經典科幻文學:《銀河系漫遊指南》第22章2

"An automatic system," he said and gave a small sigh. "Ancient computers ranged in the bowels of the planet tick away the dark millennia, and the ages hang heavy on their dusty data banks. I think they take the occasional pot shot to relieve the monotony."
He looked gravely at Arthur and said, "I'm a great fan of science you know."
"Oh ... er, really?" said Arthur, who was beginning to find the man's curious, kindly manner disconcerting.
"Oh, yes," said the old man, and simply stopped talking again.
"Ah," said Arthur, "er ..." He had an odd felling of being like a man in the act of adultery who is surprised when the woman's husband wanders into the room, changes his trousers, passes a few idle remarks about the weather and leaves again.
"You seem ill at ease," said the old man with polite concern.
"Er, no ... well, yes. Actually you see, we weren't really expecting to find anybody about in fact. I sort of gathered that you were all dead or something ..."
"Dead?" said the old man. "Good gracious no, we have but slept."
"Slept?" said Arthur incredulously.
"Yes, through the economic recession you see," said the old man, apparently unconcerned about whether Arthur understood a word he was talking about or not.
"Er, economic recession?"
"Well you see, five million years ago the Galactic economy collapsed, and seeing that custom-made planets are something of a luxury commodity you see ..."
He paused and looked at Arthur.
"You know we built planets do you?" he asked solemnly.
"Well yes," said Arthur, "I'd sort of gathered ..."
"Fascinating trade," said the old man, and a wistful look came into his eyes, "doing the coastlines was always my favourite. Used to have endless fun doing the little bits in fjords ... so anyway," he said trying to find his thread again, "the recession came and we decided it would save us a lot of bother if we just slept through it. So we programmed the computers to revive us when it was all over."
The man stifled a very slight yawn and continued. "The computers were index linked to the Galactic stock market prices you see, so that we'd all be revived when everybody else had rebuilt the economy enough to afford our rather expensive services."
Arthur, a regular Guardian reader, was deeply shocked at this.
"That's a pretty unpleasant way to behave isn't it?"
"Is it?" asked the old man mildly. "I'm sorry, I'm a bit out of touch."

“那是一套自動系統，”他微微嘆了一口氣，“安裝在星球地下深處的那些古代的電腦在千萬年的黑暗中一直運行着，一個又一個世代沉重地壓在它們佈滿灰塵的數據庫上。我想，偶爾一次發射只不過是它們希望能稍稍改變一點兒這種千篇一律的單調的努力罷了。”
他看着阿瑟，莊重地說：“你知道，我是一個科學的狂熱信奉者。”
“哦……嗯，真的嗎？”阿瑟說，老人這種和善而又怪異的態度已經開始讓他感到有點驚惶不安了。
“晤，是的。”老人說，隨即閉上了嘴。
“哦，嗯……”阿瑟突然產生了一種奇特的感覺，覺得自己就像一個正在和別人的老婆通姦的男人，看見那個當丈夫的走進房間，換了條褲子，對天氣發表一通沒頭沒腦的評論後又離開了。
“你好像不太自在。”老人禮貌地問。
“嗯，不……哦，是的。實際上，你瞧，我們其實並沒有指望在這顆星球上找到什麼人。據我瞭解，你們應該都死了或者……”
“死？”老人說，“天啊，當然沒有，我們只不過是睡了。”
“睡了？”阿瑟難以置信。
“是的，好渡過經濟衰退。”老人說，顯然並不太在意阿瑟能不能真正理解他所說的哪怕是一個詞。於是阿瑟不得不再次提醒他。
“嗯，經濟衰退？”
“是的，你瞧，500萬年以前，整個銀河系的經濟崩潰了，而訂製行星屬於奢侈品。你瞧……”
他停頓了一下，望着阿瑟。
“你知道我們建造行星，是吧？”他嚴肅地問。
“噢，是的，”阿瑟說，“我瞭解一點兒……”
“誘人的貿易啊。”老人說，眼裏流露出一絲懷念，“建造海岸線是我最喜歡的工作了，尤其是修建海灣，簡直其樂無窮……別的也一樣。”他說，一邊試圖重新找回自己的思路，“可是衰退期到來了。我們認爲，如果在睡眠狀態下度過這個時期，會減少許多麻煩。所以我們設定了程序，讓電腦在衰退期完全結束後重新喚醒我們。”
老人忍住一個哈欠，繼續說：“這些電腦直接與銀河系股票市場的價格相聯，你明白嗎，所以一旦別的什麼人重建了經濟，足夠負擔得起我們昂貴的服務，我們就會被全部喚醒。”
一直是左翼《衛報》忠實讀者的阿瑟聽了這番話也不由得非常震驚。
“應該不是什麼令人愉快的選擇，不是嗎？”
“真的？”老人溫和地問道，“對不起，我有點兒跟不上形勢了。”