经典科幻文学:《生命 宇宙及一切》第4章(10)

They’ve garble warble fashes! cried Slartibartfast, still waving at them.
He says, said Arthur, that they’ve taken the Ashes. That is what I think he says. They ran on.
The?… said Ford.
Ashes, said Arthur tersely. The burnt remains of a cricket stump. It’s a trophy. That… he was panting, is… apparently… what they… have come and taken. He shook his head very slightly as if he was trying to get his brain to settle down lower in his skull.
Strange thing to want to tell us, snapped Ford.
Strange thing to take.
Strange ship.
They had arrived at it. The second strangest thing about the ship was watching the Somebody Else’s Problem field at work. They could now clearly see the ship for what it was simply because they knew it was there. It was quite apparent, however, that nobody else could. This wasn’t because it was actually invisible or anything hyper-impossible like that. The technology involved in making anything invisible is so infinitely complex that nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand million, nine hundred and ninety-nine million, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine times out of a billion it is much simpler and more effective just to take the thing away and do without it. The ultra-famous sciento-magician Effrafax of Wug once bet his life that, given a year, he could render the great megamountain Magramal entirely invisible.
Having spent most of the year jiggling around with immense Lux-O-Valves and Refracto-Nullifiers and Spectrum-Bypass-O-Matics, he realized, with nine hours to go, that he wasn’t going to make it.
So, he and his friends, and his friends’ friends, and his friends’ friends’ friends, and his friends’ friends’ friends’ friends, and some rather less good friends of theirs who happened to own a major stellar trucking company, put in what now is widely recognized as being the hardest night’s work in history, and, sure enough, on the following day, Magramal was no longer visible. Effrafax lost his bet and therefore his life simply because some pedantic adjudicating official noticed (a) that when walking around the area that Magramal ought to be he didn’t trip over or break his nose on anything, and (b) a suspicious-looking extra moon.

“他们拿大那大灰去灰！”司拉提巴特法斯大叫着，一边还挥着手。
“他说，”阿瑟道，“他们拿了那个灰烬杯。我想他说的就是这个。”两人继续跑着。
“那个……？”福特说。
“灰烬杯。”阿瑟简短地说，“一个板球门柱的燃烧残留物，是个奖品。那个……”他喘着气，“很显然……是他们……专程来拿的。”他轻轻地摇着头，好象要让大脑能在颅骨里呆得安定一点。
“他想说的话真奇怪。”福特很不爽地说。
“拿的东西真奇怪。”
“那飞船真奇怪。”
他们走到飞船跟前。关于这艘飞船的第二件真奇怪的事，就是你在那儿能看见“别人的问题作用场”是如何工作的。他们俩现在能看清这艘飞船，是因为他们知道它在这儿。很明显，别人决不能做到。原因不在于它能隐形，或者有类似的什么神奇得难以置信的功能。如果想制造真正隐形的东西，所涉及的技术将极其复杂。因此，十亿次里面会有九亿九千九百九十万九千九百九十九次，人们觉得放弃制作、宁愿不用它会更方便。驰名环宇的科学魔术师——瓦格星的埃夫拉法克斯，曾用他的生命做赌注，赌他只需一年时间，就可以让雄伟的玛格拉玛巨山完全隐形。
他花了将近一年的时间，折腾诸如光能调节阀、折射抵消器和光谱回避仪等等，最后终于意识到，九个小时之后，自己就再也活不成了。
因此，他和他的朋友，和他朋友的朋友，和他朋友的朋友的朋友，和他朋友的朋友的朋友的朋友，以及这些人再稍微远一点的朋友——这帮人恰好拥有一家最强的星际货运公司——做了一件事，如今已被公认为史上最艰巨的熬夜赶工。然后，无庸置疑，第二天，玛格拉玛巨山不见了。然而埃夫拉法克斯还是输掉了他打的赌——以及他的生命——只因一些迂腐的裁判官注意到：a，当走在玛格拉玛山应该在的地方时，他们不会绊倒，也没有撞破鼻子什么的；b，天上多出一个可疑的月亮。