經典科幻文學:《宇宙盡頭的餐館》第12章1

A short while later he was running across the plain in the direction of the ruined city.
The dank air wheezed heavily in his lungs and he frequently stumbled with the exhaustion he was still feeling. Night was beginning to fall too, and the rough ground was treacherous.
The elation of his recent experience was still with him though. The whole Universe. He had seen the whole Universe stretching to infinity around him – everything. And with it had come the clear and extraordinary knowledge that he was the most important thing in it. Having a conceited ego is one thing. Actually being told by a machine is another.
He didn’t have time to reflect on this matter.
Gargravarr had told him that he would have to alert his masters as to what had happened, but that he was prepared to leave a decent interval before doing so. Enough time for Zaphod to make a break and find somewhere to hide.
What he was going to do he didn’t know, but feeling that he was the most important person in the Universe gave him the confidence to believe that something would turn up.
Nothing else on this blighted planet could give him much grounds for optimism.
He ran on, and soon reached the outskirts of the abandoned city.
He walked along cracked and gaping roads riddled with scrawny weeds, the holes filled with rotting shoes. The buildings he passed were so crumbled and decrepit he thought it unsafe to enter any of them. Where could he hide? He hurried on.
After a while the remains of a wide sweeping road led off from the one down which he was walking, and at its end lay a vast low building, surrounded with sundry smaller ones, the whole surrounded by the remains of a perimeter barrier. The large main building still seemed reasonably solid, and Zaphod turned off to see if it might provide him with… well with anything.
He approached the building. Along one side of it – the front it would seem since it faced a wide concreted apron area – were three gigantic doors, maybe sixty feet high. The far one of these was open, and towards this, Zaphod ran.
Inside, all was gloom, dust and confusion. Giant cobwebs lay over everything. Part of the infrastructure of the building had collapsed, part of the rear wall had caved in, and a thick choking dust lay inches over the floor.
Through the heavy gloom huge shapes loomed, covered with debris.
The shapes were sometimes cylindrical, sometimes bulbous, sometimes like eggs, or rather cracked eggs. Most of them were split open or falling apart, some were mere skeletons.
They were all spacecraft, all derelict.

過了--會兒，他穿過平原，朝着城市廢墟的方向跑去。
陰冷潮溼的空氣涌進他的肺裏，使他感到有些呼吸困難，仍然糾纏着他衰竭的精力使他步履踉蹌。夜晚開始降l臨，粗糙的大地上顯得危機四伏。
不過，剛纔那些經歷所帶來的興奮之情也在伴隨着他。整個宇宙！他看到了整個宇宙在他四周伸展開去，直至無限——所有的一切。伴隨着這一切而來的，足一個清晰的、非同凡響的信息：他就是宇宙萬物中最重要的兇索：有這樣自負的自我意識是一回事；確切地被一臺機器告知這一點，則完全是另外一回事了，
他沒有時間來細想這件事。
伽古拉瓦已經說過，他必須向自己的主子們彙報剛纔發生的情況，不過在此之前，他準備留出一段剛好合適的間隔，使贊福德有足夠的時問休整一下，找個地方藏起來。
他不缸道自己接下來要做什麼，但感到自己是宇宙中最重要的人。這給了他某種自信，相信會有什麼事情發生、
除此之外，這顆荒蕪的星球上沒有什麼東西能向他提供樂觀起來的依據。
他繼續奔跑着，不久就到達了那座廢棄城市的郊區。
他走在破碎開裂的馬路上。這裏到處生長着孱弱的野草，裂開的窟窿裏填滿丁腐爛的鞋子。沿途所經過的建築物通通朽得崩塌了下來，於是他認定：鑽進其中任何一棟都是不安全的。他能躲在哪兒呢？他只得繼續前進。
冉往前一點兒，一條寬闊馬路的廢墟從他正走着的這條馬路邊上延伸開去，路的盡頭立着一棟巨大但低矮的建築物，周嘲則是各式各樣的小房子，它們整個叉被一圈柵欄的廢墟嗣了起柬。那棟巨大的主建築看上去還算堅固，於是贊福德向它走過去，想看看它能否爲自己提供…嗯，一點兒什麼幫助=
他接近了這棟建築。它的一側——看上去像是正面，因爲外面是一片寬闊的混凝土坪－－並列着一扇巨大的門，可能足有六十英尺高。遠端的那扇開着，所以贊福德朝它跑過去，
屋內光線昏暗，佈滿灰塵，一片混亂。巨大的蜘蛛網遍佈每一個角落，一部分地基已經坍塌，部分後牆陷了進去，地板上積了一層幾英寸厚的灰塵。
透過濃厚的昏暗，一些巨大的黑影若隱若現。
這些黑影有的呈圓柱形，有的呈球莖狀，有的像雞蛋，或者更準確地說，像打碎的雞蛋。它們中的大部分已經開裂或者崩壞了，有的甚至只剩下骨架。
它們都是空間飛行器，都被遺棄了。