經典科幻文學:《宇宙盡頭的餐館》第21章3
“Quiet,” said Ford and Zaphod, “we’re thinking.”
“So this is it,” said Arthur, “we’re going to die.”
“I wish you’d stop saying that,” said Ford.
It is worth repeating at this point the theories that Ford had come up with, on his first encounter with human beings, to account for their peculiar habit of continually stating and restating the very very obvious, as it ‘It’s a nice day,” or “You’re very tall,” or “So this is it, we’re going to die.”
His first theory was that if human beings didn’t keep exercising their lips, their mouths probably seized up.
After a few months of observation he had come up with a second theory, which was this – “If human beings don’t keep exercising their lips, their brains start working.”
In fact, this second theory is more literally true of the Belcebron people of Kakrafoon.
As a punishment for this behaviour, which was held to be offensively self-righteous and provocative, a Galactic Tribunal inflicted on them that most cruel of all social diseases, telepathy. Consequently, in order to prevent themselves broadcasting every slightest thought that crossed their minds to anyone within a five mile radius, they now have to talk very loudly and continuously about the weather, their little aches and pains, the match this afternoon and what a noisy place Kakrafoon had suddenly become.
Another method of temporarily blotting out their minds is to play host to a Disaster Area concert.
The timing of the concert was critical.
The ship had to begin its dive before the concert began in order to hit the sun six minutes and thirty-seven seconds before the climax of the song to which it related, so that the light of the solar flares had time to travel out to Kakrafoon.
The ship had already been diving for several minutes by the time that Ford Prefect had completed his search of the other compartments of the black ship. He burst back into the cabin.
The sun of Kakrafoon loomed terrifyingly large on the vision screen, its blazing white inferno of fusing hydrogen nuclei growing moment by moment as the ship plunged onwards, unheeding the thumping and banging of Zaphod’s hands on the control panel. Arthur and Trillian had the fixed expressions of rabbits on a night road who think that the best way of dealing with approaching headlights is to stare them out.
Zaphod span round, wild-eyed.
“Ford,” he said, “how many escape capsules are there?”
“None,” said Ford.
Zaphod gibbered.
“Did you count them?” he yelled.
“Twice,” said Ford, “did you manage to raise the stage crew on the radio?”
“Yeah,” said Zaphod, bitterly, “I said there were a whole bunch of people on board, and they said to say ‘hi’ to everybody.”
Ford goggled.
“安靜，”福特和贊福德說，“我們正在想。”
“原來如此，”阿瑟說，“我們就快完蛋了。”
“我希望你能停止說這樣的話i”福特說。
這個時候，有必要重申一下福特在他初次和人類接觸時所提出的理論。這些理論是爲了解釋他們的一種奇怪的習慣，即不斷重複一些非常非常明顯的事實，像“今天天氣不錯”，或者“你真高啊”，或者“原來如此，我們就快完蛋了”。
他的第一種理論是，如果人類不堅持鍛鍊嘴脣的話，他們的嘴也許會失靈。
經過幾個月觀察之後，他提出了第二種理論，即“如果人類不堅持鍛鍊嘴脣的話，他們的大腦就會開始工作”。
實際上，這第二種理論，就其字面意思而言，更適用於卡庫拉馮的貝爾塞拉朋人。
由於是銀河系中最開化、最有成就——最重要的是—一最安靜的文明之一，貝爾塞拉朋人曾經在鄰近的種族中引發了強烈的怨恨和不安全感。、這種行爲被視爲帶有進攻性的自我標榜和挑釁。銀河系裁判所決定懲罰他們，對他們處以所有社會弊病中最殘酷的一種，讀心術。因此，爲了避免自己的任何一個哪怕最微小的念頭被五英里範嗣內的任何一個同類讀出來，他們現在必須非常大聲並且連續不斷地談論天氣、自己的小病小肩，當天下午的球賽，以及卡庫拉馮突然間變成了一個多麼嘈雜的地方等話題。
還有另一種方法可以暫時掩飾他們的思想：主辦“災難地帶”的音樂會。
音樂會即將開始。
特技飛船必須在音樂會開始之前就啓程開始它的俯衝，以確保在與它相關的那首歌的高潮部分之前6分37秒的時候撞上太陽，這樣，太陽所爆發出來的耀光纔有時間到達卡庫拉馮。
福特長官完成了他對黑色飛船上其他隔問的搜索，這時，這艘飛船已經開始俯衝航程好幾分鐘了。他衝回船艙。
卡庫拉馮的太陽隱約地出現在視覺屏幕上，大得驚人，上面熔化的氫核形成了燃燒的白色地獄。隨着飛船向前推進，這個地獄似乎還在不斷擴張，全然不板上砸得砰砰作響。阿瑟和崔莉恩表情僵硬，活像夜晚竄上公路的兔子（它們認爲對付逐漸接近的汽車前燈的雖好辦法，就是死死盯着它們）。
贊福德轉過身來，眼神癲狂。
“福特，”他說，“這裏有多少逃生艙？”
“沒有。”福特說。
贊福德卻還在嘰裏咕啃。
“你點過數了嗎，”他叫道。
“兩遍，”福特說，“你試着用無線電聯繫舞臺工作人員了嗎？”
“是的，”贊福德苦笑着說，“我告訴他們有一夥人在飛船上，他們卻讓我向每個人問好。”
福特瞪着眼睛。
