| Chapter 24 | 24. |
| Silently the aircar coasted through the cold darkness, a single soft glow of light that was utterly alone in the deep Magrathean night. It sped swiftly. Arthur’s companion seemed sunk in his own thoughts, and when Arthur tried on a couple of occasions to engage him in conversation again he would simply reply by asking if he was comfortable enough, and then left it at that. | Kola su tiho letela kroz studenu tminu, pramičak svetlosti sasvim usamljen u dubini magratejske noći. Jurila su nezaustavljivo. Činilo se da je Slartibartfast utonuo u sopstvene misli, a kada je Artur pokušao da uputi nekoliko opaski, ne bi li ga naveo na razgovor, umesto odgovora dobio je jednostavno pitanje, da li mu je dovoljno udobno, i to je bilo sve. |
| Arthur tried to gauge the speed at which they were traveling, but the blackness outside was absolute and he was denied any reference points. The sense of motion was so soft and slight he could almost believe they were hardly moving at all. | Artur pokuša da oceni brzinu kojom su se kretali, ali spoljašnja tama bila je potpuna i on nije imao nikakvih orijentira. Osećaj kretanja bio je tako slab i neosetan da je gotovo mogao da poveruje da se i ne kreću. |
| Then a tiny glow of light appeared in the far distance and within seconds had grown so much in size that Arthur realized it was traveling toward them at a colossal speed, and he tried to make out what sort of craft it might be. He peered at it, but was unable to discern any clear shape, and suddenly gasped in alarm as the aircar dipped sharply and headed downward in what seemed certain to be a collision course. Their relative velocity seemed unbelievable, and Arthur had hardly time to draw breath before it was all over. The next thing he was aware of was an insane silver blur that seemed to surround him. He twisted his head sharply round and saw a small black point dwindling rapidly in the distance behind them, and it took him several seconds to realize what had happened. | A onda se u daljini ukazao slabašan plamsaj vatre, koji se za nekoliko sekundi toliko povećao da je Artur shvatio da im dolazi u susret nezamislivom brzinom, pa je pokušao da proceni kakva bi to letelica mogla biti. Pažljivo je gledao, ali nije mu polazilo za rukom da razluči ikakav jasan obris, a onda je iznenada vrisnuo od straha kada su vazdušna kola oštro zaronila i pojurila prema njoj putanjom koja je, kako je izgledalo, neminovno vodila u sudar. Njihova uzajamna brzina činila se neverovatna i Artur jedva da je imao vremena da dahne pre nego što je sve bilo gotovo. Sledeće čega je postao svestan bila je nezdrava srebrnasta sumaglica koja kao da ga je odasvud okruživala. Oštro se osvrnuo i video malenu, crnu tačku koja se u daljini iza njega ubrzano smanjivala i bilo mu je potrebno neko vreme da shvati šta se, zapravo, dogodilo. |
| They had plunged into a tunnel in the ground. The colossal speed had been their own, relative to the glow of light which was a stationary hole in the ground, the mouth of the tunnel. The insane blur of silver was the circular wall of the tunnel down which they were shooting, apparently at several hundred miles an hour. | Uleteli su u tunel u zemlji. Utisak džinovske brzine tvorilo je njihovo sopstveno relativno kretanje u odnosu na odsjaj svetlosti koji je bio nepokretni otvor u zemlji, ulaz u tunel. Nezdravo treperenje srebrnaste boje predstavljalo je kružni zid tunela niz koji su ponirali, očevidno brzinom od nekoliko stotina milja na čas. |
| He closed his eyes in terror. | Prestravljeno je zatvorio oči. |
| After a length of time which he made no attempt to judge, he sensed a slight subsidence in their speed and some while later became aware that they were gradually gliding to a gentle halt. | Posle izvesnog vremena, čiju dužinu nije ni pokušao da proceni, osetio je blagu izmenu brzine i nešto kasnije shvatio je da se lagano zaustavljaju. |
| He opened his eyes again. They were still in the silver tunnel, threading and weaving their way through what appeared to be a crisscross warren of converging tunnels. When they finally stopped it was in a small chamber of curved steel. Several tunnels also had their termini here, and at the farther end of the chamber Arthur could see a large circle of dim irritating light. It was irritating because it played tricks with the eyes, it was impossible to focus on it properly or tell how near or far it was. Arthur guessed (quite wrongly) that it might be ultraviolet. | Ponovo je otvorio oči. Još su se nalazili u srebrnom tunelu; klizili su i probijali se kroz nešto što je ličilo na unakrsnu mrežu tunela koji su se sticali u zajedničku tačku. Kada su najzad stali, našli su se u omanjoj prostoriji zakrivljenih, čeličnih zidova. Ovde se završavalo i nekoliko drugih tunela, a na daljem kraju prostorije Artur je video ogromni krug mutne, neprijatne svetlosti. Bila je neprijatna zbog toga što se igrala očima i zato što je bilo nemoguće valjano usmeriti pogled prema njoj ili reći koliko se blizu ili daleko nalazi. Artur zaključi (sasvim pogrešno) da je svetlost možda ultraljubičasta. |
| Slartibartfast turned and regarded Arthur with his solemn old eyes. | Slartibartfast se okrenu i odmeri Artura ozbiljnim, starim očima. |
| “Earthman,” he said, “we are now deep in the heart of Magrathea.” | "Zemljanine", rekao je, "sada se nalazimo duboko u srcu Magratee." |
| “How did you know I was an Earthman?” demanded Arthur. | "Kako ste znali da sam Zemljanin?" želeo je Artur sa sazna. |
| “These things will become clear to you,” said the old man gently, “at least,” he added with slight doubt in his voice, “clearer than they are at the moment.” | "Sve će ti to biti sasvim jasno", rekao je starac blago, "ili barem", dodao je uz blagi prizvuk sumnje u glasu, "jasnije nego sada." |
| He continued: “I should warn you that the chamber we are about to pass into does not literally exist within our planet. It is a little too … large. We are about to pass through a gateway into a vast tract of hyperspace. It may disturb you.” | Nastavio je: "Moram te upozoriti da prostorija u koju ćemo sada ući ne postoji bukvalno unutar naše planete. Malo je suviše... velika. Proći ćemo kroz kapiju u veliku oblast hiperprostora. To će te možda pomalo uznemiriti." |
| Arthur made nervous noises. | Artur je nešto nervozno promrmljao. |
| Slartibartfast touched a button and added, not entirely reassuringly, “It scares the willies out of me. Hold tight.” | Slartibartfast dodirnu jedno dugme i dodade, ne previše umirujuće: "Ovo me uvek propisno štrecne. Drž' se." |
| The car shot forward straight into the circle of light, and suddenly Arthur had a fairly clear idea of what infinity looked like. | Kola jurnuše pravo kroz krug svetlosti i Artur iznenada prilično jasno vide kako izgleda beskonačnost. |
| It wasn’t infinity in fact. Infinity itself looks flat and uninteresting. Looking up into the night sky is looking into infinity— distance is incomprehensible and therefore meaningless. The chamber into which the aircar emerged was anything but infinite, it was just very very very big, so big that it gave the impression of infinity far better than infinity itself. | Nije to zaista bila beskonačnost. Sama beskonačnost deluje ravno i nezanimljivo. Pogled u noćno nebo pogled je u beskonačnost - rastojanje je neshvatljivo i, prema tome, bez ikakvog smisla. Prostorija u kojoj su se našla kola ni u kom slučaju nije bila beskonačna, bila je samo vrlo, vrlo, vrlo velika, toliko velika da je odavala utisak beskonačnosti bolje od same beskonačnosti. |
| Arthur’s senses bobbed and spun as, traveling at the immense speed he knew the aircar attained, they climbed slowly through the open air, leaving the gateway through which they had passed an invisible pinprick in the shimmering wall behind them. | Arturova čula poskočiše i zavrteše se dok su se kola, uz svu brzinu koju je znao da imaju, lagano pela kroz otvoren prostor, ostavivši kapiju kroz koju su prošli kao nevidljivu tačku u svetlucavom zidu iza sebe. |
| The wall. | Zid. |
| The wall defied the imagination—seduced it and defeated it. The wall was so paralyzingly vast and sheer that its top, bottom and sides passed away beyond the reach of sight. The mere shock of vertigo could kill a man. | Zid je pobijao svaku maštu - zavodio ju je i pobijao. Zid je bio tako paralizirajuće širok i visok, da su mu vrh, podnožje i rubovi sa obe strane izlazili izvan vidokruga. Sama vrtoglavica bila je dovoljno jaka da ubije čoveka. |
| The wall appeared perfectly flat. It would take the finest laser-measuring equipment to detect that as it climbed, apparently to infinity, as it dropped dizzily away, as it planed out to either side, it also curved. It met itself again thirteen light seconds away. In other words the wall formed the inside of a hollow sphere, a sphere over three million miles across and flooded with unimaginable light. | Zid je delovao savršeno ravno. Bila bi potrebna najpreciznija laserska merna oprema da utvrdi kako se, dok se peo naizgled u beskonačnost, dok je vrtoglavo padao prema dubinama, dok se prostirao na obe strane, istovremeno i krivi. Zatvarao je pun krug na trinaest svetlosnih sekundi odatle. Drugim rečima, zid je obrazovao unutrašnjost šuplje lopte, prečnika više od tri miliona milja, koji je bio preplavljen nezamislivom svetlošću. |
| “Welcome,” said Slartibartfast as the tiny speck that was the aircar, traveling now at three times the speed of sound, crept imperceptibly forward into the mind-boggling space, “welcome,” he said, “to our factory floor.” | "Dobro došao", reče Slartibartfast, dok je majušna mrlja koja je predstavljala vazdušna kola, sada već triput brža od zvuka neprimetno puzala prema središtu vrtoglavog prostora. "Dobro došao", ponovi on, "u našu fabričku halu." |
| Arthur stared about him in a kind of wonderful horror. Ranged away before them, at distances he could neither judge nor even guess at, were a series of curious suspensions, delicate traceries of metal and light hung about shadowy spherical shapes that hung in the space. | Artur je zverao oko sebe u nekoj vrsti zadivljenog užasa. Poređan pred njim, na rastojanjima koja nije mogao da proceni niti čak da nagađa, nalazio se niz neobičnih sklopova, filigranskih ukrasa od metala i svetlosti koji su visili iznad senovitih, loptastih oblika što su lebdeli u prostoru. |
| “This,” said Slartibartfast, “is where we make most of our planets, you see.” | "Ovde je", reče Slartibartfast, "kao što vidiš, mesto na kome izrađujemo većinu svojih planeta." |
| “You mean,” said Arthur, trying to form the words, “you mean you’re starting it all up again now?” | "Hoćete da kažete", reče Artur, mučeći se da nađe reči, "hoćete da kažete da sve ponovo počinjete?" |
| “No no, good heavens, no,” exclaimed the old man, “no, the Galaxy isn’t nearly rich enough to support us yet. No, we’ve been awakened to perform just one extraordinary commission for very … special clients from another dimension. It may interest you … there in the distance in front of us.” | "Ne, ne, blagi Bože, ne", uskliknuo je starac, "ne, Galaksija nije ni izdaleka dovoljno bogata da bi nas izdržavala. Ne, probuđeni smo samo zato da bismo ispunili naročiti zahtev vrlo... posebnih mušterija iz druge dimenzije. Možda će te zanimati... Eno tamo, u daljini ispred nas." |
| Arthur followed the old man’s finger till he was able to pick out the floating structure he was pointing out. It was indeed the only one of the many structures that betrayed any sign of activity about it, though this was more a subliminal impression than anything one could put one’s finger on. | Artur je sledio pravac starčevog prsta, sve dok nije uočio lebdeće ustrojstvo koje mu je ovaj pokazivao. Bio je to zaista jedini od mnogobrojnih sklopova koji je odavao utisak nekakve delatnosti oko sebe, iako je to više bio podsvesni utisak posmatrača nego nešto određeno. |
| At that moment, however, a flash of light arced through the structure and revealed in stark relief the patterns that were formed on the dark sphere within. Patterns that Arthur knew, rough blobby shapes that were as familiar to him as the shapes of words, part of the furniture of his mind. For a few seconds he sat in stunned silence as the images rushed around his mind and tried to find somewhere to settle down and make sense. | Ali u tom istom trenutku blesak svetlosti obasja sklop i reljefnom oštrinom pokaza oblike znane Arturu, grube, zaobljene oblike koji su mu bili poznati poput oblika reči sopstvenog jezika, što su stalno nastanjivali njegov um. Nekoliko sekundi sedeo je u zabezeknutoj tišini, dok su mu slike jurile umom u potrazi za mestom na kome bi se mogle primiriti i uspostaviti nekakav smisao. |
| Part of his brain told him that he knew perfectly well what he was looking at and what the shapes represented while another quite sensibly refused to countenance the idea and abdicated responsibility for any further thinking in that direction. | Deo njegovog mozga rekao mu je da savršeno dobro zna u šta gleda i šta oblici predstavljaju, a drugi je, sasvim razumno, odbio da podrži tu misao i odrekao se odgovornosti vezane za ikakvo dalje razmišljanje u tom smeru. |
