没有宇宙之前是什么 经典科幻文学:《生命 宇宙及一切》第11章6

经典科幻文学:《生命 宇宙及一切》第11章6  

OK
said Zaphod
tensing himself
open now.
The door slid open quietly. Zaphod slipped quietly through. The door closed quietly behind him.
Is that the way you like it
Mr. Beeblebrox? said the door out loud.
I want you to imagine
said Zaphod to the group of white robots who swung round to stare at him at that point
that I have an extremely powerful Kill-O-Zap blaster pistol in my hand.
There was an immensely cold and savage silence. The robots regarded him with hideously dead eyes. They stood very still. There was something intensely macabre about their appearance
especially to Zaphod who had never seen one before or even known anything about them. The Krikkit Wars belonged to the ancient past of the Galaxy
and Zaphod had spent most of his early history lessons plotting how he was going to have sex with the girl in the cybercubicle next to him
and since his teaching puter had been an integral part of this plot it had eventually had all its history circuits wiped and replaced with an entirely different set of ideas which had then resulted in it being scrapped and sent to a home for Degenerate Cybermats
whither it was followed by the girl who had inadvertently fallen deeply in love with the unfortunate machine
with the result (a) that Zaphod never got near her and (b) that he missed out on a period of ancient history that would have been of inestimable value to him at this moment.
He stared at them in shock.
It was impossible to explain why
but their smooth and sleek white bodies seemed to be the utter embodiment of clean
clinical evil. From their hideously dead eyes to their powerful lifeless feet
they were clearly the calculated product of a mind that wanted simply to kill. Zaphod gulped in cold fear.
They had been dismantling part of the rear bridge wall
and had forced a passage through some of the vital innards of the ship. Through the tangled wreckage Zaphod could see
with a further and worse sense of shock
that they were tunnelling towards the very heart of the ship
the heart of the Improbability Drive that had been so mysteriously created out of thin air
the Heart of Gold itself.
The robot closest to him was regarding him in such a way as to suggest that it was measuring every smallest particle of his body
mind and capability. And when it spoke
what it said seemed to bear this impression out. Before going on to what it actually said
it is worth recording at this point that Zaphod was the first living anic being to hear one of these creatures speak for something over ten billion years. If he had paid more attention to his ancient history lessons and less to his anic being
he might have been more impressed by this honour.
The robot’s voice was like its body
cold
sleek and lifeless. It had almost a cultured rasp to it. It sounded as ancient as it was.
It said:
You do have a Kill-O-Zap blaster pistol in your hand.
Zaphod didn’t know what it meant for a moment
but then he glanced down at his own hand and was relieved to see that what he had found clipped to a wall bracket was indeed what he had thought it was.
Yeah
he said in a kind of relieved sneer
which is quite tricky
well
I wouldn’t want to overtax your imagination
robot. For a while nobody said anything
and Zaphod realized that the robots were obviously not here to make conversation
and that it was up to him.
I can’t help noticing that you have parked your ship
he said with a nod of one of his heads in the appropriate direction
through mine.
There was no denying this. Without regard for any kind of proper dimensional behaviour they had simply materialized their ship precisely where they wanted it to be
which meant that it was simply locked through the Heart of Gold as if they were nothing more than o bs.
Again
they made no response to this
and Zaphod wondered if the conversation would gather any momentum if he phrased his part of it in the form of questions.
…haven’t you? he added.
Yes
replied the robot.
Er
OK
said Zaphod. So what are you cats doing here?
Silence.