经典科幻文学:《宇宙尽头的餐馆》第20章1

The Restaurant continued existing, but everything else had stopped. Temporal relastatics held it and protected it in a nothingness that wasn’t merely a vacuum, it was simply nothing there was nothing in which a vacuum could be said to exist.
The force-shielded dome had once again been rendered opaque, the party was over, the diners were leaving, Zarquon had vanished along with the rest of the Universe, the Time Turbines were preparing to pull the Restaurant back across the brink of time in readiness for the lunch sitting, and Max Quordlepleen was back in his small curtained dressing room trying to raise his agent on the tempophone.
In the car park stood the black ship, closed and silent.
In to the car park came the late Mr. Hotblack Desiato, propelled along the moving catwalk by his bodyguard.
They descended one of the tubes. As they approached the limoship a hatchway swung down from its side, engaged the wheels of the wheelchair and drew it inside. The bodyguard followed, and having seen his boss safely connected up to his death-support system, moved up to the small cockpit. Here he operated the remote control system which activated the autopilot in the black ship lying next to the limo, thus causing great relief to Zaphod Beeblebrox who had been trying to start the thing for over ten minutes.
The black ship glided smoothly forward out of its bay, turned, and moved down the central causeway swiftly and quietly. At the end it accelerated rapidly, flung itself into the temporal launch chamber and began the long journey back into the distant past.
The Milliways Lunch Menu quotes, by permission, a passage from The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The passage is this:
The History of every major Galactic Civilization tends to pass through three distinct and recognizable phases, those of Survival, Inquiry and Sophistication, otherwise known as the How, Why and Where phases.
For instance, the first phase is characterized by the question “How can we eat?”, the second by the question “Why do we eat?” and the third by the question, “Where shall we have lunch?”
The Menu goes on to suggest that Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, would be a very agreeable and sophisticated answer to that third question.
“How are we doing?” said Arthur Dent.
“Badly,” said Ford Prefect.
“Where are we going?” said Trillian.
“I don’t know,” said Zaphod Beeblebrox.
“Why not?” demanded Arthur Dent.
“Shut up,” suggested Zaphod Beeblebrox and Ford Prefect.
“Basically, what you’re trying to say,” said Arthur Dent, ignoring this suggestion, “is that we’re out of control.”
The ship was rocking and swaying sickeningly as Ford and Zaphod tried to wrest control from the autopilot. The engines howled and whined like tired children in a supermarket.
“It’s the wild colour scheme that freaks me,” said Zaphod whose love affair with this ship had lasted almost three minutes into the flight, “Every time you try to operate on of these weird black controls that are labelled in black on a black background, a little black light lights up black to let you know you’ve done it. What is this? Some kind of galactic hyperhearse?”
The walls of the swaying cabin were also black, the ceiling was black, the seats which were rudimentary since the only important trip this ship was designed for was supposed to be unmanned were black, the control panel was black, the instruments were black, the little screws that held them in place were black, the thin tufted nylon floor covering was black, and when they had lifted up a corner of it they had discovered that the foam underlay also was black.
“Perhaps whoever designed it had eyes that responded to different wavelengths,” offered Trillian.
“Or didn’t have much imagination,” muttered Arthur.
“Perhaps,” said Marvin, “he was feeling very depressed.”

这家餐馆依然存在，但其他的一切都已终止。相对时间静力场在一片比真空还彻底的虚无中承载着它，保护着它。之所以说比真空还彻底，因为这里纯粹是虚无——一无所有。真空毕竟还是个真实存在着的东西，这里却连真空都没有，
防护盾穹顶叉一次恢复为不透明。派对结束了，用餐者们都已离开；扎昆和宇宙的剩余部分一起平地消失；时问涡轮机正准备把餐馆从时间的边缘拉回来，以准备午餐；马克斯·科沃尔德勒普兰则回到他那间装有窗帘的小更衣室，用时问电话联系他的经纪人。
停车场里，那艘黑色的飞船停在那儿，门关着，悄无声息。
已故的譬持布莱克·迪西亚托先生进入停车场，被他的保镖推着，沿着高架通道向前移动。
他们从条管道下到地面。接近那艘豪华飞船时，一道舱门从飞船侧面放下来，和轮椅的轮子咬合在一起，把轮椅送到舱内。保镣跟在后面，看着他的老板安全地连上了他的死亡支持系统，这才进入狭窄的驾驶员座舱。在那里，他操作遥控系统，激活停在这艘豪华飞船旁边的那艘黑色飞船上的自动驾驶仪。这一举动让赞福德·毕博布鲁克斯大大地松了一口气，他已经花了超过十分钟的时间，试图开启这玩意儿。
黑色飞船平缓地向前滑出它的泊位，转了个方向，开始沿着中央通道迅速移动，没发出一点动静。最后，它猛地加速，冲进相对时间发射室，开始了回到遥远过去的漫长旅程。
经过特许，“天尽头”的午餐菜谱从《银河系漫游指南》中引用了一段话。这段话是这样的：
银河系每一个主要文明的历史都会经历三个可以清晰辨识的阶段，印生存、质疑和堕落，常被称为如何、为何及何处三阶段。
比如，第一个阶段的特征是这样的问题，“我们如何才能吃到东西”；第二个阶段则是，“我们为何要吃东西”；第三个阶段就变成了，“我们到何处吃午餐”。
这份菜谱接下来建议，“天尽头”，宇宙尽头的这家餐馆，将是针对第三个问题的一种惬意而堕落的回答。
“我们目前的情况怎么样，”阿瑟·邓特问。
“糟糕。”福特长官说。
“我们这是要去哪儿？”崔莉恩问。
“不知道。”赞福德·毕博布鲁克斯说。
“怎么会昵？”阿瑟·邓特问。
“闭嘴。”赞福德·毕博布鲁克斯和福特长官同时说。
“基本上，你们想说的是，”阿瑟·邓特没有理睬他们俩，继续说道，“我们目前已经失去了控制。”
飞船震荡摇晃着，让人感到很不舒服。与此同时，福特和赞福德试图从自动驾驶仪手中夺回飞船的控制权。引擎嚎叫哀鸣，活像超级市场里转悠累了的孩子。
“这种疯疯癫癫的配色方案真让我冒火。”赞福德说。飞行开始一分钟以后，他和这艘飞船之间的爱情故事便宣告结束。“每次你想操作那些黑色背景上贴着黑色标签的古怪黑色开关时，一盏黑色的小灯就会亮起黑色的光，告诉你你已经做过这件事了。这究竟是什么玩意儿？某种银河系超级灵车吗？”
摇晃若的船舱的舱壁同样也是黑色的，天花板是黑色的，座位——这些座位粗糙得很，因为设计这艘飞船只打算让它飞一次，而且是一次尤人驾驶飞行——是黑色的，控制台足黑色的，仪表是黑色的，固定它们的螺丝是黑色的，尼龙地毯是黑色的——翘起来的一角表明，垫在下面的泡沫塑料同样也是黑色的
“也许设计这玩意儿的家伙眼睛有毛病，无法区分各种不同的渡长。”崔莉恩推测道。
“或者没有任何想像力。”阿瑟咕哝道
“也许，”马文说，“他感到非常沮丧。”