經典科幻文學:《生命 宇宙及一切》第20章2

He wondered for a moment how he was going to get back down to it, but instantly shied away from that area of speculation again, and tried to look at the situation steadily.
He was flying, What was he going to do about it? He looked back down at the ground. He didn’t look at it hard, but did his best just to give it an idle glance, as it were, in passing. There were a couple of things he couldn’t help noticing. One was that the eruption of the mountain seemed now to have spent itself there was a crater just a little way beneath the peak, presumably where the rock had caved in on top of the huge cavernous cathedral, the statue of himself, and the sadly abused figure of Agrajag.
The other was his hold-all, the one he had lost at Athens airport. It was sitting pertly on a piece of clear ground, surrounded by exhausted boulders but apparently hit by none of them. Why this should be he could not speculate, but since this mystery was completely overshadowed by the monstrous impossibility of the bag’s being there in the first place, it was not a speculation he really felt strong enough for anyway. The thing is, it was there. And the nasty, fake leopard-skin bag seemed to have disappeared, which was all to the good, if not entirely to the explicable.
He was faced with the fact that he was going to have to pick the thing up. Here he was, flying along two hundred yards above the surface of an alien planet the name of which he couldn’t even remember. He could not ignore the plaintive posture of this tiny piece of what used to be his life, here, so many light-years from the pulverized remains of his home.
Furthermore, he realized, the bag, if it was still in the state in which he lost it, would contain a can which would have in it the only Greek olive oil still surviving in the Universe.
Slowly, carefully, inch by inch, he began to bob downwards, swinging gently from side to side like a nervous sheet of paper feeling its way towards the ground.
It went well, he was feeling good. The air supported him, but let him through. Two minutes later he was hovering a mere two feet above the bag, and was faced with some difficult decision. He bobbed there lightly. He frowned, but again, as lightly as he could.
If he picked the bag up, could he carry it? Mightn’t the extra weight just pull him straight to the ground?
Mightn’t the mere act of touching something on the ground suddenly discharge whatever mysterious force it was that was holding him in the air?
Mightn’t he be better off just being sensible at this point and stepping out of the air, back on to the ground for a moment or two?
If he did, would he ever be able to fly again?

現在，又該怎麼回去呢？他想了一小會，但很快迫使自己轉移注意力，以便保持平衡。
他在飛行。現在有該怎麼辦？他往下看了看。不是使勁地看，而是懶懶地一瞥，順便地看。他不禁注意到以下兩個事實：第一，山體似乎已經崩裂殆盡了——山頂下面一點兒有個大坑，應該就是那巨型洞穴教堂的位置，裏面曾經放着他自己的雕像，以及可憐的、傷痕累累的阿格拉賈格的塑像。
第二件事，就是他的旅行包，在雅典機場丟的那個。它引人注目地躺在空地上，周圍滿目創痍，但它本身卻沒被任何石頭砸到。他也不知爲什麼——況且，那個旅行包竟會出現在這兒，這個概率可是小得更加可怕，所以關於它爲什麼沒被砸到的原因，阿瑟也就不想知道了。重點是，它已經出現在這兒。而那個難看的假豹皮袋子似乎消失了——同樣不可思議，但畢竟是件好事。
現在，他得去撿那個旅行包才行。他這樣一個人，如今正漂浮在兩百碼的高空，下面是一顆連名字也叫不上來的陌生星球。那個旅行包，是他往日生活的片斷，是他多少光年之外的、煙消雲散的家園的遺物，他是無法丟下它的。
隨後，他還記起，如果包包還保持當時的狀態的話，裏面應該裝有宇宙間唯一一罐希臘橄欖油。
慢慢地、小心翼翼地、一點一點地，他開始往下飛。左右搖晃着，像一張搖擺不定的紙片。
一切順利，感覺不錯。空氣託着他，同時也讓他從中滑下。兩分鐘後，他離地面只有兩尺了。隨之而來的，卻是艱難的抉擇。他上下輕輕浮游着。他皺了皺眉，又努力放輕鬆。
如果撿了那個包，他能拿動嗎？多出的重量會不會把他拖下地去？
會不會僅僅碰一下地上的東西、就泄走了那托起自己的神祕力量？
是不是最好乾脆着陸，在地上呆一會兒？
如果着了陸，他還能再次飛翔嗎？