經典科幻文學:《生命 宇宙及一切》第2章7

Ford moved the device in a slow lightly bobbing semi-circle. Suddenly the light flashed.
There! said Ford, shooting out his arm. There, behind that sofa!
Arthur looked. Much to his surprise, there was a velvet paisleycovered Chesterfield sofa in the field in front of them. He boggled intelligently at it. Shrewd questions sprang into his mind.
Why, he said, is there a sofa in that field?
I told you! shouted Ford, leaping to his feet. Eddies in the space-time continuum!
And this is his sofa, is it? asked Arthur, struggling to his feet and, he hoped, though not very optimistically, to his senses.
Arthur! shouted Ford at him, that sofa is there because of the space-time instability I’ve been trying to get your terminally softened brain to get to grips with. It’s been washed out of the continuum, it’s space-time jetsam, it doesn’t matter what it is, we’ve got to catch it, it’s our only way out of here!
He scrambled rapidly down the rocky outcrop and made off across the field.
Catch it? muttered Arthur, then frowned in bemusement as he saw that the Chesterfield was lazily bobbing and wafting away across the grass.
With a whoop of utterly unexpected delight he leapt down the rock and plunged off in hectic pursuit of Ford Prefect and the irrational piece of furniture.
They careered wildly through the grass, leaping, laughing, shouting instructions to each other to head the thing off this way or that way. The sun shone dreamily on the swaying grass, tiny field animals scattered crazily in their wake.
Arthur felt happy. He was terribly pleased that the day was for once working out so much according to plan. Only twenty minutes ago he had decided he would go mad, and now he was already chasing a Chesterfield sofa across the fields of prehistoric Earth.
The sofa bobbed this way and that and seemed simultaneously to be as solid as the trees as it drifted past some of them and hazy as a billowing dream as it floated like a ghost through and Arthur pounded chaotically after it, but it dodged and weaved as if following its own complex mathematical topography, which it was. Still they pursued, still it danced and span, and suddenly turned and dipped as if crossing the lip of a catastrophe graph, and they were practically on top of it. With a heave and a shout they leapt on it, the sun winked out, they fell through a sickening nothingness, and emerged unexpectedly in the middle of the pitch at Lord’s Cricked Ground, St John’s Wood, London, towards the end of the last Test Match of the Australian Series in the year 198-, with England needing only twenty-eight runs to win.

福特把感應器緩緩地轉了半圈。突然，燈光閃爍起來。
“那兒！”福特伸手一指，“那兒！沙發後面！”
阿瑟看了過去，令他吃驚的是，那邊有個絲絨的、佩斯利花紋圖案的長靠背沙發牀。他立刻感到極度的混亂，腦中頓時冒出無數個問號。
“爲什麼……”他說，“野地裏會有沙發？”
“我告訴過你的！”福特跳着腳，“時空連續體裏的漩子！”
“那麼這是他的沙發，對吧？”阿瑟問。他努力地站起來，希望得到肯定的回答——雖然他感到不那麼樂觀。
“阿瑟！”福特對他吼道，“沙發會在這的原因就是我剛纔努力要使你這無敵退化的大腦明白的那種時空不確定性！它被衝出了時空連續體，它是個時空投棄物！它是什麼不重要，總之我們得抓住他，這是我們唯一逃出去的辦法！”
他說着就忙不迭地爬下岩石，衝向那片野地。
“抓住它？”阿瑟喃喃自語。由於看到那架沙發牀而產生的木然表情掛在臉上。他的思緒蹦跳着、漂浮着飛過了草叢。
隨着一聲驚喜的大喊，阿瑟從岩石上手舞足蹈地跳了下來，和福特一起去追趕那個不合情理的傢俱了。
他們在草叢中全速前進，跳着、笑着，不時提醒對方注意前面的障礙物。陽光在搖搖晃晃的草叢中閃耀，有如夢幻一般。田野裏的小動物被驚得四處逃散。
阿瑟很快樂。今天的一切終於都在按照計劃進行，他感覺愉快無比。二十分鐘前，他還決定要瘋掉，現在他卻正在史前地球的野地裏追逐一架長靠背沙發牀。
沙發不斷地跳來跳去，一會兒像樹木一樣真實（當它繞過樹木的時候），一會兒又像夢境一樣虛無（當它幽靈一般穿過樹木的時候）。福特和阿瑟跟在後面亂撲亂抓一氣，可是那沙發似乎能按照自己複雜的地形學規律、在凹凸不平的地面上迂迴閃避。他們追，它就跳走，忽而掉轉方向，彷彿正要通過一條複雜的函數曲線的最高點（而他倆則正處在其最低點）。隨着一記猛力的魚躍和一聲大吼，兩人撲在了沙發上。太陽一閃就不見了。他們跌落在空蕩蕩的地面上，正惱火時，一擡頭，卻驚訝地發現，自己正身處位於倫敦聖瓊斯森林、羅德板球場的球道上②。這裏正在舉行一場比賽，是一九八某年澳大利亞系列錦標賽的最後一場比賽。英格蘭只要再取得28跑就能贏了③。