經典科幻文學:《銀河系漫遊指南》第6章 Part 6

"The Babel fish," said The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy quietly, "is small, yellow and leech-like, and probably the oddest thing in the Universe. It feeds on brainwave energy not from its carrier but from those around it. It absorbs all unconscious mental frequencies from this brainwave energy to nourish itself with. It then excretes into the mind of its carrier a telepathic matrix formed by combining the conscious thought frequencies with nerve signals picked up from the speech centres of the brain which has supplied them. The practical upshot of all this is that if you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language. The speech patterns you actually hear decode the brainwave matrix which has been fed into your mind by your Babel fish.
"Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mindboggingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as the final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God."The argument goes something like this: `I refuse to prove that I exist,' says God, `for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.'"`But,' says Man, `The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED.'"`Oh dear,' says God, `I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly vanished in a puff of logic.
"`Oh, that was easy,' says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.
"Most leading theologians claim that this argument is a load of dingo's kidneys, but that didn't stop Oolon Colluphid making a small fortune when he used it as the central theme of his best-selling book Well That About Wraps It Up For God.
"Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloddier wars than anything else in the history of creation."
Arthur let out a low groan. He was horrified to discover that the kick through hyperspace hadn't killed him. He was now six light years from the place that the Earth would have been if it still existed.
The Earth.
Visions of it swam sickeningly through his nauseated mind. There was no way his imagination could feel the impact of the whole Earth having gone, it was too big. He prodded his feelings by thinking that his parents and his sister had gone. No reaction. He thought of all the people he had been close to. No reaction. Then he thought of a complete stranger he had been standing behind in the queue at the supermarket before and felt a sudden stab — the supermarket was gone, everything in it was gone. Nelson's Column had gone! Nelson's Column had gone and there would be no outcry, because there was no one left to make an outcry. From now on Nelson's Column only existed in his mind. England only existed in his mind — his mind, stuck here in this dank smelly steel-lined spaceship. A wave of claustrophobia closed in on him.
England no longer existed. He'd got that — somehow he'd got it. He tried again. America, he thought, has gone. He couldn't grasp it. He decided to start smaller again. New York has gone. No reaction. He'd never seriously believed it existed anyway. The dollar, he thought, had sunk for ever. Slight tremor there. Every Bogart movie has been wiped, he said to himself, and that gave him a nasty knock. McDonalds, he thought. There is no longer any such thing as a McDonald's hamburger.
He passed out. When he came round a second later he found he was sobbing for his mother.
He jerked himself violently to his feet.
"Ford!"

“巴別魚，”《銀河系漫遊指南》輕輕朗讀着，“體型很小，黃色，外形像水蛭，很可能是宇宙中最奇異的事物。它靠接收腦電波的能量爲生，並且不是從其攜帶者身上接收，而是從周圍的人身上。它從這些腦電波能量中吸收所有未被人察覺的精神頻率，轉化成營養。然後它向攜帶者的思想中排泄一種由被察覺到的精神頻率和大腦語言中樞提供的神經信號混合而成的心靈感應矩陣。所有這些過程的實際效果就是，如果你把一條巴別魚塞進耳朵，你就能立刻理解以任何形式的語言對你說的任何事情。你所聽到的解碼信號就是巴別魚向你的思想提供的腦電波矩陣。
“這一似乎是不可能的奇異巧合已經被某些思想者作爲上帝並不存在的最終和確定的證據：”關於這件事的辯論是這樣的：“我拒絕證明我存在，‘上帝說，’因爲證據就意味着否定了信仰，而否定了信仰我什麼也不是。‘”’可是，‘凡人說，’巴別魚泄露了祕密，不是嗎？它不可能是偶然進化而來的。它恰恰證明了你的存在。因此，按照你自己的邏輯，你並不存在，證明完畢。‘“’噢，天啊，‘上帝說，’我可沒想到這一點，‘然後就在一陣邏輯的煙霧中消失了。
“‘噢，這很簡單，’凡人說，於是又開始證明黑就是白，最後在下一個人行橫道被撞死了。
“大多數最高級的神學家都宣稱這樣的證明根本不值一哂，但這並不妨礙奧龍。卡路菲把它用作自己的暢銷書《關於上帝的隱情》的主題，從而小賺了一筆。
“同時，可憐的巴別魚，雖然卓有成效地清除了不同種族和文化之間交流的障礙，但卻比造物的歷史上任何其他事物引發了更多更血腥的戰爭，”
阿瑟發出一聲低低的嘆息。他對於通過超空間的衝擊還心有餘悸。現在，他已經身在地球曾經存在過的地方6光年以外了。
是啊，地球。
地球的景象在他腦海中快速閃過，他感到一陣令人噁心的眩暈。他的想像無法面對地球毀滅這一事實的衝擊，畢竟這太震撼了。他希望通過想起他的父母和妹妹已經死去來刺痛自己的神經，但沒有反應。他又回想曾經親近的所有人，還是沒有反應。接着他想起了—個完全陌生的人，兩天前他在超市時曾經排在此人後面，這使他突然感覺到了一陣刺痛——超市沒有了，裏面的所有人都消失了。尼爾森的專欄沒有了！尼爾森的專欄沒有了，大聲疾呼和公開抗議也就沒有了，因爲沒有人再這樣做了。從現在起，尼爾森的專欄只存在於他阿瑟的腦海中。英格蘭也只存在於他的腦海中——他的腦海，目前正被囚禁在飛船上這個陰冷潮溼的鋼鐵空間中。一陣幽閉恐懼症的潮水開始襲向他。
英格蘭不存在了。他得習慣這件事——無論如何他都得習慣這件事。他又試了一次。美國，他想，同樣也不存在了。但他一下子還是不能理解這件事。於是他決定從再小一點兒的開始。紐約不存在了。還是沒有反應。畢竟他從來就沒有真心相信過這座城市的存在。美元，他又想，已經永久性地貶值了。這一次總算有點兒震顫了。所有漢弗萊。鮑加的電影都被毀滅了，他對自己說。這又給了他一股不愉快的衝擊。麥當勞，他想。再沒有什麼東西和麥當勞的漢堡一樣了。
他一下子昏了過去。幾秒鐘後醒過來時，他發現自己正在爲母親而啜泣。
他猛地跳起來。
“福特！”