经典科幻文学:《生命 宇宙及一切》第18章1

Chapter 18
Arthur materiAlized, and did so with all the customary staggering about and clasping at his throat, heart and various limbs which he still indulged himself in whenever he made any of these hateful and painful materializations that he was determined not to let himself get used to.
He looked around for the others.
They weren’t there.
He looked around for the others again.
They still weren’t there.
He closed his eyes.
He opened them
He looked around for the others.
They obstinately persisted in their absence.
He closed his eyes again, preparatory to making this completely futile exercise once more, and because it was only then, whilst his eyes were closed, that his brain began to register what his eyes had been looking at whilst they were open, a puzzled frown crept across his face.
So he opened his eyes again to check his facts and the frown stayed put.
If anything, it intensified, and got a good firm grip. If this was a party it was a very bad one, so bad, in fact, that everybody else had left. He abandoned this line of thought as futile. Obviously this wasn’t a party. It was a cave, or a labyrinth, or a tunnel of something there was insufficient light to tell. All was darkness, a damp shiny darkness. The only sounds were the echoes of his own breathing, which sounded worried. He coughed very slightly, and then had to listen to the thin ghostly echo of his cough trailing away amongst winding corridors and sightless chambers, as of some great labyrinth, and eventually returning to him via the same unseen corridors, as if to say…
Yes?
This happened to every slightest noise he made, and it unnerved him. He tried to hum a cheery tune, but by the time it returned to him it was a hollow dirge and he stopped.
His mind was suddenly full of images from the story that Slartibartfast had been telling him. He half-expected suddenly to see lethal white robots step silently from the shadows and kill him. He caught his breath. They didn’t. He let it go again. He didn’t know what he did expect.
Someone or something, however, seemed to be expecting him, for at that moment there lit up suddenly in the dark distance an eerie green neon sign.
It said, silently:
You have been Diverted

18
阿瑟显形了。跟以前一样，每次时空传输显形的时候，阿瑟都觉得相当痛苦。他感到自己的喉咙、心脏、四肢都还卡在刚才的地方，所以他不停地挣扎，想把它们拔出来。他想自己永远也习惯不了的。
他四处看看，找其他人在哪。
他们不在。
他又四处看看，找其他人在哪。
他们依然不在。
他闭上眼睛。
他睁开。
他四处看看，找其他人在哪。
他们毅然决然地处于失踪状态。
他再次闭上眼睛，准备再做一次这无意义的行为——的确如此。他一闭眼，大脑就已经开始显示之前看见的画面了。他不禁眉头一蹙。
于是他再睁开眼，亲自检验之。他的眉头还是紧锁着。
不管这儿是什么地方，它都应该算是个中极品，而且是极品中的极品。如果这儿是个派对，那它就是个无比糟糕的派对，糟糕得每个人都离开了。阿瑟觉得这种猜测毫无意义。很明显，这儿不是派对。这是个山洞，或是迷宫，或是隧道什么的。光线不足，看不太清。一切都在黑暗之中，潮湿的、只有微弱光线的黑暗。唯一的声音是他自己呼吸的回声，听上去很不安。他轻咳两声，于是听见那幽幽的回音，飘过弯曲的长廊，穿过看不见的房间——就像有个巨大的迷宫一样，最后回到他所在的黑暗的长廊，像是在说：
“嗯？”
他每发出一点声音，都会引起这么一阵响动，让他感到害怕。他想哼一首快乐的小曲，可那回声却成了一种阴森森的哀乐，于是他闭嘴了。
刹那间，他脑子里满是司拉提巴特法斯特讲过的画面。他突然觉得，会有残忍的白色机器人从暗处悄然步出，杀死自己。他屏住呼吸。机器人没出现。他便不再这么想了。他不知接下来将面对什么。
然而，某人（或某物），似乎已准备好了面对他。因为，遥远的黑暗中，突然亮起一行古怪的绿色霓虹灯。
它静静地亮出如下字样：
“你被转移了。”