Chapter 12 Chapter Twelve

"Hush..." said Slartibartfast, "Listen and watch." The night shrouded the ancient version of seeking stars.There is nothing in the dark sky.The only light came from the nearby town.Bursts of laughter and laughter came from afar with the breeze.They stood under a tree, and the intoxicating fragrance lingered around them.Arthur squatted down and touched the information phantom of the soil and grass.He let them slide between his fingers.The soil is fertile and the grass is lush.It cannot be denied that this place is pretty good in every way. However, the sky is extremely empty.In Arthur's opinion, this idyllic place - now of course there was nothing to see - added a sudden gloomyness.However, he guessed it was a matter of habit.

He felt someone tap his shoulder and looked up.Slartibartfast just motioned him quietly to look over the hill.He looked over, and saw some shimmering lights slowly moving towards them. As the lights approached, the voice gradually became clearer.The sound and the light are getting closer and closer, and now it can be recognized that it is a group of people, walking back to the small town. The group of people came over, getting closer and closer to the voyeurs.They shook the lanterns, and those soft spots of light jumped back and forth between the trees and grass.They talked and laughed happily and sang songs about how beautiful everything is, how happy they are, how much they love farm work, how happy they are to see their wives and children when they go home; there is also a melodious harmony, to the effect that the flowers are so fragrant in this season Too bad their lovely dog ​​is dead and can't see it all.Arthur could almost imagine Paul McCartney sitting cross-legged by the fire at night, humming these songs to Linda, thinking about what to buy with the money.The money they make from these songs would probably buy Essex.

【①Paul McCartney: One of the members and the soul of the godfather band in the modern Western music scene - The Beatles (also translated as The Beatles).British. ——Translator's Note] [② Linda: Paul McCartney's wife. ——Translator's Note] 【③ Essex: The name of a county in England.The names of some British counties appear many times below, all of which are jokes about Paul and these songs. ——Translator's Note] "My lord," Slartibartfast murmured in a mournful, funeral voice. Such a sentence, which came out of nowhere after the thought about Essex, made Arthur confused for a moment.He forced his slack mind to return to a logical state, but he still didn't understand what the old man said.

"What?" he asked. "My master." Slarti Bartfast said again.If his voice just now was like a funeral, this time he sounded like a ghost suffering from bronchitis. Arthur looked at the group of people fixedly, trying to figure out what the words just said meant.Those people were obviously aliens, they were extraordinarily tall, skinny, and almost as white as snow.More importantly, they are too happy.You don't really want to travel long distances with them - that sounds weird.If they are not kind, it is not because they are not good enough, but because they are too good.But why did Slartibartfast speak in such a hideous tone?This tone is probably more suitable for horror movie trailers, stories about chainsaw massacres and so on.

It seems that this request will also be very scary.He didn't understand what the "cricket" he knew had anything to do with it... Slartibartfast interrupted his thousands of thoughts, as if reading his mind. "Cricket as you know it," he said, still in a tunnel-like voice, "is actually a special mutation of the collective memory of a nation, designed to preserve the true meaning of an event so that it does not disappear in the long river of history. Among all the races in the galaxy, only the English have transferred the memory of this fierce cosmic battle into... I'm afraid... a boring game that is unimaginably boring.

"I like it personally," he added, "but in most people's eyes, you guys have really grotesque taste and unreasonable taste. Especially for that little red ball to hit the wicket, it's a real shame." It's scary." "Oh." Arthur frowned in response, indicating that his cognitive synapses had done their best, "Oh." "And they," Slartibartfast returned to his guttural voice, glancing twice at the passing seekers, "caused it all to begin. Just tonight. Come on. Come on. Let's follow and see what's going on." They slipped out from under the trees and followed the merry company up the dark mountain path.Instinctively, they tried their best to keep their footsteps light and followed their "prey" furtively.In fact, they are just walking in the illusion of information.Even with the tenor tuba and the blue paint, the "prey" couldn't see them.

Arthur noticed that several people in the crowd began to sing another song.The song floated to their ears with the evening wind, it was a sweet and romantic ballad.Had McCartney put the song out on record, he might have bought Kent, Sussex and Hampshire. "You must know," said Slarty Bartfast to Ford, "what's next?" "Me?" said Ford. "I don't know." "Didn't you learn the history of the ancient galaxy when you were young?" "I sat next to Zaphod," Ford said, "and couldn't concentrate at all. But that doesn't mean I didn't learn amazing things."

At this moment, Arthur noticed that there was something special about the song of that group.The lyrics in the eighth middle stanza are very strange-if it were McCartney, it would sing about him lingering in Winchester City, looking affectionately at the lovely vistas of the Tester Valley and the New Forest.When the author mentioned meeting a girl, he didn't say "in the moonlight" or "under the stars" but "on the grass", which Arthur felt was too unpoetic.As soon as he looked up and saw the strange black night sky, he had a strong feeling that there was the point of the problem, but he didn't know what it was.He just felt that he was alone in the universe.He expressed this feeling.

"No." Slarti Bartfast quickened his pace a little. "The Bosses never thought 'we're alone in the universe.' They were surrounded by a giant cloud of dust, and, you see, only their own world, Their own sun. They are at the easternmost edge of the Milky Way. Because of the dust clouds, there is nothing in their sky. After nightfall, the sky is completely empty; Look. They don't pay attention to the sky at all. It's like a 180-degree blind spot from one end of the horizon to the other. "You see, the reason they never thought 'we're alone in the universe' is because, until tonight, they never understood the universe. Until tonight."

He walked forward, and his words floated backward. "Think about it," he said, "never thinking 'we are alone,' just because you never thought of the other possibilities." He kept walking. "I'm afraid it will be a little scary later." He added.Before the words fell, there was only a faint scream piercing the empty sky.They looked up quickly, but after a while, nothing was seen. Arthur saw that the people having fun over there heard the noise, but no one seemed to know what to do.They looked around vigilantly, left, right, forward, backward, even the ground, but no one looked up.

Soon, a mass of burning spaceship wreckage roared down from the sky, hitting a place half a mile away from the group of people.The group of people suddenly fell into great shock and fear.It was a moment worth experiencing. When people mention the Heart of Gold, or the Mathematics Spaceship, even the tone of voice is full of sacred feelings. Or when it comes to the legendary super-giant spaceship-Titanic, people will do the same.It was a noble and luxurious cruise ship, built by the artificial galaxy asteroid shipbuilding group hundreds of years ago, it has a very long history. The ship was intoxicatingly beautiful, staggeringly large, and more fully equipped than any known ship in history (see the "Real Time Movement" entry for "historically known").Unfortunately, it was made long before non-probabilistic physics was established. Its designers and engineers decided -- out of good intentions -- to build something like an improbability field on board the ship.This means: theoretically speaking, this guarantees that the possibility of any error on the spacecraft is infinitely impossible. However, there is one thing they fail to realize.The properties of all non-probability arithmetic are approximately reversible and circular.So those infinitely impossible things are just very likely to happen, and they can happen at any time. When the Titanic spaceship is moored by the sea, it is an extremely beautiful scenery.It is like a silver Arcturus giant sky whale, surrounded by neon light towers like lattice windows, setting off the deep and dark interstellar space, like a cloud woven with gold and silver threads.But it didn't even manage to send its first radio signal—an SOS signal—before it met a catastrophic catastrophe for no reason. Having said that, although this incident makes people see that the terrible failure of the founding stage of a science has also created the great achievements of another scientific research. This event proved for the first time that the number of people who watched the report of the launch ceremony of the spacecraft was greater than the number of people who actually existed in the world at the time.This discovery has been called the greatest achievement of audience research. There was another sensational event at the time: Isrodin, which exploded as a supernova just hours after the Titanic was launched.The area around Isrodin is where the greatest underwriters in the galaxy live (or rather, once lived). In addition, there are many famous spaceships.Such as the Galactic Fleet battleships - GSS Death Squad, GSS Leopards, GSS Suicide Madness... When people mention these names, they are full of awe/proud/passion/love/worship/regret/jealousy Of/resentment—that is, of all affection.However, the most earth-shattering spacecraft is "Banqiu No. 1".It was the first spaceship built by Starseeker, and it wasn't amazing because it was great.It's not great at all. It is about equal to a piece of scrap iron.It looked like it was put together in someone's backyard—and it was.The most amazing thing is not how good it is (it's not good at all), but how it was made.It took only one year for the astronomers to discover space and build the first spaceship. Ford felt a great sense of gratitude at this time.Because he knows that he is only in the phantom of information, so he is very safe.In reality, even if he drank all the rice wine in China, he would not want to step on this spaceship. "Isn't it too unreliable?" was the first sentence that popped out of his mind. "Can I go out?" is the second sentence. "Can it fly?" said Arthur.He looked suspiciously at the pile in front of him.The pipes and wires tied together "decorate" the cramped space inside the spacecraft. Slartibartfast assured him that he was safe and that it would be a rewarding experience, not intimidating at all. Ford and Arthur decided to take it easy and prepare to be intimidated. "Isn't that crazy?" said Ford. Those in front of them—unaware of their existence, of course, because they weren't there—were the three pilots.The three were also involved in the manufacture of the spaceship.That night, some of them also sang songs with healthy thoughts and positive content on the mountain trail.After the crash of the alien spacecraft, their thinking changed.They spent weeks tearing apart the wreckage, studying every detail, singing the song of dismantling the ship.Then, they built their own spaceship, which is the current one.This is their own spaceship.They are singing about it, expressing the twin joys of success and autonomy.The backing vocals are a bit sad, about the time they spent in the repair shop, without their wives and children, and the sadness in their hearts.The wife and children missed them deeply, but when they finally met, they just wanted to be happy and told them many stories about the puppies' growth process. boom!took off. The spaceship roared towards the sky, as if it knew its direction very well. "Impossible." Ford said as soon as he recovered from the dizziness caused by the acceleration.The spaceship is heading out of the atmosphere. "Impossible," he said again, "No matter how firm their beliefs, they designed and manufactured such a spaceship within a year, I don't believe it. Even if I prove it to me, I won't believe it." He shook his head thoughtfully. Head down, looking into the distance. After flying for a long time, everything was calm.Slartibartfast pressed fast forward.Soon, they reached the boundary of the dust cloud.It is this empty, spherical cloud of dust that envelops their stars and planets and occupies all their orbits. The texture and density of space seem to be gradually changing.The surrounding darkness seemed to pass by in waves.It was cold darkness, empty but heavy darkness.That is the darkness of the night sky. This cold, heavy and empty feeling slowly invaded Arthur's heart.He deeply felt the mood of the pilot.At this moment, they are floating in the air, like a static charge.They go to the frontiers of the entire stock of knowledge that the entire race has ever had.Outside the border, no one has ever explored, and no one has even felt that it can be explored. Dark clouds of dust kept coming.Inside the spaceship is a moment of silent history.Their historical responsibility is to find out what is on the other side of the sky and where the crashed spaceship came from.Perhaps, it is another world——even this idea, in the closed minds of people under the night sky, is weird and incomprehensible. History is using all its strength to deal them another blow. Darkness still flows around.Beyond the darkness is emptiness.Everything seemed to be getting closer, thicker, and heavier.Suddenly, it was gone. They flew out of the dust cloud. They saw the countless, dizzying jewels of the stars in the night sky.Their hearts are screaming. They flew for a while longer, facing indifferently the vastness of the Milky Way, and the Milky Way was indifferently facing the immensity of the universe.Then they turned around. "It has to go," said a beggar as it turned around. On the way back, they sang many beautiful and thought-provoking songs.Topics include: love, justice, morality, culture, sports, family life, and the extinction of all other life forms.