經典科幻文學:《生命 宇宙及一切》第6章3

I know what it looks like, said SlArtibartfast, and went into it. As he did so, Arthur had a sudden vague flash of what it might mean, but he refused to believe it. The Universe could not possibly work like that, he thought, cannot possibly. That, he thought to himself, would be as absurd as… he terminated that line of thinking. Most of the really absurd things he could think of had already happened.
And this was one of them.
It was a large glass cage, or box in fact a room.
In it was a table, a long one. Around it were gathered about a dozen chairs, of the bentwood style. On it was a tablecloth a grubby, red and white check tablecloth, scarred with the occasional cigarette burn, each, presumably, at a precise calculated mathematical position.
And on the tablecloth sat some half-eaten Italian meals, hedged about with half-eaten breadsticks and half-drunk glasses of wine, and toyed with listlessly by robots.
It was all completely artificial. The robot customers were attended by a robot waiter, a robot wine waiter and a robot maetre d’. The furniture was artificial, the tablecloth artificial, and each particular piece of food was clearly capable of exhibiting all the mechanical characteristics of, say, a pollo sorpreso, without actually being one.
And all participated in a little dance together a complex routine involving the manipulation of menus, bill pads, wallets, cheque books, credit cards, watches, pencils and paper napkins, which seemed to be hovering constantly on the edge of violence, but never actually getting anywhere.
Slartibartfast hurried in, and then appeared to pass the time of day quite idly with the maetre d’, whilst one of the customer robots, an autorory, slid slowly under the table, mentioning what he intended to do to some guy over some girl.
Slartibartfast took over the seat which had been thus vacated and passed a shrewd eye over the menu. The tempo of the routine round the table seemed somehow imperceptibly to quicken. Arguments broke out, people attempted to prove things on napkins. They waved fiercely at each other, and attempted to examine each other’s pieces of chicken. The waiter’s hand began to move on the bill pad more quickly than a human hand could manage, and then more quickly than a human eye could follow. The pace accelerated. Soon, an extraordinary and insistent politeness overwhelmed the group, and seconds later it seemed that a moment of consensus was suddenly achieved. A new vibration thrilled through the ship.
Slartibartfast emerged from the glass room.
Bistromathics, he said. The most powerful computational force known to parascience. Come to the Room of Informational Illusions.
He swept past and carried them bewildered in his wake.

“我知道它看上去什麼樣。”司拉提巴特法斯說着，走了進去。一剎那間，阿瑟的腦中一個念頭閃過：這意味着什麼？但他拒絕相信這個念頭。宇宙不可能是這樣的，他想，可不能這樣。那樣的話——他告訴自己——荒謬得簡直……他阻止自己再想下去。在他看來，大部分最荒謬的事都已經過去了。
恰恰這次也是其中之一。
這是一個巨大的玻璃籠子，或者說盒子——實際上是個屋子。
裏面有張桌子，很長。桌子四周擺着大約一打椅子，曲木風格的椅子。桌子上面有塊桌布——髒兮兮的紅白格子桌布。桌布上散佈着一些煙疤，每一個的位置都是——很可能——經過某種數學運算所得的結果。
桌布表面，擱着一些沒吃完的意大利菜，菜邊上擺着沒吃完的棍麪包、沒喝完的紅酒，而這一切正被一些無精打采的機器人擺弄着。
一切都是假的。機器客人正在接受機器侍者、機器品酒師和機器領班的服務。傢俱是假的，桌布是假的，每一樣食物都很適合用來做廣告——比如“驚喜意式雞肉飯”什麼的——但卻不是真正的雞肉飯。
它們像是在跳集體舞——有着複雜的流程，包括看菜單、送帳單、掏錢包、翻支票夾、籤信用卡、看手錶、用鉛筆和餐巾紙，看上去無限接近一種暴力行爲，但從未逾越限度。
司拉提巴特法斯匆匆走進去，然後和領班聊了起來，很悠閒的樣子。這時，一位機器客人動作隱蔽地溜到了桌子下面，用眼神向幾個女孩暗示着他要對某些傢伙做些什麼。
於是司拉提巴特法斯坐到那個空位上，朝菜單銳利地瞟了一眼。整個飯桌周圍的流程，彷彿一下子加快了速度。爭吵爆發了，人們似乎想在餐巾紙上證明點什麼問題。他們互相憤怒地揮着手臂，試圖去查看彼此的雞肉。侍者送上帳單的速度，變得比人類力所能及的更快，甚至比人類能看清的更快。速率不斷上升。不久，一種奇特而持續的文雅舉止重又出現在人們身上。幾秒鐘之後，大家似乎突然達成了一致意見，全新的氛圍又充盈在飛船裏了。
司拉提巴特法斯步出玻璃屋。
“意館數學 ，”他說，“超科學領域迄今爲止最強大的計算機動力形式。來，到‘信息幻影屋’裏來吧。”
他大步向前，兩個困惑的傢伙尾隨其後。