經典科幻文學:《 再見 多謝你們的魚》第10章2

Beep… beep… beep.
He then went and had a last thorough examination of the emergency suspended animation chamber, which was where he particularly wanted it to be heard.
At the third stroke it will be one… thirty… four… precisely.
He shivered as he peered down through the heavily frosted covering at the dim bulk of the form within. One day, who knew when, it would wake, and when it did, it would know what time it was. Not exactly local time, true, but what the heck.
He double-checked the computer display above the freezer bed, dimmed the lights and checked it again.
At the third stroke it will be… He tiptoed out and returned to the control cabin. …one… thirty-four and twenty seconds.
The voice sounded as clear as if he was hearing it over a phone in London, which he wasn’t, not by a long way.
He gazed out into the inky night. The star the size of a brilliant biscuit crumb he could see in the distance was Zondostina, or as it was known on the world from which the rather stilted, sing-song voice was being received, Pleiades Zeta.
The bright orange curve that filled over half the visible area was the giant gas planet Sesefras Magna, where the Xaxisian battleships docked, and just rising over its horizon was a small cool blue moon, Epun.
At the third stroke it will be…
For twenty minutes he sat and watched as the gap between the ship and Epun closed, as the ship’s computer teased and kneaded the numbers that would bring it into a loop around the little moon, close the loop and keep it there, orbiting in perpetual obscurity.
One… fifty-nine…
His original plan had been to close down all external signalling and radiation from the ship, to render it as nearly invisible as possible unless you were actually looking at it, but then he’d had an idea he preferred. It would now emit one single continuous beam, pencil-thin, broadcasting the incoming time signal to the planet of the signal’s origin, which it would not reach for four hundred years, travelling at light speed, but where it would probably cause something of a stir when it did.
Beep… beep… beep.
He sniggered.
He didn’t like to think of himself as the sort of person who giggled or sniggered, but he had to admit that he had been giggling and sniggering almost continuously for well over half an hour now.
At the third stroke…
The ship was now locked almost perfectly into its perpetual orbit round a little known and never visited moon. Almost perfect.
One thing only remained. He ran again the computer simulation of the launching of the ship’s little Escape-O-Buggy, balancing actions, reactions, tangential forces, all the mathematical poetry of motion, and saw that it was good.
Before he left, he turned out the lights.
As his tiny little cigar tube of an escape craft zipped out on the beginning of its three-day journey to the orbiting space station Port Sesefron, it rode for a few seconds a long pencil-thin beam of radiation that was starting out on a longer journey still.
At the third stroke, it will be two… thirteen… and fifty seconds.
He giggled and sniggered. He would have laughed out loud but he didn’t have the room.
Beep… beep… beep.

“嗶……嗶……嗶。”
他接着開始對緊急休眠艙進行最後一次徹底檢查，他特別希望在那裏聽到那個聲音。
“報時第三響時間將是一點……三十……四分……正好。”
當他透過結霜的蓋子凝視休眠艙的內部時，他在顫抖。有一天（鬼才知道哪一天），它將醒來，當它醒來之時，它將知道那是什麼時間。不是精確的地方時，當然，但是管他呢。
他反覆檢查了冷凍牀上面的電腦顯示，把光線調暗後又檢查了一遍。
“報時第三響時間將是……”他踮着腳尖返回了操縱室。“……一點……三十四分……二十秒。”
這個聲音聽起來就跟在倫敦聽電話一樣清晰，他離着倫敦還有段距離。
他向外凝視着漆黑的夜空。他可以看見的遠方那顆閃耀的餅乾屑一樣的贊多斯提那星，或者在那個生硬的、帶點旋律的聲音所在的世界裏，那顆星叫昂宿六。
那個遮蔽了半個視野的明亮的橘色曲線是巨大的氣體行星西西弗拉斯馬格納，就是愛克西斯戰艦停泊的地方，而此時在它的地平線上升起的是小小的藍月亮埃朋。
“報時第三響時間將是……”
足足有二十分鐘，他就坐在那兒，看着飛船和埃朋之間的空隙逐漸變小，同時飛船的電腦糾纏扭捏着那些數字，那些數字帶飛船環形接近小月亮，讓它待在軌道上，在永久背陰面環繞。
“一點……五十九分……”
他的原始計劃是關閉飛船所有的外部信號和輻射，讓飛船儘量保持隱蔽直到你能真正地看到它，但是隨後他就有了一個更合意的點子。飛船現在要持續發射一個單一電波，如鉛筆一般細，把某個星球傳出的報時信號再傳回去，而這個以光速飛奔的信號沒四百年是回不去的，不過等真的傳回去的時候可能就會造成一些混亂了。
“嗶……嗶……嗶”
他在偷笑。
他不喜歡把自己想成是個會傻笑和偷笑的人，但他不得不承認自己已經幾乎持續不斷地傻笑和偷笑了半個多小時。
“報時第三響……”
飛船現在近乎完美地鎖定在了軌道上，環繞着那顆不起眼的月亮。近乎完美。
只差一件事。他再一次用電腦模擬了飛船逃生艙的發射過程，平衡動作，反作用力，切向力度，所有有關運動的數學詩篇，最後看到一切正常。
離開之前，他把燈關了。
當他的小雪茄盒似的逃生艙從船裏彈出來，開始爲期三天的通向西西弗隆港軌道空間站的旅途時，有幾秒時間，他經過了那束鉛筆一般細的電波，而那束電波仍在一段漫長旅途的起步階段。
“報時第三響，時間將是二點……十三分……五十秒。”
他傻笑着，偷笑着。他本來可以放聲大笑但是地兒太小了。
“嗶……嗶……嗶。”