經典科幻文學:《生命 宇宙及一切》第32章1

Chapter 32
Hactar! called Trillian. What are you up to?
There was no reply from the enclosing darkness. Trillian waited, nervously. She was sure that she couldn’t be wrong. She peered into the gloom from which she had been expecting some kind of response. But there was only cold silence.
Hactar? she called again. I would like you to meet my friend Arthur Dent. I wanted to go off with a Thunder God, but he wouldn’t let me and I appreciate that. He made me realize where my affections really lay. Unfortunately Zaphod is too frightened by all this, so I brought Arthur instead. I’m not sure why I’m telling you all this.
Hello? she said again. Hactar?
And then it came.
It was thin and feeble, like a voice carried on the wind from a great distance, half heard, a memory of a dream of a voice.
Won’t you both come out, said the voice. I promise that you will be perfectly safe.
They glanced at each other, and then stepped out, improbably, along the shaft of light which streamed out of the open hatchway of the Heart of Gold into the dim granular darkness of the Dust Cloud.
Arthur tried to hold her hand to steady and reassure her, but she wouldn’t let him. He held on to his airline hold-all with its tin of Greek olive oil, its towel, its crumpled postcards of Santorini and its other odds and ends. He steadied and reassured that instead.
They were standing on, and in, nothing. Murky, dusty nothing. Each grain of dust of the pulverized computer sparkled dimly as it turned and twisted slowly, catching the sunlight in the darkness. Each particle of the computer, each speck of dust, held within itself, faintly and weakly, the pattern of the whole. In reducing the computer to dust the Silastic Armorfiends of Striterax had merely crippled the computer, not killed it. A weak and insubstantial field held the particles in slight relationships with each other.
Arthur and Trillian stood, or rather floated, in the middle of this bizarre entity. They had nothing to breathe, but for the moment this seemed not to matter. Hactar kept his promise. They were safe. For the moment.
I have nothing to offer you by way of hospitality, said Hactar faintly, but tricks of the light. It is possible to be comfortable with tricks of the light, though, if that is all you have.
His voice evanesced, and in the dark dust a long velvet paisley-covered sofa coalesced into hazy shape.
Arthur could hardly bear the fact that it was the same sofa which had appeared to him in the fields of prehistoric Earth. He wanted to shout and shake with rage that the Universe kept doing these insanely bewildering things to him.
He let this feeling subside, and then sat on the sofa carefully. Trillian sat on it too.
It was real.

32
“黑克特？”崔莉安喊道，“你在哪兒？”
漆黑一片，無人迴應。崔莉安焦急地等待着。她相信自己的判斷。她凝視着眼前黑暗的世界，希望有人回答。可是，只有沉默。
“黑克特？”她喊道，“我向你介紹我的朋友，阿瑟·鄧特。我差點就跟着雷神走的時候，是他留住了我。我很感激。他讓我看到自己真正的興趣所在。可惜贊福德害怕過來，所以我只帶了阿瑟。我不知道爲什麼對你說這些。”
“你好？”她又說道，“黑克特？”
對方終於出聲了。
那虛弱、飄渺的聲音，像來自遠方的風，像回憶中的夢囈。
“你們出來吧。”那聲音說道，“我保證你們的安全。”
他倆交換一下眼神，便步出飛船，走出黃金之心的艙門，神奇般地站在艙門投出的光束上，站在塵雲密佈的黑暗之中。
阿瑟想牽住她的手、保護一下她，但沒牽成。於是他牽住自己的機場旅行包，那裏面有一罐希臘橄欖油，一條毛巾，一張皺巴巴的聖托裏尼明信片，以及其他亂七八糟的東西。保護一下它們也是好的。
他們兩人，正站在虛空之中。黑乎乎、灰濛濛的虛空。每一顆粒子都是那遭毀的電腦的一部分，它們在旋轉、移動，反射着微光。電腦的每一顆粒子、每一粒塵埃，都氣若游絲地殘存着整體的記憶。原來，撕痕萬條的撕拉鎧甲魔，只是把這臺電腦弄碎了，但還不至死。所有粒子之間，尚存一息微弱的力場，將它們各自聯在了一起。
阿瑟和崔莉安就站在——或者說浮在——這種奇怪的地方。這兒本來沒有空氣的，但他們暫時不用擔心。黑克特信守諾言，他們的確很安全——暫時很安全。
“我沒有什麼好東西來招待你們，”黑克特虛弱地說，“只有光線魔術而已。光線魔術也是能讓人舒適的。畢竟，我只剩這個了。”
他的聲音飄然消逝，黑暗之中，便顯現出一張模模糊糊的絲絨的、佩斯利花紋圖案的長靠背沙發。
阿瑟快要受不了了。因爲這張沙發，正是在史前地球上出現的那張。他想大叫，想氣得渾身發抖，宇宙竟然一再地這麼玩他。
他竭力使自己平靜下來，過去坐在沙發上——非常小心地坐下了。崔莉安也坐下了。
它是真的。