經典科幻文學:《生命 宇宙及一切》第10章3

Found it, he said. We can lose all this rubbish. Just don’t nod, that’s all.
Now, let us bow our heads in payment, intoned the voice, and then said it again, much faster and backwards.
Lights came and went, the pillars disappeared, the man gabled himself backwards into nothing, the Universe snappily reassembled itself around them.
You get the gist? said SlArtibartfast.
I’m astonished, said Arthur, and bewildered.
I was asleep, said Ford, who floated into view at this point. Did I miss anything?
They found themselves once again teetering rather rapidly on the edge of an agonizingly high cliff. The wind whipped out from their faces and across a bay on which the remains of one of the greatest and most powerful space battle-fleets ever assembled in the Galaxy was briskly burning itself back into existence. The sky was a sullen pink, darkening via a rather curious colour to blue and upwards to black. Smoke billowed down out of it at an incredible lick. Events were now passing back by them almost too quickly to be distinguished, and when, a short while later, a huge star-battleship rushed away from them as if they’d said “boo”, they only just recognized it as the point at which they had come in.
But now things were too rapid, a video-tactile blur which brushed and jiggled them through centuries of galactic history, turning, twisting, flickering. The sound was a mere thin thrill.
Periodically through the thickening jumble of events they sensed appalling catastrophes, deep horrors, cataclysmic shocks, and these were always associated with certain recurring images, the only images which ever stood out clearly from the avalanche of tumbling history: a wicket gate, a small hard red ball, hard white robots, and also something less distinct, something dark and cloudy.
But there was also another sensation which rose clearly out of the thrilling passage of time.
Just as a slow series of clicks when speeded up will lose the definition of each individual click and gradually take on the quality of a sustained and rising tone, so a series of individual impressions here took on the quality of a sustained emotion and yet not an emotion. If it was an emotion, it was a totally emotionless one. It was hatred, implacable hatred. It was cold, not like ice is cold, but like a wall is cold. It was impersonal, not as a randomly flung fist in a crowd is impersonal, but like a computer-issued parking summons is impersonal. And it was deadly again, not like a bullet or a knife is deadly, but like a brick wall across a motorway is deadly.
And just as a rising tone will change in character and take on harmonics as it rises, so again, this emotionless emotion seemed to rise to an unbearable if unheard scream and suddenly seemed to be a scream of guilt and failure.
And suddenly it stopped.

“找到了，”他說，“我們不用看這些垃圾。總之，別點頭。”
“現在，讓我們低下頭來，表示敬意和同意——”那個聲音霎時變得很奇怪，然後又說了一遍，只是更快了，而且是倒着說的。
燈光亮起又滅掉。門柱消失了。那人縮回虛空之中。宇宙也迅速拼回原狀。
“你懂個大概了吧？”司拉提巴特法斯說。
“我覺得很可怕，”阿瑟說，“而且很混亂。”
“我睡着了。”福特這時飄了出來，“我錯過什麼了嗎？”
他們發現，自己正處於一座恐怖的高崖頂端，而且竟在懸崖邊上跌跌撞撞。大風像鞭子一樣抽在他們臉上，一直吹到遠處的港灣，在那裏，停泊着銀河系史上最強、最大型的太空艦隊，而此時卻在一瞬間燃燒殆盡。天空先是灰暗的粉色，漸漸變爲一種更奇怪的深藍，接着是黑色。驚人的濃霧在天上滾滾地翻騰着。歷史事件在他們身邊快速閃回，難以辨清。過了一會兒，一艘巨大的戰鬥飛船從他們頭上倏地掠過，他們不由得“喲”了一聲，只來得及認出這是他們最開始見到的場面。
然而，倒帶有點太快了。帶子上一處突起的污漬，造成他們抖動着跳過了好幾個世紀的銀河史。畫面反轉着、扭曲着、搖晃着跳過，聲音則只是有一點兒抖。
在這濃縮的歷史長河中，他們見到了可怖的災難，深度的恐懼，動亂的衝擊，而這一切景象都在不斷重複，唯一不變的圖景，就是一個三柱門，一顆硬梆梆的紅色小球，一些硬梆梆的白色機器人，以及其他黑乎乎不知何物的東西。
此外還有這樣一種感覺，在顫慄的歷史片段面前愈加明顯：
比如，如果一連串緩慢的咔噠聲，開始加快速度，每一個“咔噠”就很難分辨出來，而將給人一個連續升高的聲音的效果。於是，如果一連串孤立的印象加快速度時，就給人一種連續的情感——但又不是情感。如果它是一種情感，那它就是很沒感情的那種。它是恨，無法平息的恨。它冷，不是冰那種冷，而是牆那種冷。它無情，不是人羣中冷不丁揮出的一拳那種無情，而是電腦打出的停車票那種無情。它還致命——同樣，不是子彈或刀子那種致命，而是橫跨高速公路的一堵磚牆那種致命。
又正如一個連續升高的聲音，會使整個和聲音效都產生變化；這種沒感情的情感連續升高，剛開始像一種難以忍受的無聲的尖叫，而後突然化爲一種罪惡與失敗的有聲尖叫。
而它突然停止了。