous kind of happiness. He bobbed around a little.
他走进去，科林跟在他身后往里飞。即使快感电极里插了根电线，它的快乐还是带上了紧张。它四下晃了晃。
The room was small, grey and humming.
屋子是灰色的，面积不大，还嗡嗡作响。
This was the nerve centre of the entire Guide.
这是整个《指南》的神经中枢。
The computer terminals that lined the grey walls were windows on to every aspect of the Guide’s operations. Here, on the left-hand side of the room, reports were gathered over the Sub-Etha-Net from field researchers in every corner of the Galaxy, fed straight up into the network of sub-editor’s offices where they had all the good bits cut out by secretaries because the sub-editors were out having lunch. The remaining copy would then be shot across to the other half of the building – the other leg of the ‘H’ – which was the legal department. The legal department would cut out anything that was still even remotely good from what remained and fire it back to the offices of the executive editors, who were also out at lunch. So the editors’ secretaries would read it and say it was stupid and cut most of what was left.
灰色的墙壁前排满了计算机终端，《指南》的行动全都显示在上面，事无巨细，面面俱到。《指南》的外派通讯员分散在银河系的每个角落，他们通过亚以太网络把稿子发回总部，由屋子左手边的电脑收集起来，直接传进助理编辑的办公室网络，并在那里被他们的秘书把所有精彩部分砍个一干二净，因为助理编辑们全都去吃午饭了。稿子剩下的部分会传送到大楼的另一边——也就是“H”的另一竖——那是法律部。法律部又挑选出哪怕稍微有些精彩之嫌的内容，把它们咔嚓掉，再把剩下的东西打回执行编辑的办公室。执行编辑也出去吃饭了，于是他们的秘书会把稿子读上一遍，然后说这真傻透了，接着继续砍掉余下的大部分内容。
When any of the editors finally staggered in from lunch they would exclaim ‘What is this feeble crap that X’ – where X was the name of the field researcher in question – ‘has sent us from half-way across the bloody Galaxy? What’s the point of having somebody spending three whole orbital periods out in the bloody Gagrakacka Mind Zones, with all that stuff going on out there, if this load of anaemic squitter is the best he can be bothered to send us. Disallow his expenses!’
等终于有哪个编辑吃完了午饭踉踉跄跄地跑回办公室，他们就会惊叫：“这个*！”——*指的是交稿子的那位——“从他妈半个银河系之外就寄这么个破玩意回来？要是他只肯费那么一丁点功夫寄一堆得了贫血的结结疤疤，我们干嘛还要送他去那该死的珈古拉卡卡思维区待上整整三个轨道周期，见识那么多好东西？不给他报销！”
‘What shall we do with the copy?’ the secretary would ask.
“稿子怎么办？”秘书会问他。
