The hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy

Adams Douglas


Uvod

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

The hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy 

Chapter 4 


    Chapter 4     4.
    Far away on the opposite spiral arm of the Galaxy, five hundred thousand light-years from the star Sol, Zaphod Beeblebrox, President of the Imperial Galactic Government, sped across the seas of Damogran; his ion drive delta boat winking and flashing in the Damogran sun.     Daleko odatle, u spiralnom kraku na suprotnom kraju Galaksije, na pet stotina hiljada svetlosnih godina od zvezde Sol, Zaphod Biblbroks, predsednik Carske galaktičke vlade, jurio je preko damogranskog okeana; njegov delta čamac s jonskim pogonom blistao je i prelivao se na suncu Damograna.
    Damogran the hot; Damogran the remote; Damogran the almost totally unheard of.     Damogran vreli; Damogran daleki; Damogram gotovo u potpunosti neznani.
    Damogran, secret home of the Heart of Gold.     Damogran, tajni dom 'Zlatnog srca'.
    The boat sped on across the water. It would be some time before it reached its destination because Damogran is such an inconveniently arranged planet. It consists of nothing but middling to large desert islands separated by very pretty but annoyingly wide stretches of ocean.     Čamac je jurio po vodi. Bilo mu je potrebno poprilično vremena da stigne na svoje odredište, jer Damogran je planeta razuđena na vrlo neobičan način. Sastoji se gotovo isključivo od prostranih, nenaseljenih ostrva koja su odvojena divnim, ali neugodno širokim pojasevima okeana.
    The boat sped on.     Čamac je jurio.
    Because of this topographical awkwardness Damogran has always remained a deserted planet. This is why the Imperial Galactic Government chose Damogran for the Heart of Gold project, because it was so deserted and the Heart of Gold project was so secret.     Zbog takve topografske neobičnosti Damogran je uvek bio pusta planeta. Zato je Carska galaktična vlada i izabrala Damogran za sedište projekta 'Zlatno srce', jer bio je toliko pust, a projekat 'Zlatno srce' predstavljao je toliku tajnu.
    The boat zipped and skipped across the sea, the sea that lay between the main islands of the only archipelago of any useful size on the whole planet. Zaphod Beeblebrox was on his way from the tiny spaceport on Easter Island (the name was an entirely meaningless coincidence—in Galacticspeke, easter means small, flat and light-brown) to the Heart of Gold island, which by another meaningless coincidence was called France.     Čamac je jurio i klizio morem, morem koje se pružalo između glavnih ostrva jedinog arhipelaga na čitavoj planeti dovoljno velikog da se upotrebi za nešto korisno. Zaphod Biblbroks putovao je sa malenog astrodroma koji se nalazio na Uskršnjem Ostrvu (to ime predstavljalo je podudarnost bez ikakvog značaja - u galaktigovoru, reč uskrs označava nešto malo, ravno i svetlosmeđe) prema ostrvu 'Zlatnog srca' koje se drugom besmislenom igrom slučaja nazivalo Francuska.
    One of the side effects of work on the Heart of Gold was a whole string of pretty meaningless coincidences.     Jedna od sporednih posledica rada na 'Zlatnom srcu' bio je čitav splet prilično besmislenih igri slučaja.
    But it was not in any way a coincidence that today, the day of culmination of the project, the great day of unveiling, the day that the Heart of Gold was finally to be introduced to a marveling Galaxy, was also a great day of culmination for Zaphod Beeblebrox. It was for the sake of this day that he had first decided to run for the presidency, a decision that had sent shock waves of astonishment throughout the Imperial Galaxy. Zaphod Beeblebrox? President? Not the Zaphod Beeblebrox? Not the President? Many had seen it as clinching proof that the whole of known creation had finally gone bananas.     Ali nije bilo slučajno to što je današnji dan, dan vrhunca projekta, veliki dan otkrivanja tajne, dan kada je 'Zlatno srce' trebalo konačno da bude predstavljeno zadivljenoj Galaksiji, bio i dan vrhunca za Zaphoda Biblbroksa. Zbog ovog dana on se prvobitno i kandidovao za predsednika, što je predstavljalo odluku koja je izazvala buru zaprepašćenja širom carske Galaksije. Zaphod Biblbroks? Predsednik? Nije valjda onaj Zaphod Biblbroks? Nije valjda za tog predsednika? Mnogi su to primili kao konačan i neoboriv dokaz da je čitava poznata Vaseljena konačno pošašavila.
    Zaphod grinned and gave the boat an extra kick of speed.     Zaphod se nasmeši i još malo poveća brzinu čamca.
    Zaphod Beeblebrox, adventurer, ex-hippie, good-timer, (crook? quite possibly), manic self-publicist, terribly bad at personal relationships, often thought to be completely out to lunch.     Zaphod Biblbroks, pustolov, uvek do krajnjosti nekonvencionalan, poznati lezilebović (propalica, baraba? - sasvim moguće), pisac šokantnih memoara, očajnih manira, često smatran za potpuno iščašenog.
    President?     Predsednik?
    No one had gone bananas, not in that way at least.     Niko nije pošašavio, bar ne što se toga tiče.
    Only six people in the entire Galaxy understood the principle on which the Galaxy was governed, and they knew that once Zaphod Beeblebrox had announced his intention to run as President it was more or less a fait accompli: he was ideal presidency fodder.* * President: full title President of the Imperial Galactic Government. The term Imperial is kept though it is now an anachronism. The hereditary Emperor is nearly dead and has been for many centuries. In the last moments of his dying coma he was locked in a stasis field which keeps him in a state of perpetual unchangingness. All his heirs are now long dead, and this means that without any drastic political upheaval, power has simply and effectively moved a rung or two down the ladder, and is now seen to be vested in a body that used to act simply as advisers to the Emperor—an elected governmental assembly headed by a President elected by that assembly.     Samo šest ljudi u čitavoj Galaksiji shvatilo je načelo na kome se zasnivala vladavina nad Galaksijom, te tako, kada je Zaphod Biblbroks obznanio svoju nameru da se kandiduje za predsednika, njima je bilo jasno da je stvar već više ili manje fait accompli on je predstavljao idealan materijal za predsednika. Predsednik: (pun naziv: Predsednik galaktičke carske vlade).Termin 'carski' očuvao se do današnjih dana, iako predstavlja anahronizam. Nasledni car Galaksije nalazi se na samrti i u tom stanju održava se već mnogo vekova. U poslednjem stadijumu svoje kome zatvoren je u stazisno polje koje ga sada večito drži u neizmenjenom stanju. Svi njegovi naslednici već odavno su mrtvi, a to znači da je moć na jednostavan i delotvoran način, bez drastičnog političkog previranja, spuštena za jedan ili dva stepenika niže i trenutno vlada mišljenje da je sadržana u telu koje je nekada bilo naprosto carev savetodavni organ - izglasana vlada na čijem se čelu nalazi predsednik koga izglasava ona.
    In fact it vests in no such place. The President in particular is very much a figurehead—he wields no real power whatsoever. He is apparently chosen by the government, but the qualities he is required to display are not those of leadership but those of finely judged outrage. For this reason the President is always a controversial choice, always an infuriating but fascinating character. His job is not to wield power but to draw attention away from it.     U stvari vlast, nije u njenim rukama. Naročito je predsednik uglavnom figura - on ne poseduje nikakvu stvarnu moć. Njega, jasno, bira vlada, ali osobine koje se zahtevaju od njega nisu predvodničke, već one koje na fino odmeren način šokiraju javno mnjenje. Zbog toga je predsednik uvek predstavljao kontroverzan izbor, uvek je bio karakter koji nervira, ali očarava. Njegov zadatak nije da objedinjuje vlast, već da odvlači pažnju od nje.
    On those criteria Zaphod Beeblebrox is one of the most successful Presidents the Galaxy has ever had—he has already spent two of his ten presidential years in prison for fraud. Very very few people realize that the President and the Government have virtually no power at all, and of these few people only six know whence ultimate political power is wielded. Most of the others secretly believe that the ultimate decision-making process is handled by a computer. They couldn’t be more wrong.What they completely failed to understand was why Zaphod was doing it. He banked sharply, shooting a wild wall of water at the sun. Today was the day; today was the day when they would realize what Zaphod had been up to.     U tom pogledu Zaphod Biblbroks jedan je od najuspešnijih predsednika koje je Galaksija ikada imala - od svojih deset predsedničkih godina dve je presedeo u zatvoru zbog prevare. Malo je ljudi koji shvataju da predsednik i vlada ne poseduju praktično nikakvu vlast, a od njih samo šestoro zna gde je, zapravo, usredsređena prava politička moć. Većina ostalih u potaji veruje da proces donošenja odluka sprovodi kompjuter. U tome užasno greše. Ono što nikako nisu mogli da shvate bilo je zbog čega Zaphod to čini. On oštro skrenu, izbacivši zid podivljalih vodenih kapi prema suncu.
    Today was what Zaphod Beeblebrox’s presidency was all about. Today was also his two-hundredth birthday, but that was just another meaningless coincidence. As he skipped his boat across the seas of Damogran he smiled quietly to himself about what a wonderful, exciting day it was going to be. He relaxed and spread his two arms lazily along the seat back. He steered with an extra arm he’d recently had fitted just beneath his right one to help improve his ski-boxing.     Danas je bio taj dan; danas je bio dan kada će svi shvatiti šta je Zaphod Biblbroks, zapravo, nameravao. Danas mu je bio i dvestoti rođendan, ali bila je to samo još jedna podudarnost bez ikakvog značaja. Dok je klizio čamcem preko damogranskog okeana, tiho se nasmešio sebi kada je pomislio kako će to biti divan i uzbudljiv dan. Opustio se i lenjo zabacio ruke na naslon sedišta. Krmanio je dodatnom rukom, koju je ne tako davno postavio odmah ispod desne, ne bi li tako poboljšao svoje skijaške sposobnosti.
    “Hey,” he cooed to himself, “you’re a real cool boy you.” But his nerves sang a song shriller than a dog whistle. The island of France was about twenty miles long, five miles across the middle, sandy and crescent-shaped. In fact, it seemed to exist not so much as an island in its own right as simply a means of defining the sweep and curve of a huge bay. This impression was heightened by the fact that the inner coastline of the crescent consisted almost entirely of steep cliffs. From the top of the cliff the land sloped slowly down five miles to the opposite shore. On top of the cliffs stood a reception committee. It consisted in large part of the engineers and researchers who had built the Heart of Gold—mostly humanoid, but here and there were a few reptiloid atomineers, two or three green sylphlike maximegalacticians, an octopodic physucturalist or two and a Hooloovoo (a Hooloovoo is a superintelligent shade of the color blue). All except the Hooloovoo were resplendent in their multicolored ceremonial lab coats; the Hooloovoo had been temporarily refracted into a free-standing prism for the occasion.     "Ej", promrmljao je u sebi, "ti si stvarno momčina i po, znaš." Ali živci su mu cvileli gore nego pištaljka za pse. Ostrvo Francuska bilo je dugačko oko dvadeset milja, na sredini je imalo oko pet milja, bilo je prekriveno peskom, a oblik mu je bio srpast. U stvari, manje je delovalo kao samostalno ostrvo, a više kao najobičnije sredstvo za definisanje raspona i zakrivljenosti ogromnog zaliva. Taj utisak pojačavala je činjenica da se unutrašnja obala srpa sastojala gotovo isključivo od strmog stenja. Od kamenitog vrha zemlja se lagano spuštala pet milja, sve do druge obale. Na vrhu stenovitog dela nalazio se odbor za doček. Uglavnom se sastojao od inženjera i istraživača koji su napravili 'Zlatno srce' - to su većinom bili humanoidi, ali bilo je i nekoliko gušterolikih atominira, dva ili tri zelena m​a​k​s​i​m​e​g​a​l​a​k​t​i​č​a​r​a​,​ nalik na sablasti, jedan ili dva psisuktoralista u obliku oktopoda i jedan huluvu (huluvu je superinteligentni preliv plave boje). Svi izuzev hululua obukli su se u svoja višebojna, ceremonijalna, laboratorijska odela; hululu se posebno za ovu priliku prelamao u naročito postavljenoj prizmi.
    There was a mood of immense excitement thrilling through all of them. Together and between them they had gone to and beyond the furthest limits of physical laws, restructured the fundamental fabric of matter, strained, twisted and broken the laws of possibility and impossibility, but still the greatest excitement of all seemed to be to meet a man with an orange sash round his neck. (An orange sash was what the President of the Galaxy traditionally wore.) It might not even have made much difference to them if they’d known exactly how much power the President of the Galaxy actually wielded: none at all. Only six people in the Galaxy knew that the job of the Galactic President was not to wield power but to attract attention away from it.     Kroz sve njih strujalo je izuzetno uzbuđenje. Zajedno su, bez ičije pomoći sa strane, dostigli i zaobišli najdalje granice fizičkih zakona, prestrojili temeljno tkanje materije, napregli, iskrivili i slomili zakone verovatnoće i neverovatnoće, a opet, kao da im je najveće uzbuđenje izazvao susret s čovekom koji nosi narandžastu lentu (tradicionalni znak predsednika Galaksije jeste narandžasta lenta). Možda se ništa ne bi izmenilo ni da su znali koliko moći predsednik Galaksije, u stvari, poseduje: nimalo. Samo šest ljudi u čitavoj Galaksiji znalo je da posao predsednika Galaksije nije da objedinjuje moć, nego da skreće pažnju od nje.
    Zaphod Beeblebrox was amazingly good at his job.     Zaphod Biblbroks bio je u tome zaprepašćujuće dobar.
    The crowd gasped, dazzled by sun and seamanship, as the presidential speedboat zipped round the headland into the bay. It flashed and shone as it came skating over the sea in wide skidding turns.     Gomila zažamori, opijena suncem i morem, kada predsednički motorni čamac skrenu u zaliv. Blistao je i svetlucao dok je brisao morskom površinom u širokim, nekontrolisanim zaokretima.
    In fact, it didn’t need to touch the water at all, because it was supported on a hazy cushion of ionized atoms, but just for effect it was fitted with thin finblades which could be lowered into the water. They slashed sheets of water hissing into the air, carved deep gashes in the sea which swayed crazily and sank back foaming in the boat’s wake as it careered across the bay.     Njemu, u stvari, uopšte nije bilo neophodno da dodiruje vodu, jer lebdeo je na magličastoj zavesi jonizovanih atoma - ali, samo radi efekta, bio je snabdeven tankim, metalnim perajima koja su se mogla uroniti u vodu. Ona su uz šištanje sekla talase i terala vodu da pršti visoko u vazduh, urezivala duboke brazde u more, sumanuto uskomešano i zapenjeno iza čamca koji je prelazio zaliv.
    Zaphod loved effect: it was what he was best at.     Zaphod je voleo taj efekat - bila je to stvar u kojoj je bio najbolji.
    He twisted the wheel sharply, the boat skidded round in a wild scything skid beneath the cliff face and dropped to rest lightly on the rocking waves.     On naglo pomeri kormilo, a čamac divlje, oštro zaokrenu pred samim grebenom i lagano se umiri povrh uzburkanih talasa.
    Within seconds he ran out onto the deck and waved and grinned at over three billion people. The three billion people weren’t actually there, but they watched his every gesture through the eyes of a small robot tri-D camera which hovered obsequiously in the air nearby. The antics of the President always made amazingly popular tri-D: that’s what they were for.     Posle svega nekoliko sekundi, on istrča na palubu i poče da maše i da se smeši publici od preko tri milijarde ljudi. U stvari, te tri milijarde ljudi nisu bile prisutne, ali posmatrale su svaki njegov pokret kroz oči malih robotskih 3-D kamera koje su, pune poštovanja, lebdele po okolnom vazduhu. Luckasto predsednikovo ponašanje uvek je mamac za izetno popularne 3-D kamere: zbog toga su, uostalom, i bile tu.
    He grinned again. Three billion and six people didn’t know it, but today would be a bigger antic than anyone had bargained for.     Opet se nasmešio. Tri milijarde i šest ljudi nisu to mogli ni da naslute, ali današnja predstava biće daleko luđa nego što je iko i sanjao.
    The robot camera homed in for a close-up on the more popular of his two heads and he waved again. He was roughly humanoid in appearance except for the extra head and third arm. His fair tousled hair stuck out in random directions, his blue eyes glinted with something completely unidentifiable, and his chins were almost always unshaven.     Robotska kamera približila se da bi u krupnom planu snimila popularniju od njegove dve glave. Izgled mu je u osnovi bio humanoidan, izuzev što je imao glavu viška i tri ruke. Plava kosa izgledala mu je sasvim razbarušena, plave oči blistale su nečim što se opiralo svakom opisu, a brada mu je, kao i uvek, bila neobrijana.
    A twenty-foot-high transparent globe floated next to his boat, rolling and bobbing, glistening in the brilliant sun. Inside it floated a wide semicircular sofa upholstered in glorious red leather: the more the globe bobbed and rolled, the more the sofa stayed perfectly still, steady as an upholstered rock. Again, all done for effect as much as anything.     Prozirna lopta od dvadeset stopa lebdela je pored njegovog čamca, vrtela se i uvijala, svetlucava na blistavom suncu. Unutar nje lebdela je široka, polukružna sofa, postavljena crvenom kožom raskošnog izgleda: što se lopta više njihala i valjala, sve je mirnije delovala sofa, postojana poput crveno tapacirane stene. I opet, sve to učinjeno je pre svega radi efekta.

    Zaphod stepped through the wall of the globe and relaxed on the sofa. He spread his two arms along the back and with the third brushed some dust off his knee. His heads looked about, smiling; he put his feet up. At any moment, he thought, he might scream.     Zaphod kroči kroz zid lopte i zavali se u sofu. Dve ruke raširio je po naslonu, a trećom je čistio prašinu sa kolena. Njegove glave okretale su se i smešile; prekrstio je noge. U istom trenutku, duboko u sebi, osećao je želju da počne da vrišti.
    Water boiled up beneath the bubble, it seethed and spouted. The bubble surged into the air, bobbing and rolling on the water spout. Up, up it climbed, throwing stilts of light at the cliff. Up it surged on the jet, the water falling from beneath it, crashing back into the sea hundreds of feet below.     Voda je ključala pod mehurom, kipela i vrila. Mehur se uzdigao u vazduh, vrteo i kotrljao nad uspenjenom vodom. Više, sve više se uspinjao, a slapovi svetlosti padali su sa njega na grebene. Uzdizao se ogromnom brzinom, voda se slivala sa njega i survavala u more, stotinama stopa pod njim.
    Zaphod smiled, picturing himself.     Zaphod se nasmeši, zamišljajući kako izgleda u tom trenutku.
    A thoroughly ridiculous form of transport, but a thoroughly beautiful one.     Šašav oblik prevoza, ali divan.
    At the top of the cliff the globe wavered for a moment, tipped onto a railed ramp, rolled down it to a small concave platform and riddled to a halt.     Na vrhu obronka lopta je na trenutak zadrhtala, dodirnula ograđeni prostor, skotrljala se na malu, udubljenu platformu i zaustavila se.
    To tremendous applause Zaphod Beeblebrox stepped out of the bubble, his orange sash blazing in the light.     Uz gromoglasan aplauz Zaphod Biblbroks iziđe iz mehura; narandžasta lenta blistala mu je na jarkom svetlu.
    The President of the Galaxy had arrived.     Predsednik Galaksije je stigao.
    He waited for the applause to die down, then raised his hand in greeting.     Sačekao je da aplauz zamre, a zatim je podigao ruku u znak pozdrava.
    “Hi,” he said.     "Ćao", rekao je.
    A government spider sidled up to him and attempted to press a copy of his prepared speech into his hands. Pages three to seven of the original version were at the moment floating soggily on the Damogran Sea some five miles out from the bay. Pages one and two had been salvaged by a Damogran Frond Crested Eagle and had already become incorporated into an extraordinary new form of nest which the eagle had invented. It was constructed largely of papier-mâché and it was virtually impossible for a newly hatched baby eagle to break out of it. The Damogran Frond Crested Eagle had heard of the notion of survival of the species but wanted no truck with it.     Prišao mu je Vladin pauk i pokušao da mu tutne u ruke primerak ranije pripremljenog govora. Stranice originalne verzije, od treće do sedme, lenjo su plivale po površini damogranskog mora, na jedno pet milja od zaliva. Stranice jedan i dva odneo je damogranski ćubasti orao i već ih ugradio u neobičan, nov oblik gnezda koji je sam izmislio. Uglavnom ga je sastavio od papirne mase, tako da mladunci koji su se tek ispilili gotovo da nisu mogli otuda ispasti. Damogranski ćubasti orao čuo je za rasprave o opstanku vrsta, ali za sve to nije davao ni pišljiva boba.
    Zaphod Beeblebrox would not be needing his set speech and he gently deflected the one being offered him by the spider.     Zaphod Biblbroks nije želeo pripremljeni govor, pa je zato nežno odgurnuo primerak koji mu je pružao pauk.
    “Hi,” he said again.     "Ćao", rekao je ponovo.
    Everyone beamed at him, or at least, nearly everyone. He singled out Trillian from the crowd. Trillian was a girl that Zaphod had picked up recently while visiting a planet, just for fun, incognito. She was slim, darkish, humanoid, with long waves of black hair, a full mouth, an odd little knob of a nose and ridiculously brown eyes. With her red head scarf knotted in that particular way and her long flowing silky brown dress, she looked vaguely Arabic. Not that anyone there had ever heard of an Arab of course. The Arabs had very recently ceased to exist, and even when they had existed they were five hundred thousand light-years from Damogran. Trillian wasn’t anybody in particular, or so Zaphod claimed. She just went around with him rather a lot and told him what she thought of him.     Svi su mu se smešili, ili bar gotovo svi. Opazio je Trilijan usred gužve. Trilijan je bila devojka koju je Zaphod odvojio ne tako davno, onako štosa radi, u vreme dok je inkognito posećivao njenu planetu. Bila je vitka, tamnoputa, humanoidna, s talasastom, crnom kosom, punim usnama, čudnim, maleckim, prćastim nosom i smešnim, smeđim očima. S kosom uvezanom tom crvenom maramom i u dugačkoj, lepršavoj haljini, neodređeno je podsećala na Arabljanku. Naravno, ovde niko nikada nije čuo za Arabljane. Arabljani su nedavno prestali da postoje, a čak i dok su postojali, nalazili su se na pet stotina hiljada svetlosnih godina od Damograna. Trilijan, u stvari, nije bila neka posebno značajna ličnost, ili je bar Zaphod tako mislio. Naprosto je išla s njim i govorila mu šta misli o njemu.
    “Hi, honey,” he said to her.     "Ćao, dušo", rekao joj je.
    She flashed him a quick tight smile and looked away. Then she looked back for a moment and smiled more warmly—but by this time he was looking at something else.     Uputila mu je brz, napregnut osmeh i skrenula pogled u stranu. Onda je za trenutak vratila pogled i toplije mu se nasmešila - ali ovog puta on je gledao negde drugde.
    “Hi,” he said to a small knot of creatures from the press who were standing nearby wishing that he would stop saying Hi and get on with the quotes. He grinned at them particularly because he knew that in a few moments he would be giving them one hell of a quote.     "Ćao", rekao je maloj grupi stvorova iz štampe koja je stajala u blizini i čeznula da prestane da govori ćao i da pređe na nešto od čega bi se mogla načiniti vest. Njima se posebno nasmešio, jer je znao da će im za koji trenutak dati vest i po.
    The next thing he said though was not a lot of use to them. One of the officials of the party had irritably decided that the President was clearly not in a mood to read the deliciously turned speech that had been written for him, and had flipped the switch on the remote-control device in his pocket. Away in front of them a huge white dome that bulged against the sky cracked down the middle, split and slowly folded itself down into the ground. Everyone gasped although they had known perfectly well it was going to do that because they’d built it that way.     A ipak, sledeće što je rekao nije im baš mnogo pomoglo. Jedan od službenika zaduženih za organizaciju proslave iznervirano je zaključio da predsednik očigledno nije raspoložen da čita govor koji mu je tako izvrsno pripremljen, pa je pritisnuo prekidač na daljinskom prekidaču koji mu se nalazio u džepu. U daljini pred njim, ogromna bela kupola što se uzdizala prema nebu prsnula je po sredini, raspala se i lagano pala na tle. Svima se oteo uzdah, iako su savršeno dobro znali šta će se dogoditi, pošto su je sami izgradili baš takvu.
    Beneath it lay uncovered a huge starship, one hundred and fifty meters long, shaped like a sleek running shoe, perfectly white and mind-bogglingly beautiful. At the heart of it, unseen, lay a small gold box which carried within it the most brain-wrenching device ever conceived, a device that made this star-ship unique in the history of the Galaxy, a device after which the ship had been named—the Heart of Gold.     Ispod nje ukazao se ogromni međuzvezdani brod, dugačak sto pedeset metara, napravljen u obliku izdužene trkačke cipele, savršeno beo i zaslepljujuće divan. U njegovom srcu, nevidljiva, nalazila se malena, zlatna kutija u koju je bio smešten najneshvatljiviji uređaj koji je ikada postojao, uređaj koji je činio ovaj međuzvezdani brod jedinstvenim u galaktičkoj istoriji, naprava po kojoj je čitav brod nosio ime - zlatno srce.
    “Wow,” said Zaphod Beeblebrox to the Heart of Gold. There wasn’t much else he could say.     "Au", reče Zaphod Biblbroks kada je video 'Zlatno srce'. Nije bilo mnogo toga što je mogao da kaže.
    He said it again because he knew it would annoy the press. “Wow.”     "Au."
    The crowd turned their faces back toward him expectantly. He winked at Trillian, who raised her eyebrows and widened her eyes at him. She knew what he was about to say and thought him a terrible show-off.     Gomila u iščekivanju okrete lice prema njemu. On namignu Trilijani, koja podiže obrve i raširi oči prema njemu. Znala je šta namerava da kaže i smatrala ga je izuzetnim majstorom za predstave.
    “That is really amazing,” he said. “That really is truly amazing. That is so amazingly amazing I think I’d like to steal it.”     "Stvarno zaprepašćujuće", rekao je. "Ovo je stvarno istinski zaprepašćujuće. Zaprepaćujuće na toliko zaprepašćujući način da mi prosto dođe da ga ukradem."
    A marvelous presidential quote, absolutely true to form. The crowd laughed appreciatively, the newsmen gleefully punched buttons on their Sub-Etha News-Matics and the President grinned.     Predivna predsednička izjava, istinita do srži. Gomila se odobravajuće nasmejala, reporteri zadovoljno pritisnuli dugmad na svojim sub-eta no-vosti-matik uređajima, a predsednik se nasmešio.
    As he grinned his heart screamed unbearably and he fingered the small Paralyso-Matic bomb that nestled quietly in his pocket.     Dok se smešio, srce mu je nepodnošljivo tuklo; on dohvati paralizo-matik bombu koja mu je dotad počivala u džepu.
    Finally he could bear it no more. He lifted his heads up to the sky, let out a wild whoop in major thirds, threw the bomb to the ground and ran forward through the sea of suddenly frozen beaming smiles.     Konačno više nije mogao da izdrži. Podigao je svoje glave prema nebu, ispustio divlji urlik u dva različita tona, bacio bombu na tlo i potrčao kroz more iznenada sleđenih srdačnih osmeha.


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