日本科幻文学 经典科幻文学:《宇宙尽头的餐馆》第20章1

经典科幻文学:《宇宙尽头的餐馆》第20章1  

The Restaurant continued existing
but everything else had stopped. Temporal relastatics held it and protected it in a nothingness that wasn’t merely a vacuum
it was simply nothing there was nothing in which a vacuum could be said to exist.
The force-shielded dome had once again been rendered opaque
the party was over
the diners were leaving
Zarquon had vanished along with the rest of the Universe
the Time Turbines were preparing to pull the Restaurant back across the brink of time in readiness for the lunch sitting
and Max Quordlepleen was back in his small curtained dressing room trying to raise his agent on the tempophone.
In the car park stood the black ship
closed and silent.
In to the car park came the late Mr. Hotblack Desiato
propelled along the moving caalk by his bodyguard.
They descended one of the tubes. As they approached the limoship a hatchway swung down from its side
engaged the wheels of the wheelchair and drew it inside. The bodyguard followed
and having seen his boss safely connected up to his death-support system
moved up to the small cockpit. Here he operated the remote control system which activated the autopilot in the black ship lying next to the limo
thus causing great relief to Zaphod Beeblebrox who had been trying to start the thing for over ten minutes.
The black ship glided smoothly forward out of its bay
turned
and moved down the central causeway swiftly and quietly. At the end it accelerated rapidly
flung itself into the temporal launch chamber and began the long journey back into the distant past.
The Milliways Lunch Menu quotes
by permission
a passage from The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The passage is this:
The History of every major Galactic Civilization tends to pass through three distinct and recognizable phases
those of Survival
Inquiry and Sophistication
otherwise known as the How
Why and Where phases.
For instance
the first phase is characterized by the question “How can we eat?”
the second by the question “Why do we eat?” and the third by the question
“Where shall we have lunch?”
The Menu goes on to suggest that Milliways
the Restaurant at the End of the Universe
would be a very agreeable and sophisticated answer to that third question.
“How are we doing?” said Arthur Dent.
“Badly
” said Ford Prefect.
“Where are we going?” said Trillian.
“I don’t know
” said Zaphod Beeblebrox.
“Why not?” demanded Arthur Dent.
“Shut up
” suggested Zaphod Beeblebrox and Ford Prefect.
“Basically
what you’re trying to say
” said Arthur Dent
ignoring this suggestion
“is that we’re out of control.”
The ship was rocking and swaying sickeningly as Ford and Zaphod tried to wrest control from the autopilot. The engines howled and whined like tired children in a supermarket.
“It’s the wild colour scheme that freaks me
” said Zaphod whose love affair with this ship had lasted almost three minutes into the flight
“Every time you try to operate on of these weird black controls that are labelled in black on a black background
a little black light lights up black to let you know you’ve done it. What is this? Some kind of galactic hyperhearse?”
The walls of the swaying cabin were also black
the ceiling was black
the seats which were rudimentary since the only important trip this ship was designed for was supposed to be unmanned were black
the control panel was black
the instruments were black
the little screws that held them in place were black
the thin tufted nylon floor covering was black
and when they had lifted up a corner of it they had discovered that the foam underlay also was black.
“Perhaps whoever designed it had eyes that responded to different wavelengths
” offered Trillian.
“Or didn’t have much imagination
” muttered Arthur.
“Perhaps
” said Marvin
“he was feeling very depressed.”