經典科幻文學:《生命 宇宙及一切》第18章1

Chapter 18
Arthur materialized, and did so with all the customary staggering about and clasping at his throat, heart and various limbs which he still indulged himself in whenever he made any of these hateful and painful materializations that he was determined not to let himself get used to.
He looked around for the others.
They weren’t there.
He looked around for the others again.
They still weren’t there.
He closed his eyes.
He opened them
He looked around for the others.
They obstinately persisted in their absence.
He closed his eyes again, preparatory to making this completely futile exercise once more, and because it was only then, whilst his eyes were closed, that his brain began to register what his eyes had been looking at whilst they were open, a puzzled frown crept across his face.
So he opened his eyes again to check his facts and the frown stayed put.
If anything, it intensified, and got a good firm grip. If this was a party it was a very bad one, so bad, in fact, that everybody else had left. He abandoned this line of thought as futile. Obviously this wasn’t a party. It was a cave, or a labyrinth, or a tunnel of something there was insufficient light to tell. All was darkness, a damp shiny darkness. The only sounds were the echoes of his own breathing, which sounded worried. He coughed very slightly, and then had to listen to the thin ghostly echo of his cough trailing away amongst winding corridors and sightless chambers, as of some great labyrinth, and eventually returning to him via the same unseen corridors, as if to say…
Yes?
This happened to every slightest noise he made, and it unnerved him. He tried to hum a cheery tune, but by the time it returned to him it was a hollow dirge and he stopped.
His mind was suddenly full of images from the story that Slartibartfast had been telling him. He half-expected suddenly to see lethal white robots step silently from the shadows and kill him. He caught his breath. They didn’t. He let it go again. He didn’t know what he did expect.
Someone or something, however, seemed to be expecting him, for at that moment there lit up suddenly in the dark distance an eerie green neon sign.
It said, silently:
You have been Diverted

18
阿瑟顯形了。跟以前一樣，每次時空傳輸顯形的時候，阿瑟都覺得相當痛苦。他感到自己的喉嚨、心臟、四肢都還卡在剛纔的地方，所以他不停地掙扎，想把它們拔出來。他想自己永遠也習慣不了的。
他四處看看，找其他人在哪。
他們不在。
他又四處看看，找其他人在哪。
他們依然不在。
他閉上眼睛。
他睜開。
他四處看看，找其他人在哪。
他們毅然決然地處於失蹤狀態。
他再次閉上眼睛，準備再做一次這無意義的行爲——的確如此。他一閉眼，大腦就已經開始顯示之前看見的畫面了。他不禁眉頭一蹙。
於是他再睜開眼，親自檢驗之。他的眉頭還是緊鎖着。
不管這兒是什麼地方，它都應該算是個中極品，而且是極品中的極品。如果這兒是個派對，那它就是個無比糟糕的派對，糟糕得每個人都離開了。阿瑟覺得這種猜測毫無意義。很明顯，這兒不是派對。這是個山洞，或是迷宮，或是隧道什麼的。光線不足，看不太清。一切都在黑暗之中，潮溼的、只有微弱光線的黑暗。唯一的聲音是他自己呼吸的回聲，聽上去很不安。他輕咳兩聲，於是聽見那幽幽的迴音，飄過彎曲的長廊，穿過看不見的房間——就像有個巨大的迷宮一樣，最後回到他所在的黑暗的長廊，像是在說：
“嗯？”
他每發出一點聲音，都會引起這麼一陣響動，讓他感到害怕。他想哼一首快樂的小曲，可那回聲卻成了一種陰森森的哀樂，於是他閉嘴了。
剎那間，他腦子裏滿是司拉提巴特法斯特講過的畫面。他突然覺得，會有殘忍的白色機器人從暗處悄然步出，殺死自己。他屏住呼吸。機器人沒出現。他便不再這麼想了。他不知接下來將面對什麼。
然而，某人（或某物），似乎已準備好了面對他。因爲，遙遠的黑暗中，突然亮起一行古怪的綠色霓虹燈。
它靜靜地亮出如下字樣：
“你被轉移了。”