經典科幻文學:《 再見 多謝你們的魚》第36章1
Chapter 36
The flying saucer in which Ford Prefect had stowed away had stunned the world.
Finally there was no doubt, no possibility of mistake, no hallucinations, no mysterious CIA agents found floating in reservoirs.
This time it was real, it was definite. It was quite definitely definite.
It had come down with a wonderful disregard for anything beneath it and crushed a large area of some of the most expensive real estate in the world, including much of Harrods.
The thing was massive, nearly a mile across, some said, dull silver in colour, pitted, scorched and disfigured with the scars of unnumbered vicious space battles fought with savage forces by the light of suns unknown to man.
A hatchway opened, crashed down through the Harrods Food Halls, demolished Harvey Nicholls, and with a final grinding scream of tortured architecture, toppled the Sheraton Park Tower.
After a long, heArt-stopping moment of internal crashes and grumbles of rending machinery, there marched from it, down the ramp, an immense silver robot, a hundred feet tall.
It held up a hand.
I come in peace, it said, adding after a long moment of further grinding, take me to your Lizard.
Ford Prefect, of course, had an explanation for this, as he sat with Arthur and watched the non-stop frenetic news reports on the television, none of which had anything to say other than to record that the thing had done this amount of damage which was valued at that amount of billions of pounds and had killed this totally other number of people, and then say it again, because the robot was doing nothing more than standing there, swaying very slightly, and emitting short incomprehensible error messages.
It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see…
You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?
No, said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards role the people.
Odd, said Arthur, I thought you said it was a democracy.
I did, said Ford. It is.
第36章
福特·長官免費搭乘的那艘飛碟震驚了世界。
最後，毫無疑問地、沒有任何可能會誤會地、絕對不是幻覺地、沒有祕密地，有人發現中情局的特工在水庫裏漂浮。
這次是真的，是明確的。非常明確這是明確的。
飛碟落下來，完全無視於下面的一切，壓壞了一大片世界上最昂貴的房產，其中也包括很多哈羅德（倫敦著名百貨公司）的。
這個東西體型巨大，直徑幾乎有一英里，有人說，呈銀灰色，通體佈滿了無數次戰鬥勝利所留下的凹坑、焦痕和傷疤，這些戰鬥都是在人類未知的恆星的照耀下與野蠻力量進行的。
一道艙門打開，落下來砸穿了哈羅德食品館，毀掉了哈維·尼克斯（與哈羅德一樣是倫敦三大百貨公司之一），最後伴隨着飽受摧殘的建築物一聲刺耳的尖叫，撞倒了喜來登公園寶塔。
在一陣長時間的、令人心悸的機械撕扯的爆裂和轟鳴聲之後，沿着艙門放下的坡道，從裏面出來了一個巨大的銀色機器人，足有一百英尺高。
它舉起了一隻手。
“我爲和平而來，”它說，在有一陣長時間刺耳的聲音之後又補充說，“帶我去見你們的蜥蜴。”
福特·長官，當然了，對此有一個解釋，當時他正和阿瑟一起坐着看電視上看持續報道的瘋狂的新聞，其實這些報道都沒講什麼，只是記錄了那個東西作出了那麼巨大的破壞，損失達到了幾十億英鎊，而且殺了那麼多人，然後重新報道一遍，因爲那個機器人什麼也不做，就是站在那裏，輕輕地來回搖晃，並且發出一些簡短的，令人無法理解的錯誤訊息。
“它來自一個非常古老的民主世界，你知道……”
“你是說，它來自一個蜥蜴的世界？”
“不是，”福特說。在終於被強行灌了一杯咖啡之後，這會兒他已經比之前稍微理性並且協調了一點，“沒那麼簡單的事兒。沒有什麼事兒是那麼直接的。在它的世界裏面，老百姓是人。領導者是蜥蜴。人憎恨蜥蜴而蜥蜴領導人。”
“奇怪。”阿瑟說，“我以爲你說它們民主來着。”
“我是說了，”福特說，“是民主。”
