經典科幻文學:《生命 宇宙及一切》第18章2

The sign flicked off again, in a way which Arthur was not at all certain he liked. It flicked off with a sort of contemptuous flourish. Arthur then tried to assure himself that this was just a ridiculous trick of his imagination. A neon sign is either on or off, depending on whether it has electricity running through it or not. There was no way, he told himself, that it could possibly effect the transition from one state to the other with a contemptuous flourish. He hugged himself tightly in his dressing gown and shivered, nevertheless.
The neon sign in the depths now suddenly lit up, bafflingly, with just three dots and a comma. Like this:
…,
Only in green neon.
It was trying, Arthur realized after staring at this perplexedly for a second or two, to indicate that there was more to come, that the sentence was not complete. Trying with almost superhuman pedantry, he reflected. Or at least, inhuman pedantry.
The sentence then completed itself with these two words:
Arthur Dent.
He reeled. He steadied himself to have another clear look at it. It still said Arthur Dent, so he reeled again.
Once again, the sign flicked off, and left him blinking in the darkness with just the dim red image of his name jumping on his retina.
Welcome, the sign now suddenly said.
After a moment, it added:
I Don’t Think.
The stone-cold fear which had been hovering about Arthur all this time, waiting for its moment, recognized that its moment had now come and pounced on him. He tried to fight it off. He dropped into a kind of alert crouch that he had once seen somebody do on television, but it must have been someone with stronger knees. He peered huntedly into the darkness.
Er, hello? he said.
He cleared his throat and said it again, more loudly and without the “er”. At some distance down the corridor it seemed suddenly as if somebody started to beat on a bass drum.
He listened to it for a few seconds and realized that it was just his heart beating.
He listened for a few seconds more and realized that it wasn’t his heart beating, it was somebody down the corridor beating on a bass drum.
Beads of sweat formed on his brow, tensed themselves, and leapt off. He put a hand out on the floor to steady his alert crouch, which wasn’t holding up very well. The sign changed itself again. It said:
Do Not be Alarmed.
After a pause, it added:
Be Very Very Frightened, Arthur Dent.
Once again it flicked off. Once again it left him in darkness. His eyes seemed to be popping out of his head. He wasn’t certain if this was because they were trying to see more clearly, or if they simply wanted to leave at this point.
Hello? he said again, this time trying to put a note of rugged and aggressive self-assertion into it. Is anyone there?
There was no reply, nothing.
This unnerved Arthur Dent even more than a reply would have done, and he began to back away from the scary nothingness. And the more he backed away, the more scared he became. After a while he realized that the reason for this was because of all the films he had seen in which the hero backs further and further away from some imagined terror in front of him, only to bump into it coming up from behind.
Just then it suddenly occurred to him to turn round rather quickly.
There was nothing there.
Just blackness.
This really unnerved him, and he started to back away from that, back the way he had come.
After doing this for a short while it suddenly occurred to him that he was now backing towards whatever it was he had been backing away from in the first place.
This, he couldn’t help thinking, must be a foolish thing to do. He decided he would be better off backing the way he had first been backing, and turned around again.
It turned out at this point that his second impulse had been the correct one, because there was an indescribably hideous monster standing quietly behind him. Arthur yawed wildly as his skin tried to jump one way and his skeleton the other, whilst his brain tried to work out which of his ears it most wanted to crawl out of.
Bet you weren’t expecting to see me again, said the monster, which Arthur couldn’t help thinking was a strange remark for it to make, seeing as he had never met the creature before. He could tell that he hadn’t met the creature before from the simple fact that he was able to sleep at nights. It was… it was… it was…
Arthur blinked at it. It stood very still. It did look a little familiar.
A terrible cold calm came over him as he realized that what he was looking at was a six-foot-high hologram of a housefly.
He wondered why anybody would be showing him a six-foot-high hologram of a housefly at this time. He wondered whose voice he had heard.
It was a terribly realistic hologram.
It vanished.

那行字又熄滅了。阿瑟一點也不喜歡那種熄滅方式。它是以一種帶有鄙視感的、花哨的效果熄滅的。於是，阿瑟告訴自己，這只是可笑的幻覺。霓虹燈要麼開、要麼關，取決於是否有電流從中通過。他告訴自己，霓虹燈在兩種狀態之間轉換，絕不可能有什麼鄙視感的花哨效果。他用睡袍裹緊了自己，微微發抖。
空中的霓虹燈又突然亮了起來。奇怪的是，只有三個點，和一個逗號。就像這樣：
“…，”
不過它們是綠色的。
這就是說——阿瑟死死盯了這怪玩意幾秒鐘，然後他想，後面可能還有，句子還沒完呢。他以幾乎超人般的學究氣這麼想着。或者說，非人的學究氣。
然後，句子用以下兩個單詞補全了自己：
“阿瑟·鄧特。”
他一陣暈眩。他站定了，又睜大眼睛看了一遍。於是，又一陣暈眩。
那行字再次熄滅，只剩下阿瑟在黑暗中眨巴着眼睛，模糊的、紅色的自己的名字，還在視網膜上跳動。
“歡迎你”那燈突然寫道。
過了一會，它又補充道：
“是不可能的。”
一股冰涼的恐懼感，一直在阿瑟頭上盤旋，等待時機。現在，它覺得時機到了。它猛然俯衝到他身上。他試圖與之搏鬥。他做了一個防衛的蹲伏動作，以前在電視上看見的，可是，電視上那傢伙的膝蓋肯定要有力氣得多。他費勁地盯着黑暗的前方。
“呃，你好？”他說。
他清了清嗓子，又說了一遍。這次大聲了點，而且沒有“呃”。走廊下面什麼地方，彷彿突然有誰在敲低音鼓。
他聽了幾秒鐘，意識到那是自己的心跳。
他又聽了幾秒鐘，覺得那不是自己的心跳，而是有誰在下面敲低音鼓。
他眉毛上冒出豆大的汗珠，越來越大，最後掉了下來。他一手撐住地面，以便保持他的防衛蹲伏動作。可惜，保持得不太好。霓虹燈又出現了，寫道：
“不要緊張。”
停了一下，它又加上：
“要非常非常驚恐，阿瑟·鄧特。”
它再次熄滅，再次將他留在黑暗之中。他的眼珠都快掉出來了。他不知道眼珠爲什麼要掉出來，是因爲想看得更清楚，還是隻想快點離開這鬼地方？
“你好？”他又開口道。這次他換成了一種飛揚跋扈的、自我宣言式的語氣，“有人嗎？”
沒有回答。什麼也沒有。
這比有回答更讓阿瑟害怕。於是，他開始往後退，想要遠離這片恐怖的空地。可他越退，他就越恐怖。不久，他想，這可能是因爲：自己看過的所有電影裏，那些英雄一步步後退，躲過前方那些假想的恐怖事物時，那些恐怖事物總會從背後猛地冒出來。
他飛快地一扭頭。
什麼也沒有。
只有黑暗。
這真的讓他很害怕。他便又開始後退，退回了剛纔呆的地方。
過了一小會兒，他忽然想到，現在自己不正在靠近剛纔遠離的東西嗎？
他不禁想：這真是蠢極了。他決定停止後退，轉了身。
結果，他的第二個念頭纔是正確的。因爲在他背後，正靜靜地站着一個醜到無法形容的怪物。一時間，阿瑟驚得六神無主，魂飛魄散。
“我敢打賭，你沒想過會再見到我。”怪物說。阿瑟覺得這話很奇怪，因爲自己從沒見過這個生物。他敢肯定自己沒見過，因爲自己晚上還能睡得着。它是……它是……它是……？
阿瑟眨着眼睛。它靜靜地站着。它看上去是有點兒面熟。
頓時，他全身冰涼，認出面前原來是一隻六英尺高的蒼蠅的全息圖。
他很奇怪，爲什麼會有人在這時給他看一幅六英尺高的蒼蠅全息圖？他很好奇這是誰在說話。
它真是一幅相當逼真的全息圖。
它消失了。