經典科幻文學:《宇宙盡頭的餐館》第18章2

“Suit yourself,” said Zaphod and turned away to ogle the ships. Ford went with him.
Only Trillian and Arthur actually went up to Marvin.
“No, really we are,” said Trillian and patted him in a way that he disliked intensely, “hanging around waiting for us all this time.”
“Five hundred and seventy-six thousand million, three thousand five hundred and seventy-nine years,” said Marvin, “I counted them.”
“Well, here we are now,” said Trillian, felling quite correctly in Marvin’s view that it was a slightly foolish thing to say.
“The first ten million years were the worst,” said Marvin, “and the second ten million years, they were the worst too. The third million years I didn’t enjoy at all. After that I went into a bit of decline.”
He paused just long enough to make them feel they ought to say something, and then interrupted.
“It’s the people you meet in this job that really get you down,” he said and paused again.
Trillian cleared her throat.
“Is that…”
“The best conversation I had was over forty million years ago,” continued n the pause.
“Oh d…”
“And that was with a coffee machine.”He waited.
“That’s a…”
“You don’t like talking to me do you?” said Marvin in a low desolate tone.
Trillian talked to Arthur instead.
Further down the chamber Ford Prefect had found something of which he very much liked the look, several such things in fact.
“Zaphod,” he said in a quiet voice, “just look at some of these little star trolleys…”
Zaphod looked and liked.
The craft they were looking at was in fact pretty small but extraordinary, and very much a rich kid’s toy. It was not much to look at. It resembled nothing so much as a paper dart about twenty feet long made of thin but tough metal foil. At the rear end was a small horizontal two-man cockpit. It had a tiny charm-drive engine, which was not capable of moving it at any great speed. The thing it did have, however, was a heat-sink.
The heat-sink had a mass of some two thousand billion tons and was contained within a black hole mounted in an electromagnetic field situated half-way along the length of the ship, and this heat-sink enabled the craft to be manoeuvred to within a few miles of a yellow sun, there to catch and ride the solar flares that burst out from its surface.
Flare-riding is one of the most exotic and exhilarating sports in existence, and those who can dare and afford it are amongst the most lionized men in the Galaxy. It is also of course stupefyingly dangerous those who don’t die riding invariably die of sexual exhaustion at one of the Daedalus Club’s Apres-Flare parties.
Ford and Zaphod looked and passed on.
“And this baby,” said Ford, “the tangerine star buggy with the black sunbusters…”
Again, the star buggy was a small ship a totally misnamed one in fact, because the one thing it couldn’t manage was interstellar distances. Basically it was a sporty planet hopper dolled up to something it wasn’t. Nice lines though. They passed on.
The next one was a big one and thirty yards long a coach built limoship and obviously designed with one aim in mind, that of making the beholder sick with envy. The paintwork and accessory detail clearly said “Not only am I rich enough to afford this ship, I am also rich enough not to take it seriously.” It was wonderfully hideous.
“Just look at it,” said Zaphod, “multi-cluster quark drive, perspulex running boards. Got to be a Lazlar Lyricon custom job.”
He examined every inch.

“隨你怎麼說好了。”贊福德說，然後轉到一側，打量起這艘飛船來。福特也過去和他在一起，
只有崔莉恩和阿瑟真正走向了馬文。
“不-我們真的很高式。”崔莉恩說，還拍了拍他，而這正是他極其不喜歡的方式。“可憐的傢伙，一直留在這兒等着我們……”
“五十七萬六千個百萬——零三幹五百七十九年；”馬文說，“我一直算着呢。”
“噢，現在我們來……”崔莉恩說，同時覺得——馬文也有相當一致的看法——這樣說有點兒傻。
“剛開始的一千萬年是最糟糕的。”馬文說，“第二個一千萬年，同樣是最糟糕的。第一個一千萬年我也一點兒不喜歡。在那之後，我倒是有點兒適應了。”
他停頓了一會兒，長度剛好讓他們覺得自己應該說點兒什麼，然後叉打斷他們繼續說下去。
“幹這份工作遇見的那些人最使你覺得沮喪。”他說，然後又頓了頓。
崔莉恩清了清嗓子。
“是……
”我碰上道。下萬年以前。”馬文繼續然後又是停頓。
“哦……”
“和一臺咖啡機。”他等待着。
“那是……”
“你不喜歡和我說話，是嗎？”馬文用一種低沉而淒涼的語調說。
崔莉恩只好轉而和阿瑟說話了。
福特長官在這片停車場深處找到了一些東西，他非常喜歡它們的外觀。這種東西有好幾件。
“贊福德，”他用一種平緩的語調說，“看看這些星際電單車……”
贊福德看了，也很喜歡。
他們看到的這種航天器很小，但是很別緻，是富家孩子的玩具。它沒有太多的花花哨哨可以吸引眼球，像一枚二十英尺長的紙飛鏢，由薄而堅固的金屬製成。它的尾部有一個水平的小型雙人座艙。那臺小的引擎顯然無法使它達到任何比較高的速度。然而，這玩意兒卻裝有一臺吸熱器。
這臺吸熱器差不多有兩萬億噸重，安裝在位於飛船中部一個電磁場中的一個黑洞內。有了這臺吸熱器，這架航天器能夠飛到距離一顆黃色太陽只有幾英里的區域內，在那裏捕捉和駕馭恆星表面噴發出來的太陽耀光。
駕馭耀光是有史以來最奇妙、最刺激的運動之一，敢於參加而且負擔得起這項運動的人，全都是整個銀河系中最大名鼎鼎的人物。當然，這也是一項異常危險的運動——參加者即使沒有死在駕馭過程中，也都無一例外地在代達羅斯俱樂部爲他們舉行的“耀光過後”派對上，死於瘋狂交歡所導致的精力枯竭。
福特和贊福德一邊看着，一邊繼續往前走。
“瞧這個寶貝，夥計，”福特說，“橘紅色星際馬車，配備黑色的太陽爆轟驅動器。”
和星際電單車一樣，星際馬車也是一種小型飛船。但這個名字實際上完全錯了。它什麼都能饊，惟一不能的恰恰就是星際間飛行，它基本上就是一種運動型行星間跳躍器，只不過打扮成了它所不是的某種東兩、不過它的線條倒是很優美。福特和贊福德繼續向前走。
接下來的是一個大傢伙，足有十碼長。這是一艘豪華飛船，其設計理念屁然是爲了實現這樣一個目標：讓旁觀者嫉妒得發狂，船體表面噴繪和船體附屬物的每一處細節都在明白地宣稱：“我不僅足夠富有，買得起這艘飛船，而且甚至富得可以不把它當阿事兒。”實在是令人厭惡。
“看看這玩意兒吧，”贊福德說，“複合簇夸克推進器，離散型活動甲板。看樣子，是找蘭茲拉·裏瑞肯定製的。”
他仔細檢查了每一寸船體。