經典科幻文學:《宇宙盡頭的餐館》第20章1

The Restaurant continued existing, but everything else had stopped. Temporal relastatics held it and protected it in a nothingness that wasn’t merely a vacuum, it was simply nothing there was nothing in which a vacuum could be said to exist.
The force-shielded dome had once again been rendered opaque, the party was over, the diners were leaving, Zarquon had vanished along with the rest of the Universe, the Time Turbines were preparing to pull the Restaurant back across the brink of time in readiness for the Lunch sitting, and Max Quordlepleen was back in his small curtained dressing room trying to raise his agent on the tempophone.
In the car park stood the black ship, closed and silent.
In to the car park came the late Mr. Hotblack Desiato, propelled along the moving catwalk by his bodyguard.
They descended one of the tubes. As they approached the limoship a hatchway swung down from its side, engaged the wheels of the wheelchair and drew it inside. The bodyguard followed, and having seen his boss safely connected up to his death-support system, moved up to the small cockpit. Here he operated the remote control system which activated the autopilot in the black ship lying next to the limo, thus causing great relief to Zaphod Beeblebrox who had been trying to start the thing for over ten minutes.
The black ship glided smoothly forward out of its bay, turned, and moved down the central causeway swiftly and quietly. At the end it accelerated rapidly, flung itself into the temporal launch chamber and began the long journey back into the distant past.
The Milliways Lunch Menu quotes, by permission, a passage from The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The passage is this:
The History of every major Galactic Civilization tends to pass through three distinct and recognizable phases, those of Survival, Inquiry and Sophistication, otherwise known as the How, Why and Where phases.
For instance, the first phase is characterized by the question “How can we eat?”, the second by the question “Why do we eat?” and the third by the question, “Where shall we have lunch?”
The Menu goes on to suggest that Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, would be a very agreeable and sophisticated answer to that third question.
“How are we doing?” said Arthur Dent.
“Badly,” said Ford Prefect.
“Where are we going?” said Trillian.
“I don’t know,” said Zaphod Beeblebrox.
“Why not?” demanded Arthur Dent.
“Shut up,” suggested Zaphod Beeblebrox and Ford Prefect.
“Basically, what you’re trying to say,” said Arthur Dent, ignoring this suggestion, “is that we’re out of control.”
The ship was rocking and swaying sickeningly as Ford and Zaphod tried to wrest control from the autopilot. The engines howled and whined like tired children in a supermarket.
“It’s the wild colour scheme that freaks me,” said Zaphod whose love affair with this ship had lasted almost three minutes into the flight, “Every time you try to operate on of these weird black controls that are labelled in black on a black background, a little black light lights up black to let you know you’ve done it. What is this? Some kind of galactic hyperhearse?”
The walls of the swaying cabin were also black, the ceiling was black, the seats which were rudimentary since the only important trip this ship was designed for was supposed to be unmanned were black, the control panel was black, the instruments were black, the little screws that held them in place were black, the thin tufted nylon floor covering was black, and when they had lifted up a corner of it they had discovered that the foam underlay also was black.
“Perhaps whoever designed it had eyes that responded to different wavelengths,” offered Trillian.
“Or didn’t have much imagination,” muttered Arthur.
“Perhaps,” said Marvin, “he was feeling very depressed.”

這家餐館依然存在，但其他的一切都已終止。相對時間靜力場在一片比真空還徹底的虛無中承載着它，保護着它。之所以說比真空還徹底，因爲這裏純粹是虛無——一無所有。真空畢竟還是個真實存在着的東西，這裏卻連真空都沒有，
防護盾穹頂叉一次恢復爲不透明。派對結束了，用餐者們都已離開；扎昆和宇宙的剩餘部分一起平地消失；時問渦輪機正準備把餐館從時間的邊緣拉回來，以準備午餐；馬克斯·科沃爾德勒普蘭則回到他那間裝有窗簾的小更衣室，用時問電話聯繫他的經紀人。
停車場裏，那艘黑色的飛船停在那兒，門關着，悄無聲息。
已故的譬持布萊克·迪西亞託先生進入停車場，被他的保鏢推着，沿着高架通道向前移動。
他們從條管道下到地面。接近那艘豪華飛船時，一道艙門從飛船側面放下來，和輪椅的輪子咬合在一起，把輪椅送到艙內。保鐐跟在後面，看着他的老闆安全地連上了他的死亡支持系統，這才進入狹窄的駕駛員座艙。在那裏，他操作遙控系統，激活停在這艘豪華飛船旁邊的那艘黑色飛船上的自動駕駛儀。這一舉動讓贊福德·畢博布魯克斯大大地鬆了一口氣，他已經花了超過十分鐘的時間，試圖開啓這玩意兒。
黑色飛船平緩地向前滑出它的泊位，轉了個方向，開始沿着中央通道迅速移動，沒發出一點動靜。最後，它猛地加速，衝進相對時間發射室，開始了回到遙遠過去的漫長旅程。
經過特許，“天盡頭”的午餐菜譜從《銀河系漫遊指南》中引用了一段話。這段話是這樣的：
銀河系每一個主要文明的歷史都會經歷三個可以清晰辨識的階段，印生存、質疑和墮落，常被稱爲如何、爲何及何處三階段。
比如，第一個階段的特徵是這樣的問題，“我們如何才能吃到東西”；第二個階段則是，“我們爲何要吃東西”；第三個階段就變成了，“我們到何處吃午餐”。
這份菜譜接下來建議，“天盡頭”，宇宙盡頭的這家餐館，將是針對第三個問題的一種愜意而墮落的回答。
“我們目前的情況怎麼樣，”阿瑟·鄧特問。
“糟糕。”福特長官說。
“我們這是要去哪兒？”崔莉恩問。
“不知道。”贊福德·畢博布魯克斯說。
“怎麼會暱？”阿瑟·鄧特問。
“閉嘴。”贊福德·畢博布魯克斯和福特長官同時說。
“基本上，你們想說的是，”阿瑟·鄧特沒有理睬他們倆，繼續說道，“我們目前已經失去了控制。”
飛船震盪搖晃着，讓人感到很不舒服。與此同時，福特和贊福德試圖從自動駕駛儀手中奪回飛船的控制權。引擎嚎叫哀鳴，活像超級市場裏轉悠累了的孩子。
“這種瘋瘋癲癲的配色方案真讓我冒火。”贊福德說。飛行開始一分鐘以後，他和這艘飛船之間的愛情故事便宣告結束。“每次你想操作那些黑色背景上貼着黑色標籤的古怪黑色開關時，一盞黑色的小燈就會亮起黑色的光，告訴你你已經做過這件事了。這究竟是什麼玩意兒？某種銀河系超級靈車嗎？”
搖晃若的船艙的艙壁同樣也是黑色的，天花板是黑色的，座位——這些座位粗糙得很，因爲設計這艘飛船隻打算讓它飛一次，而且是一次尤人駕駛飛行——是黑色的，控制檯足黑色的，儀表是黑色的，固定它們的螺絲是黑色的，尼龍地毯是黑色的——翹起來的一角表明，墊在下面的泡沫塑料同樣也是黑色的
“也許設計這玩意兒的傢伙眼睛有毛病，無法區分各種不同的渡長。”崔莉恩推測道。
“或者沒有任何想像力。”阿瑟咕噥道
“也許，”馬文說，“他感到非常沮喪。”