经典科幻文学:《宇宙尽头的餐馆》第20章3

“You didn’t ask,” he said simply.
“Well, we’re asking you now, metal man,” said Ford, turning round to look at him.
At that moment the ship suddenly stopped rocking and swaying, the engine pitch settled down to a gentle hum.
“Hey, Ford,” said Zaphod, “that sounds good. Have you worked out the controls of this boat?”
“No,” said Ford, “I just stopped fiddling with them. I reckon we just go to wherever this ship is going and get off it fast.”
“Yeah, right,” said Zaphod.
“I could tell you weren’t really interested,” murmured Marvin to himself and slumped into a corner and switched himself off.
“Trouble is,” said Ford, “that the one instrument in this while ship that is giving any reading is worrying me. If it is what I think it is, and if it’s saying what I think it’s saying, then we’ve already gone too far back into the past. Maybe as much as two million years before our own time.”
Zaphod shrugged.
“Time is bunk,” he said.
“I wonder who this ship belongs to anyway,” said Arthur.
“Me,” said Zaphod.
“No. Who it really belongs to.”
“Really me,” insisted Zaphod, “look, property is theft, right? Therefore theft is property. Therefore this ship is mine, OK?”
“Tell the ship that,” said Arthur.
Zaphod strode over to the console.
“Ship,” he said, banging on the panels, “this is your new owner speaking to…”
He got no further. Several things happened at once.
The ship dropped out of time travel mode and re-emerged into real space.
All the controls on the console, which had been shut down for the time trip now lit up.
A large vision screen above the console winked into life revealing a wide starscape and a single very large sun dead ahead of them.
None of these things, however, were responsible for the fact that Zaphod was at the same moment hurled bodily backwards against the rear of the cabin, as were all the others.
They were hurled back by a single thunderous clap of noise that thuddered out of the monitor speakers surrounding the vision screen.

“因为你们没有问，”他简单地回答说。
“郡好吧，我们现在就问你，金属人。”福特说，转过身来望着他。
就在这时，飞船突然停止了震荡和摇晃，引擎的嚎叫降成了温和的嗡嗡声。
“嘿，福特，”赞福德说，“听上去好多了。你搞定了这艘船的控制系统？”
“没有，”福特说，”我只是不再瞎摆弄它们了。我估计，我们已经到了这艘飞船想去的地方，我们应该快点儿下去。”
“对，说得对，”赞福德说。
“我早就知道，你们并不是真正感兴趣。”马文自言自语地咕哝着，跌坐到一个角落里，把自己关闭了。
“问题是，”福特说，“整艘飞船上惟—带有读数的一台仪器让我很担心。如果它真的是我认为它是的东西的话，并且它所表示的也正是我认为它所表示的意思的话，那么我们可就回到过于遥远的过去——差不多是我们自己的时代之前二百万年。”
赞福德耸了耸肩。
“时间睡过头了。”他说。
“不知这艘飞船究竟是谁的。”阿瑟说。
”我的。”赞福德说。
“不。我是说，它真正的主人是谁。”
“真的是我。”赞祸德坚持说，“瞧，财产是一种占有物，对吗？因此，占有物也就是财产。因此，这艘飞船是我的，明白吗？”
“这些话你跟飞船说去吧。”阿瑟说。
赞福德昂首阔步走到控制台前。
“飞船，”他说，一边“砰”的一拳砸在面板上，“这是你的新主人在说话。”
他没有继续下去。因为立即发生了一些事。
飞船跳出时问旅行模式，重新回到真实空间中。
控制台上所有的控制键，此前为了时间旅行而关闭，现在都亮了起来。
控制台上方的一块视像大屏幕闪烁着恢复了生机，展现出一幅广阔的星空图景，一颗孤独而叉异常巨大的太阳挂在他们正前方。
但将赞福德猛地扔向船舱后部的并不是这个原因。其他人也同样被推向船舱后部。
原因是：围绕着这块视像屏幕的监听扬声器里，传出了一声雷鸣般的巨响。