經典科幻文學:《宇宙盡頭的餐館》第24章1
Chapter 24
“Er, captain…”
“Yes, Number One?”
“Just heard a sort of report thingy from Number Two.”
“Oh, dear.”
High up in the bridge of the ship, the Captain stared out into the infinite reaches of space with mild irritation. From where he reclined beneath a wide domed bubble he could see before and above them the vast panorama of stars through which they were moving – a panorama that had thinned out noticably during the course of the voyage. Turning and looking backwards, over the vast two-mile bulk of the ship he could see the far denser mass of stars behind them which seemed to form almost a solid band. This was the view through the Galactic centre from which they were travelling, and indeed had been travelling for years, at a speed that he couldn’t quite remember at the moment, but he knew it was terribly fast. It was something approaching the speed of something or other, or was it three times the speed of something else? Jolly impressive anyway. He peered into the bright distance behind the ship, looking for something. He did this every few minutes or so, but never found what he was looking for. He didn’t let it worry him though. The scientist chaps had been very insistent that everything was going to be perfectly alright providing nobody panicked and everybody got on and did their bit in an orderly fashion.
He wasn’t panicking. As far as he was concerned everything was going splendidly. He dabbed at his shoulder with a large frothy sponge. It crept back into his mind that he was feeling mildly irritated about something. Now what was all that about? A slight cough alerted him to the fact that the ship’s first officer was still standing nearby.
Nice chap, Number One. Not of the very brightest, had the odd spot of difficulty doing up his shoe laces, but jolly good officer material for all that. The Captain wasn’t a man to kick a chap when he was bending over trying to do up his shoe laces, however long it took him. Not like that ghastly Number Two, strutting about all over the place, polishing his buttons, issuing reports every hour: “Ship’s still moving, Captain.” “Still on course, Captain.” “Oxygen levels still being maintained, Captain.” “Give it a miss,” was the Captain’s vote. Ah yes, that was the thing that had been irritating him. He peered down at Number One.
“Yes, Captain, he was shouting something or other about having found some prisoners…”
The Captain thought about this. Seemed pretty unlikely to him, but he wasn’t one to stand in his officers’ way.
“Well, perhaps that’ll keep him happy for a bit,” he said, “He’s always wanted some.”
Ford Prefect and Arthur Dent trudged onwards up the ship’s apparently endless corridors. Number Two marched behind them barking the occasional order about not making any false moves or trying any funny stuff. They seemed to have passed at least a mile of continuous brown hessian wall weave. Finally they reached a large steel door which slid open when Number Two shouted at it.
They entered. To the eyes of Ford Prefect and Arthur Dent, the most remarkable thing about the ship’s bridge was not the fifty foot diameter hemispherical dome which covered it, and through which the dazzling display of stars shone down on them: to people who have eaten at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, such wonders are commonplace. Nor was it the bewildering array of instruments that crowded the long circumferential wall around them. To Arthur this was exactly what spaceships were traditionally supposed to look like, and to Ford it looked thoroughly antiquated: it confirmed his suspicions that Disaster Area’s stuntship had taken them back at least a million, if not two million, years before their own time.
No, the thing that really caught them off balance was the bath.
The bath stood on a six foot pedestal of rough hewn blue water crystal and was of a baroque monstrosity not often seen outside the Maximegalon Museum of Diseased Imaginings. An intestinal jumble of plumbing had been picked out in gold leaf rather than decently buried at midnight in an unmarked grave; the taps and shower attachment would have made a gargoyle jump.
As the dominant centrepiece of a starship bridge it was terribly wrong, and it was with the embittered air of a man who knew this that Number Two approached it.
“Captain, sir!” he shouted through clenched teeth – a difficult trick but he’d had years during which to perfect it.
A large genial face and a genial foam covered arm popped up above the rim of the monstrous bath.
第二十四章
“呃，艦長……”
“什麼事，一號？”
“有一份來自二號、類似報告的東西。”
“哦唷，天哪！”
高居飛船的艦橋上，艦長望着外面延伸到無限遠處的太空，微微覺得有些慍怒。他躺在一個半球形的寬闊氣泡下面，前方和上方是巨大的星空全景，星球在上面運行着——在航行過程中，這副全景用已經變得稀疏多了。轉身往後看，越過這艘足有兩英里長的巨大飛船，他能夠看見他們身後稠密得多的星羣，看上去幾乎形成了一條固態的帶狀物。這是從銀河系中心所看到的景觀，他們正在這個區域航行，已經航行了好幾年。至於航行速度，他這會兒已經記不太清楚了，但他知道這個速度非常快。這個速度逼近了什麼東西或者另一個什麼東西的速度，或者它是別的什麼東西的速度的幾倍’總之，給人的印象非常深刻。他凝視飛船後面明亮的區域，尋找着什麼。他每隔幾分鐘就要這樣做，卻從來沒有找到他尋找的東西-但他並不覺得失落。科學家老兄們一直非常堅定地聲稱，假如沒有任何人驚慌失措——每個人都有條不紊地把自己那一小部分向前推進的話，任何事情都將達到盡善盡美的地步。
於足，他沒有驚惶失措。到日前爲止，他認爲一切都進行樽相當順利。他用一塊多孔大海綿拭了拭肩膀。他這才記起來，自己剛纔正在爲了什麼事感到有些慍怒。那麼，是件什麼事呢，一聲輕輕的咳嗽提醒了他，這艘飛船的艦長還站在旁邊。
好人吶，一號。雖然不是十分聰明，連繫鞋帶都會有些困難，但處理起事務來絕對是上好的副官料子。費牛勁才能搞定自己的鞋帶，有人會一腳踹過去，但艦長不是那種人。一號不像那個面色蒼白的二號，整天昂首闊步地到處走來走去，擦拭着他的鈕釦，每小時都跑來報告一番：“飛船繼續前進，艦長”、“航程穩定，艦長”、“氧氣指標穩定，艦長”。艦長的指令通常是，“別老瞎操心”。哦，對了，這就是剛纔讓他惱火的事。他看着一號。
“艦長，他在嚷嚷什麼抓住了幾個人”
艦長想了想。這件事聽上去似乎不太可能，但他不是個一天到晚申斥下屬的人。
”那好吧，也許這樣會讓他高興點兒。”他說，“他不是總想逮到幾個嗎？”
福特長官和阿瑟·鄧特在這艘飛船上似乎永無止境的走廊裏蹣跚前行。二號正步走在他們後面，不時呵斥兩聲，告誡他們別有什麼不老實的舉動。看上去他們至少經過了一英里連續的褐色粗麻布牆紙，最後終丁抵達一扇曩大的鐵門。二號對着它喊了幾句什麼之後，門滑開了。
他們走進去。對福特長官和阿瑟·鄧特來說，這艘飛船艦橋最引人注目的地方，不是它被一個直徑五十英了的半球形拱頂罩着，上面佈滿令人眼花繚亂的星星——對於在宇宙盡頭餐館用過餐的人來說，這樣的景觀實在是太平常了；也不是用繞着他們的環形牆壁上擠滿了令人費解的各種儀器，對阿瑟來說，太空飛船本來就該是這個樣子：而對福特來說，這些玩意兒則太古老了——這也堅定了他的懷疑，即“災難地帶”的特技飛船把他們從他們自己的年代往回送了起碼一百萬年（如果不是二百萬年的話）。
不，不是這些，真正讓他們大吃一驚的是那個浴缸。
這個浴缸放在一個由粗糙的藍色水晶製成的六英尺高的底座上，是一個在馬看到的巴洛克風格的巨大怪物。它內部亂作一團的管道都用金葉子重點標出，而不是埋設在內部，像趁着夜深人靜把屍首埋進墓穴一樣；水龍頭和琳浴噴頭則做成怪獸狀，像是要躍起的樣子：
作爲在飛船艦橋上佔據最顯著位置的東西，它簡直太不倫不類了。而且，浴缸裏此時痛苦不堪，裏面的人知道二號正在接近。
“艦長，長官！”二號從咬緊的牙縫裏喊出了幾個字——這是一種高難度技藝，但經過幾年練習，他已經掌握得很完美了。
一張親切的大臉和一隻親切的滿是泡沫的胳膊從這個巨大的浴缸的邊緣探出來。
