經典科幻文學:《 再見 多謝你們的魚》第5章4

Hey look, said the girl, if you get paid, look me up. I’m a working girl, and there are people over there who need me. I gotta go.

She brushed aside Ford’s half-articulated protests, and left him sitting dejectedly on his garbage can preparing to watch a large swathe of his working life being swept away electronically into the ether.

Out in the street things had calmed down a little. The police battle had moved off to other sectors of the city, the few surviving members of the rock band had agreed to recognize their musical differences and pursue solo careers, the street theatre group were re-emerging from the pasta restaurant with the pack animal, telling it they would take it to a bar they knew where it would be treated with a little respect, and a little way further on the steel grey limousine was parked silently by the kerbside.

The girl hurried towards it.

Behind her, in the darkness of the alley, a green flickering glow was bathing Ford Prefect’s face, and his eyes were slowly widening in astonishment.

For where he had expected to find nothing, an erased, closed-off entry, there was instead a continuous stream of data text, diagrams, figures and images, moving descriptions of surf on Australian beaches, Yoghurt on Greek islands, restaurants to avoid in Los Angeles, currency deals to avoid in Istanbul, weather to avoid in London, bars to go everywhere. Pages and pages of it. It was all there, everything he had written. With a deepening frown of blank incomprehension he went backwards and forwards through it, stopping here and there at various entries.

Tips for aliens in New York: Land anywhere, Central Park, anywhere. No one will care, or indeed even notice.

Surviving: get a job as cab driver immediately. A cab driver’s job is to drive people anywhere they want to go in big yellow machines called taxis. Don’t worry if you don’t know how the machine works and you can’t speak the language, don’t understand the geography or indeed the basic physics of the area, and have large green antennae growing out of your head. Believe me, this is the best way of staying inconspicuous.

If your body is really weird try showing it to people in the streets for money.

Amphibious life forms from any of the worlds in the Swulling, Noxios or Nausalia systems will particularly enjoy the East River, which is said to be richer in those lovely life-giving nutrients then the finest and most virulent laboratory slime yet achieved.

“嘿，”女孩說，“如果你收到了報酬，記得找我。我是一名職業女性，這裏全都是需要我的人。我得撤了。”

她無視掉福特的抗議，把沮喪的他晾在垃圾桶上，他準備看到自己的工作成果即將被電子化地掃進以太的虛空中。

街上似乎清靜點了。警察大戰轉移到了另外一個城區，搖滾樂隊的少數倖存者認清了互相在音樂上的分歧因此決定單幹；街頭劇團從意大利餐館裏拖着牲口出來了，聲稱他們將把它帶到一家他們認識的能給它尊重的酒吧裏；不遠處那輛鐵灰色的豪華轎車正靜靜地停在路邊。

女孩向那輛車跑去。

在她身後漆黑的巷子中，閃爍的綠光映在福特.普里弗克特的臉上，他驚訝地瞪大了眼睛。

他本來以爲會是空白的，刪除的，關閉的條目，竟然被一股持續不斷的數據流所代替——文本、圖表、數據還有圖像，關於澳大利亞海灘衝浪的描述，希臘島嶼上的酸奶，在洛杉磯千萬不要進的餐廳，在伊斯坦布爾千萬不要用的貨幣，在倫敦千萬不要碰到的天氣，在任何地方都千萬要去的酒吧。一頁又一頁。全都在那兒，他寫的所有東西全都在那兒。他一片茫然，眉頭緊鎖，反覆瀏覽着那些不同的條目。

“給紐約外星人的提示：可降落在任何地區，可降落在中央公園的任何地區。沒人會管你，即便是他們注意到了你。

“謀生提示：儘快找一份出租車司機的工作。出租車司機的工作就是把人用一種黃色的名爲的士的大機器運到他們想去的任何地方。如果你不知道機器怎麼工作或當地語言怎麼說，別擔心；如果你不瞭解當地地理甚至是當地物理法則，別擔心；如果你的頭上長着巨大的綠色觸角，別擔心。相信我，這是保持低調的最佳方式。

“如果你的身體實在是太奇異了，就試着把它展示在大街上來賺錢。

“從斯烏凌、諾克西斯或那沙利亞星系的任何世界中前來的兩棲生命體一定會特別喜歡東河，那裏據說有相當豐富的可愛的營養物質以及目前爲止最好最毒的實驗室廢液。