银河系漫游指南国语 经典科幻文学:《银河系漫游指南》第30章1

经典科幻文学:《银河系漫游指南》第30章1  

Chapter 30
"So there you have it
" said Slartibartfast
making a feeble and perfunctory attempt to clear away some of the appalling mess of his study. He picked up a paper from the top of a pile
but then couldn't think of anywhere else to put it
so he but it back on top of the original pile which promptly fell over. "Deep Thought designed the Earth
we built it and you lived on it."
"And the Vogons came and destroyed it five minutes before the program was pleted
" added Arthur
not unbitterly.
"Yes
" said the old man
pausing to gaze hopelessly round the room. "Ten million years of planning and work gone just like that. Ten million years
Earthman ... can you conceive of that kind of time span? A galactic civilization could grow from a single worm five times over in that time. Gone." He paused. "Well that's bureaucracy for you
" he added.
"You know
" said Arthur thoughtfully
"all this explains a lot of things. All through my life I've had this strange unaccountable feeling that something was going on in the world
something big
even sinister
and no one would tell me what it was." "No
" said the old man
"that's just perfectly normal paranoia. Everyone in the Universe has that." "Everyone?" said Arthur. "Well
if everyone has that perhaps it means something! Perhaps somewhere outside the Universe we know ..." "Maybe. Who cares?" said Slartibartfast before Arthur got too excited. "Perhaps I'm old and tired
" he continued
"but I always think that the chances of finding out what really is going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is to say hang the sense of it and just keep yourself occupied. Look at me: I design coastlines. I got an award for Norway." He rummaged around in a pile of debris and pulled out a large perspex block with his name on it and a model of Norway moulded into it.
"Where's the sense in that?" he said. "None that I've been able to make out. I've been doing fjords in all my life. For a fleeting moment they bee fashionable and I get a major award." He turned it over in his hands with a shrug and tossed it aside carelessly
but not so carelessly that it didn't land on something soft.