經典科幻文學:《宇宙盡頭的餐館》第26章1

Chapter 26
That night the ship crash-landed on to an utterly insignificant little green-blue planet which circled a small unregarded yellow sun in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western spiral arm of the Galaxy.
In the hours preceding the crash Ford Prefect had fought furiously but in vain to unlock the controls of the ship from their pre-ordained flight path. It had quickly become apparent to him that the ship had been programmed to convey its payload safely, in uncomfortably, to its new home but to cripple itself beyond repair in the process.
Its screaming, blazing descent through the atmosphere had stripped away most of its superstructure and outer shielding, and its final inglorious bellyflop into a murky swamp had left its crew only a few hours of darkness during which to revive and offload its deep-frozen and unwanted cargo for the ship began to settle almost at once, slowly upending its gigantic bulk in the stagnant slime. Once or twice during the night it was starkly silhouetted against the sky as burning meteors – the detritus of its descent – flashed across the sky.
In the grey pre-dawn light it let out an obscene roaring gurgle and sank for ever into the stinking depths.
When the sun came up that morning it shed its thin watery light over a vast area heaving with wailing hairdressers, public relations executives, opinion pollsters and the rest, all clawing their way desperately to dry land.
A less strong minded sun would probably have gone straight back down again, but it continued to climb its way through the sky and after a while the influence of its warming rays began to have some restoring effect on the feebly struggling creatures.
Countless numbers had, unsurprisingly, been lost to the swamp in the night, and millions more had been sucked down with the ship, but those that survived still numbered hundreds of thousands and as the day wore on they crawled out over the surrounding countryside, each looking for a few square feet of solid ground on which to collapse and recover from their nightmare ordeal.
Two figures moved further afield.
From a nearby hillside Ford Prefect and Arthur Dent watched the horror of which they could not feel a part.
“Filthy dirty trick to pull,” muttered Arthur.
Ford scraped a stick along the ground and shrugged.
“An imaginative solution to a problem I’d have thought,” he said.
“Why can’t people just learn to live together in peace and harmony?” said Arthur.
Ford gave a loud, very hollow laugh.

第二十六章
耶天晚上，這艘飛船墜落在一顆完全無足輕重的藍綠色小行星上這顆行星嗣繞着一顆不被人注意的小小的黃色太陽運行，位於不被人注意的銀河系西螺旋臂的末端那片未曾標明的寂靜虛空中。
墜毀之前的幾個小時裏，福特·妊官曾經拼命掙扎過，但他試罔解除飛船預設飛行路線的一切努力只是一場徒勞。有一點很快就明確了，那就是，這艘飛船被設計成能夠安全地（也許並非舒適地）將它的有效載荷運送到它的新家，同時消滅了在這一過程中對航線進行任何修正的所有可能性：
飛船呼嘯着、燃燒着穿過大氣層，其間，它的上層結構和外層防護盾大部分剝落了：最終，它狼狽地肚皮着地，轟然落進一片陰暗的沼澤留給船員的時間只有短短几小時：他們必須在一片黑暗中使船上深度冷凍，不受歡迎的貨物甦醒過來，儘快撤離飛船，因為它幾乎一着地就立即開始下陷，在淤積的泥潭中緩緩地倒豎起來。夜裏，曾有一兩顆燃燒的流星——飛船下墜中脱落的碎屑——劃過天際，星光映出了飛船呆板的輪廓。
黎明前灰白的光線中，飛船發出一聲淫靡的汩汩聲，然後便永遠沉人了這潭臭泥漿。
清晨的太陽升起來，灑下淡淡的陽光，照着一大片哀號的美髮師、公共關係經理、民意測驗專家，以及其他所有人。他們正絕望地爬向乾燥的陸地。
如果是一顆意志力不夠堅強的太陽，看了這副悽慘景象，它也許會掉頭回家，重新降落下去：但這一顆卻繼續沿着天空爬升着，過了一會兒，温暖的陽光開始發揮作用了，使那些正在拼搏的虛弱的人們恢復了一些體力。
數不清的人已經在夜裏被}召澤吞噬了，這並不令人驚訝。還有幾百萬人當時就隨着飛船一起沉了下去，但話着的人仍然還有好幾十萬。這一天結束時，他們終於爬到了沼澤周圍的陸地上，每個人都找了幾平方英尺的一小塊堅實土地，癱倒在上面，以便從髓夢般的折磨中恢復過來。
有兩個人走到了稍遠一點兒的地方。
福特長官和阿瑟·鄧特從附近的一座小山坡上向後望去，簡直無法相信他們自己就是這恐怖經歷的一部分，
“一條卑鄙骯髒的詭計。”阿瑟喃喃地説。
福特用一根樹枝在地面上划着，聳了聳肩。
“這倒是個很有想像力的解決方案。”他説。
“為什麼人們不能學會和諧融洽地一起生括呢，”阿瑟説。
福特發出一陣響亮卻非常空洞的笑聲。