经典科幻文学:《宇宙尽头的餐馆》第22章2

Ford looked around. They were standing in a long curving corridor which stretched out of sight in both directions. The outer steel wall – which was painted in that sickly shade of pale green which they use in schools, hospitals and mental asylums to keep the inmates subdued – curved over the tops of their heads where it met the inner perpendicular wall which, oddly enough was covered in dark brown hessian wall weave. The floor was of dark green ribbed rubber.
Ford moved over to a very thick dark transparent panel set in the outer wall. It was several layers deep, yet through it he could see pinpoints of distant stars.
“I think we’re in a spaceship of some kind,” he said.
Down the corridor came the sound of a dull stomping throb.
“Trillian?” called Arthur nervously, “Zaphod?”
Ford shrugged.
“Nowhere about,” he said, “I’ve looked. They could be anywhere. An unprogrammed teleport can throw you light years in any direction. Judging by the way I feel I should think we’ve travelled a very long way indeed.”
“How do you feel?”
“Bad.”
“Do you think they’re…”
“Where they are, how they are, there’s no way we can know and no way we can do anything about it. Do what I do.”
“What?”
“Don’t think about it.”
Arthur turned this thought over in his mind, reluctantly saw the wisdom of it, tucked it up and put it away. He took a deep breath.
“Footsteps!” exclaimed Ford suddenly.
“Where?”

福特四下打量了一下。他们正站在一条弯曲的长走廊里，两头都望不到边。成令人作呕的惨绿色，这种颜色通常会被用于学校，医院和精神病院，以使里面的人们变得驯服——从他们头顶上弯曲过来，和胡内的垂直墙壁相交，奇怪的是，垂直墙壁上贴有棱条纹的橡胶。。地面则是深绿色带
福特走到外墙上镶着的一块很厚的透明板前：这块透明板有好几层，但透过它还是能看到远方星星的微弱光芒。
“我想我们是在一艘什么飞船上。”他说。
从走廊的尽头传来有什么在单调地砰砰乱蹦的声音。
“崔莉恩，”阿瑟紧张地喊道，“赞福德？”
福特耸了耸肩。
“不在那儿，”他说，“我已经找过了。他们可能在任何地点。一台没有经过编程设定的远距传物装置，可能会把你抛到许多光年以外的任何地方。根据我自己的感觉判断，我认为我们刚才经历了一段相当漫长的旅程。。
“你感觉怎么样，”
“不好，”
“你认为他们”
“他们在哪儿，他们现在怎么样，这些我们全都不知道，而且也没法做任何事来找到他们。还是像我这么办吧。”
“怎么办？”
“别想这个了。”
阿瑟把这样的念头在脑海里过了几遍，不情愿地看出了其中的明智之处，于是把自己的满腹疑问打了个包，扔到一边。他深深地吸丁口气。
“脚步声！”榍特突然说道。
“在哪儿？”