經典科幻文學:《宇宙盡頭的餐館》第33章5大綱
“Forty-two is the number Deep Thought gave as being the Ultimate Answer.”
“Yes.”
And the Earth is the computer Deep Thought designed and built to calculate the Question to the Ultimate Answer.”
“So we are led to believe.”
“And organic life was part of the computer matrix.”
“If you say so.”
“I do say so. That means that these natives, these apemen are an integral part of the computer program, and that we and the Golgafrinchans are not.”
“But the cavemen are dying out and the Golgafrinchans are obviously set to replace them.”
“Exactly. So do you see what this means?”
“What?”
“Cock up,” said Ford Prefect.
Arthur looked around him.
“This planet is having a pretty bloody time of it,” he said.
Ford puzzled for a moment.
“Still, something must have come out of it,” he said at last, “because Marvin said he could see the Question printed in your brain wave patterns.”
“But…”
“Probably the wrong one, or a distortion of the right one. It might give us a clue though if we could find it. I don’t see how we can though.”
They moped about for a bit. Arthur sat on the ground and started pulling up bits of grass, but found that it wasn’t an occupation he could get deeply engrossed in. It wasn’t grass he could believe in, the trees seemed pointless, the rolling hills seemed to be rolling to nowhere and the future seemed just a tunnel to be crawled through.
Ford fiddled with his Sub-Etha Sens-O-Matic. It was silent. He sighed and put it away.
Arthur picked up one of the letter stones from his home-made Scrabble set. It was a T. He sighed and out it down again. The letter he put down next to it was an I. That spelt IT. He tossed another couple of letters next to them They were an S and an H as it happened. By a curious coincidence the resulting word perfectly expressed the way Arthur was feeling about things just then. He stared at it for a moment. He hadn’t done it deliberately, it was just a random chance. His brain got slowly into first gear.
“Ford,” he said suddenly, “look, if that Question is printed in my brain wave patterns but I’m not consciously aware of it it must be somewhere in my unconscious.”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“There might be a way of bringing that unconscious pattern forward.”
“Oh yes?”
“42是‘深思’給出的數字，是終極答案。”
“是啊。”
“地球是‘深思’設計和建造的電腦，用來研究這個終極答案所對應的問題。”
“我們是這樣認為的。”
“有機生命是電腦母體的一部分，”
“如果你要這麼説的話，”
“我是這麼説的：這就意味着，這些土著人，這些猿人，是電腦程序必備的組成部分，而我們和高爾伽弗林查姆人卻不是。”
“可是穴居人正在滅絕，高爾伽弗林查姆人顯然將取代他們。”
“正是這樣，所以，你一定能看出這意味着什麼。”
“什麼，”
“抬頭看！”福特長官説。
阿瑟四下看了看。
“這顆行星目前的情況不太妙。”他説。
搞特愣了愣，
“不過，它一定還是計算出了一些東西，”他晟後説，“因為馬文曾經説過，他能夠看見那個問題，就印在你的腦波網形中。，，
“可是…”
“可能是個錯誤的問題，或者是正確的問題的變形。但如果我們能把它找小束，它也許會給我們提供一條線索。不過，我看不出我們怎麼才能辦到這一點，”
他們為此悶悶不樂了好一陣。阿瑟坐在地上，開始拔草，但他銀快就發現，這不是一件能_止他專心投人的事情。他不能指望草，樹看上去也不管用，綿延的羣山看上去不知要綿延到何方，未來看上去則像一條窄道，只能由此通過，
福特瞎擺弄着他的亞以太感應器。它仍然毫無聲息。他歎了口氣，把它放到一邊。
阿瑟從他自制的拼字遊戲盤上撿起一塊字母石塊。是個“T”。他歎了口氣，又把它放了回去。放回去後，它旁邊的字母是“I’。它們拼成了‘它’，他順手又撿起旁邊的兩塊石頭扔了出去。一個“s”和一個“H”出於一種奇怪的巧合，這樣所得到的那個詞恰如其訃地表達了思索當前的感受。他盯着它瞧了一會兒。他並不是有意這麼做的，這只是一個隨機的偶然事件。他的腦子慢慢地掛到了一檔，起步。
“福特，”他突然説，“你瞧，如果耶個問題印在我的腦波網形中，而我卻意識不到它，耶它一定足藏在我的潛意識中的某個地方。”
“是啊，我想是這樣：”
“一定有什麼辦法把這種潛意識給呈現出來。”
“噢，足嗎？”
