經典科幻文學:《宇宙盡頭的餐館》第20章3

“You didn’t ask,” he said simply.
“Well, we’re asking you now, metal man,” said Ford, turning round to look at him.
At that moment the ship suddenly stopped rocking and swaying, the engine pitch settled down to a gentle hum.
“Hey, Ford,” said Zaphod, “that sounds good. Have you worked out the controls of this boat?”
“No,” said Ford, “I just stopped fiddling with them. I reckon we just go to wherever this ship is going and get off it fast.”
“Yeah, right,” said Zaphod.
“I could tell you weren’t really interested,” murmured Marvin to himself and slumped into a corner and switched himself off.
“Trouble is,” said Ford, “that the one instrument in this while ship that is giving any reading is worrying me. If it is what I think it is, and if it’s saying what I think it’s saying, then we’ve already gone too far back into the past. Maybe as much as two million years before our own time.”
Zaphod shrugged.
“Time is bunk,” he said.
“I wonder who this ship belongs to anyway,” said Arthur.
“Me,” said Zaphod.
“No. Who it really belongs to.”
“Really me,” insisted Zaphod, “look, property is theft, right? Therefore theft is property. Therefore this ship is mine, OK?”
“Tell the ship that,” said Arthur.
Zaphod strode over to the console.
“Ship,” he said, banging on the panels, “this is your new owner speaking to…”
He got no further. Several things happened at once.
The ship dropped out of time travel mode and re-emerged into real space.
All the controls on the console, which had been shut down for the time trip now lit up.
A large vision screen above the console winked into life revealing a wide starscape and a single very large sun dead ahead of them.
None of these things, however, were responsible for the fact that Zaphod was at the same moment hurled bodily backwards against the rear of the cabin, as were all the others.
They were hurled back by a single thunderous clap of noise that thuddered out of the monitor speakers surrounding the vision screen.

“因爲你們沒有問，”他簡單地回答說。
“郡好吧，我們現在就問你，金屬人。”福特說，轉過身來望着他。
就在這時，飛船突然停止了震盪和搖晃，引擎的嚎叫降成了溫和的嗡嗡聲。
“嘿，福特，”贊福德說，“聽上去好多了。你搞定了這艘船的控制系統？”
“沒有，”福特說，”我只是不再瞎擺弄它們了。我估計，我們已經到了這艘飛船想去的地方，我們應該快點兒下去。”
“對，說得對，”贊福德說。
“我早就知道，你們並不是真正感興趣。”馬文自言自語地咕噥着，跌坐到一個角落裏，把自己關閉了。
“問題是，”福特說，“整艘飛船上惟—帶有讀數的一臺儀器讓我很擔心。如果它真的是我認爲它是的東西的話，並且它所表示的也正是我認爲它所表示的意思的話，那麼我們可就回到過於遙遠的過去——差不多是我們自己的時代之前二百萬年。”
贊福德聳了聳肩。
“時間睡過頭了。”他說。
“不知這艘飛船究竟是誰的。”阿瑟說。
”我的。”贊福德說。
“不。我是說，它真正的主人是誰。”
“真的是我。”贊禍德堅持說，“瞧，財產是一種佔有物，對嗎？因此，佔有物也就是財產。因此，這艘飛船是我的，明白嗎？”
“這些話你跟飛船說去吧。”阿瑟說。
贊福德昂首闊步走到控制檯前。
“飛船，”他說，一邊“砰”的一拳砸在面板上，“這是你的新主人在說話。”
他沒有繼續下去。因爲立即發生了一些事。
飛船跳出時問旅行模式，重新回到真實空間中。
控制檯上所有的控制鍵，此前爲了時間旅行而關閉，現在都亮了起來。
控制檯上方的一塊視像大屏幕閃爍着恢復了生機，展現出一幅廣闊的星空圖景，一顆孤獨而叉異常巨大的太陽掛在他們正前方。
但將贊福德猛地扔向船艙後部的並不是這個原因。其他人也同樣被推向船艙後部。
原因是：圍繞着這塊視像屏幕的監聽揚聲器裏，傳出了一聲雷鳴般的巨響。