经典科幻文学:《生命 宇宙及一切》第10章3

Found it, he said. We can lose all this rubbish. Just don’t nod, that’s all.
Now, let us bow our heads in payment, intoned the voice, and then said it again, much faster and backwards.
Lights came and went, the pillars disappeared, the man gabled himself backwards into nothing, the Universe snappily reassembled itself around them.
You get the gist? said Slartibartfast.
I’m astonished, said Arthur, and bewildered.
I was asleep, said Ford, who floated into view at this point. Did I miss anything?
They found themselves once again teetering rather rapidly on the edge of an agonizingly high cliff. The wind whipped out from their faces and across a bay on which the remains of one of the greatest and most powerful space battle-fleets ever assembled in the Galaxy was briskly burning itself back into existence. The sky was a sullen pink, darkening via a rather curious colour to blue and upwards to black. Smoke billowed down out of it at an incredible lick. Events were now passing back by them almost too quickly to be distinguished, and when, a short while later, a huge star-battleship rushed away from them as if they’d said “boo”, they only just recognized it as the point at which they had come in.
But now things were too rapid, a video-tactile blur which brushed and jiggled them through centuries of galactic history, turning, twisting, flickering. The sound was a mere thin thrill.
Periodically through the thickening jumble of events they sensed appalling catastrophes, deep horrors, cataclysmic shocks, and these were always associated with certain recurring images, the only images which ever stood out clearly from the avalanche of tumbling history: a wicket gate, a small hard red ball, hard white robots, and also something less distinct, something dark and cloudy.
But there was also another sensation which rose clearly out of the thrilling passage of time.
Just as a slow series of clicks when speeded up will lose the definition of each individual click and gradually take on the quality of a sustained and rising tone, so a series of individual impressions here took on the quality of a sustained emotion and yet not an emotion. If it was an emotion, it was a totally emotionless one. It was hatred, implacable hatred. It was cold, not like ice is cold, but like a wall is cold. It was impersonal, not as a randomly flung fist in a crowd is impersonal, but like a computer-issued parking summons is impersonal. And it was deadly again, not like a bullet or a knife is deadly, but like a brick wall across a motorway is deadly.
And just as a rising tone will change in character and take on harmonics as it rises, so again, this emotionless emotion seemed to rise to an unbearable if unheard scream and suddenly seemed to be a scream of guilt and failure.
And suddenly it stopped.

“找到了，”他说，“我们不用看这些垃圾。总之，别点头。”
“现在，让我们低下头来，表示敬意和同意——”那个声音霎时变得很奇怪，然后又说了一遍，只是更快了，而且是倒着说的。
灯光亮起又灭掉。门柱消失了。那人缩回虚空之中。宇宙也迅速拼回原状。
“你懂个大概了吧？”司拉提巴特法斯说。
“我觉得很可怕，”阿瑟说，“而且很混乱。”
“我睡着了。”福特这时飘了出来，“我错过什么了吗？”
他们发现，自己正处于一座恐怖的高崖顶端，而且竟在悬崖边上跌跌撞撞。大风像鞭子一样抽在他们脸上，一直吹到远处的港湾，在那里，停泊着银河系史上最强、最大型的太空舰队，而此时却在一瞬间燃烧殆尽。天空先是灰暗的粉色，渐渐变为一种更奇怪的深蓝，接着是黑色。惊人的浓雾在天上滚滚地翻腾着。历史事件在他们身边快速闪回，难以辨清。过了一会儿，一艘巨大的战斗飞船从他们头上倏地掠过，他们不由得“哟”了一声，只来得及认出这是他们最开始见到的场面。
然而，倒带有点太快了。带子上一处突起的污渍，造成他们抖动着跳过了好几个世纪的银河史。画面反转着、扭曲着、摇晃着跳过，声音则只是有一点儿抖。
在这浓缩的历史长河中，他们见到了可怖的灾难，深度的恐惧，动乱的冲击，而这一切景象都在不断重复，唯一不变的图景，就是一个三柱门，一颗硬梆梆的红色小球，一些硬梆梆的白色机器人，以及其他黑乎乎不知何物的东西。
此外还有这样一种感觉，在颤栗的历史片段面前愈加明显：
比如，如果一连串缓慢的咔哒声，开始加快速度，每一个“咔哒”就很难分辨出来，而将给人一个连续升高的声音的效果。于是，如果一连串孤立的印象加快速度时，就给人一种连续的情感——但又不是情感。如果它是一种情感，那它就是很没感情的那种。它是恨，无法平息的恨。它冷，不是冰那种冷，而是墙那种冷。它无情，不是人群中冷不丁挥出的一拳那种无情，而是电脑打出的停车票那种无情。它还致命——同样，不是子弹或刀子那种致命，而是横跨高速公路的一堵砖墙那种致命。
又正如一个连续升高的声音，会使整个和声音效都产生变化；这种没感情的情感连续升高，刚开始像一种难以忍受的无声的尖叫，而后突然化为一种罪恶与失败的有声尖叫。
而它突然停止了。