經典科幻文學:《 再見 多謝你們的魚》 終章
Epilogue
One of the greatest benefactors of all lifekind was a man who couldn’t keep his mind on the job in hand.
Brilliant?
Certainly.
One of the foremost genetic engineers of his or any other generation, including a number he had designed himself?
Without a doubt. The problem was that he was far too interested in things which he shouldn’t be interested in, at least, as people would tell him, not now.
He was also, partly because of this, of a rather irritable disposition.
So when his world was threatened by terrible invaders from a distant star, who were still a fair way off but travelling fast, he, Blart Versenwald III (his name was Blart Versenwald III, which is not strictly relevant, but quite interesting because never mind, that was his name and we can talk about why it’s interesting later), was sent into guarded seclusion by the masters of his race with instructions to design a breed of fanatical superwarriors to resist and vanquish the feared invaders, do it quickly and, they told him, “Concentrate!”
So he sat by a window and looked out at a summer lawn and designed and designed and designed, but inevitably got a little distracted by things, and by the time the invaders were practically in orbit round them, had come up with a remarkable new breed of super-fly that could, unaided, figure out how to fly through the open half of a half-open window, and also an offswitch for children. Celebrations of these remarkable achievements seemed doomed to be shortlived because disaster was imminent as the alien ships were landing. But astoundingly, the fearsome invaders who, like most warlike races were only on the rampage because they couldn’t cope with things at home, were stunned by Versenwald’s extraordinary breakthroughs, joined in the celebrations and were instantly prevailed upon to sign a wide-ranging series of trading agreements and set up a programme of cultural exchanges. And, in an astonishing reversal of normal practice in the conduct of such matters, everybody concerned lived happily ever after.
There was a point to this story, but it has temporarily escaped the chronicler’s mind.
尾聲
一切生命形式最偉大的恩主之一是一個注意力沒法集中在手頭工作上的人。
偉大吧？
當然了。
在他那一代人以及其他任何一代人，包括他自己設計的那幾代人，最重要的遺傳工程師之一？
毫無疑問。問題在於他對於他不該感興趣的東西，或者至少是像人們告訴他的那樣，目前不該感興趣的東西，太感興趣了。
這也部分造成了他有些易怒的性情。
所以當他的世界受到來自一個遙遠星球的恐怖入侵者的威脅的時候，——那些入侵者離這兒還很遠，不過他們速度很快——他，布拉特·凡森沃德三世（他的名字叫布拉特·凡森沃德三世，這沒有多大關係，不過非常有趣，因爲——算了，這就是他的名字，我們晚點會說到爲什麼有趣），被他們那個種族的領導人隔離在一個有守衛的地方，要求他設計一種狂熱的超級戰士來抵抗並擊敗恐怖的入侵者，要快點，他們還對他說：“集中精力！”
所以他坐在窗子邊上，看着外面夏日的草坪，設計設計設計，但是不可避免地被一些東西分散了注意力，到入侵者已經在軌道上圍着他們轉的時候，他搞出來一個非凡的新品種的超級蒼蠅，這種蒼蠅可以不借助任何幫助弄清楚該怎麼飛出一扇半開的窗子，還設計了一種兒童用的開關。這些偉大成就的慶典註定不能長久，因爲外星飛船已經在着陸，災難即將降臨。但令人吃驚的是，這些可怕的入侵者像其他好戰的種族一樣，因爲處理不好自己家裏的事情才四處亂撞，他們凡森沃德偉大的突破驚呆了，於是也加入了慶典，並且立刻贊同簽署了內容廣泛的貿易協定，還制定了一項文化交流計劃。另外，在事情發生了這樣驚人的逆轉之後，所有相關的人都從此過上了幸福的生活。
這個故事有一個要點，可是史學家卻臨時想不起來了。
