經典科幻文學:《生命 宇宙及一切》第4章(10)

They’ve garble warble fashes! cried SlArtibartfast, still waving at them.
He says, said Arthur, that they’ve taken the Ashes. That is what I think he says. They ran on.
The?… said Ford.
Ashes, said Arthur tersely. The burnt remains of a cricket stump. It’s a trophy. That… he was panting, is… apparently… what they… have come and taken. He shook his head very slightly as if he was trying to get his brain to settle down lower in his skull.
Strange thing to want to tell us, snapped Ford.
Strange thing to take.
Strange ship.
They had arrived at it. The second strangest thing about the ship was watching the Somebody Else’s Problem field at work. They could now clearly see the ship for what it was simply because they knew it was there. It was quite apparent, however, that nobody else could. This wasn’t because it was actually invisible or anything hyper-impossible like that. The technology involved in making anything invisible is so infinitely complex that nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand million, nine hundred and ninety-nine million, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine times out of a billion it is much simpler and more effective just to take the thing away and do without it. The ultra-famous sciento-magician Effrafax of Wug once bet his life that, given a year, he could render the great megamountain Magramal entirely invisible.
Having spent most of the year jiggling around with immense Lux-O-Valves and Refracto-Nullifiers and Spectrum-Bypass-O-Matics, he realized, with nine hours to go, that he wasn’t going to make it.
So, he and his friends, and his friends’ friends, and his friends’ friends’ friends, and his friends’ friends’ friends’ friends, and some rather less good friends of theirs who happened to own a major stellar trucking company, put in what now is widely recognized as being the hardest night’s work in history, and, sure enough, on the following day, Magramal was no longer visible. Effrafax lost his bet and therefore his life simply because some pedantic adjudicating official noticed (a) that when walking around the area that Magramal ought to be he didn’t trip over or break his nose on anything, and (b) a suspicious-looking extra moon.

“他們拿大那大灰去灰！”司拉提巴特法斯大叫着，一邊還揮着手。
“他說，”阿瑟道，“他們拿了那個灰燼杯。我想他說的就是這個。”兩人繼續跑着。
“那個……？”福特說。
“灰燼杯。”阿瑟簡短地說，“一個板球門柱的燃燒殘留物，是個獎品。那個……”他喘着氣，“很顯然……是他們……專程來拿的。”他輕輕地搖着頭，好象要讓大腦能在顱骨裏呆得安定一點。
“他想說的話真奇怪。”福特很不爽地說。
“拿的東西真奇怪。”
“那飛船真奇怪。”
他們走到飛船跟前。關於這艘飛船的第二件真奇怪的事，就是你在那兒能看見“別人的問題作用場”是如何工作的。他們倆現在能看清這艘飛船，是因爲他們知道它在這兒。很明顯，別人決不能做到。原因不在於它能隱形，或者有類似的什麼神奇得難以置信的功能。如果想製造真正隱形的東西，所涉及的技術將極其複雜。因此，十億次裏面會有九億九千九百九十萬九千九百九十九次，人們覺得放棄製作、寧願不用它會更方便。馳名環宇的科學魔術師——瓦格星的埃夫拉法克斯，曾用他的生命做賭注，賭他只需一年時間，就可以讓雄偉的瑪格拉瑪巨山完全隱形。
他花了將近一年的時間，折騰諸如光能調節閥、折射抵消器和光譜迴避儀等等，最後終於意識到，九個小時之後，自己就再也活不成了。
因此，他和他的朋友，和他朋友的朋友，和他朋友的朋友的朋友，和他朋友的朋友的朋友的朋友，以及這些人再稍微遠一點的朋友——這幫人恰好擁有一家最強的星際貨運公司——做了一件事，如今已被公認爲史上最艱鉅的熬夜趕工。然後，無庸置疑，第二天，瑪格拉瑪巨山不見了。然而埃夫拉法克斯還是輸掉了他打的賭——以及他的生命——只因一些迂腐的裁判官注意到：a，當走在瑪格拉瑪山應該在的地方時，他們不會絆倒，也沒有撞破鼻子什麼的；b，天上多出一個可疑的月亮。