經典科幻文學:《銀河系漫遊指南》第24章4

"Indeed Earthman."
"Look, sorry — are we talking about the little white furry things with the cheese fixation and women standing on tables screaming in early sixties sit coms?"
Slartibartfast coughed politely.
"Earthman," he said, "it is sometimes hard to follow your mode of speech. Remember I have been asleep inside this planet of Magrathea for five million years and know little of these early sixties sit coms of which you speak. These creatures you call mice, you see, they are not quite as they appear. They are merely the protrusion into our dimension of vast hyperintelligent pan-dimensional beings. The whole business with the cheese and the squeaking is just a front."
The old man paused, and with a sympathetic frown continued. "They've been experimenting on you I'm afraid."
Arthur thought about this for a second, and then his face cleared.
"Ah no," he said, "I see the source of the misunderstanding now. No, look you see, what happened was that we used to do experiments on them. They were often used in behavioural research, Pavlov and all that sort of stuff. So what happened was hat the mice would be set all sorts of tests, learning to ring bells, run around mazes and things so that the whole nature of the learning process could be examined. From our observations of their behaviour we were able to learn all sorts of things about our own ..."
Arthur's voice tailed off.
"Such subtlety ..." said Slartibartfast, "one has to admire it."
"What?" said Arthur.
"How better to disguise their real natures, and how better to guide your thinking. Suddenly running down a maze the wrong way, eating the wrong bit of cheese, unexpectedly dropping dead of myxomatosis, — if it's finely calculated the cumulative effect is enormous."
He paused for effect.
"You see, Earthman, they really are particularly clever hyperintelligent pan-dimensional beings. Your planet and people have formed the matrix of an organic computer running a ten-million-year research programme ..."Let me tell you the whole story. It'll take a little time."
"Time," said Arthur weakly, "is not currently one of my problems."

“一點不錯，地球人。”
“你瞧，對不起，我們是在說那種小小的、灰色的、毛茸茸的、瘋狂迷戀奶酪的、在60年代早期的肥皂劇中把女人們嚇得在桌子上尖叫的生物嗎？”
司拉提巴特法斯特禮貌地咳嗽了一聲。
“地球人，”他說，“有時候真是很難適應你說話的方式。請記住，我在這顆叫做曼格拉斯的行星內部睡了整整500萬年，因此一點兒也不知道你所說的什麼60年代早期的肥皂劇。這些被你們稱爲老鼠的生物，你瞧，他們並非你們看上去的那樣。他們是一些恰好進入了我們這個維度的具有超級智慧的泛維度生物。所有那些奶酪和尖叫都只是表面現象而已。”
老人停頓了一下，同情地皺起了眉頭。“我恐怕，他們是在你們身上作實驗。”
阿瑟思考了一秒鐘，臉上的表情變得開朗起來。
“哦，不，”他說，“我現在終於找到誤解的根源了。不是這樣的。你瞧，你所看到的其實足我們在它們身上作實驗。它們常常被用於行爲科學的研究，巴甫洛夫什麼的。利用老鼠能進行各種測試。通過學習搖鈴、走迷宮等等，可以分析自然的學習過程。通過對他們行爲的觀察，我們能夠了解到我們自己的許多情況……”
阿瑟的聲音逐漸減弱。
“高明啊……”司拉提巴特法斯特說，“真是不得不欽佩。”
“什麼？”阿瑟問。
“多麼巧妙地隱藏了他們自己的天性，又是多麼巧妙地引導了你們的思維。不時還故意在迷宮中走錯路，故意啃掉錯誤的奶酪，甚至無緣無故地死於多發性黏液瘤。如果這些都是經過精心推算的計策的話，逐漸積累下來的成果是多麼驚人啊。”
他略微停頓了…卜。
“你瞧，地球人，他們確實是極其聰明的、具有超級智慧的泛維度生物。你們這顆星球和你們人類自身其實構成了一臺有機電腦的母體，運行着，一個爲期1000萬年的研究程序……還是讓我來告訴你整個故事吧。可能得花點兒時間。”
“時間，”阿瑟虛弱地說，“跟我目前所碰上的問題比起來，根本不算一個問題。”