經典科幻文學:《宇宙盡頭的餐館》第22章2

Ford looked around. They were standing in a long curving corridor which stretched out of sight in both directions. The outer steel wall – which was painted in that sickly shade of pale green which they use in schools, hospitals and mental asylums to keep the inmates subdued – curved over the tops of their heads where it met the inner perpendicular wall which, oddly enough was covered in dark brown hessian wall weave. The floor was of dark green ribbed rubber.
Ford moved over to a very thick dark transparent panel set in the outer wall. It was several layers deep, yet through it he could see pinpoints of distant stars.
“I think we’re in a spaceship of some kind,” he said.
Down the corridor came the sound of a dull stomping throb.
“Trillian?” called Arthur nervously, “Zaphod?”
Ford shrugged.
“Nowhere about,” he said, “I’ve looked. They could be anywhere. An unprogrammed teleport can throw you light years in any direction. Judging by the way I feel I should think we’ve travelled a very long way indeed.”
“How do you feel?”
“Bad.”
“Do you think they’re…”
“Where they are, how they are, there’s no way we can know and no way we can do anything about it. Do what I do.”
“What?”
“Don’t think about it.”
Arthur turned this thought over in his mind, reluctantly saw the wisdom of it, tucked it up and put it away. He took a deep breath.
“Footsteps!” exclaimed Ford suddenly.
“Where?”

福特四下打量了一下。他們正站在一條彎曲的長走廊裏，兩頭都望不到邊。成令人作嘔的慘綠色，這種顏色通常會被用於學校，醫院和精神病院，以使裏面的人們變得馴服——從他們頭頂上彎曲過來，和胡內的垂直牆壁相交，奇怪的是，垂直牆壁上貼有棱條紋的橡膠。。地面則是深綠色帶
福特走到外牆上鑲着的一塊很厚的透明板前：這塊透明板有好幾層，但透過它還是能看到遠方星星的微弱光芒。
“我想我們是在一艘什麼飛船上。”他說。
從走廊的盡頭傳來有什麼在單調地砰砰亂蹦的聲音。
“崔莉恩，”阿瑟緊張地喊道，“贊福德？”
福特聳了聳肩。
“不在那兒，”他說，“我已經找過了。他們可能在任何地點。一臺沒有經過編程設定的遠距傳物裝置，可能會把你拋到許多光年以外的任何地方。根據我自己的感覺判斷，我認爲我們剛纔經歷了一段相當漫長的旅程。。
“你感覺怎麼樣，”
“不好，”
“你認爲他們”
“他們在哪兒，他們現在怎麼樣，這些我們全都不知道，而且也沒法做任何事來找到他們。還是像我這麼辦吧。”
“怎麼辦？”
“別想這個了。”
阿瑟把這樣的念頭在腦海裏過了幾遍，不情願地看出了其中的明智之處，於是把自己的滿腹疑問打了個包，扔到一邊。他深深地吸丁口氣。
“腳步聲！”榍特突然說道。
“在哪兒？”