一本科幻书 经典科幻文学:《银河系漫游指南》第23章

经典科幻文学:《银河系漫游指南》第23章  

He looked at the old man
his face illuminated by the dull glow of tiny lights on the instrument panel.
"Excuse me
" he said to him
"what is your name by the way?"
"My name?" said the old man
and the same distant sadness came into his face again. He paused. "My name
" he said
"... is Slartibartfast."
Arthur practically choked.
"I beg your pardon?" he spluttered.
"Slartibartfast
" repeated the old man quietly.
"Slartibartfast?"
The old man looked at him gravely.
"I said it wasn't important
" he said.
The aircar sailed through the night.
It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what they seem. For instance
on the pla Earth
man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much — the wheel
New York
wars and so on — whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely
the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man — for precisely the same reasons.
Curiously enough
the dolphins had long known of the impending destruction of the pla Earth and had made many attempts to alert mankind of the danger; but most of their munications were misinterpreted as amusing attempts to punch footballs or whistle for tidbits
so they eventually gave up and left the Earth by their own means shortly before the Vogons arrived.
The last ever dolphin message was misinterpreted as a surprisingly sophisticated attempt to do a double-backwards-somersault through a hoop whilst whistling the "Star Sprangled Banner"
but in fact the message was this: So long and thanks for all the fish.
In fact there was only one species on the pla more intelligent than dolphins
and they spent a lot of their time in behavioural research laboratories running round inside wheels and conducting frighteningly elegant and subtle experiments on man. The fact that once again man pletely misinterpreted this relationship was entirely according to these creatures' plans.