The first meeting of the Intelligence Decipherment Committee (IDC) was also conducted in a sophon-free room. Although most people now favored the view that the sophons were gone, and the Solar System and the Earth were now “clean,” they still took this precaution. Their main concern was that if the sophons were still present, they might endanger Yun Tianming.
情报解读委员会（IDC）的第一次会议也是在智子屏蔽室中召开的。虽然多数人顷向于认为智子已经消失，太阳系和地球都是“干净”的了，但还是采取了这个保密措施，主要是考虑到，万一智子仍然存在。可能威胁到云天明的安全。
The conversation between Tianming and Cheng Xin was publicized, but the real intelligence given by Tianming, the content of the three fairy tales, was kept in absolute secrecy. For a transparent, modern society, keeping such important information secret was a difficult task for both the UN and Fleet International. But the nations of the world soon reached consensus on this point: If the fairy tales were revealed, the world would be swept up by the enthusiasm of trying to decipher them, thereby exposing Tianming. The safety of Tianming wasn’t just important for him individually, he, to date, the only person embedded in an alien society. His position was irreplaceable for humanity’s future survival.
日前对公众发布的，只是云天明，与程心的对话，而云天明传递的情报主体——那三个童话故事，仍处于绝对保密状态。在透明的现代社会，从舰队国际和联合国层而上对如此重大的信息向全世界保密，是一件很难做到的事，但各国还是很快就此达成了一致。如果情报主体被公布，可能出现全世界的解读热潮，这可能危及到云天明的安全。云天明的安全如此重要。并不仅仅是为他个人考虑，目前，他仍然是唯一个身处外星社会并深人星际的人，未来，他的重要性不可取代。
The secret decipherment of Tianming’s message was another sign of the UN’s authority and operational capabilities; it was another step on the way to a world government.
同时。对于云天明情报的保密解读，标志着联合国的权力和行动能力的进一步增强，使其向真正的世界政府又迈进了一步。
This sophon-free room was larger than the one Cheng Xin had used on the terminal station, though it wasn’t by any means spacious for a conference room. The force field necessary to keep sophons out could enclose only a limited volume.
这间屏蔽室比程心在太空中用过的那间要宽敞些，但作为会议室仍很狭窄。目前建立的屏蔽力场只能在有限的空间体积内保持均匀，体积增大力场会产生畸变，失去屏蔽作用。
About thirty people were in attendance. Other than Cheng Xin, two other Common Era individuals were also present: the particle-accelerator engineer Bi Yunfeng and the physicist Cao Bin — both former candidates for the Swordholder position.
与会的有三十多人，除了程心，还有两个公元人，他们是曾经的执剑人候选人中的两位：加速器工程师毕云峰和物理学家曹彬。
Everyone wore high-voltage protective suits because the metallic walls of the sophon-free room were electrified. In particular, everyone was required to wear protective gloves, lest someone tap a wall out of habit, in an attempt to summon an information window. No electronics could function within the force field, thus the room had no information windows at all. To help the force field stay evenly distributed, equipment within the room was reduced to a minimum. Only chairs were provided, and there was no table. Since the protective suits were requisitioned from electrical engineers, the meeting within the metallic room resembled an ancient pre-shift gathering on a factory floor.
所有人都穿着连体的高压防护服，因为屏蔽室的金属墙壁都带电，需要防止内部人员意外触碰。特别是要求人们戴防护手套，以防有人习惯性地点击墙壁试图激活信息窗口。在屏蔽力场中，任何电子设备都不能运行，所以室内没有任何信息窗口。为保持力场的均匀，这里的陈设尽可能减少，主要就是人们的座椅，连会议桌都没有。与会者们穿的防护服原是电业工人高压作业时穿的，在简陋的金属房间中，这一群人像是古代的工厂车间在开班前会。
No one complained about the crowded, rough conditions, or the acrid smell in the air and the tingling on the skin brought about by the electrified air. After living for nearly three centuries under the constant surveillance of the sophons, being free of the alien voyeurs brought a sudden, fresh sense of relief. The ability to shield space from sophons had been developed soon after the Great Resettlement. It was rumored that those who had entered the very first sophon-free room came down with something called “screen syndrome”: They talked incessantly as if they were drunk, and bared all their secrets to their companions. A reporter described the condition this way: “In this narrow slice of heaven, the people opened their hearts. Our gazes were no longer veiled.”
对于简陋和拥挤，以及空气中的静电带来的刺鼻味道和皮肤的不适，与会者没有人抱怨。近三个世纪一直在智子的监视下生活，现在突然脱离了异世界的偷窥，屏蔽室中的人们都有一种前所未有的解脱感。智子屏蔽技术是在大移民结束后不久实现的，据说第一批进入屏蔽室的人都患上了一种“屏蔽综合征”，他们像喝醉酒一样特别多话，无所顾忌地向身边的人倾诉自己的隐私。有一名记者用诗意的语言形容道：“在这个狭窄的天堂，人们敞开了心扉，我们对视的目光不再含蓄。”
The IDC was a combined effort by Fleet International and the UN PDC to decipher Yun Tianming’s message. It oversaw the work of twenty-five working groups focusing on different subjects and areas of expertise. The attendees at this meeting were not experts or scientists, but the IDC committee members, who were also the leaders of the working groups.
IDC是舰队国际和联合国行星防御理事会共同组建的机构，其使命是解读云天明传递的情报。它按照不同的学科和专业分为二十五个小组，这次与会的并不是专业科学家，二十个小组负责人呢，也就是IDC的霸委员。
In a soft voice, Cheng Xin requested a chance to speak. She stood up and surveyed all those present. “All this is the result of the Staircase Project. This endeavor cannot be separated from a particular man. Three centuries ago, his steadfastness, decisive leadership, and peerless creativity allowed the Staircase Project to overcome multiple difficulties and become reality. The man I’m talking about is Thomas Wade, chief of the PDC Strategic Intelligence Agency. I think we should thank him as well.”
这时。程心小声向主席请求发言。她站起来环视了一圈会场后，说：“各位。眼前的一切，都是阶梯计划的最终成果。这个计戈与一个人是分不开的，在三个世纪前，正是因为他的坚持，并用果敢的领导能力和卓越的创造力，使阶梯计划克服重重困难得以实现。这个人就是时任行星防御理事会战略情报局局长的托马斯·维德，我认为我们也应该向他表示敬意。”
The conference room sank into silence. No one seconded Cheng Xin’s suggestion. For most people, Wade was the very symbol of the darkness in Common Era human nature, the very antithesis of the lovely woman — who had almost been killed by Wade — standing in front of them. They shivered just thinking about him.
会场沉默了。对程心的提议没人表示赞同。在大部分人的心目中，维德是公元世纪黑暗人性的象征，是眼前这个险些被他杀掉的美丽女性的反面，想到他总是令人不寒而栗。
The IDC chair first thanked Yun Tianming and Cheng Xin on behalf of Fleet International and the UN. He called Tianming the bravest warrior in the history of the human race. He was the first human to successfully survive in an alien world. Alone, deep in the heart of the enemy, situated in an unimaginable environment, he fought on and brought hope to an Earth in crisis. Cheng Xin, on the other hand, had successfully retrieved the intelligence from Tianming through a combination of wits and guts.
IDC主席首先代表舰队国际和联合国向云天明和程心表达敬意，他称云天明为人类历史上最英勇的战士，说他是第一个在外星世界成功生存的人类——在敌人的心脏，在那难以想象的环境中，他孤军奋战，给危难中的地球文明带来了希望；程心则以自己的勇气和智慧，冒着生命危险成功地接收了来自云天明的情报。
“In total, we gathered two pieces of intelligence: the conversation between Dr. Cheng and Yun Tianming, and the three stories he told. Preliminary analysis points to the important information being hidden entirely within the three stories. We won’t be paying much attention to the conversation in the future, but I will summarize what we’ve gleaned from it here.
“我们得到的情报分为两大部分，一部分是云天明与程心博士的讨话，另一部分是他讲的三个故事。初步分析认为，重要的信息都隐藏在三个故事中，对话部分可解读的东西并不多。由于以后我们的注意力不会放在对话部分在这里先把从对话中已经得到的信息总结一下。
The chair — he happened to also be the PIA’s current chief, a successor to Wade’s position, though they were divided by three centuries — said nothing in response to Cheng Xin’s proposal. He simply continued down the agenda for the meeting. “The committee has established a basic principle and hope for the decipherment process. We believe the message is unlikely to contain any concrete technical information, but will more likely point out the correct direction for research. It may contain the guide to the correct theoretical framework for unknown technologies such as lightspeed spaceflight or the cosmic safety notice. If we can get that far, it will bring tremendous hope to humanity.
主席（他本人是PLA的现任局长，是维德在三个世纪后的继承者）没有对程心的话做出回应，而是继续会议的议程：“对于情报的解读，委员会有一个基本的原则和期望，情报不可能提供任何具体的技术信息，但却有可能指明正确的研究方向，对包括光速宇航和宇宙安全声明在内的未知技术，提供一个正确的理论概念。如果做到这一点，就为人类世界带来了巨大的希望。
“That bastard! His lie could have killed Cheng Xin!” yelled AA, who was sitting next to Cheng Xin. The others gave her angry looks. She wasn’t a member of the IDC, and was allowed to attend only at Cheng Xin’s insistence as her assistant. AA had once been an accomplished astronomer, but because her CV wasn’t very long, the others looked down on her. They all thought Cheng Xin ought to have someone more qualified to be her technical aide, and even Cheng Xin herself sometimes forgot that AA was a scientist.
“这个王八蛋！他这么撒谎，想要程心的命吗？！”坐在程心旁边的艾AA大叫起来，引来众人不满的侧目。她不是IDC的委员，是作为程心的顾问和助理参加会议的，这也是由于程心的坚持。AA在天文学上曾经有所建树，但在这里她资历太浅，受到所有人的轻视，人们都认为程心应该有一个更称职的技术顾问，甚至程心本人也常常忘了AA曾经是叫名科学家。
Cheng Xin shook her head. “No. We met only in college. He and I did come from the same city, but we didn’t go to the same primary or secondary schools.”
程心摇摇头，“不，我们只是大学同学，他与我确实都来自同一个城市，但我们的小学和中学都不是同一所学校，大学之前我们肯定不认识。”
The chair turned to Cheng Xin. “I want to ask a question. Did you really know each other as kids, as Tianming said?”
主席转向程心，“我想提个问题：真像云天明说的那样，你们在童年时就认识吗？”
“First, we know that in order to send this message, Yun Tianming had to do a lot of preparatory work. He created over a hundred fairy tales, and mixed in three containing secret intelligence. He told these stories and published them over a long period of time to familiarize the Trisolarans with them — no easy task. If the Trisolarans hadn’t discovered the secrets contained within them during that process, they’ll likely continue to treat these stories as harmless in the future. But even so, he tried to place yet another layer of protection around the stories.”
“首先我们得知。为了这次悄报传递，云天明做了长期大量的准备工作。他创作了上百个童话故事，包含情报的三个故事就混杂在这些故事中。他通过讲述和出版选集的方式使三体世界熟悉这些故事，这是一个漫一长的过程，很不容易，如果在这个过程中那三个故事隐含的信息没有被识破，以后敌人也会认为这些故事是安全的。但即使这样，他还是给三个故事加上了另一道保险。”
“It’s not so easy to get records of two children from before the Crisis Era. Even if they somehow managed to check the household registration records or school records and found out that they hadn’t gone to the same elementary school or middle school, they still couldn’t rule out the possibility that they did know each other. And there’s something else you aren’t thinking of.” The PIA officer didn’t bother hiding his contempt for AA’s lack of professional experience. “Tianming could direct the sophons. He must have checked the records already.”
“现在要查到危机纪元前两个孩子的资料谈何容易？即使查到当时的户籍或学籍记录什么的，知道他们小学和中学都不在同一所学校，也不能证明那时他们就不相识。还有一点你没想到，”PLA官员毫不掩饰对AA缺乏专业素质的轻蔑，“云天明是可以动用智子的，他肯定先试着查询过。”
“But they could check records from the Common Era.”
“可后来他们会查公元世纪留下来的资料！”
The chair continued. “The risk had to be taken. By attributing the three stories to Cheng Xin, he further convinced the enemy that these tales were innocuous. During the hour it took to tell the stories, the yellow light never came on. We also found out that by the time Tianming finished telling the last story, the deadline set by Sophon had already elapsed. The Trisolarans had, as a gesture of compassion, extended the encounter by six minutes so that Tianming could finish his story. This confirms that they really thought the stories harmless. Tianming credited her for a specific reason: to show us that the three stories contained important intelligence.
主席接着说：“这个冒险是必要的。云天明把三个故事的作者换成了程心，这就进一步使敌人确信了这些故事的安全性。在讲述的一个多小时中，黄灯一次没亮，后来还发现，其实在故事全部讲完时，智子限定的会面时间已过去了四分钟，为了让云天明把最后一个故事讲完，监听者善解人意地把会面时间总共延长了六分钟。这就说明他们对这些故事己经没有戒心。云天明这么做还有一个重要的目标，他借此传达了一个明确的信息：三个故事中隐藏着情报”至于从对话中能够解读的其他信息不是太多，我们一致认为云天明最后的一句话比较重要——
A PIA officer said, “He didn’t take a great risk with the lie. Their childhoods predated the Crisis Era, before the sophons had even arrived on the Earth. And back then they couldn’t have been targets of sophon surveillance.”
一名PLA官员说：“这么做危险性并不太大。他们的童年时代在危机纪元前，那时智孔并没有到达地球，当时的他们也不可能是智子的探测对象。”
A document with a blue cover was distributed to the attendees. In this age, it was very rare to see paper documents. There was only a serial number, no title.
工作人员开始在会场分发文件，文件是蓝色封面，只有编号没有题目，在这个时代，纸质文件已经很罕见了。
“The document can only be read in here. Do not bring it outside this room, and do not record it in any way. For most of you, this will be your first time reading it. Let’s begin.”
“各位请注意，文件只能在这里阅读，不能带出会议室，也不能作记录。它的内容在场的人大多数都是第一次接触，现在让我们一起把它读一遍吧。”
“There’s not much else that we could get out of the conversation. We do all agree that Tianming’s final words are very important.” The chair waved his right hand in the air out of habit, in an attempt to invoke an information window. After noticing that there was no response, he went on awkwardly. “‘Then let’s pick a spot to meet, somewhere other than the Earth, somewhere in the Milky Way.’ He meant two things by this: One, he was hinting that he would never be able to return to the Solar System. Two –” The chair paused, and waved his hand again, as if trying to dispel something. “It’s not important. Let’s just go on.”
主席说着，右手在空中比画了一下，这是个习惯性动作，试图点开全息信息窗口，发现做不到后，他就自己说出了那句话，“那我们约定一个相会的地点吧，除了地球，再约另一个地方，银河系中的另一个地方。“这句话可能的含义有两个，第一他暗示自己不可能返回太阳系了；第二——”主席停了一下，又挥了一下手，这次像是要赶走什么东西，“其实并不重要，我们继续下面的吧。”
The air in the room grew heavier. Everyone knew what the chair was going to say: Yun Tianming had very little faith that the Earth would survive.
会议室中的空气有些凝重了，人们心里都清楚这句话的第二个含义：云天明对地球避免打击生存下来没有信心。
[The First Tale of Yun Tianming, “The New Royal Painter”]
云天明的第一个故事：王国的新画师
A long time ago, there was a kingdom called the Storyless Kingdom.
很久很久以前，有一个王国叫无故事王国，它一直没有故事。
The room quieted. Everyone started to read these three fairy tales that might save human civilization.
会场静下来，人们开始认真阅读那三个可能拯救人类文明的童话故事。
The Storyless Kingdom had a wise king, a kind queen, a group of just, capable ministers, and hardworking, honest common people. Life in the kingdom was as placid as a mirror: Yesterday was like today, and today is like tomorrow; last year was like this year, and this year is like next year. There were never any stories.
无故事王国有一个贤明的国王、一个善良的王后和一群正值能干的大臣，还有勤劳朴实的人民。王国的生活像镜而一样平静，昨天像今天，今天像明天，去年像今年，今年像明年，一直没有故事。
Until the princes and the princess grew up.
直到王子和公主长大。
This kingdom had no stories. For a kingdom, not having any stories was a good thing. The people of such a kingdom were the happiest. Stories meant twists and catastrophes.
其实对于一个王国而言，没有故事是最好的，没有故事的国王中的人民是最幸福的，因为故事就意味着曲折和灾难。
As a child, Prince Deep Water had gone to Tomb Island in the middle of the Glutton’s Sea and never returned. As for why, that’s a story for later.
深水王子小时候去了饕餮海中的墓岛上，再也没有回来，原因后面再讲。
The king had two sons: Prince Deep Water and Prince Ice Sand. He also had a daughter: Princess Dewdrop.
国王有两个儿子，分别是深水王子和冰沙王子，还有一个女儿：露珠公主。
Prince Ice Sand grew up by the side of the king and queen, and they worried about him a great deal. The child was smart, but from a young age, he showed a cruel streak. He directed the servants to collect small animals from outside the palace, and he pretended he was the emperor of the animals. His “subjects” were his slaves, and if they disobeyed him even a little, he ordered them beheaded. Often, at the end of one of his play sessions, all the animals were dead, and he stood in a pool of blood, laughing hysterically…
冰沙王子在父王和母后身边长大，但也让他们深深忧虑。这孩子很聪明，但从小就显示出暴虐的品性。他让仆役们从王宫外搜集许多小动物，他就和这些小动物玩帝国游戏，他自封为皇帝，小动物们为臣民，臣民们都是奴隶，稍有不从就砍头，往往游戏结束时小动物们都被杀了，冰沙就站在一地鲜血中狂笑不已……
As he grew older, the prince became more restrained. He was a man of few words, and his gaze was somber. But the king knew that the wolf had only hidden his teeth, and in Prince Ice Sand’s heart was a hibernating poisonous snake, waiting for the right moment to emerge. Ultimately, the king decided to not make him the crown prince, instead designating Princess Dewdrop the heir apparent. The Storyless Kingdom would eventually have a queen regnant.
王子长大后性格收敛了一些，变得沉默寡言，目光阴沉。国王知道这只是狼藏起了撩牙，冰沙心中有一窝冬眠的毒蛇，在等待着苏醒的机会。国王终于决定取消冰沙王子的王位继承权，由露珠公主继承王位，无故事王国在未来将有一位女王。
If the good character the king and queen passed on to their children was a fixed quantity, then Princess Dewdrop must have inherited the portion Prince Ice Sand lacked. She was smart, kind, and beautiful beyond measure. When she walked about during the day, the sun dimmed its light, shamed by the comparison; when she took a stroll at night, the moon opened its eyes wide to get a better look; when she spoke, the birds stopped twittering to listen; and when she traipsed over barren ground, flowers bloomed. The people loved the thought of having her as their queen, and the ministers were certain to dedicate themselves to helping her. Even Prince Ice Sand voiced no objections, though his gaze became even more somber and cold.
假如父王和母后传给后代的美德是有一个定量的，那冰沙王子缺少的部分一定都给了露珠公主。公主聪明善良，且无与伦比地美丽，她在白天出来太阳会收敛光辉，她在夜晚散步月亮会睁大眼睛，她一说话百鸟会停止鸣唱，她踏过的荒地会长出绚丽的花朵。露珠成为女王必定为万民拥戴，大臣们也会全力辅佐，就连冰沙王子对此也没有说什么，只是目光更阴沉了。
And so, story came to the Storyless Kingdom.
于是，无故事王国有了故事。
Everyone was happy, and even Prince Ice Sand’s cold heart seemed to have melted. Contrary to his typical moody silence, he humbly wished his father a happy birthday, and expressed his desire that the king live as long as the sun, bathing the kingdom with his light. He also declared his support for the king’s decision, saying that Dewdrop really was better suited to be the monarch than he. He congratulated his little sister and said he hoped that she would learn more of the skills for ruling a kingdom from their father so that she could discharge her future duties well. His sincerity and generosity moved everyone present.
每一个人都沉浸在幸福快乐中，连冰沙王子那颗冰冷的心似乎也被融化，他一改往日的阴沉，恭顺地向父王祝寿，愿他的生命之光像太阳一样永远照耀王国。他还赞颂父王的决定，说露珠公主确实比自己更适合成为君主。他祝福妹妹，希望她多多向父王学习治国本领，以备将来担当重任。他的真诚和善意让所有的人为之动容。
The king made his announcement about the new plan of succession on his sixtieth birthday. On that night, the kingdom celebrated: Fireworks turned the sky into a splendid garden, and the brilliant lights everywhere transformed the palace into a crystalline, magical place. There was laughter and joyful conversation everywhere, and wine flowed like rivers…
国王是在他的六十寿辰这一天正式宣布这一决定的。在这个庆典之夜，夜空被焰火装点成流光溢彩的花园，灿烂的灯火几乎把王宫照成透明的水晶宫殿，在欢歌笑语中，美酒如河水般流淌……
The king was a bit disappointed by the sight. “He’s so young! Does he have enough skill?”
国王看着眼前的画师显得有些失望，“他这么年轻，能掌握那高深的技巧吗？”
The king shook his head. “The royal painter is old. The world is shrouded by a fog in his eyes, and his hands tremble so much that he can no longer capture the joy in our faces.”
国王摇摇头，“我的画师老了，世界在他昏花的老眼中已蒙上了雾霭，他颇抖的老手已绘不出我们幸福的笑容。”
A minister suggested that a large painting of the scene should be made and hung in the palace to help remember this night.
于是有大臣建议，应该制作一幅巨型油画，把庆典的场景画下来，挂在宫殿中以资纪念。
“My son, I’m greatly pleased to see you like this,” the king said, and caressed the prince’s head. “I want it to be like this moment, always.”
“吾儿，看到你这样我真是高兴。”国王抚着王子的头说，“真想永远留住这美好的时光。”
The prince turned and nodded, and the new painter came in. He was an older boy, about fourteen or fifteen years of age. Wrapped in a friar’s gray hooded mantle, he resembled a terrified mouse among the bejeweled guests standing in the splendor of the palace. As he approached, he huddled and compressed his already-thin body to be even smaller, as though he were trying to avoid invisible brambles all around him.
王子说完对后面示意了一下，新画师立刻走了进来。这是一个大男孩，看上去也就十四五岁的样子，裹着一件修士的灰色斗篷，在这金碧辉煌的宫殿和珠光宝气的宾客中像一只惊恐的小老鼠。他走路时，已经很瘦小的身子紧缩成一根树枝一般，仿佛时时躲避着身边看不见的荆刺。
“I was just about to get to that.” Prince Ice Sand bowed deeply. “Father, allow me to present you with a new painter.”
“我正要说这个，”冰沙王子对国王深深鞠躬，“我的父王，我正要献给您一位新画师。”
Needle-Eye looked up at the king, and then lowered his eyes again.
针眼画师抬头看了一眼国王，立刻又低下了头。
The prince bowed again. “Father, this is Needle-Eye, from He’ershingenmosiken. He’s the best student of the great painter Master Ethereal. He began studying with the master at the age of five, and after ten years, has learned everything the great man can teach him. He is as sensitive to the colors and shapes of the world as we are to a red-hot branding iron. This sensitivity is then fixed and expressed by his paintbrush. Other than Master Ethereal himself, there is none with such skill in the world.” The prince turned to Needle-Eye. “As the royal painter, you may look at the king directly without a breach in etiquette.”
王子再次鞠躬，“我的父王，他叫针眼，从赫尔辛根默斯肯来，是空灵大画师最好的学生。他自五岁起就跟大画师学画，现已学了十年，深得空灵画师的真传。他对世界的色彩和形状，就像我们对烧红的烙铁一样敏感，这种感觉通过他如神的画笔凝固在画布上，除了空灵画师，他举世无双。”王子转向针眼画师，“作为画师，你可以直视国王，不算无礼。”
The king was surprised. “Child, your gaze is as piercing as a sword unsheathed next to a roaring fire. It’s at odds with your youth.”
国王有些吃惊，“孩子，你的目光很锐利，像烈焰旁出鞘的牙剑，与你的年龄极不相称。”
Needle-Eye spoke for the first time. “Your Majesty, dread sovereign, please excuse a lowly painter if he has given offense. My eyes are a painter’s eyes. A painter must paint first in the heart. I have already drawn in my heart an image of you, and of your dignity and wisdom. These I will transfer to the painting.”
针眼画师第一次说话了：“至高无上的国王，请宽怒一个卑微画师的冒犯。这是一个画师的眼睛，他要先在心里绘画，我已经把您，还有您的威严和贤明一起画在心里，我会画到画里的。”
“Look at the princess, the future queen regnant. You must paint her as well.”
“再看看公主，未来的女王，你也要画她。”
Needle-Eye looked at the queen, then lowered his eyes. “Your Majesty, most honored queen, please forgive a lowly painter’s breach of decorum. I have already drawn in my heart an image of you, and of your nobility and elegance. These I will transfer to the painting.”
针眼画师看了一眼王后，低下头说：“最最尊敬的王后，请宽怒一个卑微画师的冒犯，我已经把您，还有您的高贵和典维一起画在心里，我会画到画里的。”
“You may also look at the queen,” the prince said.
“你也可以看王后。”王子说。
Needle-Eye took even less time to look at the princess. After the briefest of glances, he lowered his head and said, “Your Royal Highness, beloved princess of the people, please condone my lapse in courtly habits. Your beauty pains me like the midday sun, and I will, for the first time, feel the inadequacy of my paintbrush. But I have already drawn in my heart an image of you, and of your nonpareil loveliness. These I will transfer to the painting.”
针眼画师看露珠公主的时间更短，如闪电般看了一眼后就低头说：“最受人景仰的公主，请宽怒一个卑微画师的冒犯。您的美丽像正午的阳光刺伤了我，我第一次感到了自己画笔的无力，但我已经把您，还有您无与伦比的美丽一起画在心里，我会画到画里的。”
Then the prince asked Needle-Eye to look at each minister. He did, resting his gaze only briefly on each face. He lowered his eyes. “Your Honors, please excuse a lowly painter’s offenses. I have already drawn in my heart an image of you, and of your talents and intellects. These I will transfer to the painting.”
然后王子又让针眼画师看看大臣们。他挨着看了，目光在每个人的身上只停留一瞬间，最后低下头说：“最最尊敬的大人们，请宽怒一个卑微画师的冒犯。我已经把你们，还有你们的才能和智慧一起画在心里，我会画到画里的。”
“Everything, my king. I can now paint a picture of each strand of hair on their bodies and head, and it will be an exact replica of the original.”
“我的王，全记住了，即使给他们每人的每根头发和汗毛各单画一幅特写，我都能画得真真切切分毫不差。”
Needle-Eye kept his head low, his face entirely hidden within the shadow of his hood. The cape appeared empty, containing only shadows and no substance. “Yes, my king.”
针眼画师头低低的，脸全部隐藏在斗篷帽的阴影里，使那件斗篷看上去仿佛是空的，里面只有黑影没有躯体。”记住了，我的王。“
“Everything?”
“全记住了？”
The celebration continued, and Prince Ice Sand pulled Needle-Eye into a corner. In a whisper, he asked, “Have you memorized all of them?”
盛宴继续进行，冰沙王子把针眼画师拉到宫殿的一个角落，低声问道：‘都记住了吗？“
Like ghosts, two horses emerged from the palace and sped west. The riders were Needle-Eye and Prince Ice Sand. They came to an underground bunker a few miles from the palace. It seemed sunken into the deepest sea of night: dank, gloomy, like the belly of a cold-blooded beast in deep slumber. Their two shadows swayed and flickered in torchlight, and their bodies were but two dark spots at the end of the long shadows. Needle-Eye took a scroll out of a canvas bag and unrolled it: a painting, about as long as a man was tall. It was the portrait of an old man. White hair and beard surrounded his face like silver flames, and his piercing gaze was very similar to Needle-Eye’s, though endowed with more depth. The portrait showed off the skill of the painter — lifelike, with every detail captured.
有两匹快马像幽灵一般出了王宫，向西方奔驰而去，骑在马上的分别是冰沙王子和针眼画师。他们来到了距王宫十多里的一处幽深的地堡中。这里处于夜之海的最深处，潮湿阴森，像一个沉睡着的冷血巨怪的腹腔。两人的影子在火炬的光芒中摇曳，他们的身躯只是那长长影子末端的两个黑点。针眼画师拆开一幅画，那画有一人高，他把包画的帆布掀开后让王子看。这是一位老人的肖像，老人的白发和白须像银色的火焰包围着头脸，他的眼神很像针眼画师，但锐利中多了一份深沉，这画显示出画师高超的技艺，纤毫毕现，栩栩如生。
The celebration ended after midnight. The lights in the palace went out, one after another. It was the darkest hour before dawn: The moon had already set, and dark clouds, like a curtain, veiled the sky from west to east. The earth was submerged in ink. A chill wind blew through, and birds shivered in their nests, while terrified flowers folded their petals together.
宴会到后半夜才结束，王宫中的灯火渐渐熄灭。这正是黎明前最黑暗的时候，月亮已经西沉，乌云自西向东，像帷幕一样遮住了夜空，大地像是浸在墨汁中一般。一阵阴冷的寒风吹来，鸟儿在巢中颤抖，花儿惊惧地合上了花瓣。
The prince nodded. “Excellent. It was a smart decision to paint him first.”
王子打量着画，点点头说：“你先把他画出来是明智的。”
“My king, this is — was — my teacher, Master Ethereal.”
“我的王，这是我的老师，空灵大画师。”
“Yes, I had to, so that he would not paint me first.” With great care, Needle-Eye hung the portrait on the damp wall. “All right, now I can get to work on the new pictures for you.”
“是的，我的王，以免他先把我画出来。”针眼画师说着，小心翼冀地把画挂到潮湿的墙上，“好了，我现在可以为您做新画了。”
From a corner of the bunker, Needle-Eye retrieved a roll of something snowy white. “My king, this is a section of the trunk of a snow-wave tree of He’ershingenmosiken. When the tree reaches a hundred years of age, the trunk can be unrolled like paper — the perfect medium for painting. My magic is only effective when I paint on snow-wave paper.” He placed the roll on a stone table, unrolled a section, and pressed it under an obsidian slab. Then he took a sharp knife and cut the paper against the edge of the slab. When he lifted off the slab, the section of cut paper was pressed flat against the table. The pure white surface seemed to glow by itself.
针眼画师从地堡的一个暗角抱出一卷雪白的东西，“我的王，这是赫尔辛根默斯肯的雪浪树的树干，这树百年长成后，它的树干就是一大卷纸，上好的画纸啊！我的画只有画在雪浪纸上才有魔力。”他把树干纸卷放到一张石桌上，拉出一段纸来，压在一大块黑曜石石板下，然后用一把锋利的小匕首沿石板把压着的纸切下，掀开石板后，那张纸已经平平展展地铺在石桌上，它一片雪白，仿佛自己会发光似的。
The painter retrieved his implements from the canvas bag and laid them out. “My king, look at these brushes, made from the ear tufts of the wolves found in He’ershingenmosiken. The paints are also from there: The red is made from the blood of giant bats; the black is the ink of squids caught in the deep sea; the blue and the yellow are extracted from meteorites… All the paints must be mixed with the tears of a species of giant bird called the moon-blanket bird –“
然后画师从帆布包中拿出各种绘画工具，“我的王，看这些画笔，是用赫尔辛根默斯肯的狼的耳毛做的。这几罐颜料也都来自赫尔辛根默斯肯，这罐红的，是那里巨编蝠的血；黑的，是那里深海乌贼的墨汁；蓝的和黄的，都是从那里的古老陨石中提取的……这些都要用一种叫月毯的大鸟的眼泪来调和。”
“Just get on with it,” the prince said.
赶快画画吧。“王子不耐烦地说。
Then, in a moment, as though a rippling surface suddenly froze, all the random spots connected to each other, and all the colors had meaning. Shapes appeared, and quickly turned crystal clear.
突然，几乎是在一瞬间，就像波光粼粼的水面被冻祥，所有的色块都有了联系，所有的色彩都有了意义，形状出现了，并变得精细清晰。
“The king.”
“国王。”
Needle-Eye picked up his brush. He worked casually, a dab here, a streak there. Gradually, various colors appeared on the paper, but no shape could be discerned. It was as if the paper had been laid out in a multicolored rain, and drops of all hues continuously fell onto the paper. Over time, the paper was filled with colors — a chaotic swirl, like a garden trampled by rampaging horses. The brush continued to glide through this maze of colors, as though the painter’s hand no longer guided it, but it was leading the painter’s hand. Puzzled, the prince watched from the side. He wanted to ask questions, but the movements of the colors emerging and gathering had a hypnotic effect, and he was mesmerized.
针眼画师拿起画笔开始作画。他画得很随意，用不同的色彩这里点一点，那里画一道，画纸上的色彩渐渐多了起来，但看不出任何形状，就像把画纸暴露在一场彩色的雨中，五彩的雨滴不断滴到纸面上。画面渐渐被色彩填满，一片纷繁迷乱的色彩，像被马群践踏的花园。画笔继续在这色彩的迷宫中游走，仿佛不是画师在运笔，而是画笔牵着他的手游移。王子在旁边疑惑地看着，他想提问，但画面上色彩的涌现和聚集有一种作用，让他着迷。
“Of course, of course. Who should I paint first?”
“好的，我的王，先画谁呢？”
The prince saw a portrait of the king. The king was dressed like he had been earlier at the palace: a golden crown on his head and a magnificent ceremonial robe draped over his body. But the expression on his face was different: There was no longer dignity and wisdom in his eyes. Instead, a complex mixture of emotions could be detected: awakening from a dream, confusion, shock, sorrow… and behind them all was a terror that couldn’t be fully expressed, as though his closest companion was attacking him with a sword.
王子现在看到，针眼画师画的确实是国王，画面上的国王就是他在宴会上看到的装束，头戴金色的王冠，身穿华丽的礼服，但表情大不相同。国王的目光中没有了威严和睿智，而是透出一种极其复杂的东西，如梦初醒、迷惑、震惊、悲哀……藏在这一切后面的是来不及浮现的巨大恐俱，就像看到自己最亲密的人突然拔剑刺来的那一瞬间。
“Very good.” The prince nodded at the portrait. The torches reflected in his irises, as though his soul burned in deep wells.
“你把他画到画里了，很好。”王子看着国王的画像满意地点点头，他的眸子中映着火把的火光，像灵魂在深井中燃烧。
“The portrait of the king is finished,” said Needle-Eye.
“我的王，画完了，我把国王画到画里了。”针眼画师说。
Miles away in the palace, the king disappeared from his bedchamber. In his bed, held up by posts carved into the shapes of four gods, the blankets still retained his body heat, and the sheets still retained the impression of his weight. But of his body, there was no trace.
在十几里外的王宫中，在国王的寝室里，国王消失了。在那张床腿是四个天神雕像的大床上，被褥还有他身体的余温，床单上还有他压出的凹印，但他的躯体消失得无影无踪。
Needle-Eye flattened another sheet of snow-wave paper with the obsidian slab, and began to paint the queen’s portrait. This time, the prince did not stand to the side to observe, but paced around in the bunker. The empty space echoed with his repetitive footsteps. This time, the painting was done in only half the time it took to do the first.
针眼画师又用黑曜石石板压平了一张雪浪纸，开始画王后的肖像。这次王子没有站在旁边看，而是来回踱步，空旷的地堡中回荡着单调的脚步声。这次画师作画的速度更快，只用了画上幅画一半的时间就完成了。
The prince picked up the finished painting and threw it on the floor. “I will have this mounted and framed and hang it on the wall here. I’ll come here from time to time to look at it. Paint the queen next.”
王子把已完成的画从石桌上拿起扔到地上，“我会把这幅画装裱起来，挂在这里的墙上，没事的时候经常来看一看。下面画王后吧。”
“My king, the portrait of the queen is finished.”
“我的王，画完了，我把王后画到画里了。”
In the garden outside the palace, a hound seemed to detect something and barked loudly a few times. But the sounds were instantaneously swallowed up by the boundless darkness, and it fell silent in fear. Trembling as it shrank into seclusion, it melded with the night.
在宫殿外面的深院中，一只狼犬觉察到了什么，狂吠了几声，但它的叫声立刻被无边的黑暗吞没，它自己也在前所未有的恐惧中沉默了，缩到角落不住地颤抖着，与黑暗融为一体。
In the palace, the queen disappeared from her bedchamber. In her bed, held up by posts carved into the shapes of four angels, the blankets still retained her body heat, and the sheets still retained the impression of her weight. But of her body, there was no trace.
在王宫中，在王后的寝室里，王后消失了。在那张床腿是四个天使雕像的大床上，被褥还有她身体的余温，床单上还有她压出的凹印，但她的躯体消失得无影无踪。
“No, paint the ministers first. They are more dangerous. Of course, paint only those ministers who are loyal to my father. Do you remember them?”
“不。等画完了大臣们再画她，大臣们比她危险。当然，只画那些忠于国王的大臣。你应该记得他们的样子吧？”
“Of course, I remember everything. I can paint a picture of each strand of hair on their bodies and head –“
“当然。我的王，全记住了，即使给他们每人的每根头发和汗毛各画一幅特写……”
“Is the princess next?” asked Needle-Eye.
“该画公主了吧？”针眼画师问。
“Very good.”
“你把她画到画里了，很好。”
“Just do it. Hurry. You must finish before sunrise.”
“好了，快画吧，天亮前画完。”
“That will not be a problem, my king. Before dawn, I will paint a portrait of each minister loyal to the old king, and the princess.”
“没问题，我的王，天亮前我会把忠于国王的大臣，还有公主，都画到画里。”
The captain ignored Auntie Wide. He bowed slightly to Dewdrop. “Princess, someone wants to see you.” Then he stepped aside, revealing an old man.
卫队长没有理会宽姨的责骂，只是向公主匆匆敬礼，“公主，有人要见你！”然后闪到一边，露出他身后的人，那是一位老者。
Princess Dewdrop was awakened by insistent, loud knocks. No one had ever dared to knock on her door like this before. She got up and came to the door, which had just been opened by Auntie Wide.
露珠公主在睡梦中被一阵敲门声惊醒，那声音又急又响，从来没有人敢这样敲她的门。她从床上起身，来到门前时看到宽姨已经把门打开了。
Auntie Wide had been Dewdrop’s wet nurse, and then cared for her as she grew up. The princess felt closer to her than even her own mother, the queen. Auntie Wide stared at the captain of the palace guards outside the door, whose armor still gave off the chill air of the night.
宽姨是露珠的奶妈，一直照顾她长大，公主与她建立的亲情甚至超过了生母王后。宽姨看到门外站着王宫的卫队长，他的盔甲还带着外面暗夜的寒气。
Needle-Eye flattened several sheets of snow-wave paper and began to paint like mad. Every time he finished a portrait, the subject disappeared from his or her bed. As the night flew by, the enemies of Prince Ice Sand turned one by one into pictures on the wall of the bunker.
针眼画师一次压平了好几张雪浪纸，开始疯狂作画。他每完成一幅画，画中的人就从睡榻上消失。随着黑夜的流逝，冰沙王子要消灭的人一个接一个变成了挂在地堡墙上的画像。
“Have you gone mad? How dare you wake the princess! She hasn’t been sleeping well the last few nights.”
“你太无礼了！竟敢吵醒公主？！她这几天一直失眠睡不好觉！”
The old man’s white hair and beard surrounded his face like silver flames. His gaze was both sharp and deep. This was the man who had been in the first portrait shown to the prince by Needle-Eye. His face and cape were caked with grime, his boots were covered in mud, and he carried a large canvas bag on his back; clearly, he had been on a long journey.
老者白发和白须像银色的火焰包围着头脸，他的目光锐利而深沉，他就是针眼画师向王子展示的第一幅画中的人。他的脸上和斗篷上满是尘土，靴覆满泥巴，显然是长途跋涉而来。
“But the king really has disappeared, as has the queen. My men said that both bedchambers were empty.”
“但国王确实不见了，王后也不见了，我派人看过，他们的寝室都是空的。”
“How can you allow random strangers in here? And such a strange old man at that,” said Auntie Wide.
“你怎么随便让外人进来，还是这么个怪老头？！”宽姨指着老者责问道。
“What are you talking about? You are mad!” Auntie Wide shouted.
“你在说什么？！你疯了吗？”宽姨大喊。
But, oddly, he was holding up an umbrella. Stranger still was the fashion in which he held it: The umbrella spun nonstop in his hand. A closer examination of the umbrella revealed his reason: The pole and the canopy were both pure black, and at the tip of each rib was a small sphere made of some translucent, weighty stone. The stretchers for the ribs within the umbrella were all broken and could not hold the canopy up. Only by spinning the umbrella continuously to make the stones fly up could the canopy be kept open.
他背着一个硕大的帆布袋，但奇怪的是打着一把伞，更奇怪的是他打伞的方式：一直不停地转动着伞。细看一下伞的结构，就知道他这样做的原因：那把伞的伞面和伞柄都足乌黑色，每根伞骨的末端都固定着一只小圆球，是某种半透明的石头做成的，有一定重量。可以看到伞里面几根伞撑都折断了，无法把全伞撑起来，只有让伞不断转动，把伞骨末端的小石球甩起来，才能把伞撑开。
“The sentries stopped him, of course, but he said”– the captain of the guards gave an anxious look to the princess –“that the king is already gone.”
“哨兵当然没让他进王宫，但他说……”卫队长忧虑地看了一眼公主，“他说国王已经没了。”
But the princess said nothing. Her hands clutched at the front of her nightgown.
公主仍没有做声，只是双手抓紧了胸前的睡袍。
The princess cried out and held on to Auntie Wide for support.
公主短促地惊叫了一声，一手扶住宽姨好让自己站稳。
“Master, please come in,” the princess said. Then she turned to the captain. “Guard this door.”
“让老人家进来，你守在门口。”公主对卫队长说。
The old man spoke. “Your Royal Highness, please let me explain.”
老者开口了：“尊敬的公主，请允许我把事情说清楚。”
Still spinning the umbrella, the old man bowed to the princess, as though respecting her for her calmness in the face of a crisis.
老者转着伞，对公主鞠躬，似乎对于公主能够这么快镇静下来心存敬意。
“Why are you spinning that umbrella like some clown?” Auntie Wide asked.
“你转那把伞干什么？你是马戏团的小丑吗？”宽姨说。
“Then come in with the umbrella,” the princess said. Auntie Wide opened the door more so that the old man could come in with the spinning umbrella.
“那就打着伞进来吧。”公主说，宽姨把门大开，以便让老者举伞通过。
“I must keep this umbrella open lest I disappear like the king and the queen.”
“我必须一直打着这把伞，否则也会像，国王和王后一样消失。”
Once inside, the man set down the canvas bag on his back and let out an exhausted sigh. But the umbrella never stopped moving in his hand, and the small stone balls along the rim of the canopy flickered in the candlelight, casting bright spots along the walls like racing stars.
老者进入房间后，把肩上的帆布袋放到地毯上，疲惫地长出一口气，但仍转着黑伞，伞沿的小石球在烛光中闪亮，在周围的墙壁上投映出一圈旋转的星光。
“I am Ethereal, a painter from He’ershingenmosiken. The new royal painter, Needle-Eye, is — was — my student.”
“我是赫尔辛根默斯肯的空灵画师，王宫里新来的那个针眼画师是我的学生。”老者说。
“I’ve met him,” said the princess.
“我见过他。”公主点点头说。
“Did he look at you?” Ethereal asked, anxious.
“那他见过你吗？他看过你吗？”空灵画师紧张地问。
“Terrible news, Princess. Terrible!” Ethereal sighed. “He is a devil. With his devilish art, he paints people into pictures.”
“糟透了，我的公主，那糟透了！”空灵画师长叹一声，“他是个魔鬼，掌握着魔鬼的画技，他能把人画到画里。”
“Yes, of course.”
“是的，他当然看过我。”
The captain poked his head into the room. “I’ve sent all the guards. We can’t find him. I wanted to find the minister of war and ask him to mobilize the capital garrison. But Master Ethereal said that the minister of war is probably already gone as well.”
卫队长从门外探进头来说：“我派全部的卫队去找了，找不到。我原想去找军机大臣，他可以出动王宫外的禁卫军搜查，可这个老人家说军机大臣此时大概也没了。”
“That’s a lot of wasted breath,” said Auntie Wide. “Isn’t the job of a painter to paint people into pictures?”
“真是废话！”宽姨说，“不能把人画到画里那叫画师吗？”
“You misunderstand me,” said Ethereal. “After he paints a portrait, the subject is gone. A live person turns into a dead picture.”
空灵画师摇摇头“不是那个意思，他把人画到画里后，人在外面就没了，人变成了死的画。”
“Then we must dispatch men to kill him right away.”
“那还不快派人找到他杀了他？”
“Did you say Prince Ice Sand?” asked Auntie Wide.
“你说冰沙王子？”宽姨问。
Ethereal shook his head. “More soldiers won’t be of any use. Prince Ice Sand and Needle-Eye are certainly no longer anywhere near the palace. Needle-Eye could be painting anywhere in the world and still kill everyone here.”
空灵画师又摇摇头，“禁卫军没有用，冰沙王子和针眼可能根本就不在王宫里，针眼在世界上任何地方作画，都能杀掉王宫中的人。”
“Then start painting!” said Auntie Wide. “I’ll hold up the umbrella for you.”
“那你就在这里画吧！”宽姨说，“让我替你打伞！”
Ethereal continued. “Only I can stop Needle-Eye. He’s already painted me, but this umbrella can ensure that I don’t disappear. If I paint him, he’ll be gone.”
空灵画师接着说：“只有我能除掉针眼，现在他已经把我画出来了，但这把伞能保护我不消失，我只要把他画出来，他就没了。”
Ethereal saw that the princess, Auntie Wide, and the captain of the guards were not surprised by this revelation.
空灵画师看到，公主、宽姨和门口的卫队长对他的话似乎都没感到意外。
Ethereal shook his head again. “No. The magic only works if I paint on snow-wave paper. But the paper I have with me hasn’t been flattened, and cannot be used for painting.”
空灵画师又摇摇头，“不行，我的画只有画在雪浪纸上才有魔力，我带来的纸还没有压平，不能作画。”
“We have to worry about the matter at hand! Needle-Eye could be painting the princess any second — he might already be doing it right now.” Auntie Wide wrapped her arms around the princess, as if she could keep her safe.
“还是先考虑眼前的生死大事吧！针眼随时可能把公主画出来，他可能已经在画了。”宽姨大惊失色，她一把抱住公主，似乎这样就能保护她。
“Yes. The prince wants to wield Needle-Eye as a weapon and eliminate the king and all those loyal to him, so that he can become the king.”
“是的，王子要以针眼画师作武器，除掉国王和忠诚于他的人，夺取王位。”
Auntie Wide opened the master painter’s canvas bag and retrieved a section of a snow-wave tree. The bark had already been peeled off, revealing the paper roll underneath. Auntie Wide and the princess unrolled a section, and the white paper seemed to brighten the room. They tried to flatten the paper on the floor, but no matter how much they pressed, as soon as they let go, the paper rolled back up.
宽姨立刻打开画师的帆布包，从中取出一截雪浪树的树干，树干已经刮了外皮，露出白花花的纸卷来。宽姨和公主从树干纸卷上抽出一段纸，纸面现出一片雪白，房间里霎时亮了许多。她们试图在地板上把纸压平·但不管怎样努力，只要一松手，那段纸就弹回原状又卷了回去。
“No. Only the obsidian from He’ershingenmosiken will do the job. I was hoping to get the obsidian slab back from Needle-Eye.”
“真不平的，只有用赫尔辛根默斯肯的黑曜石石板才能压平，我本来是希望能够从针眼那里夺回它的。”
“There’s really nothing else that will flatten this?”
“这纸用别的东西真的弄不平吗？”
The painter said, “It won’t work. Only a slate made from the obsidian of He’ershingenmosiken can flatten snow-wave paper. That type of obsidian is very rare, and I only had one slab, which Needle-Eye stole from me.”
画师说：“不行的，只有赫尔辛根默斯肯的黑曜石石板才能压平雪浪纸，那种黑曜石石板很稀有，我只有一块，让针眼偷走了！”
“He’ershingenmosiken? Obsidian?” Auntie Wide slapped her forehead. “I have an iron that I use for pressing the princess’s best formal gowns. It was made in He’ershingenmosiken, and it’s obsidian!”
“赫尔辛根默斯肯的黑曜石？”宽姨一拍脑袋，“我有一个熨斗，只在熨公主最好的晚礼服时才用，就是赫尔辛根默斯肯出产的，是黑曜石！”
“That might work!”
“也许能用。”
Auntie Wide dashed out of the room and returned soon with a shiny black iron. She and the princess once again unrolled a section of the snow-wave scroll, and she pressed the iron against a corner for a few seconds. She lifted the iron, and the corner remained flat.
空灵画师点点头。宽姨转身跑出去，很快拿着一个乌黑银亮的熨斗进来了。她和公主再次把雪浪纸从纸卷中拉出一段，用熨斗在地板上压住纸的一角，压了几秒钟后松开。那一角的纸果然压平了。
“Hold the umbrella for me, please, and I’ll flatten the paper,” Ethereal said to Auntie Wide. As he handed the umbrella over, he said, “Keep it spinning! If it ever falls closed, I’ll disappear.” He watched until Auntie Wide was spinning the umbrella overhead to his satisfaction. Then he squatted and began to flatten the paper, one small section at a time.
“你来给我打伞，我来压！”空灵画师对宽姨说。在把伞递给她的时候，他嘱咐道，“这伞要一直转着打开，一合上我就没了！”看到宽姨把伞继续旋转着打开举在他的头顶，他才放心地蹲下用熨斗压纸，只能一小块一小块地挨着压。
“The umbrella did have stretchers.” The painter continued to press the paper as he answered. “This umbrella has an unusual history. In the past, other painters of He’ershingenmosiken also had Needle-Eye’s and my skill. Besides people, they were also able to capture animals and plants. One day, an abyss dragon came to our land. The dragon was black in color, and it could fly as well as swim in the deep sea. Three painters painted it, but it continued to fly and swim. Then, the painters pooled their money and hired a magic warrior, who finally managed to slay the dragon with a fire sword. The struggle was so fierce that the ocean near He’ershingenmosiken boiled. Most of the abyss dragon’s body was burnt to charcoal, but I was able to collect some body parts out of the ashes to make this umbrella. The canopy is made from the dragon’s wing membranes, and the pole, handle, and ribs were all made from the dragon’s bones. The stones you see at the tips of the ribs were taken from the ashes of the dragon’s kidneys. The umbrella has the power to protect the user from being painted into a picture.
“我的公主，以前是有伞撑的。”空灵画师边埋头用熨斗压纸边说，“这把黑伞的来历很不寻常。从前，赫尔辛根默斯肯的其他画师也有这种画技，除了人，他们也能把动物和植物画到画里。但有一天，飞来了一条渊龙，那龙通体鸟黑，既能弃深海潜游，又能在高空飞翔，先后有三个大画师画下了它，但它仍然在画外潜游和飞翔。后来，画师们筹钱雇了一名魔法武士，武士用火剑杀死了渊龙，那场搏杀使赫尔辛根默斯肯的大海都沸腾了。渊龙的尸体大部分都被烧焦了，我就从灰堆中收集了少量残骸，制成了这把伞。伞面是用渊龙的翼膜做的，伞骨、伞柄和伞撑都是用它的乌骨做成，伞沿的那些宝石，其实是从渊龙已经烧焦的肾中取出的结石。这把伞能够保护打着它的人不被画到画里。
“Can’t you fix the stretchers for the ribs?” asked the princess as she stared at the spinning umbrella.
“不能给这伞做个伞撑吗？”公主看着旋转的伞问。
“I’m sure he hasn’t seen me,” said Auntie Wide.
“他肯定没见过我。”宽姨说。
“There’s no time. It will take too long for me to paint my portrait of Needle-Eye, but he could be done with his painting of the princess at any moment. You two.” He pointed at Auntie Wide and the captain. “Has Needle-Eye seen you?”
“来不及了，我画出画来还需要不少时间，来不及了，针眼随时会画完公主，你们——”空灵画师指指宽姨和卫队长，“针眼见过你们吗？”
“Later, the stretchers broke, and I tried to repair it with bamboo stretchers, but found the umbrella’s magic disappeared. I took the bamboo out, and the magic returned. Then I tried to hold the canopy up with my hand, and that didn’t work either. Apparently, no foreign material of any kind could be used in the umbrella. But I don’t have any more dragon bones, and this is the only way to keep the umbrella open…”
“后来伞骨断了，我曾用几根竹棍做了伞撑，但发现伞的魔力竟消失了，拆去新伞撑后，魔力又恢复了。后来试验用手在里面撑开伞也不行，伞中是不能加入任何异物的，可我现在已经没有渊龙的骨头了，只能这样打开伞……”
The clock in the corner of the room sounded. Ethereal looked up and saw it was almost sunrise. He looked down and saw that only about a palm’s width of the snow-wave paper lay flat on the floor, not enough for a painting. He dropped the iron and sighed.
这时房间一角的钟敲响了，空灵画师抬头看看，已是凌晨，天快亮了。他再看看雪浪纸，压平的一段从纸卷中伸了出来，平铺在地板上不再卷回去，但只有一掌宽的一条，远不够绘一幅画的。他扔下熨斗，长叹一声。
“I saw him from a distance when he came into the palace,” said the captain. “But I’m sure he didn’t see me.”
“他进王宫时我远远地看到过他，但我想他应该没看见我。”卫队长说。
“But… even if we get to the Glutton’s Sea, we can’t get onto Tomb Island. You know that the sea has –“
“可……即使到了饕餮海，我们也上不了墓岛的，你知道海里有……”
“Good.” Ethereal stood up. “Please accompany the princess to the Glutton’s Sea, and find Prince Deep Water on Tomb Island.”
“很好，”空灵画师站起身来，“你们俩护送公主去饕餮海，去墓岛找深水王子！”
“Cross that bridge when you get to it. This is the only way. By dawn, all the ministers loyal to the king will have been painted into pictures, and Prince Ice Sand will have control of the capital garrison and the palace guards. He will seize the throne, and only Prince Deep Water can stop him.”
“到了再想办法吧，只有这一条生路了。天一亮，所有忠于国王的’臣都会被画到画里，禁卫军将被冰沙控制，他将墓夺王位，只有深水王子能制止他。”
The princess and the other two weren’t sure what the master painter was talking about, but Ethereal didn’t elaborate. He went on. “You must bring Deep Water back to the palace and kill Needle-Eye. Then you must find the painting of the princess and burn it. It’s the only way to keep her safe.”
公主和其他两人都不太明白空灵画师的话，但老画师没有进一步解释，只是继续说：“你们一定要让深水回到王宫，杀掉针眼，并找到公主的画像，烧掉那幅画，公主就安全了。”
“If Prince Deep Water returns to the palace, won’t Needle-Eye paint him into a picture as well?” asked the princess.
“深水王子回到王宫，不是也会被针眼画到画里吗？”会主问。
“Don’t worry. Needle-Eye will not be able to paint Prince Deep Water. The prince is the only person in the kingdom who cannot be painted by Needle-Eye. Luckily, I only taught Needle-Eye how to paint in the Western style, but never taught him Eastern painting.”
“放心，不会的，针眼画不出深水王子。深水是王国中针眼唯一画不出来的人，很幸运，我只教过针眼西洋画派，没有向他传授东方画派。”
“Your Royal Highness, it’s too late. They’re gone. They’re now only paintings. If you find them, don’t burn them. Keep them for memory.”
老画师缓缓地摇摇头，“我的公主，来不及了，他们已经没有了，他们现在就是那两幅画像了，如果找到不要毁掉，留作祭莫吧。”
“What if we can find the paintings of the king and the queen –“
“如果也能找到父王和母后的画像……”公主拉住空灵画师急切地说。
“Princess, now is not the time for sorrow. If you want to avenge your father and mother, you had better be on your way.” The old master turned to Auntie Wide and the captain. “Remember, until you locate and destroy the princess’s portrait, you must keep the umbrella open over her. She can’t be without its protection, not even for a second.” He took the umbrella from Auntie Wide’s hands, and kept spinning it. “Don’t spin it too slowly, because it will fall closed; but don’t spin it too fast, because the umbrella is old, and it may fall apart. The umbrella is alive, in a sense. If you spin it too slow, it will cry out like a bird. Listen –” He slowed down the spinning until the stones at the rim of the canopy began to droop, and the umbrella emitted a nightingale-like sound. The slower he spun it, the louder the noise. The old master sped up the spinning. “If you spin it too fast, it will ring like a bell. Like this –” The old master spun the umbrella even faster, and the umbrella began to sound like a wind chime, but faster and louder. “All right. Now protect the princess.” He handed the umbrella back to Auntie Wide.
“我的公主，现在不是哀伤的时候，要想为国王和王后复仇，就赶快上路吧！”老画师说着，转向宽姨和卫队长，“你们要注意。在找到并毁掉公主的画像之前，伞要一直给她打着，一刻都不能离开。也不能合上。”他把伞从宽姨手中拿过来，继续转动着，“伞不能转得太慢，那样它就会合上，也不能太快，因为这伞年代已久，转得太快会散架的。黑伞有灵气，如果转得慢了，它会发出像鸟叫的声音，你们听，就足这样子——”老画师把伞转慢了些。伞面在边缘那些石球的重量下慢慢下垂，这时能听到它发出像夜莺一样的叫声，伞转得越慢声音越大。老画师重新加快了转伞的速度，鸟鸣声变小消失了。“如果转得太快，它会发出铃声，就像这样——”老画师继续加快转伞的速度，能听到一阵由小到大的铃声，像风铃，但更急促，“好了、现在快把伞给公主打上。”他说着，把伞又递给宽姨。
Grief crushed Princess Dewdrop, and she fell to the floor sobbing.
露珠公主被巨大的悲痛压倒，她跌坐在地上掩面痛哭起来。
“I taught that vile spawn how to paint. Death is what I deserve. What are you waiting for? Do you want to see the princess disappear before your eyes?”
老画师说：“是我把这画技传授给那个孽种，我该当此罪。你还等什么？想看着公主在你面前消失？”
Auntie Wide shivered. She moved the umbrella over the princess.
最后一句话令宽姨颤抖了一下，她立刻把伞移到公主上方。
Auntie Wide kept spinning the umbrella over the old master. She looked at the princess, then back to the painter, hesitating.
宽姨看看公主，又看看空灵画师，犹豫着。
“Master Ethereal, let’s leave together,” Princess Dewdrop said, looking up with tear-filled eyes.
“老人家，我们俩一起打伞走吧。”露珠公主抬起泪眼说。
The old painter stroked his beard and smiled. “It’s all right. I’ve painted all my life. To be turned into a painting is not a bad way to go. I trust my student’s technique. The portrait will be excellent…”
老画师抚着白须从容地笑起来，“这就对了，老夫绘画一生，变成一幅画也算死得其所。我相信那个孽种的技艺，那会是一幅精致好画的……”
“No. The dragon umbrella is only able to protect one person. If two individuals who have been painted by Needle-Eye try to use it together, they’ll both die a terrible death: Half of each person will be painted into the picture, and the other half will remain under the umbrella… Now raise the umbrella over the princess and go! Each moment you delay increases the danger. Needle-Eye may finish the picture any moment now!”
“不行，黑伞只能保护一个人，如果两个被针眼画出的人一起打伞，那他们都会死，而且死得更惨：每个人的一半被画入画中，一半留在外面……快给公主打伞，拖延一刻危险就大一分，针眼随时可能把她画出来！”
The captain took over. “Hurry! Prince Ice Sand’s men are everywhere. We’ll have trouble getting away after daylight.”
卫队长接过伞后说：“要快些，现在外面都是冰沙王子的人了，天亮后我们可能出不了王宫。”
Auntie Wide said to the captain, “Can you keep the umbrella up for a while? I need to go pack.”
宽姨对门口的卫队长说：“你快过来给公主打伞，我去收拾一下。”
Half an hour later, by the faint glow of dawn, a light carriage left the palace from a side door. The captain drove. In the carriage were the princess and Auntie Wide, who held up the spinning umbrella. They were all dressed as commoners, and the carriage soon disappeared in the fog.
半个小时后，在初露的曙光中，一辆轻便马车从一个侧门驶出王宫，卫队长赶着车，车上坐着露珠公主和给她打伞的宽姨，他们都换上了平民装束。马车很快消失在远方的雾霭中。
Princess Dewdrop stared at the empty space where the painter had been and muttered, “Let’s go. To the Glutton’s Sea.”
露珠公主看着老画师消失的那片空间，喃喃地说：“好吧，我们走，去饕餮海。”
As he spoke, his body slowly became transparent, then faded away like a wisp of fog.
空灵大画师的身体渐渐变得透明，然后像雾气一般消失了。
“But I have to pack! The princess has never been away. I’ve got to take her traveling cloak and boots, and lots of clothes, and her water, and… also the bath soap from He’ershingenmosiken — she can’t sleep if she doesn’t bathe with it…” Auntie Wide continued to mutter as she left.
“可我总得给公主带些东西，她从来没有出过远门，我要带她的斗篷和靴子，她的好多衣服，她喝的水，至少……至少要带上那块赫尔辛根默斯肯出产的好香皂，公主只有用那香皂洗澡才能睡着觉……”宽姨唠唠叨叨地走出房间。
In that distant underground bunker, Needle-Eye had just completed the portrait of Princess Dewdrop. “This is the most beautiful portrait I’ve ever painted,” he said to Prince Ice Sand.
这时，在那个阴森的地堡中，针眼画师刚刚完成露珠公主的画像，他对冰沙王子说，这是他画过的最美的一幅画。
Once they were outside the palace, the captain drove the horses as fast as they would go. All three were anxious. In the brightening darkness, they felt danger looming in every shadowy copse and field they passed. After the sky brightened even more, the carriage came to the top of a hill, where the captain stopped so they could look back along the road. The kingdom spread out below the hill, and the road was like a straight line that divided the world in half. At the end of the line was the palace, looking like a pile of toy blocks forgotten on the horizon. No one was chasing after them; apparently Prince Ice Sand thought the princess no longer existed because she had been captured by Needle-Eye’s brush.
出了王宫后，卫队长驾车一路狂奔。三个人都很紧张，他们感觉在未尽的夜色里，影影绰绰掠过的树木和田野中充满危险。天亮了一些后，车驶上了一个小山冈，卫队长勒住马，他们向来路眺望。王国的大地在他们下面铺展开未，他们来的路像一条把世界分成两部分的长线，线的尽头是王宫，已远在天边，像被遗失在远方的一小堆积木玩具。没有看到追兵，显然冰沙王子认为公主已经不存在了，被画到了画中。
[The Second Tale of Yun Tianming, “The Glutton’s Sea”]
【云天明的第二个故事：饕餮海】
They continued in a more relaxed manner. As the sky continued to brighten and illuminate everything around them, the world resembled a picture being painted. At first, there were only vague outlines and hazy colors; later, the outlines became more defined, the colors richer and more vivid. The moment just before the sun rose was when the painting became complete.
以后他们可以从容地赶路了。在天亮的过程中，周围的世界就像是一幅正在绘制中的画，开始只有朦胧的轮廓和模糊的色彩，后来，景物的形状和线条渐渐清晰精细，色彩也丰富明快起来。在太阳升起前的一刹那，这幅画已经完成。
“That’s true,” said Auntie Wide, spinning the umbrella. “But you’re alive in this picture. In the other picture, you’re already dead.”
“是啊，公主，可在这幅画里你活着，在那幅画中你就死了。”打伞的宽姨说。
“It’s so lovely outside,” said the princess. “It’s as if we’re already in the picture.”
“外面真好，我们好像已经在画中呢。”公主赞叹道。
The princess, who had always lived in the palace, had never seen such large patches of vibrant colors: the green of forests, grassland, and fields, the bright red and brilliant yellow of wildflowers, the silver of the sky reflected in lakes and ponds, the snowy white of flocks of sheep… As the sun rose, it was as if the painter of this world-picture scattered a handful of gold dust boldly over the surface of the painting.
常年深居王宫的公主从来没有见过这祥大块大块的鲜艳色彩：森林草地和田野的大片绿色、花丛的大片鲜红和嫩黄、湖泊倒映着的清晨天空的银色、早出的羊群的雪白……太阳升起时，仿佛绘制这幅画的画师抓起一把金粉豪爽地撒向整个画面。
They talked about Prince Deep Water.
他们谈起了深水王子。
“Why was he exiled to Tomb Island?” asked the princess.
“他为什么被流放到墓岛上？”公主问
The princess was reminded of her departed parents. She forced herself to not cry. She understood that she was no longer a young girl, but a queen with duties she had to bear.
这话又让公主想起了已经离去的父王和母后，但她抑制住了眼泪，她知道自己现在再也不是一个小女孩。她应该担当起国王的重任了。
“They say he’s a monster,” said the captain.
“人们都说他是怪物。”卫队长说。
“They say he’s a giant.”
“人们说他是巨人。”
“Prince Deep Water is no monster!” said Auntie Wide.
“深水王子不是怪物！”宽姨反驳道。
“Even if he’s a giant, he’s still the prince,” said the princess. “Why was he exiled to the island?”
“就算深水是巨人，他也是王子，为什么要流放到岛上？”公主问。
“He’s no giant. I held him when he was a baby. I know.”
“深水不是巨人！他小的时候我还抱过他，他不是巨人。”
“When we get to the sea, you’ll see. Many others have seen him. He really is a giant.”
“等我们到海边你就会看到的，他肯定是巨人，好多人都看到了。”
It was noon, and the captain shot two hares with his bow. The three ate by the side of the road in an open space between some trees. Princess Dewdrop caressed the soft grass next to her, inhaled the fragrance of herbs and wildflowers, watched the sunlight dappling the ground, and listened to the birds singing in the woods and some distant shepherd playing his flute — she was curious and delighted by this new world.
不知不觉到了中午，卫队长用弓箭射了两只兔子做午餐。三人坐在路边树丛间的空地上吃饭。露珠公主摸着身旁柔软的草地，嗅着青草和鲜花的清香，看着阳光透过树叶投在草地上的光斑，听着林中的鸟鸣和远处牧童的笛声，对这个新世界充满了好奇和惊喜。
“He wasn’t exiled. When he was little, he took a boat to Tomb Island to fish. But that was when the glutton fish appeared in the sea. He couldn’t come back, so he had to grow up on the island.”
“他没有被流放，他小时候坐船去墓岛上钓鱼，正好那时饕餮鱼在海上出现，他就回不来了，只好在岛上长大。”
Now that it was light out, the road gradually filled with more pedestrians and carriages. Since the princess had rarely set foot outside the palace in the past, people did not recognize her. She was also wearing a veil so that only her eyes showed, but anyone who saw her still exclaimed at her beauty. The people also admired the handsome young carriage driver and chuckled at the sight of the silly old mother holding up the umbrella for her pretty daughter — and what a strange way to keep the umbrella up! It was a bright, sunny day, and everyone thought it was a parasol.
太阳升起后，路上的行人和马车渐渐多起来。由于公主以前几乎没有出过王宫，所以人们都不认识她，但尽管她现在还戴着面纱，只露出两只眼睛，看到她的人仍惊叹她的美丽。人们也称赞驾车的小伙子的孔武英俊，笑话那个老妈妈为她的美丽女儿打着的那把奇怪的伞和她那奇怪的打伞方式。好在没有人质疑伞的用途，今天阳光灿烂，人们都以为这是遮阳伞。
“Silly girl, how can out here be better than the palace? You don’t know what it’s like out here. Right now, it’s spring. But in winter, it’s cold, and in summer, it’s hot. There are gales, and rainstorms, and all kinds of different people out here –“
“我的公主哇，外面哪有王宫里好？你真是不知道，外面有很多难处呢，现在是春天，冬天外面会冷，夏天会热，外面会刮风下雨，外面什么样的人都有，外面……”
But Auntie Wide sighed. “Oh, Princess, I’m so sorry you have to be away from the palace, suffering.”
宽姨却长叹一声，“唉，公主啊，离开王宫这么远，真让你受罪了。”
“I never knew anything about the outside before. In the palace, I studied music, painting, poetry, mathematics, and two languages that no one speaks anymore. But no one told me what was outside. How am I supposed to govern this kingdom?”
“可我以前对外面什么都不知道。我在王宫里学音乐，学绘画，学诗歌和算术，还学着两种谁都不说的语言，可没人告诉我外面是什么样子，我这样怎么能统治王国呢？”
“I think being outside is better than being in the palace.”
“我觉得外面比王宫好。”公主说。
A day’s journey lay between the palace and the sea. But the princess’s party avoided the major roads and towns, so they didn’t reach the sea until midnight.
从王宫到海边有一个白天的路程，但公主一行不敢走大道，遇到城镇就绕开，所以直到半夜才到达。
“Princess, your ministers will help you.”
“公主，大臣们会帮你的。”
“The ministers who would have helped me have all been painted into pictures… I still think the outside is better.”
“能帮我的大臣都被画到画里了……我还是觉得外面好。”
Dewdrop had never seen such a wide, open sky full of stars, and for the first time she felt how dark and silent the night could be. The torch on the carriage could only illuminate a small patch around her, and the world beyond was black velvet. The horses’ hoofbeats seemed loud enough to shake the stars from the sky. The princess pulled on the captain’s arm and asked him to stop.
露珠公主从来没有见过这样广阔的星空，也第一次领略了夜的黑暗和寂静，车上的火把只能照亮周围一小块地方。再往远处，世界就是一大块模糊的黑天鹅绒。马蹄声很响，像要把星星震下来。公主突然拉住卫队长，让他把马车停下。
“It’s the sound of the sea, Princess.”
“公主，这是海的声音。”
“What are these?”
“那些是什么？”
The captain stopped, hopped down, and took the torch close to one of the objects. “Princess, you should recognize these.”
她问。卫队长又停下车，取下车上的火把走到最近的一个旁边，“公主，你应该认识这个的。”
“Because the sea has glutton fish.”
“因为海里有要答鱼。”
They went on a bit farther, and the princess could see vague shapes on both sides — giant bananas?
又前行了一段，公主看到两旁有许多在夜色中隐约可见的物体，像一根根大香蕉？
“Why are the boats… on land?”
“为什么船……在陆地上？”
“Don’t be scared, Princess. That’s not a snake, but the surf. We’ve reached the sea.”
“不要怕公主，那不是蛇，是海浪，我们到海边了。”
The light from the captain’s torch revealed a long-abandoned boat. The sand buried half of it, and the exposed part seemed like the skeleton of some beast.
在火把的光芒中可以看到，这艘船已经很旧了，船身被沙子埋住一半，露在外面的部分像巨兽的白骨。
“Look over there!” The princess pointed ahead. “A big white snake!”
“啊，看那里！”公主又指着前方惊叫，“好像有一条白色的大蛇！”
“Boats?”
“船？”
“Yes, boats.”
“是的，船。”
“Listen! What is that? It sounds like a giant breathing.”
“听，这是什么声音？像巨人的呼吸。”
The princess and Auntie Wide, who kept the umbrella over her, climbed down from the carriage. She had only seen the sea in pictures before, and those painted seas were blue waves under a blue sky. But the sea she saw now was a black ocean at night, filled with the grandness and mystery of starlight, like another sky in liquid form. The princess advanced toward the sea, as if compelled by some force. The captain and Auntie Wide stopped her.
公主和为她打伞的宽姨一起下车，她看到了大海。她以前只在画中见过海，那画的是蓝天下的蓝色海洋，与这夜空下的黑色海洋完全不同这泛着星光的博大与神秘，仿佛是另一个液态的星空。公主不由自主地向海走去，却被卫队长和宽姨拦住了。
The captain picked up a loose plank lying nearby and walked ahead, tossing it into the sea. The plank bobbed over the water a few times before a black shadow surfaced and headed for it. Since most of the shadowy creature was underwater, it was hard to tell how large it was. The scales on its body flickered in the torchlight. Then, three or four more shadows surfaced and also swam for the plank. The shadows fought over the plank, and as the water splashed, the sound of sharp teeth sawing through and crunching the wood could be heard. In a few moments, the shadows and the plank all disappeared.
卫队长拾起一块破船板，走上前去把船板扔到海中。船板在海面晃荡了儿下，很快附近一个黑影浮出水面向它扑去，由于大部分在水下，看不出那东西的大小、它身上的鳞片在火把的光中闪亮。紧接着又有三四个黑影飞快地游向船板，在水中争抢成一团，伴随着哗哗的水声，可以听到利齿发出的咔嚓咔嚓声，仅一转眼的工夫，黑影和船板都不见了。
“It’s dangerous to get too close,” said the captain.
“公主，离海太近危险。”卫队长说。
“The glutton fish will tear you apart and eat you!” said Auntie Wide.
公主指指沙滩上的白浪说。“海里有里有饕餮鱼，它们会把你撕碎吃掉的！”宽姨说。
“They could make short work of even a large ship,” said the captain.
“看到了吗？它们能在很短的时间里把一艘大船咬成碎片。”卫队长说。
“I don’t think the water is very deep. Will I drown?”
“我看前面水不深，能淹死我吗？”
“Where’s Tomb Island?” asked Auntie Wide.
“墓岛呢？”宽姨问。
They camped on the beach. Auntie Wide handed the spinning umbrella to the captain and retrieved a small wooden basin from the carriage.
他们在沙滩上露营。宽姨把伞交给卫队长打，从马车上拿下一个小木盆。
“In that direction.” The captain pointed at the horizon. “But we can’t see it now. We’ll have to wait until daylight.”
“在那个方向，”卫队长指指黑暗的水天相连处，“夜里看不见，天一亮就能看见。”
“I think only two bars are left in the entire palace — no, the entire kingdom. I saved one from years back for the princess. Anything from He’ershingenmosiken is superior, but fewer and fewer of these objects are left.” Auntie Wide took back the bath soap and carefully packed it away.
“我只有两块了，整个王宫，我想整个王国，也只剩这最后两块了，是我早些年特意给公主留的。唉，赫尔辛根默斯肯的东西都是好东西，可惜现在越来越少了。”宽姨说着，把香皂拿回来小心地放回包裹中。
The captain returned with a basin full of fresh water. Auntie Wide took out the princess’s bath soap and touched it to the water. With a pop, the surface of the water became full of foam, and some of the foam spilled out the sides.
卫队长很快回来，不知从什么地方打来了一盆清水。宽姨为公主洗脸，她拿一块香皂在水中只蘸了一下，一声轻微的吱啦声后，盆面立刻堆满了雪白的泡沫，鼓出圆圆的一团，还不断地从盆沿溢出来。
“Princess, I’m afraid you won’t be able to bathe tonight. But at least you can wash your face.”
“公主呀，今天是不能洗澡了，可你至少该洗洗脸的。”
The captain handed the umbrella back to Auntie Wide and took the basin to go find water. His figure disappeared in the night.
卫队长把伞交还给宽姨，说他去找水，就拿着盆消失在夜色中。
“What a good young man.” Auntie Wide yawned.
“他是个好小伙子。”宽姨打着哈欠说。
The captain hefted the soap; it seemed to have no weight at all, like holding a white shadow. “This really is from He’ershingenmosiken! I’m amazed we still have any.”
卫队长接过香皂，真的感觉不到一点儿分量，像拿着一团白色的影子。“这还真是赫尔辛根默斯肯香皂，现在还有这东西？”
The captain stared at the soap foam. He turned to Auntie Wide. “May I see the soap?”
卫队长盯着泡沫看了一会儿，对宽姨说：“让我看看那块香皂。”
Auntie Wide carefully handed over the pure white bath soap. “Hold on tight! It’s lighter than a feather. If you let go, it will float away.”
宽姨从包裹中小心翼冀地拿出一块雪白的香皂，递给卫队长，“拿好了，它比羽毛还轻，一点儿分量都没有，一松手就飘走了。”
As she watched the white foam, the princess recalled her life in the palace for the first time since the start of the journey. Every night, in her elegant, ornate bathing suite, the bathing pool was covered by foam just like this. In the light of the various lamps, the bubbles sometimes looked pure white like a cloud pulled from the sky, sometimes iridescent, like a pile of jewels. As she soaked among the bubbles, she felt her body turn soft as noodles, felt herself melt into the bubbles. It felt so comfortable that she didn’t want to move anymore, so that the servant girls had to lift her out, dry her, and then carry her to the bed to sleep. The wonderful feeling lasted until the next morning.
看着那团白泡沫，公主在出行后第一次回忆起王宫中的生活。每天晚上，在她那精美华丽的浴宫中，大浴池上就浮着一大团这样的泡沫，灯光从不同方向照来，大团泡沫忽而雪白，像从白天的天空中抓来的一朵云；忽而变幻出宽彩，像宝石堆成的，泡到那团泡沫中，公主会感到身体变得面条般柔软，感到自己在融化，成了泡沫的一部分，那舒服的感觉让她再也不想动弹，只能由女仆把她抱出去擦干，再抱她去床上睡觉。那种美妙的感觉可以一直持续到第二天早晨。
After the princess washed her face with the He’ershingenmosiken bath soap, her face felt relaxed and soft, but her body remained tired and stiff. After a quick supper, she lay down on the beach — she tried lying on a blanket first, then realized that it was more comfortable to sleep on the sand directly. The sand retained some of the heat of the day, and made her feel as though she were being held in a warm, giant palm. The rhythmic surf was like a lullaby, and she soon fell asleep.
现在，公主用赫尔辛根默斯肯香皂洗过的脸很轻松很柔软，身上却僵硬而疲劳。随便吃了些东西后，她便在沙滩上躺下，开始时铺了一张毯子，后来发现直接躺到沙上更舒服。柔软的沙层带着白天阳光的温度，她感觉像被一只温暖的大手捧在手心，涛声像催眠曲，她很快睡着了。
After an unknown amount of time, Princess Dewdrop was awakened by a ringing bell. The sound came from the black umbrella spinning overhead. Auntie Wide was asleep next to her, and the umbrella-spinner was the captain of the guards. The torches had already been extinguished, and night covered all like black velvet. The captain appeared as a cutout against the starry sky, and only his armor reflected the starlight, while his hair swayed with the wind. The umbrella spun steadily in his hand, a tiny dome that blocked out half the sky. She couldn’t see his eyes, but could feel them and innumerable twinkling stars gazing at her.
不知过了多长时间，露珠公主被一阵铃声从无梦的酣睡中惊醒，那声音是从她上方旋转的黑伞中发出的。宽姨睡在她旁边，打伞的是卫队长，火把已经熄灭，夜色像天鹅绒般笼革着一切，卫队长是星空背景前的一个剪影，只有他的盔甲映出星光，还可以看到海风吹起他的头发。伞在他的手中稳撼地旋转着，像一个小小的穹顶遮住了一半夜空。她看不见他的眼睛。但能感觉到他的目光，他与无数眨眼的星星一起看着自己。
“We seem to be farther away from the sea.”
“我们离海好像远了”
“Sorry, Princess. I spun a bit too fast,” whispered the captain.
“对不起公主，我刚才转得太快了。”卫队长低声说。
“After midnight.”
“后半夜了。”
“What time is it?”
“现在是什么时间了？”
“It’s low tide. Tomorrow morning, the water will come back.”
“公主，这是退潮海水后退了，明天早上还会涨起来的”
“Have you been taking turns with the umbrella?”
“你们轮流为我打伞吗？”
“Yes. Auntie Wide did it for the whole day. I’ll relieve her by doing it a bit longer tonight.”
“使得，公主，宽姨打了一白天，我夜里多打一会儿”
“But you drove all day. Let me do it. You get some rest.”
“你也驾了一天车，让我自己打一会儿伞，你也睡吧。”
Princess Dewdrop was a bit surprised by her own words. As far as she could remember, this was the first time she had ever thought about the needs of others.
说出这话后，露珠公主自己也有些吃惊，在她的记忆里，这是自己第一次为别人着想。
“No, Princess. Your hands are smooth and delicate; spinning the umbrella will give you blisters. Let me keep on doing this.”
“那不行，公主，你的手那么细嫩，会磨起泡的，还是让给我为你打伞”
“What is your name?”
“你叫什么名字？”
Though they’d traveled together for a whole day, she hadn’t thought to ask for his name until now. Before, she would have thought this perfectly normal. But now she felt a bit guilty.
同行已经一天，她现在才问他的名字。放在以前她会觉得很正常，甚至永远不问都很正常，但现在她为此有些内疚。
“I’m called Long-Sail.”
“我叫长帆。”
“Sail?” The princess looked around. They were camped by the side of a large boat on the beach, which shielded them from the wind. Unlike the other boats stranded on the beach, this one still had its mast, like a sword pointing at the stars. “Isn’t a sail the cloth hung on the long stick?”
“长帆。”公主转头看看，他们现在是在沙滩上的一艘大船旁边，这里可以避海风。与其他那些搁浅在海滩上的船不同，这艘船的桅杆还在，像一把指向星空的长剑。“帆是不是挂在这根长杆上的大布？”
“Sails are so white on the sea. Very pretty.”
“帆在海面上雪白雪白的，很好看。”
“Only in pictures. Real sails are not so white.”
“那是在画中吧，真正的帆没有那么白的。”
“I believe you are from He’ershingenmosiken?”
“你好像是赫尔辛根默斯肯人？”
“Yes. That’s called a mast. The sail hangs from it so that the wind can push the boat.”
“是的，公主，那叫桅杆，帆挂在上面，风吹帆推动船。”
“Not really. I was so young when I left that I don’t remember much of it. And even if I do remember, it’s useless. I can never leave the Storyless Kingdom.”
“不太想，我小时候就离开那里，记得不太清了，再说想也没用，现在永远也不可能离开无故事王国了。”
“That’s right. My father was an architect in He’ershingenmosiken. He brought our whole family here when I was little.”
“是的，我父亲是赫尔辛根默斯肯的建筑师，在我很小的时候，他带着全家来到了这里。”
The waves crashed against the beach some distance away, as though repeating Long-Sail’s words again and again: can never leave; can never leave…
远处，海浪哗哗地喧响，仿佛在一遍遍地重复着长帆的话：永远不可能离开，永远不可能离开……
“Do you ever think about going home — I mean, to He’ershingenmosiken?”
“你想回家吗，我是说赫尔辛根默斯肯？”
“Tell me some stories about the outside world. I don’t know anything,” said the princess.
“给我讲讲外面世界的故事吧，我什么都不知道。”公主说。
“You don’t need to know. You are the princess of the Storyless Kingdom, and it’s natural that the kingdom has no stories for you. As a matter of fact, no one outside the palace tells their children any stories either. But my parents were different. They were from He’ershingenmosiken, and so they did tell me some stories.”
“你不需要知道，你是无故事王国的公主，王国对你来说当然是无故事的。其实，公主，外面的人们也不给孩子们讲故事，但我的父母不一样，他们是赫尔辛根默斯肯人，他们还是给我讲了一些故事的。”
“My father told me that long ago, the Storyless Kingdom had stories, too.”
“其实父王说过，无故事王国从前也是有故事的。”
“That’s true… Princess, do you know that the kingdom is surrounded by the sea? The palace is at the center of the kingdom. No matter which direction you pick, you’ll end up eventually at the shore. The Storyless Kingdom is a big island.”
“是的……公主，你知道王国的周围都是海吧，王宫在王国的中心，朝任何一个方向走，最后都会走到海边，无故事王国就是一个大岛。”
“Life was full of stories, and filled with changes and surprises. There were several big bustling cities in the kingdom, and the palace wasn’t surrounded by forests and fields, but by a flourishing capital. Everywhere in the cities you could find the valuable goods and the singular tools and utensils of He’ershingenmosiken. And the goods of the Storyless Kingdom — oh, I mean the Storyful Kingdom — flowed to He’ershingenmosiken over the sea without cease. People’s lives were unpredictable, like riding a fast horse through the mountains: One moment you’d be atop a peak, and the next moment you’d have fallen into a ravine. There was opportunity and danger: A poor person could become rich overnight, and a wealthy person could also lose everything in a moment. Upon awakening, no one knew what was going to happen that day, or who they were going to meet. Life was stimulating and astonishing.
“那时生活中充满了故事，充满了变化和惊奇。那时，王国中有好几座繁华的城市，王宫的周围不是森林和田野，而是繁华的首都。城市中到处可见来自赫尔辛根默斯肯的奇珍异宝和奇异器具。无故事王国，哦不，故事王国的物产也源源不断地从海上运往赫尔辛根默斯肯。那时，人们的生活变幻莫测，像骑着快马在山间飞奔，时而冲上峰顶，时而跌入深谷，充满了机遇和危险。穷人可能一夜暴富，富豪也可能转眼赤贫，早晨醒来，谁也不知道今天要发生什么事，要遇到什么样的人。到处是刺激和惊喜。
“In the past, the sea around the kingdom wasn’t called the Glutton’s Sea. Back then, there were no glutton fish, and ships plied the waters freely. Every day, countless ships passed between the Storyless Kingdom and He’ershingenmosiken — well, back then, this was called the Storyful Kingdom, and life was very different.”
“以前，王国周围的海不叫饕餮海，那时海中没有饕餮鱼，船可以自由地在海上航行，无故事王国和赫尔辛根默斯肯之间每天都有无数的船只来往。那时无故事王国其实是有故事王国，那时的生活与现在很不一样。”
“Of course. I knew that.”
“这我知道。”
“Oh?”
“嗯？”
“The glutton fish sold very well in the kingdom. Although the fish’s teeth were tiny, they were as hard as diamonds and could be used as drill heads. Their fins were also very sharp, and could be made into arrowheads or small knives. Thus, more and more glutton fish were shipped from He’ershingenmosiken to this kingdom. Once, a typhoon caused one of these transport ships to capsize near the coast, and more than twenty barrels of glutton fish were lost at sea.
“饕餮鱼在王国的市场上销路很好，因为它们的牙齿虽小，但像金钢石一样坚硬，可做钻头；它们的鳍创民锋利，能做箭头或刁、刀。于是，越来越多的饕餮鱼从赫尔辛根默斯肯运到了王国。在一次台风中，一艘运鱼船在王国沿海失事沉没，船上运载的二十多桶饕餮鱼全部倾倒进了海中。”
“But one day, a merchant ship from He’ershingenmosiken brought a stock of rare small fish in cast-iron barrels. The fish was only about as long as a finger, black in color, and looked perfectly ordinary. The merchant performed for the public in the markets: He stuck a sword into the iron barrel, and after an ear-piercing series of grinding noises, pulled the sword out to show that it had been bitten into a saw. The fish were called glutton fish, a freshwater species found in dark pools deep in the caves of He’ershingenmosiken.”
“但有一天，一艘来自赫尔辛根默斯肯的商船带来一种珍奇的小鱼，这种鱼只有手指长，黑色的，貌不惊人，装在坚硬的铸铁水捅中。卖鱼的商人在王国的集市上表演，他将一把剑伸进铁捅中的水里，只听到一阵刺耳的’咔嚓咔嚓‘声，剑再抽出来时已被咬成了锯齿状。这种鱼叫饕餮鱼，是一种内陆的淡水鱼，生长在赫尔辛根默斯肯岩洞深处黑暗的水潭中。”
“It turned out that the glutton fish thrived in the ocean, and grew to be as long as a man, far larger than their freshwater form. Also, they bred quickly, and their population exploded. They began to eat everything that floated on the surface. Ships and boats that weren’t dragged onto the shore in time were chewed into pieces. When glutton fish surrounded a ship, they chewed huge holes through the bottom. But the ship didn’t even have time to sink before it was chewed into nothing, as though it had melted. The schools of glutton fish swam around the kingdom and quickly formed a barrier in the sea.”
“人们发现，饕餮鱼在海中能够飞快地生长，长得比在陆地上要大得多，能达到一人多长，同时繁殖极快，数量飞速增加。饕餮鱼开始捕食所有漂浮在海面上的东西，没来得及拖上岸的船，不管多大，都被啃成碎片，当一艘大船被饕餮鱼群围住时，它的船底很快被啃出大洞，但连沉没都未不及，就在海面上被咬成碎片，像融化掉一般。鱼群在故市王国的沿海环游，很快在王国周国的海中形成一道环形的屏障。”
“And so the glutton fish laid siege to the Storyful Kingdom, and the shore became a land of death. There were no more ships and sails, and the kingdom was sealed off, with all connections to He’ershingenmosiken and the larger world cut off. It reverted to a self-sufficient agrarian land. The bustling cities disappeared and turned into small towns and ranches. Life became calm and dull, with no more changes, no more stimulation and surprises. Yesterday was like today, and today is like tomorrow. The people gradually grew used to this and stopped yearning for a different life. Their memories of the past, like the exotic goods from He’ershingenmosiken, grew fewer with each passing day. People even deliberately tried to forget the past, and also the present. All in all, they no longer wanted stories, so they patterned their life into a storyless one. And so the Storyful Kingdom became the Storyless Kingdom.”
“故事三国就这样被周围海域中的饕餮鱼包图，沿海已成为死亡之地，不再有任何船只和风帆，王国被封闭起未，与赫尔辛根默斯肯和整个外部份界斯绝了一切联系，过起了自给自足的田园生活。繁华的城市消失了，变成小镇和牧场，生活日浙宁静平淡，不再有变化，不再有刺激和惊喜，昨天像今天，今天像明天。人们渐渐适应了这样的日子，不再向往其他的生活。对过去的记，就像来自赫尔辛根默斯肯的奇异物品那样日渐稀少，人们甚至有意地忘记过去，也忘记现在。总的来说就是再不要故事了，建立了一个无故事的生活，故事王国也就变成了无故事王国。”
Princess Dewdrop was mesmerized by the story. Only long after Long-Sail had stopped did she ask, “Are there still glutton fish everywhere in the sea?”
露珠公主听得入了迷，长帆停了好久，她才问：“现在海洋上到处都有饕餮鱼吗？”
“Princess, do you really think the world consists of only these two places?”
“公主，你认为世界只有这两个地方吗？”
“That’s what the royal tutor taught me when I was little.”
“小时候我的宫廷老师就是这么说的。”
“No. They live only around the coast of the Storyless Kingdom. Those with good eyes can sometimes see distant seabirds floating on the surface of the ocean hunting for food. There are no glutton fish there. The ocean is immense and boundless.”
“不，只是无故事王国的沿海有，眼神好的人有时能看到海鸟浮在离岸很远的海面上捕食，那里没有要餐鱼。海洋很大，无边无际。”
“So, there are other places in the world in addition to the Storyless Kingdom and He’ershingenmosiken?”
“就是说，世界除了无故事王国和赫尔辛根默斯肯，还有别的地方？”
“He doesn’t even believe that lie himself. The world is very, very large. The ocean has no edge, and holds innumerable islands. Some are smaller than the kingdom, others larger. There are even continents.”
“这话连他自己都不信。世界很大，海洋无边无际，有无数的岛屿，有的比王国刁小，有的比王国大；还有大陆。”
“What are continents?”
“什么是大陆？”
“Land that is as vast as the sea. Even on a fast horse, you wouldn’t be able to go from one end to the other after many months.”
“像海洋一样广阔的陆地，骑着快马走几个月都走不到边。”
“As large as all that?” The princess sighed. Then, abruptly, she asked, “Can you see me?”
“世界那么大？”公主轻轻感叹，又突然问道，“你能看到我吗？”
“I can only see your eyes. There are stars in them.”
“公主，我现在只能看到你的眼睛，那里面有星星。”
“Then you must be able to see my yearning. I want to ride a sailboat across the sea, and go to faraway places.”
“那你就能看到我的向往，真想乘着帆船在海上航行，到很远很远的地方去。”
“What are you looking at?” the princess asked softly.
“你在看什么？”公主轻声问。
“Dewdrops will evaporate and disappear in the sun.”
“露珠在阳光下会很快蒸发消失。”
“They do. You’re all beautiful, like crystals.”
“像你，公主，都像水晶一样美丽。”
“What’s wrong?”
“怎么了，长帆？”
“Ah, like me. Do they look like me?”
“哦，那是我吗？像我吗？”
“Those are called dewdrops,” said Long-Sail.
“那叫露珠。”长帆说。
“You and I both know that we cannot get to Tomb Island, and we can’t bring Prince Deep Water back.”
“你知道，我也知道，我们到不了墓岛，也不可能把深水王子带回来。
The captain sighed deeply. He did it without making any noise, but the princess felt it.
卫队长发出一声叹息，很深沉，根本没有声音，但公主感觉到了。
Long-Sail was pointing at a small clump of grass in the sand. A few small droplets glistened in the torchlight on the grass blades.
长帆指的是公主身边一小丛长在沙里的小草，草叶上有几颗小水珠，在大光中晶莹地闪亮。
“When it’s daytime, they’ll be even prettier in the sun.”
“天亮后它们在太阳光下会更美的。”
“All right.”
“好的。”
“I will not let you disappear.”
“我不会让你消失的，公主。”
“There, Princess — look over there.”
“那里，公主，你看那个。”
The torches were lit. Princess Dewdrop looked at Captain Long-Sail, but noticed that he was looking elsewhere.
火把点燃后，露珠公主看着卫队长，却发现他的目光投向了别的地万。
The princess nodded. Her eyes dimmed. “Then they’re even more like me. If this umbrella closes, I will disappear. I will be the dewdrop in the sun.”
公主轻轻点点头，火光中她的目光黯然了，“那更像我了，这把伞一合上，我就会消失，我就是阳光下的雾珠。”
“Impossible. We can never leave the Storyless Kingdom, Princess, never ever… If you’re afraid of the dark, let’s light the torches.”
“不可能了，公主，我们永远不可能离开无故事王国，永远不能……你要是怕黑，我可以点上火把。”
“If so, I’ll just hold the umbrella up for you forever.”
“要是那样，公主，我就永远为你打伞。”
[The Third Tale of Yun Tianming, “Prince Deep Water”]
【云天明的第三个故事：深水王子】
The next time Princess Dewdrop awakened, it was light out. The sea had turned from black to blue, but the princess still thought it looked completely different from pictures she had seen. The vastness that had been hidden by night now lay bare. Under the morning sun, the surface of the sea was completely empty. But in the princess’s imagination, the glutton fish didn’t cause this emptiness; rather, the sea was empty for her, just as her suites in the palace were empty, waiting for her. The yearning she had spoken of to Long-Sail during the night now became more intense. She imagined a white sail belonging to her appearing on the sea, drifting away with the wind until it disappeared.
露珠公主再次醒来时，天已经亮了，大海由黑色变成了蓝色，但公主仍然感觉与画中见过的完全不同。曾被夜色掩盖的广阔现在一览无遗，在清晨的天光下，海面上一片空旷。但在公主的想象中，这空旷并不是饕餮鱼所致，海是为了她空着，就像王宫中公主的宫殿空着等她入住一样。夜里对长帆说过的那种愿望现在更加强烈，她想象着广阔的海面上出现一叶属于她的白帆，顺风漂去，消失在远方。
What the princess saw first wasn’t the island, but the giant standing on the island. It was clearly Prince Deep Water. He stood on the island like a lonesome mountain: his skin bronzed by the sun, his muscles rippling and bulging like folds of rock, his hair drifting in the wind like trees near the peak. He looked like Ice Sand, but wasn’t gloomy or dismal; rather, his gaze and expression all gave the viewer the feeling that he was open like the sea. The sun hadn’t completely risen yet, but the giant’s head was already bathed in the golden light, as though he were on fire. He shaded his eyes with a huge hand, and for a moment, the princess thought her gaze met his, and she cried out: “Big brother! I’m Dewdrop, your little sister! I’m your baby sister Dewdrop! We’re here!”
公主首先看到的不是墓岛，而是站在小岛上的那个巨人，那显然就是深水王子。他顶天立地站在岛上，像海上的一座孤峰。他的皮肤是日晒的棕色，强健的肌肉像孤峰上的岩石，他的头发在海风飘荡，像峰顶的树丛。他长得很像冰沙，但比冰沙强壮，也没有后者的阴郁，他的目光和表情都给人一种大海般豁达的感觉。这时太阳还没有升起，但巨人的头顶已经沐浴在阳光中。金灿灿的，像着火似的。他用巨手搭凉棚眺望着远有那么一瞬间，公主感觉她和巨人的目光相遇了，就跳着大喊：“深水哥哥！我是露珠！我是你的妹妹露珠！我们在这里！”
Auntie Wide now held the umbrella up for her. The captain called for them from the beach ahead. When they came to his side, he pointed to the ocean. “Look, that’s Tomb Island.”
现在为她打伞的是宽姨，卫队长在前面的海滩上向她们打招呼，让她们过去。等她们走去后，他朝海的方向一指说：“看，那就是墓岛。”
“Why isn’t he paying attention to us?” asked the anxious princess.
“他为什么注意不到我们？”公主焦急地问。
The giant gave no indication that he heard. His gaze swept past where they stood and moved elsewhere. Then he put his hand down, shook his head thoughtfully, and turned away.
巨人没有反应，他的目光从这里扫过，移向别处，然后放下手，若有所思地摇摇头，转向另一个方向。
“Who would notice three ants in the distance?” The captain turned to Auntie Wide. “I told you Prince Deep Water is a giant.”
“谁会注意到远处的三只小蚂蚁呢？”卫队长说，然后转向宽姨，“我说深水王子是巨人吧，你现在看到了。”
“We still have to let him know what’s happened first,” said the captain.
“那首先得让他知道这里发生了什么事。”卫队长摇摇头说。
“But when I held him he really was just a tiny baby! How did he get so big? But it’s a good thing he’s a giant. No one can stop him. He can punish those evildoers and retrieve the princess’s portrait.”
“可我抱着他的时候他确实是一个小小的婴儿呀！怎么会长得这么高？不过巨人好啊，谁也档不住他，他可以惩罚那些恶人，为公主找回画像了！”
“We must go over there! Let’s go to Tomb Island!” The princess clutched at Long-Sail.
“我要过去，我们必须过去！到墓岛上去！”公主抓住长帆说。
“We can’t. In all these years, no one has been able to get on Tomb Island. And no one there can come here.”
“过不去的，公主，这么多年了，没有人能够登上墓岛，那岛上也没有人能回来。”
Watching the tearful princess, Long-Sail seemed helpless. “I really don’t know of a way. Coming here was the right decision, because you had to get away from the palace — otherwise you’d just be waiting to die. But I knew from the start that we wouldn’t be able to get to Tomb Island. Maybe… we can send him a message by messenger pigeon.”
看着公主泪眼婆娑，长帆很不安，“我真的没办法，到这里来是对的，你必须远离王宫，否则就是等死，但我当初就知道不可能去墓岛。也许……可以用信鸽给他送一封信。”
“Is there really no way?” Tears escaped the princess’s eyes. “We came here to look for him! You must know what to do.”
“真想不出办法吗？”公主急得流出了眼泪，“我们到这里来就是为了找他，你一定知道该怎么办的！”
“But what good would it do? Even if he got the message, he still wouldn’t be able to come here. He might be a giant, but even he would be torn apart by the glutton fish in the sea… Let’s have breakfast before we decide what to do. I’ll go prepare.”
“但那又有什么用呢？即使他收到了信，也过不来，他虽然是巨人，到海中也会被饕餮鱼撕碎的……先吃了早饭再想办法吧，我去准备。”
“Oh no, my basin!” Auntie Wide cried out. It was high tide, and the rising waves had reached the wooden basin the princess had used the night before to wash her face. The basin had already floated some distance into the sea. It was upside down, and the soapy water inside had thrown white foam across a patch of the sea. They could see a few glutton fish swimming toward the basin, their sharp fins cutting through the surface like knives. The basin was going to turn into woodchips in their teeth in a second.
“哎呀，我的盆！”宽姨叫起来，由于涨潮，海水涌上了沙滩，把昨天晚上公主洗脸用的木盆卷到了海中。盆已经向海里漂出了一段距离，盆倒扣着，里面的洗脸水在海面泛起一片雪白的肥皂泡沫。可以看到有几条饕餮鱼正在向盆游去，它们黑色的鳍像利刀一样划开，水面，眼看木盆就要在它们的利齿下粉身碎骨了。
“Great idea! Let’s go find a messenger pigeon right away.”
“那太好了，我们这就去找信鸽！”
But something incredible happened: The glutton fish didn’t get to the basin. As soon as they reached the foam, they stopped swimming and floated to the surface. The fierce fish seemed to lose their drive, and became listless. A few slowly swung their tails back and forth — not to swim, but to display their relaxation. Others even decided to float with their white bellies up.
但一件不可思议的事发生了：饕餮鱼没有去啃啮木盆，而是都游进了那片泡沫中，一接触泡沫，它们立刻停止游动，全都浮上了水面，凶悍之气荡然无存。全变成了一副懒洋洋的样子，有的慢慢摆动鱼尾，不是为了游动而是表示惬意；有的则露出白色的肚皮仰躺在水面上。
The three observed the sight in silence, stunned. Then the princess said, “I… think I know how they feel. You’re so comfortable in the foam that it’s like you’ve gone boneless. They don’t want to move.”
三个人吃惊地看了一会儿，公主说：“我知道它们的感觉。它们在泡沫中很舒服，浑身软软的像没有骨头一样，不愿意动。”
“Even in He’ershingenmosiken, this kind of soap is very precious,” said Captain Long-Sail. “Do you know how it is made? There’s a magical forest in He’ershingenmosiken made up of thousand-year-old bubble trees, all very tall. Normally, there’s nothing special about the bubble trees, but whenever there’s a strong wind, soap bubbles come out of the trees. The stronger the wind, the more bubbles emerge. The He’ershingenmosiken bath soap is made from those bubbles, but collecting the bubbles is no easy matter. The bubbles drift very fast in the wind, and since they are transparent, it’s very hard to see them. Only if someone were running as fast as the bubbles, such that they’re at rest relative to the bubbles, would they be able to see them. This is possible only by riding the fastest horses, of which there are no more than ten in all of He’ershingenmosiken. Whenever the bubble trees begin to blow bubbles, the soap-makers ride these horses to chase after the wind and try to collect the bubbles with a thin gauze net. The bubbles come in different sizes, but even the largest bubble, once it’s in the net, will burst and end up smaller than the eye could see. Hundreds of thousands of such bubbles have to be collected — sometimes millions — to make one bar of soap.”
卫队长说：“即使在赫尔辛根默斯肯，这种香皂也很珍贵。你们知道它是怎样造出来的吗？赫尔辛根默斯肯有一片神奇的树林，那些树叫魔泡树，都长了上千年，很高大。平时魔泡树没有什么特别之处，但如果刮起大风，魔泡树就会被吹出肥皂泡来，风越大吹出的泡越多，赫尔辛根默斯肯香皂就是用那种泡泡做成的。收集那些肥皂泡十分困难，那些泡泡在大风中飘得极快，加上它们是全透明的，你站在那里很难看清它们，只有跑得和它们一样快，才能看到它们。骑最快的马才能追上风中的泡泡，这样的快马在整个赫尔辛根默斯肯不超过十匹。当魔泡树吹出泡泡时，制肥皂的人就骑着快马顺风狂奔、在马上用一种薄纱网兜收集泡泡。那些泡泡有大有小，但即使最大的泡泡，被收集到网兜里破裂后，也只剩下肉眼都看不见的那么一小点儿。要收集几十万甚至上百万的泡泡才能造出一块香皂。”
Auntie Wide said, “The bath soap from He’ershingenmosiken really is wonderful. Too bad there are only two bars left.”
宽姨说：“赫尔辛根默斯肯的香皂确实是好东西，可惜只有两块了。”
“Absolutely not!” said Auntie Wide. “How can the princess take such a risk?”
“想也别想！”宽姨大叫起来，“公主怎么能冒这个险？！”
Long-Sail abruptly stopped talking and stared at the sea, deep in thought. The few glutton fish continued to float lazily in the white foam. In front of them was the wooden basin, undamaged.
长帆突然停止了讲述，若有所思地盯着海面。那里，在雪白的赫尔辛根默斯肯香皂的泡沫中，那几条饕餮鱼仍然懒徽地躺浮着，在它们前，是完好无损的木盆。
“But once the soap is in the water, each bubble from the bubble tree turns into millions of new bubbles. This is why this kind of bath soap generates so much foam. The bubbles have no weight, which is why pure, authentic He’ershingenmosiken bath soap also has no weight. It’s the lightest substance in the world, but extremely precious. The bars that Auntie Wide has were probably given as gifts by the He’ershingenmosiken ambassador at the king’s coronation. After that –“
“但香皂中的每一个魔树泡如果再溶于水，就又能生发出上百万个泡泡，这就是香皂泡沫这么多的原因。魔泡树的泡泡都没有重量所以真正纯的赫尔辛根默斯肯香皂也完全没重量，是世界上最轻的东西，但很贵重。宽姨的那些香皂可能是国王加冕时赫尔辛根默斯肯使团带来的赠礼，后来……”
“I wasn’t talking about the princess.”
“公主当然不能去，我去。”
The princess could tell by his determined gaze that the captain had already made up his mind.
卫队长从海面收回目光，从他坚定的眼神中，公主看出他已经下定了决心。
“I think there may be a way to get to Tomb Island!” Long-Sail pointed to the basin. “What if that’s a little boat?”
“好像有一个办法到墓岛上去！”长帆指着海面上的木盆说，“你们想想，那要是一只小船呢？”
“If you go alone, how can you make Prince Deep Water believe you?” The princess’s excited face was flushed. “I’ll go, too. I have to!”
“你一个人去。怎样让深水王子相信你？”公主说，她兴奋得脸颊通红，“我去。我必须去！”
“My brother and I can prove our relationship by testing our blood,” said the princess.
“我们可以滴血认亲。”公主说。
“Do you think I’m going to be safe staying here?” The princess pointed to the spinning black umbrella in Auntie Wide’s hand. “We’ll attract too much attention, and Ice Sand is going to follow us here. If I remain here, Ice Sand’s army will catch me even if I don’t end up in a painting. I’ll be safer on Tomb Island.”
“我待在这里就安全吗？”公主指着宽姨手中旋转着的黑伞说，“我们太引人注意了，冰沙很快会知道我们的行踪，在这里，我就是暂时逃过了那张画，也逃不脱禁卫军的追杀，到墓岛上反而安全些。”
Auntie Wide said nothing. She knew there was a way.
宽姨没有说话，她知道有办法。
“Even if you get to the island, how can you prove you are who you say you are?” The captain looked meaningfully at the commoner’s garb on the princess.
“可就算你到了岛上，又怎么证明自己的身份？”卫队长打量着一身平民装束的公主说。
The captain found the smallest boat on the beach and used the horses to drag it to where the waves could just lick it. He couldn’t find a working sail, but was able to retrieve a pair of old oars from other ships. He had the princess and Auntie Wide, who held the umbrella, board the boat first. Then he skewered the bar of He’ershingenmosiken bath soap with his sword and handed the sword to the princess. “As soon as the boat is in the water, stick the soap in.”
卫队长从沙滩上找了一只最小的船，用马拖到水边，就在浪花刚舔到船首的地方。找不到帆，但从其他的船上找到两支旧桨。他让公主和打伞的宽姨上了船，将宽姨拿出来的赫尔辛根默斯肯香皂穿到剑上递给公主，告诉她船一下海就把香皂浸到水里。
“Even so, the princess cannot go. It’s too frightening!” But Auntie Wide’s tone was no longer so nonnegotiable.
“即使这样公主也不能去！这太吓人了！”宽姨说，但她的口气已经不是那么决绝。
And so they decided to go for it.
于是他们决定冒险了。
He pushed the boat into the sea and waded until the water had risen to his waist before jumping into the boat himself. He rowed with all his strength, and the boat headed for Tomb Island.
然后他向海里推船，一直推到水齐腰深的地方才跳上船全力划桨，小船载着三人向墓岛方向驶去。
The boat proceeded over the serene sea, dragging a long foamy wake like a wisp of cloud fallen to the sea. Innumerable glutton fish approached from both sides and swam into the foam like pilgrims congregating at a river of clouds. Once in a while, a few glutton fish approached from the front of the boat and managed to get a few bites in on the bottom — one even managed to bite off a chunk of the oar in the captain’s hand. But soon, even these fish were lured away by the foam behind the boat, and not much damage was done. As the princess took in the pure white cloud-river of bubbles behind the boat and the intoxicated multitude of glutton fish, she was reminded of Heaven as described by the priests.
小船在平静的海面上前进，后面拖曳了一条长长的泡沫尾迹。像一道落在海上的白云带。无数的饕餮鱼从两侧游过来进入泡沫中，像在进行一场云河中的朝圣。偶尔也有几条从前方游来的饕餮鱼啃几下船底，还把卫队长手中的木桨咬下了一小块，但它们很快就被后面的泡沫所吸引，没有造成大的破坏。看着船后海面上雪白的泡沫云河。以及陶醉其中的饕餮鱼，公主不由得想起了牧师讲过的天堂。
The black fins of the glutton fish began to appear around them and to approach. The princess sat at the stern, and submerged the soap on the sword into the water. Foam instantly swelled out of the sea until the bubbles were as high as a man before spreading out in the wake of the ship. As the glutton fish swam into the bubbles, they began to drift, as though they were enjoying the incomparable sensation of cozying up on a soft, white, plush blanket. This was the first time the princess had been able to get such a close look at the glutton fish: Except for their white bellies, they were entirely black, like machines made of steel and iron — and now they were lazy and docile in the foam.
饕餮鱼的黑鳍在周围的海面上出现，向小船围拢过来。公主坐在船尾，把穿在剑上的赫尔辛根默斯肯香皂浸到海水中，船尾立刻涌现一大团泡沫，在早晨的阳光中发出耀眼的白光，泡沫团迅速膨胀至一人多高，并在船尾保持这个高度，在后面则随着船的前行扩散开来，在海面形成雪白的一片。饕餮鱼纷纷游进泡沫浮在其中，像躺在雪白的毛绒毯上一样享受着无与伦比的舒适惬意。公主第一次这么近看饕餮鱼，它们除了肚皮通体乌黑，像钢铁做成的机器，但一进入泡沫就变得懒散温顺。
The princess pulled her gaze back to Long-Sail, who was propelling the boat. He looked even more the embodiment of strength: his muscles bulging everywhere, the two oars in his hands swinging rhythmically like a pair of wings, pushing the boat ahead steadily. The man seemed born for the sea; his movements were freer and more confident than when he had been on land.
公主收回目先，看着划船的长帆，他此时显得更加强健有力，强劲的肌肉块块鼓起，两支长桨在他手中像一对飞翔的翅膀，推动着小船平稳前行。这人似乎天生是一个水手，在海上显然比在陆地更加自如。
Auntie Wide cried out, “Look! Prince Deep Water seems to be growing shorter.”
宽姨突然喊道：“你们看，深水王子好像接了一些！”
The shore receded and the boat approached Tomb Island.
海岸渐渐远离，小船向墓岛靠近。
The princess looked. Auntie Wide was right. The prince was still a giant, but he was clearly smaller than he had been when seen from the shore. He still stood with his back to them and looked out in another direction.
公主转头望去，宽姨说得没错，岛上的王子仍是个巨人，但比在岸上看明显矮了一些，此时他仍背对着他们，眺望着别的方向。
“The prince sees us!” Auntie Wide called out. On Tomb Island, Prince Deep Water turned in their direction. One of his hands pointed at them, and his eyes gave a look of surprise. His mouth moved as though shouting something. It was no wonder that he was surprised. Theirs was the only boat on this sea of death, the farther back it was from the boat, the wider the foamy wake grew. From his vantage point, the sea seemed to suddenly be inhabited by a long-tailed comet.
“王子看到我们了！”宽姨又喊道。墓岛上，深水王子转向了这边，一手指着小船的方向，眼中透出惊奇的目光，嘴还在动，像喊着什么。他肯定会感到惊奇，除了这只出现在死亡之海上的小船外，船后的泡沫扩散开来，向后宽度逐渐增大，从他那个高度看过去，海面上仿佛出现了一颗拖着雪白彗尾的彗星。
Tomb Island had once been uninhabited. Twenty years ago, when Deep Water had gone to the island for fishing, he had brought with him a palace guardian, a royal tutor, and a few guards and servants. As soon as they came onto the island, schools of glutton fish came into the nearby shallows and sealed off the way home.
墓岛原是个荒岛，没有原住民。二十年前，深水去岛上钓鱼时，陪同他的有一名监护官、一名王宫老师、几名护卫和仆从。他们刚上岛，成群的饕餮鱼就游到这片沿海，封死了他们回王国的航路。
They soon realized that the prince wasn’t shouting at them. A few normal-sized individuals appeared at the prince’s feet. At this distance, the men looked tiny, and their faces couldn’t be clearly seen. But they were all looking in the direction of the boat, and a few waved.
他们很快知道王子并非对他们喊话，他的脚下出现了几个正常身高的人。从这个距离上，他们看上去很小，脸也看不清，但肯定都在朝这个方向看，有的还在挥手。
The boat was almost at the island. They could see eight or so normal-height people, most of them dressed in rough clothing made of canvas. like the prince himself. Two of them wore ceremonial robes from the palace, though they were very old and worn. Most also had swords. They ran onto the beach, leaving the prince behind them. By now he looked only about twice as tall as the others, no longer a giant.
小船渐渐接近岛岸，可以看清那些正常身高的人了，他们共八个人，大部分都穿着和王子一样的用帆布做的粗糙衣服，其中有两个老者穿着王宫的制服，但都已经很破旧了，这些人大都挂着剑。他们向海滩跑来，王子远远地跟在后面，这时，他看（上）去仅有其他人的两倍高，不再是巨人了。
The princess and the others noticed that the prince looked shorter still. The closer they approached the island, the shorter the prince grew.
他们发现，现在王子看上去又矮了一些，似乎小船距海岛越近，王子就越矮。
“Careful! The princess has to be under the umbrella,” Auntie Wide shouted. She was now very skilled with the umbrella, and managed to keep it spinning above the princess even with only one hand.
“当心，公主不能离开伞！”下船时宽姨高声说，同时使伞保持在公主上方，她这时打伞已经很熟练了，用一只手也能保持伞的旋转。
The captain rowed harder and the boat dashed forward. The waves pushed the boat like a giant’s hands, and the hull jolted as the bottom came to rest against the sand, almost toppling the princess out. The people onshore hesitated, apparently worried about the glutton fish, but four of them did come forward into the water to help stabilize the boat and support the princess as she disembarked.
卫队长加速划行，小船冲向岛岸，一道拍岸浪像巨手把小船向前推，船身震动了一下，差点把公主颠下船去，船底触到了沙滩。那些已经跑到海滩上的人看着小船扰像不前，显然怕怕水中的饕餮鱼，但还是有四个人跑上前来，帮忙把船稳住，扶公主下船。
Prince Deep Water came forward. Now he looked no taller than an ordinary man — in fact, he was shorter than two of his followers. He smiled at the newcomers like a kindhearted fisherman, but the princess could see shades of their father in his movements. With eyes full of hot tears, she called out, “Brother! I’m your sister, Dewdrop.”
深水王子也走上前来，这时，他的身高与普通人无异，甚至比这群人中的两个高个子还矮一些。他看着来人微笑着，像一个宽厚的渔民，但公主却从他身上看到了父王的影子，她扔下剑，热泪盈眶地喊道：“哥哥，我是你的妹妹露珠！”
The welcoming party did not bother to disguise their surprise. They looked from the spinning black umbrella to the wake of the ship: The white foam from the He’ershingenmosiken bath soap and the countless floating glutton fish formed a speckled path of black and white across the sea, connecting the kingdom with Tomb Island.
那些人毫不掩饰自己的惊奇，时而看看旋转的黑伞，时而看看小船经过的海面——那里，赫尔辛根默斯肯香皂的白沫和浮在海面的无数饕餮鱼形成了一条黑白相间的海路，连接着墓岛和王国海岸。
“Don’t you recognize me?” Auntie Wide said. “You’re Guardian Shaded-Forest, and that, over there, is Royal Tutor Open-Field.”
“你们不认识我了吗？你是暗林监护官，你——”宽姨指指另一位老者，“是广田老师。”
Both of them nodded. Open-Field said, “Auntie Wide, you’re looking hale and hearty, despite the years.”
两位老者都点点头。广田老师说：“宽姨，你老了。”
“You do look like my sister.” The prince smiled and held out his arms for her. But a few of his guards stopped the princess and separated the newcomers from the prince. Some had unsheathed their swords and watched the captain with suspicion. Long-Sail ignored them, but he picked up the sword the princess had dropped to examine it. In order to put the prince’s jittery guards at ease, he held the sword by the tip. He saw that the trip to Tomb Island had consumed only about one-third of the He’ershingenmosiken bath soap skewered on the sword.
“你像我的妹妹。”王子微笑着，点点头，向公主伸出双手。但几个人同时阻止了公主的靠近，把三位来者与王子隔开，其中有人佩剑已出鞘，警惕地盯着刚下船的卫队长。后者没有理会这边的事，只是拾起公主扔下的剑察看，为了避免对方误会，他小心地握着剑尖，发现经过这段航程，那块穿在剑上的赫尔辛根默斯肯香皂只消耗了三分之一左右。
“You must prove the princess’s identity,” an old man said. His uniform, though worn and patched, was still neat. His face showed the trials of many years, but his beard was neatly trimmed. Even on this desolate island, he had clearly tried to maintain the dignity of his position as an official of the palace.
“你们必须证实公主的身份。”一位老者说，他身上破旧的制服打理得很整齐，脸上饱经风霜，但留着像模像样的胡须，显然在这孤岛岁月中他仍尽力保持着王国官员的仪表。
Guardian Shaded-Forest kept his expression grim. “It’s been twenty years, and we have no idea what has happened back home. We must request that the princess prove her identity.” He turned to the princess. “Are you willing to have your blood tested?”
暗林监护官不为所动，仍一丝不苟地说：“二十多年了，我们一点都不知道王国发生了什么，所以还是必须证实公主的身份，”他转向公主，“请问，您愿意滴血认亲吗？”
The princess nodded.
公主点点头。
“And you two have aged, as well.” Auntie Wide wiped her eyes with her free hand.
“你们也老了。”宽姨说着，腾出一只转伞的手抹眼泪。
“I don’t think this is necessary,” said the prince. “I know she’s my sister.”
“我觉得没必要，她肯定是我的妹妹。”王子说。
“She is indeed Princess Dewdrop,” the guardian said solemnly. Then, together with the royal tutor, they both bowed to the princess. The prince’s other followers also knelt on one knee. Then they stood up and backed away, giving the royal siblings a chance to embrace.
“她是露珠公主。”监护官庄重地对王子说，然后同老师一起向公主鞠躬。其他的几个人都扶着剑柄单膝脆下，然后站起来闪到一边，让王子和公主兄妹拥抱在一起。
“Your Royal Highness,” said the guardian. “This must be done.”
“殿下，必须这样做。”监护官说。
Someone brought over two tiny daggers and handed one each to Guardian Shaded-Forest and Royal Tutor Open-Field. Unlike the rusty swords worn by the prince’s men, these daggers still gleamed like new. The princess held out a hand, and Shaded-Forest lightly pricked her index finger with the dagger and picked up a drop of blood with the tip of the dagger. Open-Field did the same with the prince. Then Shaded-Forest took both daggers and carefully touched the drops of blood together. The red blood instantly turned blue.
有人拿来两把很小的匕首，给监护官和老师每人一把。与这些人锈迹斑斑的佩剑不同，两把匕首寒光闪闪，像新的一样。公主伸出手来，监护官用匕首在她白嫩的食指上轻轻划了一下，用刀尖从破口取了一滴血。暗林老师也从王子的手指上取了血样，监护官从老师手中拿过匕首，小心翼翼地把刀尖上的两滴血混在一起，血立刻变成了纯蓝色。
“I held you when you were little,” said the prince. “Back then, you were only about this big.”
“小时候我抱过你，那时你才这么大。”王子比画着说。
A sobbing princess told the prince all that had happened in the Storyless Kingdom. The prince held her hand and listened without interrupting. His face, marked by the tribulations of twenty years, but still youthful, remained calm and steady throughout.
公主向王子哭诉王国已经发生的事，王子握着她的手静静地听着，他那饱经风霜但仍然年轻的脸上表情一直从容镇定。
Everyone gathered around the prince and the princess to listen to the story, but Captain Long-Sail engaged in some odd antics. He ran some distance away on the beach to look at the prince, and then came back, before dashing away again. Finally, Aunt Wide pulled him aside.
大家都围在王子和公主周围，静静地听着公主的讲述，只有卫队长在做着一件奇怪的事。他时而快步跑开，在海滩上跑到很远的地方看着王子，然后又跑回来从近前看他，如此反复好几次，后来宽姨拉住了他。
“He is and he isn’t,” whispered the captain. “When you look at a regular person, the farther away he is, the smaller he appears in our eyes, right? But the prince is not like this. No matter how far away he is, he looks the same size in our eyes. This is why from far away he appears to be a giant.”
“他既是巨人又不是巨人。”卫队长也压低声音说，“是这样的：我们看一般的人，他离得越远在我们眼中就越小，是吧？但王子不是这样，不管远近，他在我们眼中的大小都是一样的，近看他是普通身高、远看还是这么高，所以远看就像巨人了。”
Auntie Wide nodded. “I’ve noticed the same thing.”
宽姨点点头，“好像真是这样。”
“I told you: Prince Deep Water is not a giant,” whispered Auntie Wide.
“还是我说得对，王子不是巨人吧。”宽姨指指王子低声说。
After the princess finished her story, Prince Deep Water simply said, “Let’s go back.”
听完公主的讲述，深水王子只是简单地说：“我回去。”
They took two boats. The prince joined the princess’s party on the small boat; the other eight took a larger boat, the same one that had carried the prince and his followers to Tomb Island twenty years ago. The larger boat leaked, but was safe enough for a short trip. They took care to retrace the wake of the princess’s boat. Although the foam had dissipated somewhat, the glutton fish remained adrift without moving much. Once in a while, one of the boats or oars would strike a floating glutton fish, but the fish only wriggled lazily out of the way without a more strenuous response. The big boat’s sail was still somewhat functional, and so it sailed in front, opening up a path through the floating schools of glutton fish for the small boat.
回王国的船只有两只，王子与公主一行三人坐在小船上，其余八人乘另一只更大些的船，是二十年前载着王子一行来墓岛的船，有些漏水，但还能短程行驶。在来时的航道中，泡沫消散了一些，但无数的饕餮鱼仍然浮在海面上很少动弹，有些饕餮鱼被船头撞上，或被桨碰到，也只是懒洋洋地扭动几下，没有更多的动作。大船破旧的帆还能用，在前面行驶，从漂浮一片的饕餮鱼群中为后面的小船开出一条路来。
“I think it’s best if you dip the soap back into the sea for insurance. What if they wake up?” Auntie Wide nervously surveyed the drifting mass of glutton fish.
“你最好还是把香皂放到海里，保险一些，万一它们醒过来怎么办？”宽姨看着船周围黑压压的饕餮鱼，心有余悸地说。
“They’ve remained awake — they’re not moving much because they’re too comfortable. We don’t have much of the soap left, and I don’t want to waste any. I won’t be bathing with it in the future, either.”
公主说：“它们一直醒着，只是很舒服，懒得动。香皂只刹一块半了，不要浪费，而且我以后再也不用它洗澡了。”
A detachment of cavalry appeared on the shores of the kingdom. They rushed onto the beach like a dark tide. The armor and weapons of the mounted warriors gleamed in the sun.
在远处王国的海岸上出现了一支马队，像黑压压的潮水般涌上海滩，马上骑士的盔甲和刀剑在阳光中闪亮。
Someone in the big boat ahead called out, “The army!”
这时，前面的大船上有人喊道：“禁卫军！”
“Keep on going,” said Prince Deep Water.
“继续走。”深水王子镇定地说。
Dewdrop looked at her older brother. She knew now that he was even better suited to the throne than she.
露珠公主看着哥哥，现在她知道他更适合当国王。
“They’re here to kill us!” Blood drained from the princess’s face.
“他们是来杀我们的。”公主的脸色变得苍白。
As the wind was at their backs, the return trip took much less time despite the floating glutton fish bumping into the boats along the way. As both boats came onto the beach, the cavalry surrounded them like a solid wall. Both the princess and Auntie Wide were terrified, but Captain Long-Sail, who was more experienced, relaxed a bit. He saw that the soldiers all kept their swords sheathed and their lances vertical. More important, he noticed the eyes of the men: They wore heavy armor so that only their eyes were visible, but the eyes were focused beyond the fugitives at the foamy path over the sea filled with glutton fish. Long-Sail saw only awe in those eyes.
由于是顺风，尽管航道上有懒洋洋漂浮着的饕餮鱼阻碍，回程也快了许多。当两艘船几乎同时靠上海滩时，禁卫军的马阵围拢过来，密集地挡在他们面前，像一堵森严的墙壁。公主和宽姨都大惊失色，但经验丰富的卫队长却把提着的心多少放下一些，他看到对方的剑都在鞘中，长矛也都竖直着；更重要的是，他看到了那些马上的禁卫军士兵的眼睛，他们都身着重甲，面部只露出双眼，但那些眼睛越过他们盯着海面上那漂浮着饕餮鱼的泡沫航道，目光中都露出深深的敬畏。
“Don’t be afraid,” said the prince, and lightly patted her hand.
“不要怕，没事的。”王子拍拍公主的手说。
“This is Prince Deep Water and Princess Dewdrop. Watch your words and acts!” Guardian Shaded-Forest shouted at the officer.
“这是深水王子和露珠公主，不得无礼！”监护官暗林对禁卫军举起一只手臂大声说。
An officer dismounted and jogged over to the beached boats. The people on the boats disembarked, and the prince’s followers unsheathed their swords and stepped between the officer and the prince and princess.
一名军官翻身下马，向刚靠岸的船跑来。大船上的人都跳下船，监护官、老师和几名执剑的卫士把王子和公主档在后面。
The officer knelt down on one knee and bowed his head. “We know. But our orders are to pursue and kill the princess.”
跑过来的军官一手扶着插在沙滩上的剑，对王子和公主行单膝礼，“我们知道，但我们奉命追杀公主。”
“Princess Dewdrop is the heir to the throne by law! But Ice Sand is a traitor, guilty of regicide and patricide! How can you follow his orders?”
“露珠公主是合法的王位继承人！而冰沙是谋害国王的逆绒！你们怎么能听他的调遣？”
Shaded-Forest was about to say more, but Prince Deep Water stepped forward and stopped him. The prince turned to the officer. “Why don’t the princess and I return to the palace with you? We’ll confront Ice Sand there and resolve this once and for all.”
监护官还想说什么，但深水王子从后面走上前来制止了他，王子对军官说：“这样吧，我和公主与你们一起回王宫，等见到冰沙后，把事情做个了结。”
“We know this as well, which is why we will not carry out this order. But Prince Ice Sand ascended to the throne yesterday afternoon. We… are uncertain whose orders we should obey.”
“我们知道，所以我们不会执行这个命令，但，冰沙王子已经于昨天下午加冕为国王，所以，禁卫军现在也不知道该听谁的指挥。”
“Yes, my king.” Needle-Eye departed noiselessly like a rat.
“是，我的王。”针眼低声说，然后像老鼠一样无声地离去了。
“Deep Water? How did he cross the sea? Did he grow wings?” Ice Sand muttered to himself, but his face didn’t show the terror and surprise evident on others’. “Don’t worry. The army will not obey those two, unless I’m dead… Needle-Eye!”
“深水？他是怎么过海的？难道他长了翅膀？”冰沙自语道，但并没有像其他人那样面露惊恐，“没什么，禁卫军不会受深水和露珠指挥，除非我死了……针眼画师！”
The newly crowned King Ice Sand was celebrating in the most luxurious hall in the palace with those ministers who had sworn fealty to him, when messengers arrived to report that Prince Deep Water and Princess Dewdrop were speeding toward the palace at the head of an army. They would arrive in an hour. The hall instantly became silent.
在王宫最豪华的宫殿中，头戴王冠的冰沙正在同忠于他的大臣们纵酒狂欢。突然有人来报，说深水王子和寨珠公主统帅禁卫军从海岸急速向王宫而来，再有一个时辰就到了。宫殿中顿时陷入一片死寂。
“Take snow-wave paper and your brushes and ride toward Deep Water. When you see him, paint him. It will be easy. You won’t need to get too close. As soon as he appears over the horizon, you’ll get a good look at him.”
“你，带上雪浪纸和绘画工具，骑快马去深水来的方向，看他一眼，然后把他画下来。你见到深水很容易，不用靠近他，他在天边一出现你就能远远看到的。”
Needle-Eye emerged from the shadows. He was still dressed in his gray cloak, and appeared even frailer than before.
随着冰沙的召唤，针眼画师从暗处无声地走出，他仍然穿着那身灰斗篷，显得更瘦小了。
“As for Dewdrop, what can a mere girl do? I’ll tear that umbrella away from her.” Ice Sand lifted his flagon.
“至于露珠，一个女孩子，成不了大气候，我会尽快把她的那把伞枪走的。”冰沙说着，又端起酒杯。
The celebratory feast ended in a subdued atmosphere. The ministers left with worried expressions, and only Ice Sand remained in the empty hall.
宾会在压抑的气氛中结束，大臣们忧心仲钟地离去，只剩下冰沙一人阴郁地坐在空荡荡的大厅中。
After an unknown amount of time, Ice Sand saw Needle-Eye return. Ice Sand’s heart sped up — it wasn’t because Needle-Eye’s hands were empty, and it wasn’t because of Needle-Eye’s appearance: He looked as sensitive and careful as before. Rather, it was because Ice Sand heard Needle-Eye’s footsteps. Before, the painter had always moved in complete silence, like a squirrel gliding across the floor, but now, Ice Sand heard the echoes of his loud steps, like a heartbeat that couldn’t be suppressed.
不知过了多长时间，冰沙看到针眼画师走了进来，他的心立刻提了起不，不是因为针眼两手空空，也不是因为针眼的样子——画师右上去并没有什么变化，仍是那副小心翼翼的敏感模样，而是因为他听到画师的脚步声。以前，画师走路悄无声息，像灰鼠一般从地面滑过，但这一刻，冰沙听到他发出了吧嗒吧嗒的脚步声，像难以抑制的心跳。
“I saw Prince Deep Water,” said Needle-Eye, his eyes lowered. “But I couldn’t paint him.”
“我的王，我见到了深水王子，但我不能把他画下来。”针眼低着头说。
“Did he have wings?” Ice Sand’s voice was chilly.
“难道他真的长了翅膀？”冰沙冷冷地问。
“Even if he did, I could still capture him. I could paint each feather in his wing and make it lifelike. But, my king, the truth is more frightening than if he had sprouted wings: He does not obey the laws of perspective.”
“如果是那样我也能画下他，我能把他翅膀的每一根羽毛都画得栩栩如生。但，我的王，深水王子没有长翅膀，比那更可怕：他不符合透视原理。”
“What is perspective?”
“什么是透视？”
“The principles of perspective dictate that objects farther away appear smaller than those up close. I am a painter trained in Western traditions, and Western painting follows the rules of perspective. I cannot paint him.”
“世界上所有的景物，在我们的视野中都是近大远小，这就是透视原理。我是西洋画派的画师，西洋画派遵循透视原理，所以我不可能画出他。”
“Indeed. My king, look at those Eastern paintings.” Needle-Eye pointed to a brush-painting landscape scroll hanging on one of the walls in the hall. The scroll showed an elegant, ethereal landscape where the negative space, the emptiness, resembled water and fog. The style contrasted sharply with the colorful, solid oil paintings nearby. “You can tell that the scroll does not obey the laws of perspective. But I never studied Eastern painting. Master Ethereal refused to teach me — perhaps he had foreseen today.”
“有，东方画派，我的王，你看，那就是。”针眼指指大厅墙上挂着的一幅卷轴水墨画，画面上是淡雅飘逸的山水，大片的留白似雾似水，与旁边那些浓墨重彩的油画风格迥异，“你可以看出，那幅画是不讲究透视的。可是我没学过东方画派，空灵画师不肯教我，也许他想到了这一天。”
“Are there schools of painting that do not follow the rules of perspective?”
“有不遵循透视原理的画派吗？”
“You may leave.” Ice Sand’s face was impassive.
“你去吧。”王子面无表情地说。
“Of course. Deep Water will arrive at the palace soon. He will kill me, and he will kill you. But I won’t wait helplessly for death. I will take my own life by painting a masterpiece with it.” Needle-Eye left, again moving noiselessly.
“是，我的王，深水王子就要到王宫了，他会杀了我，也会杀了你。但我不会等着让他杀死，我将自我了断，我要画出一幅登峰造极的杰作，用我的生命。”针眼画师说完就走了，他离去时的脚步再次变得悄无声息。
Ice Sand’s thoughts returned in a flash to his childhood more than twenty years ago. He had known that the glutton fish were amassing around Tomb Island, but he nonetheless lured Deep Water to go fishing there. Back then, their father had been in the grip of some disease, and he told Deep Water that Tomb Island was the home to a special kind of fish whose liver oil could cure the king’s illness. Deep Water, normally so careful, believed him, and, as Ice Sand had wanted, left without coming back. That had always been one of Ice Sand’s proudest plots, and no one in the kingdom knew the truth.
有那么一瞬间，冰沙的思绪回到了二十多年前的童年。那时，他已经知道了饕餮鱼群正在游向墓岛海域，但还是诱骗深水去墓岛钓鱼。当时父王在焦虑中病倒了，他告诉深水，墓岛有一种鱼，做成的鱼肝油能治好父王的病。一向稳重的深水竞然相信了他，结果如他所愿一去不返，王国里没人知道真相，这一直是他最得意的一件事。
Dense hoofbeats came into the hall from the outside: at first barely audible, then growing to resemble a thunderstorm. The sounds abruptly ceased right outside the palace.
外面传来密集的马蹄声，开始隐隐约约，但很快逼近，如暴雨般急骤，最后在宫殿外面戛然而止。
Ice Sand summoned his guards. “Bring me my sword.”
冰沙招来了侍卫，说：“拿我的剑来。”
Ice Sand stood up and exited the hall with his sword. He saw that Deep Water was ascending the stairs in front of the palace, and Dewdrop was behind him, with Auntie Wide next to her, holding up the umbrella. In the plaza below the stairs, the army stood in dense array. The soldiers waited quietly, not clearly showing their support for either side. When Ice Sand saw Deep Water for the first time, he seemed twice as tall as an ordinary man. But as he came closer, he seemed to shrink to a more normal size.
冰沙站起身，提剑走出宫殿。他看到深水王子正走上宫殿前长长的宽石阶，露珠公主跟在他后面，宽姨为她打着黑伞。在石阶下面的广场上，是黑压压的禁卫军阵列，军队只是沉默地等待，没有明确表示支持哪一方。冰沙第一眼看到深水王子时，他有普通人的一倍身高，但随着他在台阶上越走越近，身高也在冰沙的眼中渐渐降低。
“My brother,” said Ice Sand. “I’m glad to see you and Dewdrop. But you must understand that this is my kingdom, and I am the king. You must immediately pledge fealty to me.”
冰沙看着深水说：“我的哥哥，欢迎你和妹妹回来，但你们要明白，这是我的王国，我是国王，你们必须立刻宣布臣服于我。”
Ice Sand’s thoughts returned to the present. Deep Water was now on the dais at the top of the stairs, before the door to the palace. He looked as tall as a regular person.
冰沙很快打断思绪回到现实，深水已经走上宫殿前宽阔的平台，他的身高已与正常人差不多了。
Ice Sand chuckled. “Needle-Eye may not be able to paint you, but I can pierce your heart.” He unsheathed his sword.
冰沙冷冷一笑，“针眼不能画出你的画像，我的利剑却可以刺穿你的心脏！”说着他拔剑出鞘。
One of Deep Water’s hands was on the grip of his rusty sword, and the other hand pointed at Ice Sand. “You have committed unforgivable crimes.”
深水一手按在腰间生铸佩剑的剑柄上，一手指着冰沙说：“你犯下了不可饶怒的罪行！”
Ice Sand and Deep Water were equally skilled swordsmen, but since Deep Water didn’t obey the laws of perspective, it was very hard for Ice Sand to judge accurately how far away his opponent was. The fight quickly came to an end when Deep Water’s sword stabbed through Ice Sand’s chest. Ice Sand tumbled down the stairs and left a long trail of blood on the stone steps.
冰沙与深水的剑术不相上下，但由于后者不符合透视原理，冰沙很难准确判断自己与对手的距离，处于明显劣势。决斗很快结束，冰沙被深水一剑刺穿胸膛，从高高的台阶上滚下去，在石阶上拖出一条长长的血迹。
The army cheered and declared their fealty to Prince Deep Water and Princess Dewdrop.
禁卫军欢呼起来，他们宣布忠于深水王子和露珠公主。
While Deep Water and Ice Sand struggled, Captain Long-Sail had been searching for Needle-Eye in the palace. Someone informed him that the painter had gone to his own studio, which was in a distant corner of the palace. The captain saw that only one sentry stood at the door. He had served under Long-Sail. “He came here an hour ago,” said the sentry. “He’s been inside since.”
与此同时，卫队长在王宫中搜寻针眼画师。有人告诉他，画师去了自己的画室。画室位于王宫僻静的一角，平时戒备森严，但由于王宫中突发的变故，守卫大部分离去，只留下了一个哨兵。此人原是长帆的部下，说针眼在半个时辰前就进了画室，一直待在里而没有出来。
The captain broke down the door and stepped in.
卫队长于是破门而入。
But Long-Sail saw a painting on the easel. It had just been completed, and the paint wasn’t even dry: a self-portrait of Needle-Eye. The painting truly was a masterpiece. It was like a window to another world, and Needle-Eye stood there gazing at this world. Although an uplifted corner of the snow-white paper showed that this was but a painting, the captain felt compelled to avoid the piercing gaze of the man in the painting.
但他看到了画架上的一幅画，是刚刚完成的，颜料还未干，这是针眼的自画像。确实是一幅精妙绝伦的杰作，画面像一扇通向另一个世界的窗口，针眼就在窗的另一边望着这个世界。尽管雪浪纸翘起的一角证明这只足一幅没有生命的画，卫队长还是尽力避开画中人那犀利的目光。
The studio was windowless. The candles on the two silver candelabras had mostly burnt out, and the studio was as dim as an underground bunker. The place was empty.
画室没有窗户，两个银烛台上的蜡烛大部分已经燃尽，使这里像地堡一样阴冷。卫队长没有看到针眼画师，这里空无一人。
Long-Sail looked around and saw other portraits hanging on the wall: the king, the queen, and the ministers loyal to them. He saw the painting of Princess Dewdrop, and the beautiful princess in the painting seemed to make this dim studio as bright as heaven. The eyes in the picture seized his soul, and he felt himself growing intoxicated. But in the end, Long-Sail came to his senses. He took down the painting, tossed away the frame, and lit the rolled-up scroll with one of the candles.
长帆环顾四周，有到了墙上挂看一排画像，有国王、王后和忠于他们的大臣，他一眼就从中认出了露珠公主的画像。画中的公主让他感到这阴暗的画室如天国丁般明亮起来，画中人的眼睛摄住了他的魂，使他久久陶醉其中。但长帆最后还是清醒了，他取下画，拆掉画框，把画幅卷起来，毫不扰豫地在蜡烛上。点燃了。
“I told her to stay outside; I have some things I want to say… just to you.”
“我没让她来，我有话要对你说。”
The captain looked at the princess and let out a long sigh of relief. He turned to the ashes. “It’s too bad. The portrait was lovely, and I would have liked you to see it. But I dared not delay… it was really, really beautiful.”
卫队长看着公主，长长地出了一口气，又低头看看灰烬，“可惜了，是幅好画，真该让你看看，但我不敢再施下去了……画得真美。”
Just as the flames consumed the painting, the door to the studio opened and the real Princess Dewdrop came in. She was still dressed in the garb of a commoner, and she held up the spinning black umbrella by herself.
画刚刚烧完，门开了，现实中的露珠公主走了进来，她仍然穿着那身朴素的平民衣服，自己打着黑伞。
“Where’s Auntie Wide?”
“宽姨呢？”长帆问。
The princess slowed down the spinning, and the umbrella began to cry like a nightingale. As the canopy fell, the cries grew louder and faster, until they resembled the screams of jackdaws — the final warning before the advent of Death. Then the umbrella closed and the stone spheres at the rim collided together in a series of sharp snaps.
公主让手中的伞转速慢下来，很快出现了夜莺的鸣叫声，随着伞面的下垂，鸟鸣声越来越大，也越来越急促，最后由夜莺的叫声变成寒鸽的嘶鸣，那是死神降临前的最后警告。当伞最后合上时，随着伞沿那几颗石球吧嗒的碰撞，伞安静下来。
“Your portrait is gone.” Long-Sail pointed to the still-glowing ashes on the ground. “You don’t need the umbrella anymore.”
“你的画像已经烧了。”长帆指指地上仍然冒着红光的灰烬说，“不用打伞了。”
The princess was unharmed.
公主安然无恙。
“Prettier than me?”
“比我还美吗？”
“It was you.”
“那就是你。”
“What? But Prince Deep Water already announced that your coronation is tomorrow. He pledged to aid you with all his heart.”
“什么？深水王子不是已经宣布，你明天要加冕为女王吗？他还说他会全力辅佐你的。”
The princess retrieved the two bars of He’ershingenmosiken bath soap. She let go, and the weightless, white bars floated in the air like feathers.
长帆深情地说。公主拿出了那一块半赫尔辛根默斯肯香皂，她一松手，没有重量的雪白香皂就像羽毛似的飘浮在空气中。
“That life is full of danger and hardship.”
“那种生活艰难又危险。”
“I’m not afraid.” The princess’s eyes glowed with the spark of life in the candlelight. Long-Sail felt everything around him growing brighter again.
“我不怕。”公主的双眼在烛光中焕发出生命的光芒，让长帆感到周围又亮了起来。
“I’m going to leave the kingdom and sail the seas. Will you come with me?” asked the princess.
“我要离开王国，去大海上航行，你愿意跟我去吗？”公主问。
The princess shook her head. “My brother is more suited to be king than I. And if he hadn’t been imprisoned on Tomb Island, he ought to have inherited the throne. When he’s the king, he can stand somewhere high in the palace, and the entire kingdom can see him. But I don’t want to be a queen. I like the outside more than the palace. I don’t want to live the rest of my life in the Storyless Kingdom. I want to go where there are stories.”
公主摇摇头，“哥哥比我更适合当国王，再说，如果不是被困墓岛，王位本来就应该由他继承。他如果成为国王，站在王宫的高处，全国都能看到他。而我，我不想当女王，我觉得外面比王宫里好，我也不想一辈子都待在无故事王国，想到有故事的地方去。”
Thereafter, no one in the kingdom knew what happened to Princess Dewdrop and Long-Sail. As a matter of fact, the kingdom never received any information of the outside world. The princess had taken away the last bars of He’ershingenmosiken bath soap, and no one could break through the barriers formed by the schools of glutton fish. But no one complained. The people were used to their serene lives. After this story, there were never any other stories in the Storyless Kingdom.
以后，王国中的人们再也没有得到露珠公主和长帆的消息。事实上王国得不到任何外界的消息，公主带走了王国中最后一块半赫尔辛根默斯肯香皂，再也没有人能够冲破饕餮鱼的封锁。但没有人抱怨，人们早已习惯了这样的生活，这个故事结束后，无故事王国永远无故事了。
“Then we’ll be the last two to leave the kingdom.” The princess reached out and grabbed the two floating bars of soap.
“那我们就是最后两个走出王国的人了。”公主说着，抓住了那飘浮的香皂。
“Yes, with snow-white sails.”
“对，雪白的帆。”
But sometimes, late at night, some would tell stories that were not stories: imagined lives of Princess Dewdrop and Long-Sail. Everyone imagined different things, but all agreed that they journeyed to many exotic, mysterious kingdoms, including continents as vast as the sea. They lived ever after in wandering and trekking, and no matter where they went, they were happily together.
但有时夜深人静，也有人讲述不是故事的故事，那是对露珠公主和长帆经历的想象。每个人的想象都不一样，但人们都认为他俩到过无数神奇的国度，还到过像大海一样广阔的陆地，他们永远在航行和旅途中，不管走到哪里，他们总是幸福地生活在一起。
The next morning, on a beach somewhere in the kingdom, people saw a white sail appear in the sea. Behind the sail was a long wake of cloudlike foam. It headed away from the kingdom by the light of the rising sun.
第二天早晨，在王国的另一处海岸上，有人看到海中出现了一张白帆，那艘帆船后面拖曳着一道白云般的泡沫，在朝阳中驶向远方。
“I’m not afraid, either. Princess, I will follow you to the end of the sea, to the end of the world.”
“我当然更不怕，公主我可以跟着你到海的尽头，到世界尽头。”
“We’ll take a sailboat.”
“这次我们乘帆船。”
“That princess is a lot like you,” said AA to Cheng Xin.
“那个公主很像你呀。”AA小声对程心说。
[Broadcast Era, Year 7, Yun Tianming’s Fairy Tales]
【广播纪元7年，云天明的童话】
In the sophon-free room, those who had finished reading began to talk amongst themselves, though most were still absorbed in the world of the Storyless Kingdom, the sea, the princess and the princes. Some remained deep in thought; some stared at the document, as though hoping to glean more meaning from the cover.
会场中，看完故事的人开始窃窃私语，更多的人仍沉浸在王国、大海、公主和王子的世界中。有的人沉思，有的人呆呆地盯着已经合上的文件，似乎能从封面上看出更多的内容。
“Try to focus on the serious business here… and am I really that delicate?! I would have held up the umbrella myself.” Cheng Xin was the only one who didn’t bother reading the document. The stories were seared into her memory. She had, of course, wondered many times if Princess Dewdrop was modeled in some measure on herself. But the captain of the guards didn’t resemble Yun Tianming.
“把注意力集中到正事上来……我有那么娇气吗？我会自己打那把伞的。”程心说，她是会场中唯一没有看文件的人，这个故事她己经倒背如流。其实，她真的不止一次想过，露珠公主是不是以自己为原型的，里面肯定有自己的影子，但卫队长不像云天明。
Does he think I’m going to sail away somehow? With another man?
他认为我会扬帆远航吗，和另一个男人在一起？
Once the chair noticed that everyone present had finished reading, he asked for opinions — mainly suggested directions for next steps to be taken by the various working groups under the IDC.
主席看到与会者都看完了文件，就请大家发表怠见，主要是IDC各小组下一步的工作方向。
The speaker was a writer of children’s stories. “I know that from now on, my group is unlikely to make any useful contributions. But I wanted to say a few words first.” He lifted the blue-covered document. “I’m sorry to say that I don’t believe this message can ever be deciphered.”
请求发言的文学组委员是一名儿童文学作家，他说：“我知道，在以后的工作，中我的小组是最没有话语权的，所以趁现在有机会先说几句。”他举起手中蓝色封而的文件，“很遗憾，我认为这份情报是无法解读的。”
The committee member representing the literary analysis group asked to speak first. This group had been a last-minute addition, composed mainly of writers and scholars of Common Era literature. It was thought that there might be a minuscule chance — unlikely though it was — that they could be of use.
文学组的委员请求发言，这是最后想起来增设的一个专业小组，主要由文学作家和研究公元世纪文学史的学者者组成，因为考虑到也许他们能有点用处。
“Why do you say that?” asked the chair.
“为什么这样看？“主席问。
“To be clear, we’re trying to ascertain the strategic direction of humanity’s struggles for the future. If this message really exists, no matter what it is, it must have a concrete meaning. We can’t take vague, ambiguous information and turn it into strategic directions. But vagueness and ambiguity are at the heart of literary expression. Out of security considerations, I’m sure the true meaning behind these three stories is buried very deeply, and this makes the interpretations even more vague and ambiguous. The difficulty we are facing isn’t that we can’t get anything useful out of these three stories, but that there are too many plausible interpretations, and we can’t be certain of any of them.
“首先明确我们要从中得到什么——人类未来的战略方向。如果这个信息真的存在的话，不管内容是什么，它的含义肯定是确定的，我们不可能把模糊的、多义的信息作为战略方向，但模糊性和多义性恰恰是文学作品语境的特点。为了安全，这三个故事中所包含的真正的情报信息一定隐藏得很深，这更增加了信息的多义性和不确定性，所以，我们将面临的困难，不是从这三个故事中解读不出信息，而是可能的解读太多了，但哪个都是不确定的。
“Let me say something else that’s not directly relevant here. As a writer, I want to express my respect for the author. As fairy tales, these are very good.”
“最后说句题外话：以童话作家的身份向云天明表示敬意。如果仅仅作为童话，这个故事很不错。”
The next day, the IDC’s work of deciphering Yun Tianming’s message began in earnest. Very soon, everyone came to appreciate the warning by the children’s story writer.
第二天，IDC对云天明情报的解读工作全面展开。很快，人们就觉得那个童话作家确有先见之明。
The three tales of Yun Tianming were rich in metaphors and symbolism; every detail could be interpreted in multiple ways, and each interpretation could find some support, but it was impossible to tell which one was the message intended by the author, and thus it was impossible to take any interpretation as strategic intelligence.
云天明的三个故事包含着丰富的隐喻、暗示和象征，任何一个情节都可以解读出许多不同的含义，每种含义都有一定的理由和依据，但却无法确定哪一种是作者想要传递的信息，因而任何一种解读都无法成为战略情报。
For instance, the idea of painting people into pictures was, by consensus, a rather obvious metaphor. But experts in different fields could not agree on a single interpretation. Some believed that the paintings were a reference to the digitization trend in the modern world, and thus this detail in the story suggested that humans should also be digitized as a way to avoid dark forest strikes. Scholars who held this view also noted that those who had been painted into the paintings were no longer able to harm those in the real world, and so digitizing humanity was perhaps a way to promulgate the cosmic safety notice.
比如，在故事开始出现的把人画到画里的情节，被认为是比较明显的隐喻和暗示，但不同学科的不同专家都有不同的理解。有人认为，绘画象征着对现实世界的数字化或信息化，因此这个情节可能暗示着对人的数字化，暗示着人类通过自身的数字化躲过黑暗森林打击。持这一观点的学者还注意到，被画到画里的人对于现实世界是安全的，因而人类数字化也可能是发布宇宙安全声明的一种途径。
But another camp held that the paintings were intended to suggest special dimensions. The real world and the world of the paintings were of different dimensionalities, and when a person was painted, that person disappeared from three-dimensional space. This brought to mind the experiences of Blue Space and Gravity in the four-dimensional fragment, and so perhaps Tianming had intended to suggest that humanity could use four-dimensional space as a refuge, or broadcast the cosmic safety notice in some manner through four-dimensional space. Some scholars pointed to Prince Deep Water’s violations of the rules of perspective as further evidence that the author meant four-dimensional space.
但另一种观点认为，这个情节有空间维度的隐喻，画纸与现实是两个不同维度的空间，人物被画入画中后在三维现实消失，使人不由得联想到“蓝色空间”号和“万有引力”号两舰在四维空间碎块中的遭遇，作者可能暗示人类把四维空间作为避难所，或者用某种方式通过四维空间向宇宙发布安全声明。也有人认为，深水王子不符合透视原理的身高也暗示着四维空间。
As another example, what was the meaning of the glutton fish? Some focused on their large numbers, their habit of remaining hidden, and their fierce, aggressive tendency, and reached the conclusion that they symbolized cosmic civilization as a whole in the dark forest state. The soap that allowed the glutton fish to feel so comfortable as to forget to attack represented some unknown principles behind the cosmic safety notice.
再比如，饕餮鱼隐喻着什么？有人从它们众多的数量、隐蔽的状态和极强的攻击性考虑，认为它们象征着黑暗森林状态中宇宙的文明群体，而使饕餮鱼在舒适中忘却攻击，则暗示了宇宙安全声明的某些未知的原则。
This explanation, dubbed the Shoaling Interpretation, was given more attention than other competing interpretations. Compared to the other hypotheses, the Shoaling Interpretation offered a relatively clear technical framework and became one of the first interpretations to be treated as an in-depth research topic by the World Academy of Sciences. But the IDC never put too much hope in the Shoaling Interpretation — although the idea seemed technically feasible, further study revealed that it would take tens of thousands of years for the self-replicating “shoals of fish” to form a barrier around the Solar System. Moreover, the limited functionality of AI machines meant that the protective and safety notice functions of the barrier were at best impractical visions. Ultimately, the Shoaling Interpretation had to be abandoned.
这一解读被称为“鱼群设想”，是所有解读结果中较受重视的一个、因为与其他解读相比，“鱼群设想”具有较为明晰的技术轮廓，它也是世界科学院最早立项进行深人研究的一个解读。不过，IDC从一开始并没有对“鱼群设想”抱太大的希望，这个设想在技术上实现的可能性较大。但进一步研究发现，“鱼群”要想通过自身复制在太阳系外围形成屏障，需要上万年的时间，同时，从智能机器的功能看，无论是它的防御效果还是借助其发布安全声明的可能性，都只是水中月镜中花……“鱼群设想”最终还是被恋恋不舍地放弃了。
Others, however, reached the opposite conclusion: They believed that the glutton fish represented intelligent machines that must be built by humankind. These machines would be small in size and capable of self-replication. Once released into space, the machines would use the matter found in the Kuiper Belt or the Oort Cloud to self-replicate in large numbers until they formed an intelligent barrier around the Solar System. The barrier could have multiple functions, e. g., intercepting photoids headed for the Sun, or altering the appearance of the Solar System from a distance in a manner that would achieve the goal of a cosmic safety notice.
另一个观点则与之相反，认为婪饕餮暗示着某种人造智能机器。这种机器体积很小，但可以自我复制，这种机器被放人太空后，以柯伊伯带或奥尔特星云中的太空尘埃和彗星为原料。大量复制自己。数量成几何级数增长，最终在太阳系周围形成一圈类似于柯伊伯带或奥尔特星云的智能屏障。这道屏障有各种可能的作用，比如对攻击太阳的光粒进行拦截，或使太阳系呈现某种能够从远方观察到的特殊形态，以达到发布安全声明的目的。
Just like the writer of children’s literature had said, all these explanations seemed justifiable, but it was impossible to ascertain which one was really meant.
但正如童话作家所说，所有这些含义，看上都有可能是真实的，又都不确定。
Countless competing interpretations were also offered for the spinning umbrella, the mysterious snow-wave paper and obsidian slab, the He’ershingenmosiken bath soap…
还有那把保护公主的旋转伞、神秘的雪浪纸和黑暇石、神奇的香皂……这些都被解读出大量的不同含义。
Tianming had told Cheng Xin his stories in Chinese. People noticed that most of the place names and names of the characters had clear meanings in Chinese: the Storyless Kingdom, the Glutton’s Sea, Tomb Island, Princess Dewdrop, Prince Ice Sand, Prince Deep Water, Needle-Eye, Master Ethereal, Captain Long-Sail, Auntie Wide, etc. However, mixed in was also this other name that appeared to be a phonetic transcription of the name of a foreign place. Not only was it strange phonetically for Chinese, it was also really long. The name also appeared repeatedly in the story in a way that clearly suggested something out of the ordinary: Needle-Eye and Master Ethereal had come from He’ershingenmosiken; the snow-wave paper they used also came from He’ershingenmosiken; the obsidian slab and iron used for pressing the paper were also of He’ershingenmosiken; Captain Long-Sail had been born in He’ershingenmosiken; the bath soap of He’ershingenmosiken; the glutton fish of He’ershingenmosiken… The author seemed to be repeatedly emphasizing the importance of this name, but there was no detailed description of He’ershingenmosiken at all. Was it another large island like the Storyless Kingdom? A continent? An archipelago?
云天明是用纯汉语向程心讲述三个故事的，人们注意到，故事中的绝大部分地名和人名都是具有明确含义的中文名，如无故事王国、饕餮海、墓岛、露珠公主、冰沙和深水王子、针眼和空灵画师、长帆卫队长、宽姨等等，却突兀地出现这样一个音译地名，而且很长，发音又如此古怪。但这个怪异的名字在故事中反复出现，其出现频率多到不正常的地步：针眼和空灵画师来自赫尔辛根默斯肯，他们绘画用的雪浪纸来自赫尔辛根默斯肯，压纸的黑曜石石板和熨斗都来自赫尔辛根默斯肯，卫队长长帆是赫尔辛根默斯肯出生的人，赫尔辛根默斯肯的香皂，赫尔辛根默斯肯的饕餮鱼……作者似乎在反复强调这个名字的重要性，但故事中对赫尔辛根默斯肯并没有什么更其体的描写。它是一个像无故事王国一样的大岛，或是一块大陆，还是一组群岛，都不得而知。
They referred to the strange place name in the stories: He’ershingenmosiken.
这就是那个奇怪的地名：赫尔辛根默斯肯。
It was not the case, however, that all the contents of the three stories were so vague and ambiguous. The IDC experts were certain that at least one detail in the story offered a concrete piece of intelligence, and was perhaps the key to unlocking the secrets of Yun Tianming’s message.
不过，也并非三个故事中的所有内容都是这么晦涩模糊和模棱两可，至少有一个东西，IDC的专家们认为可能含有确定信息，甚至可能成为打开云天明情报神秘之门的钥匙。
Scholars tried to spell the name in all the world’s known languages, to seek help from all fields, to search for it on the web and in all kinds of specialized databases, but nothing came of these efforts. Before this name, the most brilliant minds of humanity in various fields of study stood helpless.
学者们用各种地球上的已知语言拼写赫尔辛根默斯肯、向各专业咨询，在网络上和各种专业数据库中查询，均一无所获。在这个诡异的词语面前，各个学科最智慧的头脑都一筹莫展。
The leaders of the various teams asked Cheng Xin: Was she sure she had remembered the pronunciation of the name correctly? Cheng Xin was unequivocal: She had noticed right away how strange the name sounded, and paid special attention to memorize it correctly. The name also appeared repeatedly in the story, and it was impossible that she had gotten it wrong.
每个专业小组的人都问过程心，她确实记清这个词的发音了吗？程心都给出肯定的回答，她当时就注意到了这个地名的不寻常，着重记忆它，加上这个地名在故事中反复出现，应该不会有错的。
Experts weren’t even sure what language the name came from. When Yun Tianming had left on the Staircase probe, his English proficiency wasn’t great, and he didn’t know a third language — but it was possible that he had learned another language later. The name didn’t resemble English, and it wasn’t even clear if the name belonged to some Romance language. Of course the name couldn’t be Trisolaran, since the Trisolaran language wasn’t spoken or expressed by sounds.
人们也不知道这个名字属于哪种语言，云天明在离开时的英语水平很一般，不懂任何第三种语言。但也不排除他后来学习的可能性。这个词不像英语，甚至不能确定它是否属于拉丁语系；当然也不可能来自三体语言，因为三体语言是没有声音表达的。
The IDC’s analysis made no progress. Such difficulties were not entirely unexpected: If humans could easily decipher Yun Tianming’s stories for strategic intelligence, then so could the Trisolarans. The real intelligence information must be hidden deep. The experts in the various teams were exhausted, and the static electricity and acrid odor in the sophon-free room made them irritable. Each team was divided into multiple factions who argued over competing interpretations without reaching consensus.
IDC的情报解读陷人僵局。这样的困难本在意料之中，如果人类能够轻易地从云天明的故事中解读出战略情报，那三体人也能，所以真正的情报信息必然在故事中隐藏极深。各小组的专家们疲惫不堪，智子屏蔽室中的静电和刺鼻的气味让他们十分烦躁。根据对故事不同的解读，每个小组都分成了好几个派别，彼此争吵不休。
As the decipherment effort reached an impasse, doubts began to creep into the hearts of those in the IDC. Did the three stories really contain meaningful strategic intelligence? The suspicion was mainly directed at Yun Tianming himself. After all, he had only an undergraduate degree dating back to the Common Era, which meant that he had less knowledge than a contemporary middle school student. In his pre-mission life, he had mostly worked on routine, entry-level tasks, without any experience in conducting advanced scientific research or reasoning about novel fundamental scientific theories. Of course, after he was captured and cloned, he had plenty of opportunity for study, but the experts were doubtful whether he could understand the supertechnology of the Trisolarans, especially the basic theories that supported such technology.
随着解读僵局的出现，IDC内部渐渐出现了怀疑，怀疑三个故事中是否真的包含了有意义的战略情报信息。这种怀疑更多是针对云天明本身的，他毕竟只有公元世纪的大学本科学历，放到现在连初中的知识程度都达不到。在他执行使命之前有限的工作经历中，从事的也大多是基层事务性工作。没有高级科研经验。更不具备基础科学的理论能力。虽然他在被截获并克隆复活后可以学习，但对于他是否有能力理解三体世界的超级技术。特别是这种技术背后的基础理论。人们仍持怀疑态度。
But the lack of progress by the IDC also had a positive effect: It forced people to give up the illusion of a miracle. In actuality, the public had long ago stopped believing in the miracle, since they didn’t even know of the existence of Yun Tianming’s message. The political pressure exerted by the populace forced Fleet International and the UN to shift their attention from Yun Tianming’s message to searching for ways to preserve Earth civilization based on known technologies.
但IDC对情报的解读陷人僵局产生了一个正面作用，就是使人们放弃了对奇迹的幻想。事实上，公众早就停止了这种幻想，因为他们根本就不知道云天明情报的存在。自下而上的政治压力，促使舰队国际和联合国把注意力从云天明情报转移到以人类现有技术为基础寻找地球文明的生存机会上来。
Even worse, as the days went on, some unavoidable complexities began to creep into the IDC. At first, everyone strove to solve the riddle for the future of humanity as a whole. But later, various political forces and interest groups began to make themselves felt: Fleet International, the UN, the various nation states, multinational corporations, religions, and so on. All of these groups tried to interpret the stories according to their own political aims and self-interest, and treated the work of interpretation as just another opportunity to disseminate propaganda about their brand of politics. The stories turned into empty baskets capable of carrying any goods. The work of the IDC changed, and the debates between the various factions became politicized and utilitarian, which lowered morale.
更糟糕的是，随着解读工作的进行一些复杂的东西不可避免地进入IDC。开始，所有人都在齐心协力为人类的未来而猜谜，但后来，各个政治实体和利益集团的影子开始在解读工作中显现。舰队国际、联合国、各个国家、跨国公司、各大宗教等等，都在按照自己的政治意愿和利益诉求解读故事，把情报解读变成了宣传自己政治主张的工具。一时间。故事像个筐，什么都能往里装，致使解读工作变了味。不同派别之间的争论也更加政治化和功利化，令所有人灰心丧气。
Viewed at the scale of the cosmos, the destruction of Trisolaris had occurred right next door, giving humans a chance to observe in detail the complete process of the extinction of a star and to gather massive amounts of data. Since the star that was destroyed was very similar to the Sun in terms of mass and position in the main sequence, humanity could potentially create a precise mathematical model of the catastrophic failure of the Sun in the event of a dark forest strike. As a matter of fact, this research had begun in earnest as soon as those on Earth had witnessed the end of Trisolaris. The direct result of research in this direction was the Bunker Project, which took the place of Yun Tianming’s message as the focus of international attention.
从字宙尺度上看，三体世界的毁灭近在眼前，使人类世界有机会对恒星被摧毁的过程进行全面和细致的观测，这种观测得到了大量的完整数据。由于被摧毁的恒星从与太阳在质量和星序上都十分相似，是人类有可能精确掌握太阳受到黑暗森林打击时灾变的数学模型。事实上，这方面的研究从三体世界毁灭的光信号传到太阳系那一刻起就大规模地开始了，研究的结果直接导致了掩体计划的诞生。现在，掩体计划以取代云天明情报，得到了国际社会空前的关注。
[Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time, The Bunker Project: An Ark for Earth Civilization]
【摘自《时间之外的往事》掩体计划——地球文明的方舟】
I. Projected timeframe from exposure of Earth’s coordinates to dark forest strike against the planet: optimistic scenario, one hundred to one hundred fifty years. Average scenario: fifty to eighty years. Pessimistic scenario: ten to thirty years. Plans for the survival of the human race used seventy years as a benchmark.
一、对太阳系黑暗森林打击时间的预测。乐观预测，一百至一百五十年；一般预测，五十至八十年；悲观预浏，十至三十年：人类生存计划按七十年时间段规划。
II. Total number of individuals who would need to be saved: Based on the rate of decrease in world population, the number would be six hundred to eight hundred million in seventy years.
二、需要拯救的人口数量。按目前世界人口递减速率计算，七十年后约为六亿至八亿人。
III. Projected course of the anticipated dark forest strike: Using data from the destruction of Trisolaris’s star, a mathematical model of the explosion of what would happen to the Sun if struck in the same way was constructed. Simulations based on the model showed that if the Sun were struck by a photoid, all terrestrial planets within the orbit of Mars would be destroyed. Immediately after the strike, Mercury and Venus would be vaporized. The Earth would retain some of its mass and keep a spherical form, but a five-hundred-kilometer surface layer, including all of the crust and part of the mantle, would be stripped away. Mars would lose a layer about one hundred kilometers thick. Later, all the remaining terrestrial planets would lose velocity due to the material released by the solar explosion and crash into the surviving core of the Sun.
三、对黑暗森林打击的总体预测。以三体恒星毁灭的观测数据为基础，建立了太阳遭到同样打击时的灾变数学模型。对该模型的运算表明，如果太阳遭到光粒袭击，火星轨道之内的类地行星将被全部摧毁。在打击初期，水星和金星完全解体，地球将保留一部分体积并维持球体形状，但其表面将被剥离，剥离深度达五百千米左右，包括全部地壳和地馒的一部分；火星表面将被剥离一百千米左右。在打击后期，所有类地行星将由于太阳爆发物质的阻力降低轨道，最终坠落到太阳的残存核心上，完全毁灭。
The model indicated that the destructive force of the solar explosion — including radiation and impact from solar material — would be inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the Sun. That is, the destructive force would diminish rapidly for objects far enough from the Sun. This would allow the Jovian planets to survive the explosion.
数学模型显示，太阳爆发的破坏力，包括辐射和扩散的恒星物质的冲击，与距离的平方成反比，即与太阳距离增大时破坏力急剧降低，这就使得距太阳较远的类木行星能够在打击中幸存。
The four gas giants, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, would survive a dark forest strike relatively unscathed. This prediction was the fundamental premise for the Bunker Project.
可以确定，太阳系的四颗巨行星：木星、土星、天王星和海王星在黑暗森林打击后将保持完好。这个重要的预测是掩体计划的基本依据。
During the initial phase of the strike, the surface of Jupiter would be greatly disturbed, but its overall structure would be undamaged, including its satellites. The surfaces of Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune would also be disturbed without deeper damage. The dissipating ejected solar material would slow the orbits of the planets down to some degree, but later, as the solar material formed into a spiraling nebula, the angular velocity of its spin would match that of the Jovian planets and not degrade the orbits of those planets further.
在打击初期，木星表面将受到剧烈扰动，但其整体结构将保持完好，木星的卫星系统将基本保持不变。土星、天王星和海王星只是在表面受到一般扰动，结构保持完好。扩散的太阳物质将会对三颖类木行星的运行轨道产生一定影响，但在打击后期，爆发后的太阳物质将形成螺旋状的残骸星云，其旋转的角速度和方向将与类木行星保持一致，不再对行星产生足以降低轨道的阻力。
As any plan along these lines could ensure the survival of only an extremely small portion of the total population, it violated the fundamental values and moral principles of the human race. Politically, it was also unfeasible, as it could lead to massive social upheaval and the total collapse of society.
由于该计划只能接纳很小比例的人口，有违人类社会最基本的价值观和道德准则，在政治上也完全不可行，可能引发人类社会的剧烈动荡和全面崩溃。
2. Long-distance Avoidance Plan: extremely low feasibility. This plan would involve constructing a human habitat at sufficient distance from the Sun to avoid its explosive destructive power. Based on the model and projected development of engineering techniques for hardening space cities in the foreseeable future, the minimum safe distance would be sixty AU from the Sun, which is beyond the Kuiper Belt. At that distance, few resources would be available in space for constructing a space city. Similarly, the lack of resources meant that even if such a city were built, it would be almost impossible to maintain for human occupation.
2。远距离躲避计划：可行性很低。计划的内容是在距太阳足够远的太空中建立人类居住点，以避开太阳爆发。根据模型计算，参照可预见的未来人类太空城的防护水平，安全的距离为距太阳六十个天文单位，已越出柯伊伯带。那个距离的太空区域资源贫乏，难以找到建设太空城市的原材料；同样由于资源问题，太空城即使建成，人类在其中的生存也面临难以克服的困难。
IV. Abandoned plans for the survival of the human race
四、被放弃的人类生存计划。
1. Stellar Escape Plan: technically impossible. Humanity could not gain large-scale stellar navigation capabilities within the timeframe required. No more than one-thousandth of the overall population could fit into stellar escape arks. Moreover, it was highly unlikely that such arks would be able to locate and reach habitable exoplanets prior to fuel exhaustion and permanent breakdowns in long-term life support and ecological cycling systems.
1。星际逃亡计划：技术上完全不可行。在规划的时间区段内，人类不可能具备超大规模的星际远航能力，能够进行星际逃亡的人数只占总人口的不到千分之一，且在飞船燃料耗尽和生态系统衰揭前，找到可居住的地外行星的可能性很小。
V. The Bunker Project: the four gas giants could be used as barriers to avoid the solar explosion from a dark forest strike. In the shade of the four planets, away from the sun, sufficient space habitats would be constructed to house the entirety of the human population. These space cities would be located next to the planets, but would not be their satellites. Instead, they would orbit the Sun in synchrony with the planets, staying within their shadows. The plan called for a total of fifty space cities, each of which was capable of housing about fifteen million individuals. Specifically, twenty cities would be shielded by Jupiter, twenty by Saturn, six by Uranus, and four by Neptune.
五、掩体计划。以木星、土星、天王星和海王星四大巨行星为掩体，避开黑暗森林打击引发的太阳爆发。计划在四大行星的背阳面建设供全人类移民的太空城，这些太空城紧靠各大行星，但不是它们的卫星，而是与行星一起绕太阳同步运行，这就使得太空城一直处于四大行星的背阳面，在太阳爆发时受到行星的屏蔽和保护。计划建立五十座太空城，每座可容纳一千五百万人左右。其中。木星背面二十座，土星背面二十座，海王星背面六座。天王星背面四座。建设太空城的材料取自四大行星的卫星。以及土星和海王星的星环。
VI. Technical challenges facing the Bunker Project: The technology required by this plan had all been mastered by humanity. Fleet International possessed extensive experience constructing space cities, and there was already a sizable base around Jupiter. There were some technical challenges that could be overcome within the required timeframe, such as how to regulate the positions of the space cities. Since the space cities would not be satellites of the gas giants, but would have to stay in close proximity of the planets, they would fall toward the planets, unless propulsion systems were installed to counteract gravity and maintain their distance from them. Initially, the plan called for the space cities to be positioned at the L2 Lagrangian points, such that the space cities’ orbital periods would match their respective gas giants’ without needing to expend much energy. However, it was later discovered that the L2 Lagrangian points would be too far away from the gas giants to provide sufficient protection.
六、掩体计划的技术问题。该计划所沙及的技术基本在人类已达到的范围之内，舰队国际已具有丰畜的太空城建设经脸，并且已经在木星拥有相当规模的太空基地。也存在一些预计能够在计划规划的时间内克服的技术挑战，如太空城的位置维持。太空城不是四大行星的卫星，它们在行星的背阳面与行星保持相对静止的状态，且与行星的距离很近，引力会将太空城拉向行星，所以必须在太空城上安装位置维持发动机，以抵消行星引力，保持太空城与行星间的距离。最初计划太空城的位置位于巨行星的第二拉格朗日点1，这是位于巨行星外侧的引力平衡点，没有位置维持问题，但发现距离掩体行星太远，难以起到防护作用。
VII. The survival of the human race in the Solar System after a dark forest strike: After the destruction of the Sun, the space cities would rely on nuclear fusion as their energy source. By then, the Solar System would appear as a spiral nebula, and the scattered solar material would provide an inexhaustible supply of easily collectable fusion material. It should also be possible to gather more fusion fuel from the remaining core of the Sun, sufficient to ensure humanity’s long-term energy needs. Every space city could be equipped with its own artificial sun that would generate an amount of energy equivalent to the amount that had reached the surface of the Earth before the strike. From an energy efficiency point of view, the energy supply available to humans would actually be orders of magnitude higher than the pre-strike period because the space cities would consume fusion fuel at only one-billion-billionth the rate of the Sun. In that sense, the extinction of the Sun would be an improvement, because it would stop the extremely wasteful consumption of fusion material in the Solar System.
七、黑暗森林打击后人类在太阳系的生存问题。太阳被摧毁后，太空城将依靠核聚变能源生存。这时，太阳系将呈现螺旋星云状态，太阳爆发后形成的残骸星云中将含有几乎取之不尽的聚变燃料资源，可以很容易地大量采集，从太阳残存内核中也有可能采集到丰富的聚变燃料，可以满足人类长期生存的能源需求。每座太空城内可以拥有人造太阳，产生与打击前的地球所获日照相当的日照。从能源角度看，这时人类的资源贮备应该比打击前扩大了许多个数量级，因为对于太阳系的核聚变资源，太空城的消耗量仅是太阳的几亿亿分之一——从这个意义上说，太阳被摧毁竟然中止（“终止”）了太阳系核聚变资源的超级浪费。
Thus, the post-strike Solar System nebula was capable of supporting over ten billion people in comfort, leaving human civilization plenty of room for development.
所以，打击后的太阳系残骸星云可以为上百亿人口提供舒适的生活，并使人类文明具备足够的发展空间。
Once the nebula had stabilized somewhat after the dark forest strike, all the space cities could leave their barrier planets and find more suitable locations within the Solar System. It might be advisable for them to depart from the ecliptic plane so that they could avoid disturbance from the nebula while being able to dip into it for resources. Since the solar explosion would destroy the terrestrial planets, the mineral resources of the Solar System would be scattered in the nebula, making them easier to collect. This would make it possible for more space cities to be constructed. The only projected resource limitation on the number of space cities was water, but there was a 160-kilometer-deep ocean covering Europa, providing a source of water greater in volume than the Earth’s oceans, and capable of supplying a thousand space cities with individual populations ranging from ten to twenty million. More water could also be obtained from the nebula itself.
在打击后，当星云态的太阳系基本稳定时，所有太空城将脱离作为掩体的行星，在太阳系内寻找较为适宜的生存空间。可以离开星云聚集的黄道面一段距离，避免星云的影响，同时从星云中采集各种资源。由于太阳爆发使类地行星解体，这时太阳系中的各种矿藏资源将游离在星云中，更容易开发和采集，这就为建设更多的太空城提供了条件。从这时残骸星云中的资源状况来看，对太空城数目的唯一限制是水资源，但仅木卫二的水资源就足以支持一千个容纳一千万至两千万人口的太空城。木星的卫星木卫二表面全部由深达一百六十千米的海洋覆盖，含有丰富的水资源，其贮量大于地球的海洋，可以满足太空城的需要。另外在星云内部还有大量的水资源。
IX. Overall program for the Bunker Project: It would take twenty years to build the industrial infrastructure for extracting and exploiting resources from the gas giants, and sixty years to construct the space cities. The two stages would overlap by ten years.
九、掩体工程总体步骤。用二十年时间建立巨行星带资源开发工业体系，再用六十年时间进行太空城建设，两个阶段间有十年的重叠期。
VIII. Impact on international relations from the Bunker Project: It was an unprecedented plan for the entire human race to construct a new world. The greatest barrier standing in its way wasn’t technical, but a matter of international politics. The public was worried that the Bunker Project would exhaust the Earth’s resources and reverse global progress in social welfare, politics, and economics, perhaps even leading to a second Great Ravine. But Fleet International and the UN were in agreement that such danger could be avoided. The Bunker Project was to be engineered entirely with resources from the Solar System outside the Earth, mainly from the satellites of the four Jovian planets and the rings of Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. There should be no drain on Earth resources or its economy. In fact, once development of space resources reached a certain stage, the project might even enhance the Earth’s economy.
八、掩体工程对地球国际的影响。这是全人类建设一个新世界的工程，规模空前，启动它面临的最大障碍不是在技术方面而是在国际政治上。公众普遍担心掩体工程将耗尽地球资源，带来地球社会政治和经济的大倒退，甚至出现第二次大低谷。但舰队国际和联合国一致认为这个危险完全可以避免，掩体工程将成为一个完全的地球外工程，所需的资源百分之百取自地球之外的太阳系空间，主要来自四大类木行星的卫星，以及土星、天王星和海王星的星环，不会对地球资源和经济产生任何影响。相反，当太空的资源开发达到一定的规模，甚至可以反哺地球经济。
[Broadcast Era, Year 7, Yun Tianming’s Fairy Tales]
【广播纪元7年，云天明的童话】
As preparations for the Bunker Project got underway, Yun Tianming faded from the public consciousness. The IDC continued to work on deciphering the message, but it was only treated as one of the PDC’s many projects. The hope for retrieving important strategic intelligence from the stories diminished daily. Some members of the IDC even connected the Bunker Project with Yun Tianming’s fairy tales and came up with several interpretations that pointed to that as the right plan. For instance, the umbrella was naturally read as a hint at some defensive structure. Someone pointed out that the stone spheres at the rim of the canopy could symbolize the Jovian planets, but there were only four planets within the Solar System capable of acting as barriers. Tianming’s stories did not mention the number of ribs in the canopy, but, rationally, four ribs for an umbrella seemed rather low. Of course, not many people really believed this interpretation, but in some sense, Tianming’s stories had now acquired a status akin to the Bible. Without realizing it, people were no longer searching for real strategic intelligence, but reassurance that they were already on the right course.
随着掩体工程启动的临近，云天明渐渐淡出了国际社会的视线，IDC对情报的解读人在进行，但只是作为行星防御理事会的一项例行工作，从中解读出真正的战略情报的希望越来越小。在IDC中，有人居然把掩体计划与云天明情报联系起来，解读出好几个与掩体计划有关的信息。比如那把伞，之前就很自然地被认为是防御系统的暗示，现在有人提出，伞沿的石球象征着太阳系的类木行星。太阳系可作为掩体的巨行星有四个，但在云天明故事中却没有伞骨数量的信息，从常理讲，四根伞骨显然少了些。其实，并没有多少人从理智上相信这个说法，但现在，云天明的故事对他们来说已经变成了类似1于《圣经》的东西，不知不觉中，他们从中寻找的己不再是真实的战略情报，而是某种对现实的慰藉。
X. The possibility of a second dark forest strike: The results of the first dark forest strike should convince most distant observers that the Solar System was lifeless. Simultaneously, as a result of the destruction of the Sun, the Solar System would no longer contain an energy source capable of supporting an economical attack from a distance. Thus, the possibility of a second dark forest strike seemed minute. The conditions of 187J3X1 after its destruction also provided support for this view.
十、关于第二次黑暗森林打击的可能性。第一次打击产生的宏观效果，会让绝大多故远处观察者认为太阳系文明已被摧姓。同时，由于太阳已不存在，太阳系内已经没有经济型打击可以利用的超级能量源。所以，出现第二次黑暗森林打击的可能性很小。187J3X1恒星被摧毁后到目前的状况也部分证明了这一点。
Then came the unexpected breakthrough in interpreting the stories.
但就在这时，对云天明情报的解读却出现了出人意料的突破。
“I want a bar of bath soap,” said AA.
“我想要一块香皂。”AA说。
One day, 艾 AA came to see Cheng Xin. She had long ceased to accompany Cheng Xin to the IDC meetings, but devoted all her energy to the pursuit of involving the Halo Group in the Bunker Project. Building a new world outside the orbit of Jupiter represented a limitless opportunity for a space construction company. And wasn’t it fortuitous that the company was named the Halo Group when the “halos” of the Jovian planets would provide much of the resources for constructing the space cities?
这天，艾AA来找程心。她早就不随程心参加IDC会议了，而是把所有精力集中在使公司介人掩体计划工程的努力上。人类将在木星轨道外建设新世界，这对于太空建筑公司无疑是近乎无限的发展前景。很巧，程心的公司就叫星环集团，而类木行星的星环是建设太空城的主要原材料来源。
Cheng Xin ignored her. Her eyes didn’t leave the e-book in front of her, and she asked AA a question about fusion physics. After her awakening, she had devoted herself to the study of modern science. Common Era spaceflight technologies had all disappeared by this point, and even a tiny shuttlecraft now relied on nuclear fusion propulsion. Cheng Xin had to begin with basic physics, but she made rapid progress. As a matter of fact, the gap of years didn’t impose too high a barrier in her studies: Most of the shifts in fundamental theory had occurred only after the start of the Deterrence Era. With some diligence, most scientists and engineers from the Common Era could once again adapt to their chosen professions.
程心没有理会AA的要求，她的眼睛没有离开面前的电子书，并问了AA一个聚变物理学的问题。从第一次苏醒以后，她就在努力学习现代科技。以自己的专业而言，公元世纪的航天技术现在已经全部消失，即使一艘小小的太空艇都使用核聚变推进。程心只能从基础的物理学开始，但她学得很快。其实，时代的隔阂并没有造成学习的障碍，基础理论的大规模更新只是威慑纪元开始以后的事，经过学习，来自公元世纪的许多科学家和工程师在新纪元都能再次适应自己的专业。
AA turned off Cheng Xin’s book. “Give me bath soap!”
AA关掉程心的电子书，“我要香皂！”
“I don’t have any. You understand that actual bath soap doesn’t have the magic of those fairy tales, right?” What Cheng Xin really meant was for AA to stop acting so childish.
“我没有香皂。你不会真的以为香皂有故事中的神奇功效吧？”程心话外的意思是，你什么时候能不再那么孩子气。
“I know. But I like bubbles. I want to take a bubble bath like the princess!”
“我知道，但我喜欢泡泡，我想像公主那样在泡沫中洗澡，所以我想要香皂！”
Modern baths had nothing to do with bubbles. Soap and other similar toiletries had disappeared more than a century ago. Contemporary bathing practices involved two methods: supersonic waves and cleaning agents. Cleaning agents were nanorobots invisible to the naked eye. One could use them with or without water. They cleaned skin and other surfaces instantaneously.
现代的洗涤方式已与泡沫无关了，香皂和其他洗涤用品在一个多世纪前就已消失，现在洗涤主要采用两种方法，超声波和清洁体。清洁体是肉眼看不到的纳米机器人，可以溶于水，也能干燥使用，可在瞬间清洁物体表面和皮肤。
Cheng Xin had to go with AA to shop for bath soap. Whenever she had been depressed in the past, AA often dragged her out like this to cheer her up.
程心只好同AA出去找香皂，以前她处于抑郁中的时候，AA也常这样强行把她拉出去散心。
Faced with the giant forest that was the city, they pondered their choices and decided in the end that the most likely place to find bath soap was a museum. They succeeded in their quest in a city history museum’s exhibit hall dedicated to the daily necessities of Common Era life: home appliances, clothing, furniture, etc. These objects were well preserved, and some even looked brand new. Mentally, Cheng Xin couldn’t accept that these were artifacts from centuries ago; to her, they seemed to be from just yesterday. Although so much had happened since she was first awakened, this new age still felt like a dream to her. Her spirit had stubbornly been living in the past.
面对着城市的巨树林，她们想了半天，觉得最有可能找到香皂的地方只有博物馆。在一家展示城市历史的博物馆中。她们找到了香皂。那是在一个展示公元世纪日常用品的展厅中，里面光线很暗，展柜中那些物品被聚光灯照亮，都是公元世纪的东西，有各种家用电器、服装、家具等。这些东西保存得很好，一尘不染，有些甚至给人崭新的感觉。程心无法在感情上接受这些都是两个多世纪前文物的事实，她见到这些东西也没有久违的感觉，似乎它们昨天还分布在自己的周围。从第一次苏醒到现在，经历了这么多的事，新纪元对她仍是一个梦，她的精神固执地生活在过去。
“That’s enough money to build a small factory for cleaning products,” said Cheng Xin to AA.
“买这块香皂的钱可以建一个小型日化厂了。”程心对AA说。
The museum director initially claimed that the bath soap was a precious artifact and not for sale, but then he proceeded to name an outrageous price.
博物馆馆长一开始说那块香皂是文物，不出售，接下来又漫天要价。
“So? I’ve been working for you for years as the CEO. You should give me a present. And who knows? Maybe it will appreciate in value in the future.”
“那有什么！我为你做了这么长时间的CEO，你应该送我一件礼物的！再说了，它以后还可能增值呢！”
The bath soap was in a display case along with other cleaning products such as laundry detergent. Cheng Xin stared at the translucent bar and saw the familiar eagle logo carved into the soap: product of the Nice Group. It was pure white, just like the soap in the story.
香皂放在一个日用品展柜中，放在一起的还有其他洗涤用品，像肥皂和洗衣粉什么的。在香皂表面印着一个程心熟悉的商标，那块香皂是白色的，与故事中的一样。
“It’s the soap factory.
“就是生产香皂的工厂。”
“What is a factory for cleaning products?”
“日化厂是什么？”
And so they bought the bath soap. Cheng Xin had suggested that if AA really wanted a bubble bath, then it would be better to buy the bottle of bubble bath liquid. But AA insisted on the soap because the princess used soap. After the bar of bath soap was carefully retrieved from the display case, Cheng Xin held it and noticed that, despite the passage of more than two centuries, the soap still gave off a faint fragrance.
于是她们买下了那块香皂。之前程心建议，如果AA想洗泡泡澡的话，买那瓶沐浴露比较好，但AA说她就要香皂。因为那个公主用的是香皂。小心翼翼地从陈列柜中取出香皂后。程心把它拿在手中看了看，这两个世纪前的东西，还能闻到淡淡的清香。
After returning home, AA ripped off the packaging and went into the bathroom with the soap. Then came the sound of the tub being filled.
回到住处后，AA迫不及待地拆开了那文物级的真空包装。拿着香皂进了浴室，关上门后里而响起了浴缸放水的声音。
AA didn’t respond. A long time later, after the water stopped, the bathroom door opened. Cheng Xin saw that AA was still dressed. Waving a white sheet of paper at Cheng Xin, AA asked, “Do you know how to make an origami boat?”
AA没有回答。过了好一会儿，当防水声4停止，浴室的门打开了。程心看到AA还完整地穿着衣服，她手里挥着一张白纸对程心说：“你会叠小船吗？！”
Cheng Xin knocked on the door. “I suggest you don’t bathe with it. The soap is alkaline. Since you’ve never used it, your skin might be damaged.”
程心敲了敲浴室的门说：“你最好不要用香皂洗澡。那是碱性的，你从来没用过，不适应，会伤皮肤的。”
“I suppose this is also a lost art?” asked Cheng Xin as she took the paper.
“这个技艺也失传了？”程心接过纸问。
Cheng Xin sat down and began to fold. Her thoughts returned to that drizzly afternoon in college. She and Tianming sat by the reservoir and watched as the tiny paper boat she made drifted away on the water covered by mist and rain. Then she thought about the white sail at the end of Tianming’s stories…
程心坐下来叠船。她的思绪回到了大学时代那个细雨中的下午，她和云天明坐在水边，在笼罩着细雨和薄雾的水面上，她叠的那只小纸船渐漂渐远。然后，她又想起了云天明故事中最后的那张白帆……
“Obviously. We hardly see paper now.”
“当然，现在很少见到纸了。”
AA picked up the canopied paper boat and admired it. Then she indicated that Cheng Xin should follow her into the bathroom. With a pocketknife, she cut off a tiny corner from the bar of soap, poked a hole in the stern of the boat, and stuck the soap fragment into the hole. After giving Cheng Xin a mysterious smile, she deposited the boat into the calm water in the bathtub.
AA拿过程心叠好的带篷的小纸船，称赞很漂亮，然后示意程心也进浴室。在盟洗台上，她用小刀片从香皂上切下了小小的一片，然后把小纸船的尾部扎了一个小孔，把那一小片香皂插人小孔中，抬头对程心神秘地一笑，轻轻地把纸船放进已灌满水并且水面已经平静下来的浴缸中。
The boat began to move by itself, sailing from one edge of the tub to the other.
小船向前移动了，在这片小小的水面上，从此岸航向彼岸。
The string of her thought stopped vibrating immediately, as though a hand had been placed against it. Cheng Xin forced herself to look away from the boat, maintaining, as much as possible, a look of boredom and disinterest. The boat had now reached the other edge of the tub and stopped. She picked it out of the tub, shook off the water, and dropped it on the washstand. She almost tossed the boat into the toilet to flush it away, but thought that might appear excessive. She made up her mind, however, to not put the boat in water again.
这个念头就像一只手猛然抓住了思想的琴弦，让它停止了振动。她强迫自己把目光从小船上移开，尽可能地对这件事表现出不以为然和毫无兴趣的样子。小船这时已经行驶到浴缸的另一侧，轻轻地停靠在边上，她伸手把纸船从水中拿起来，甩甩水后扔到盟洗台上。她克制住了把纸船扔进马桶冲走的冲动，但打定主意不能再把它放到水中了。
Cheng Xin understood right away. As the soap dissolved in the water, it lowered the surface tension of the water behind the boat. But as the tension in the water in front of the boat remained unchanged, it pulled the boat forward.
程心立刻明白了原理：香皂在水中溶解后，降低了小船后方水面的张力，但船前方水面的张力不变，小船就被前方水面的张力拉过去了。
A bolt of lightning seemed to illuminate Cheng Xin’s thoughts. In her eyes, the serene surface of the water in the tub turned into the darkness of space, and the white paper boat sailed across this endless sea at the speed of light…
但这个想法转瞬即逝，程心的思想随即被一道闪电照亮！在她的眼中，浴缸中平静的水面变成了漆黑的太空，白色的小纸船在这无际的虚空中以光速航行……
Then Cheng Xin remembered something else: Tianming’s safety.
但另一个念头立刻占据了程心的思想：云天明的安全。
Danger.
危险
AA followed. They poured themselves two glasses of wine and began to chat about random topics. First, they discussed the future of the Halo Group in the Bunker Project. Then they recalled their college lives in different centuries. Then they talked about life in the present. AA asked Cheng Xin why she had not found a man she liked after living in the new age for so long, and Cheng Xin replied that she couldn’t live a regular life, not yet. Then she pointed out that AA’s problem was that she dated too many men — of course she was welcome to bring her boyfriends to visit Cheng Xin, but it was best to bring only one at a time. They also discussed the fashions and tastes of the women of their respective eras, their similarities and differences…
AA也跟着程心出来，她们倒上两杯葡萄酒。开始海阔天空地聊起来。先是谈星环公司在掩体工程中的前景，然后回忆各自在不同世纪中的大学生活，然后聊现在的生活。AA问程心为什么来到新纪元这么长时间还没有遇到一个中意的男人，程心说她到现在还无法像一个正常人那样生活，并说AA的问题是男朋友太多，她当然可以把情人带到这里来，但最好一次只带一个。她们还铆起两个时代女人们的时尚与嗜好。哪些相同哪些不同……
Though Cheng Xin also leaned to the view that no sophons were present in the Solar System, it was better to be cautious.
虽然程心自己也倾向于相信太阳系中已经没有智子，但还是谨慎些为好。
Cheng Xin and AA locked gazes. They each saw in the eyes of the other the same thing: the excitement of enlightenment dancing within. Cheng Xin looked away. “I don’t have time to waste on silly games. If you want a bubble bath, go for it.” She left the bathroom.
程心的目光与AA相遇，发现对方的眼睛仿佛是自己眼睛的镜像，进射出同样的因顿悟而兴奋的光芒。她立刻把目光移开，淡淡地说：“不陪你玩儿了，你想洗澡就洗吧。”说完走出了浴室。
AA nodded. Her eyes said, Yes, curvature propulsion!
AA轻轻点头。她的目光说：是的，曲率驱动！
Language was merely the vehicle through which they expressed their excitement. They dared not stop, lest the silence rob them of their hidden joy. Finally, in a break in the meandering conversation that would not be noticed by a listener, Cheng Xin said, “Curvature –“
她们只是通过语言发泄着自己的兴奋。不敢停下来。似乎一旦沉狱。那个截在各自心中的惊喜就会化为泡形，终于，在滔滔不绝中的一个不引人注愈的问隙，程心轻轻冒出两个字：“曲率—”
She finished her sentence with her eyes: propulsion?
后两个字她用眼睛说出：驱动？
Space wasn’t flat, but curved. If one imagined the universe as a large, thin membrane, the surface would be shaped like a bowl. The entire membrane might even be an enclosed bubble. Though at the local scale, the membrane seemed flat, the curvature of space was omnipresent.
这个宇宙的空间并不是平坦的，而是存在着曲率，如果把宇宙的整体想象为一张大膜，这张膜的表面是弧形的，整张膜甚至可能是一个封闭的肥皂泡。虽然膜的局部看似平面，但空间曲率还是无处不在。
[Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time, Motion Through Bending Space]
【摘自《时间之外的往事》弯曲空间的动力】
During the Common Era, many ambitious ideas for spaceflight were proposed. One of them involved folding space. The idea was to imagine an increase in the curvature of space and fold it like a sheet of paper so that two spots tens of millions of light-years apart could touch each other. Strictly speaking, this wasn’t a plan for spaceflight, but “space-dragging.” It didn’t involve navigating to the destination, but pulling the destination over to you by bending space.
早在公元世纪，曾出现过许多极富野心的宇宙航行设想，其中之一就是空间折叠。设想把大范围空间的曲率无限增大，像一张纸一样对折，把“纸面”上相距千万光年的遥远的两点贴在一起。这个方案严格说来不应称为宇宙航行，而应该叫做。“宇宙拖曳”，因为它实质上并不是航行到目的地，而是通过改变空间曲率把目的地花过来。
Until Yun Tianming’s message had been correctly interpreted, curvature propulsion remained a dream, like hundreds of other proposals for lightspeed spaceflight. No one knew whether it was possible at either a theory or practice level.
但直到云天明情报被正确解读前，曲率驱动仍是一个幻想，同上百个光速飞行的幻想方案一样，无论从理论上还是技术上，没有人知道它是否可行。
Later, there was a more moderate and localized proposal for taking advantage of curved space for navigation. Supposing a spaceship could somehow iron flat the space behind it and decrease its curvature, the more curved space in front of it would pull it forward. This was the idea of curvature propulsion.
可能上帝也不行。对于利用空间曲率航行，后来又出现了一个更温和更局部的设想，一艘处于太空中的飞船，如果能够用某种方式把它后而的一部分空间熨平，减小其曲率、那么飞船就会被前方曲率史大的空间拉过去，这就是曲率驱动。
Only God could have carried out such a plan — and once the limitations of basic theory were taken into account, perhaps not even God.
这种气吞宇宙的事只有上帝才做得山来。如果加上基本理论的限制。
Unlike folding space, curvature propulsion couldn’t get a spaceship to its destination instantaneously, but it would be possible to drive it asymptotically to the speed of light.
曲率驭动不可能像空间折叠那样瞬间到达目的地，但却有可能使飞船以无限接近光速的速度航行。
A jubilant AA said to Cheng Xin, “Before the Deterrence Era, clothes with animated images were popular. Back then, everyone looked like blinking Christmas trees, but now, only children dress like that. Classical looks are in vogue again.”
AA眉飞色舞地对程心说：“威慑纪元前，曾时兴穿带图像的衣服，那时的人一个个亮闪闪的，五光十色，可现在只有小孩儿那样，古典的服装又成主流了。”
[Broadcast Era, Year 7, Yun Tianming’s Fairy Tales]
【广播纪元7年，云天明的童话】
Her eyes were saying, No, AA, this time it’s different. We can be sure.
她的眼睛说：不，AA，这次不一样，这次能确定！
“Well, at least you had cheap aluminum. Before the invention of electrolysis, aluminum was a precious metal as well. I’ve heard that some kings even had crowns made of aluminum.”
“至少你们那时铝便宜了，电解铝出现之前铝也是贵金属，听说还有国王的王冠是铝的。”
But AA’s eyes were saying something else entirely. Her eyes dimmed. This interpretation looks very good, but it’s still impossible to be certain. We can never get confirmation.
但AA的眼睛却在说着另外的话，她的目光黯淡下来：这个解读看上去很靠谱，但要最后确定还是不可能，大概也得不到承认。
Cheng Xin said, “I’m most surprised that precious metals and gems no longer exist! Gold is now a common metal, and both of our drinking glasses are made of diamonds… Did you know that where — er, when — I come from, owning a tiny diamond — like this big — would have been an unattainable dream for most girls.”
程心说：“我现在最吃惊的是，贵金属和宝石都不存在了。黄金已经成为普通的金属，这两个酒杯都是用钻石做的……你知道吗？我们那个时候，拥有这么小的一粒钻石，就这么小，对于大多数女孩子来说都是永远的奢望。”
How can we be sure?
怎么确定？
Cheng Xin couldn’t express what she wanted with only her eyes. IDC had once offered to build her a sophon-free room in her apartment. That would have involved a large amount of noisy equipment, so she had turned them down. Now she regretted that decision.
程心知道这次不可能再用目光表达了，IDC曾经要为她的住处配置一个智子屏蔽的房间，那要安装一大堆体积和噪声都很大的设备，她嫌麻烦没答应，现在很后悔。
AA’s eyes lit up again. The flame of excitement burned even brighter than before.
AA黯淡下去的目光瞬间又被点燃了，兴奋的光芒比上次更加明亮。
“Snow-wave paper,” she whispered.
“雪浪纸。”程心轻声说。
“There’s really nothing else that will flatten this?”
“这纸用别的东西真的弄不平吗？”
“Yes,” AA said. They needed to get to the nearest sophon-free room.
“我们走。”AA也说，她们要去最近的智子屏蔽室。
“No. Only the obsidian from He’ershingenmosiken will do the job. I was hoping to get the obsidian slab back from Needle-Eye.”
“弄不平的，只有用赫尔辛根默斯肯的黑曜石石板才能压平……”
The clock in the corner of the room sounded. Ethereal looked up and saw it was almost sunrise. He looked down and saw that only about a palm’s width of the snow-wave paper lay flat on the floor, not enough for a painting. He dropped the iron and sighed.
这时房间一角的钟敲响了，空灵画师抬头看看，已是凌晨，天快亮了。他再看看雪浪纸。压平的一段从纸卷中伸了出来，平铺在地板上不再卷去。但只有一掌宽的一条，远不够绘一幅画的。他扔下熨斗，长叹一声。
“Let’s go,” said Cheng Xin as she got up.
“我们走。”程心站起身说。
A scroll was a rolled-up sheet of paper with curvature; a section was pulled out and ironed flat, decreasing the curvature.
一卷纸，一卷带曲率的纸，被拉出一段熨平了，减小了曲率。
Two days later, the IDC chair announced at a committee meeting that the heads of all the working groups had unanimously endorsed the curvature propulsion interpretation.
两天后，在IDC委员会的会议上，主席宣布所有的专业小组都认可了对曲率驱动的解读。
This was clearly a hint for the difference in space in front of and behind a ship driven by curvature propulsion. It couldn’t mean anything else.
这个意象是对曲率驱动时飞船前后空间形态的明显暗示，不可能是别的。
Yun Tianming was telling the Earth that the Trisolaran ships used space curvature drives.
云天明告诉地球世界：三体光速飞船采用空间曲率驱动。
This was an extremely important piece of strategic intelligence. Out of all the possible paths for researching lightspeed spaceflight, curvature propulsion was confirmed to be feasible. Like a beacon in dark night, this indicated the right direction for further development of human spaceflight technology.
这是一个极其重要的战略情报。在众多的光速航行设想中，它确定了空间曲率驱动是可行的，这就为人类的宇航技术发展指出了明确的战略方向，如漆黑夜海中亮起的一座灯塔。
Equally important was the fact that the interpretation provided the model for how Tianming had hidden his message in the three stories. He employed two basic methods: dual-layer metaphors and two-dimensional metaphors.
同样重要的是，这次成功的解读揭示了云天明在三个故事中隐藏情报的模式，可以归结为两点：双层隐喻和二维隐喻。
The dual-layer metaphors in the stories did not directly point to the real meaning, but to something far simpler. The tenor of this first metaphor became the vehicle for a second metaphor, which pointed to the real intelligence. In the current example, the princess’s boat, the He’ershingenmosiken soap, and the Glutton’s Sea formed a metaphor for a paper boat driven by soap. The paper boat, in turn, pointed to curvature propulsion. Previous attempts at decipherment had failed largely due to people’s habitual belief that the stories only involved a single layer of metaphors to hide the real message.
双层隐喻：故事中的隐喻不是直接指向情报信息，而是指向另一个更简单的事物，而这个事物则以较易解读的方式隐喻情报信息。在这个例子中，公主乘的小船，赫尔辛根默斯肯香皂和饕餮海，都是隐喻一个东西——肥皂驱动的纸船，而肥皂船的隐喻目标才是空间曲率驱动。在以前的解读中，人们陷人困惑的一个重要原囚，就是按单层隐喻的习惯性思维解读故事，认为故事情节直接隐喻情报信息。
“A subtle and sophisticated system,” a PIA specialist said admiringly.
“一个精妙的系统。”一位PIA的情报专家赞叹道。
The two-dimensional metaphors were a technique used to resolve the ambiguities introduced by literary devices employed in conveying strategic intelligence. After a dual-layer metaphor, a single-layer supporting metaphor was added to confirm the meaning of the dual-layer metaphor. In the current example, the curved snow-wave paper and the ironing required to flatten it served as a metaphor for curved space, confirming the interpretation of the soap-driven boat. If one viewed the stories as a two-dimensional plane, the dual-layer metaphor only provided one coordinate; the supporting single-layer metaphor provided a second coordinate that fixed the interpretation on the plane. Thus, this single-layer metaphor was also called the bearing coordinate. Viewed by itself, the bearing coordinate seemed meaningless, but once combined with the dual-layer metaphor, it resolved the inherent ambiguities in literary language.
二维隐喻：这种模式是用于解决文字语言所产生的信息不确定性的问题。在一个双层隐喻完成后，附加一个单层隐喻，用来固定双层隐喻的含义。在此例中，用雪浪纸的卷曲和熨平暗示曲率驱动中的空间形态，把肥皂船的隐喻确定下来。如果把故事看做一个二维平面，双层隐喻只为真实含义提供了一个坐标，附加的单层隐喻则相当于第二个坐标，把含义在平面上的位置固定下来，所以这个单层隐喻又被称为含义坐标。含义坐标单独拿出来看是没有意义的，但与双层隐喻结合，就解决了文学语言含义模糊的问题。
All the committee members congratulated Cheng Xin and AA. AA, who had always been looked down on, saw her status greatly elevated among the committee members.
委员们都向程心和AA表示祝贺和敬意，尤其是AA，一贯受到轻视的她现在令人刮目相看，在委员会中的地位提高了不少。
Thereafter, steady progress was made in deciphering the message. Other than the discovery of the metaphorical system, the effort was also aided by another guess that was commonly accepted, though unconfirmed: While the first part of the message to be successfully deciphered involved escape from the Solar System, the rest of the message likely had to do with the safety notice.
以后的解读工作顺利了许多，除了有新发现的隐喻模式的指导，人们还默认了一个没有被证实的排除法：第一个被成功解读的情报与从太阳系逃亡有关，那剩下的情报有很大可能是关于安全声明的。
Cheng Xin’s eyes moistened. She was thinking of Tianming, of the man who struggled alone in the long night of outer space and an eerie, sinister alien society. To convey his important message to the human race, he must have racked his brain until he had devised such a metaphorical system, and then spent ages in his lonely existence to create over a hundred fairy tales and carefully disguise the intelligence report in three of those stories. Three centuries ago, he had given Cheng Xin a star; now, he brought hope to the human race.
但程心的眼睛却湿润了。她想到了云天明，想象着这个在外太空的漫漫长夜和怪异险恶的异族社会中孤军奋战的男人，为了向人类传递情报，如何殚精竭虑，设计了这样一个隐喻模式，再在漫长的孤独岁月中创作出上百个童话故事，最后精心地把情报隐藏在其中三个故事中。三个世纪前他送给了程心一颗星星，三个世纪后他又带给人类一个希望。
The interpreters soon realized that compared to the first bit of intelligence, the rest of the information hidden in the three stories was far more complex.
但解读者们很快发现，与第一个情报相比，隐藏在三个故事中的其他情报信息要复杂得多。
At the next IDC meeting, the chair produced a custom-made umbrella that looked just like the one in the fairy tales. The black umbrella had eight ribs, and at the end of each was a small stone sphere. In this era, umbrellas were no longer in common use. To avoid the rain, modern people used something called a rainshield, a device about the size of a flashlight that protected the user by blowing air up to form an invisible canopy. People certainly knew about umbrellas and saw them in movies, but few had experience with the real thing. Curious, they played with the chair’s umbrella, and noticed that, just like in the stories, the canopy could be kept open by spinning. Spinning faster or slower resulted in corresponding alarm sounds.
在接下来的IDC委员会会议上，主席拿来了一把他安排人专门制造的伞，与故事中空灵画师送给公主的保护伞一样，是黑色的，有八根伞骨，每根的末端都有一只小石球。真正意义上的伞早就从现代生活中消失了，现代人遮雨使用一种叫避雨器的东西，如小手电筒般大小，向上吹出气流把雨吹开。人们当然知道伞这东西曾经存在，也在影视中见过，但很少有人见过实物。大家好奇地争相摆弄这东西，发现它可以像故事中描写的那样在旋转中借离心力张开，在旋转速度过快或过慢时也能发出相应的声音报警。
AA took over the umbrella. Her hands weren’t as strong, and the canopy began to fall. They all heard the warning birdsong.
AA也拿过伞旋转着打开，她的手劲比较小，转动的伞面很快垂下来，警示转速过慢的鸟叫声出现了。
“This is really tiring,” someone complained as he spun the umbrella. Everyone gained new respect for the princess’s wet nurse, who’d managed to spin the umbrella nonstop for a whole day.
大家的第一感觉是这样旋转着打伞是件很累的事，公主的奶妈居然能这样打一天伞，很让人佩服。
“Faster,” said Cheng Xin.
“再转快些。”程心盯着伞说。
AA put all her strength into spinning, and the wind chime began to play. Then Cheng Xin asked her to slow down, until the birdsong appeared. This went back and forth a few times.
AA使尽力气转伞，警示转速过快的风铃声出现了；然后程心又让她转慢些，直到再次出现鸟叫声，就这样反复了几次。
“Yes,” said an excited Cao. “But even in our time, this was rarely seen.”
“是的。”曹彬看着伞兴奋地说，“即使在我们那个时代，这东西也很陌生了。”
“This is not an umbrella at all!” said Cheng Xin. “But I know what it is now.”
“这不是伞！”程心指着旋转中的伞说，“我知道它是什么！”
Bi Yunfeng shook his head. “The world wasn’t electrified back when this was invented.”
毕云峰摇摇头，“发明那东西的时候还没有电。”
AA spun faster, and the birdsong stopped.
AA加快了伞的转速，鸟叫声消失了。
Some of the attendees looked at these three individuals from the past; others looked at the umbrella. All were puzzled, but also expectant.
其余的与会者有的看着这三个活着的古人，有的看着伞，全都莫名其妙，但也都兴奋地期待着。
Cao Bin explained. “This was a device from the eighteenth century for regulating the speed of a steam engine. It’s made of two or four lever arms equipped with spherical masses at the ends and a central spindle with a sleeve — it looks just like this umbrella, except with fewer ribs. The steam engine’s operation rotates the spindle. When it spins too fast, the metal balls lift the lever arms due to centrifugal force, which pulls up on the sleeve and reduces the aperture of the throttle valve connected to the sleeve, thereby reducing the fluid entering the cylinder and the engine’s speed. Conversely, when it spins too slowly, the lever arms fall due to the weight of the metal balls — like an umbrella closing — and the sleeve is pushed down, increasing the aperture of the throttle valve and the speed of the engine… This was one of the earliest industrial automatic control systems.”
曹彬开始解释：“那是18世纪出现的东西，一种用于调节蒸汽机转速的装置。它主要由两根或四根头部带金属球的悬杆和一根带套简的转轴组成，就像这把伞，只是伞骨数量要少些。这个装置的转轴由燕汽机带动旋转，当蒸汽机转速过快时，铁球由于离心力抬起悬杆。带动套筒上升，把一与套筒相连的蒸汽门关小，降低燕汽机转速；蒸汽机转速过低时，离心力的减小使悬臂内合，像伞合上一样，推动套筒下滑，开大燕汽门增加转速……这是最早的工业自动控制系统。”
“What’s that? Some kind of control circuit?”
“那是什么，一种控制电路？”有人问。
“It’s a centrifugal governor,” said Cheng Xin. “For steam engines.”
“蒸汽机离心调速器。”程心说。
Bi Yunfeng, who stood to the side, nodded. “Me too.” Then he turned to Cao Bin. “Probably only the three of us can recognize this object.”
旁边的毕云峰点点头，“我也知道了。”然后他转向在场的第三个公元人曹彬，“这是一种只有我们三个人才能想到的东西。”
Cheng Xin had kept her eyes on the umbrella since the chair had opened it. Now she cried out to AA, “Don’t stop!”
从主席把伞第一次打开时，程心就目不转睛地盯着它，现在，她突然指着从喊道：“别停下！”
The interpreters began to look for the corresponding bearing coordinate for this dual-layer metaphor. Soon, they fixed on Prince Deep Water. The prince’s height didn’t change in the observers’ eyes regardless of distance. This could also be interpreted in multiple ways, with two possibilities being most obvious: a method of information transmission where the signal strength did not decay due to distance, or a physical quantity that remained constant regardless of the frame of reference used.
于是，解读者们开始寻找与这个双层隐喻相对应的含义坐标，很快找到了：深水王子。深水王子的身高在观察者眼中不随距离变化，这也可以有多种解读，比较明显的也有两个：某种信号不随距离衰减的信息发布系统，一个在任何参照系下都恒定的物理量。
Taken together with the metaphorical meanings of the umbrella, the true meaning instantly emerged: a constant speed that did not change with the frame of reference.
与伞的解读结果相比较，立刻找到一个确定的组合：恒定的速度，不随参照系变化。
Clearly, it referred to the speed of light.
这明显是指光速。
Thus was the first level of the dual-layer metaphor in the umbrella decoded. But unlike the soap-propelled boat, the centrifugal governor didn’t seem to clearly point to anything. This second-layer metaphor could be interpreted in multiple ways, with two possibilities deemed most likely: negative-feedback automatic control and constant speed.
于是，人们知道了伞的第一层隐喻。但与肥皂船不同，蒸汽机离心调速器并没有明确的隐喻指向，它所隐喻的东西人们能够想到很多，比较确定的有两项——负反馈自动控制，恒定的速度。
The fastest; with no weight, or massless — this was a clear, single-layer metaphor for light.
速度最快，没有质量（重量），这是一个十分确定的单层隐喻：光。
The He’ershingenmosiken bath soap is made from those bubbles, but collecting the bubbles is no easy matter. The bubbles drift very fast in the wind… Only if someone were running as fast as the bubbles, such that they’re at rest relative to the bubbles, would they be able to see them. This is possible only by riding the fastest horses… The soap-makers ride these horses to chase after the wind and try to collect the bubbles with a thin gauze net… The bubbles have no weight, which is why pure, authentic He’ershingenmosiken soap also has no weight. It’s the lightest substance in the world…
“……赫尔辛根默斯肯香皂就是用那种泡泡做成的。收集那些肥皂泡十分困难，那些泡泡在大风中飘得极快……骑最快的马才能追上风中的泡泡……在马上用一种薄纱网兜收集泡泡……魔泡树的泡泡都没有重量，所以真正纯的赫尔辛根默斯肯香皂也完全没重量，是世界上最轻的东西……”
Unexpectedly, the interpreters found yet another bearing coordinate for the metaphor of the umbrella.
出乎解读者们预料的是，对于伞的隐喻，他们又找到了第三个含义坐标：
Everything indicated that the umbrella stood in for light, but capturing the bubbles from the bubble tree had two possible interpretations: collecting the power of light or lowering the speed of light.
综上所述，伞隐喻着光或光速。而捕捉魔泡树的泡沫有两种可能的含义：采集光能，降低光速。
Most interpreters didn’t think the first interpretation had much to do with humanity’s strategic goals, so most of the focus was on the second interpretation.
解读者们都认为第一种可能的含义与人类的战略目标关系不大，所以都把注意力放在第二个可能的含义上。
“Suppose that we could lower the speed of light in the Solar System. That is, within the Kuiper Belt or Neptune’s orbit, we could produce an effect observable from a distance — at cosmic scales.”
“设想如果把太阳系，也就是海王星轨道或柯伊伯带以内空间的光速降低，就可能产生一个从大范围宇宙尺度上可以远程观测到的效应。”
This thought excited everyone.
这个想法让大家都很兴奋。
Although they still couldn’t tell the exact meaning of the message, the interpreters debated the second interpretation, concentrating on the connection between lowering the speed of light and the cosmic safety notice.
仍然看不到情报的明确含义，但解读者们对第二个可能的含义进行了讨论，讨论主要集中在降低光速与发布宇宙安全声明的关系上。
“Suppose we reduced the speed of light by ten percent within the Solar System — would that make a cosmic observer think we’re safer?”
“但这对宇宙观察者有什么安全意义吗？设想把太阳系内的光速降低十分之一，能使我们看上去更安全些吗？”
“Undoubtedly. If humans possessed lightspeed spaceships, it would take them longer to emerge from the Solar System. But it wouldn’t mean that much.”
“这毫无疑问，那样的话即使人类拥有光速飞船，飞出太阳系的时间也要长十分之一，当然，这意义并不大。”
“To really indicate to the universe that we’re safe, a reduction by ten percent is insufficient. We may have to reduce the speed of light to ten percent of its original value, or maybe even one percent. Observers would see that we’ve surrounded ourselves in a buffer zone that made certain that our ships would take a long time to emerge from the Solar System. This should increase their feelings of safety.”
“如果想对宇宙产生安全意义的话，把光速降低十分之一显然是不够的，可能要降低更多，比如降低到原来的百分之一，让观察者看到这是一个人类自我建造的阻滞带，确信我们飞出太阳系需要较长的时间，借此增加观察者对太阳系文明的安全感。”
“But by that reasoning, lowering the speed of light to one-tenth of one percent would be insufficient. Think about it: Even at three hundred kilometers per second, it still wouldn’t take that long to get out of the Solar System. Also, if humans were capable of modifying a physical constant within a region of space with a radius of fifty astronomical units, then this would be tantamount to a declaration that humans possessed very advanced technology. Instead of a cosmic safety notice, it would be a cosmic danger warning!”
“要那样的话，降低到原来的十分之一都不够，想想吧，以三百千米每秒的速度飞出太阳系，所需时间也并不太长。另外，如果人类能够在半径五十个天文单位的太空中改变一个基本宇宙常数，就等于向宇宙宣布地球文明已经掌握了很高的技术，这不是安全声明，反而是危险声明。”
From the dual-layer metaphor of the umbrella and the bearing coordinates provided by Prince Deep Water and the bubble tree, the interpreters were able to ascertain the general tenor of their import, but not the specific strategic intelligence. The metaphor was no longer two-dimensional but three-dimensional. Some started to guess at the existence of yet another bearing coordinate, and the interpreters searched exhaustively through the stories, but they turned up nothing.
从伞的双层隐喻和深水王子与魔泡树两个含义坐标中，解读者们能够明确其含义指向，却得不到确定的战略情报。这个隐喻已经不是二维而是三维了，有人猜测，是不是还存在着第三个含义坐标？于是，解读者们在故事中反复寻找，但没能找到它存在的迹象。
Just then, the mysterious name He’ershingenmosiken was finally deciphered.
就在这时，那个神秘的地名“赫尔辛根默斯肯”突然被解读出来。
“Then why were you mumbling those two place names in your dream?”
“那你怎么在梦里反复说那两个古代地名？”
A linguistic working group was added by the IDC specifically to deal with He’ershingenmosiken. A historical linguist and philologist, Palermo, had been added to the group because his expertise differed from the others’. Instead of focusing on one language family, he was familiar with the ancient languages of many linguistic families. But even Palermo could offer no insight on this strange name. That he succeeded was due to an unexpected stroke of good luck, and had little to do with his professional expertise.
为了研究这个词，IDC增设了一个语言学小组，小组中有一个名叫巴勒莫的语言学家，主要研究语言的历史演化。吸收他进人小组，主要是考虑到他与这个专业的其他学者不同，不只是专注于单一的语系，而是对东西方多个语系的古代语言都比较熟悉。但巴勒莫对这个词也一无所知，他进入IDC后的研究也没有得到什么有用的线索，之所以能够成功解读完全是意外，与他的语言学专业没有关系。
“Norway? No, never.”
“挪戚？没有。我从来没去过。”巴勒莫回答。
One morning, after Palermo woke up, his girlfriend, a blond Scandinavian, asked him whether he’d ever been to her homeland.
一天早晨巴勒莫醒来，他的女朋友，一个满头金发的北欧姑娘问他是不是到过自己的祖国。
“What names?”
“什么地名？”
“Helseggen and Mosken.”
“赫尔辛根和默斯肯。”
“Yes, though you’re running them together and not saying them quite right.”
“是的，尽管你把它们放在一起，说得不对。”
The names sounded vaguely familiar to Palermo. Since his girlfriend had nothing to do with the IDC, it was a little eerie to hear those sounds coming from her. “You mean He’ershingenmosiken?”
想到女友与IDC无关，这个同从她嘴里说出有一种奇怪的感觉，巴勒莫笑着摇摇头。“那是一个完整的词，赫尔辛根默斯肯，你把它从不同的位置拆开，肯定还能得到更多的地名。”
“But both of these places are in Norway.”
“我说的这两个地方都在挪威。”
“I’m saying the name of a single place. It’s a Chinese transliteration — so the sounds are approximate. If you break the syllables into arbitrary groups, they probably sound like the names of many places in different languages.”
“我说的是一个地方的名字。这是一个汉语音译——所以声音是近似的。如果你把音节分成任意的组，它们可能听起来像不同语言中许多地方的名字。”
“Let me tell you, the average Norwegian isn’t likely to know those places either. They are ancient names, no longer used. I know of them only because my specialty is Norwegian history. Both are in Nordland County.”
“可我告诉你，普通挪威人也不太熟悉这两个地名，它们是古地名，现在都变了，我是研究挪威历史的才知道。它们都在挪威的诺尔兰郡。”
“A coincidence, that’s all.”
“那又怎么样？巧合而已。”
“My dear, that’s still just a coincidence. You can break that string of syllables anywhere.”
“亲爱的，仍然可能是巧合，因为这个词在读音上可以随意拆分。”
“Oh please, stop teasing! You must have known that Helseggen is the name of a mountain, and Mosken is a tiny island in the Loften archipelago.”
“够了！你在骗人！你肯定知道赫尔辛根是一座山的名字，而默斯肯是一座小岛，罗弗敦群岛中的一座小岛。”
Palermo had encountered such arbitrary divisions numerous times during his work for the IDC, so he didn’t take his girlfriend’s “discovery” seriously. But what she said next changed everything.
巴勒莫没有说的是，在IDC小组研究这个词的过程中，他多次遇到这种按自己的意愿随意拆分的情况，所以他对女友的话并不在意，但她接下来的话改变了一切。
“I really didn’t. Look, there’s a phenomenon in linguistics where a listener who doesn’t know the language will arbitrarily divide a series of syllables into groupings almost subconsciously. That’s what’s happening here.”
“我真的不知道，我说它可能是巧合，是因为语言学中有一个现象：对于一个没有具体拼写方式只有读音的长词，在不理解其含义的情况下，有一部分人喜欢下意识地拆分它，而且按照自己的喜好拆分，你就是这样的人。”
“Fine, let me point out one more thing: Helseggen is located right next to the sea. You can see Mosken from the top — it’s the closest isle to Helseggen!”
“那好吧，我再告诉你一件事：赫尔辛根山靠着海，在山顶能看到默斯肯岛，默斯肯岛是距赫尔辛根山最近的一座海岛！”
Two days later, Cheng Xin stood on Mosken Island and looked over the sea at the craggy cliffs of Helseggen. The cliffs were black, and because the sky was overcast, the sea appeared black as well. Only a white line of surf appeared at the foot of the cliffs. Before coming here, Cheng Xin had heard that although this location was within the Arctic Circle, warm sea currents made the climate relatively mild. However, the wind coming off the sea still chilled her.
两天后，程心站在默斯肯岛上，隔海遥望着赫尔辛根山的悬崖，那悬崖是黑色的，也许是天空布满铅云的缘故，海也是黑色的，只有悬崖脚下出现一道白色的海浪。来之前听说，这里虽地处北极圈白内，但受到太平洋暖流的影响，气候比较温和。不过现在的海风仍然使程心感到十分阴冷。
The steep, craggy Loften Islands were carved by glaciers, and formed a 160-kilometer-long barrier between the North Sea and deep Vestfjorden, like a wall that divided the Arctic Ocean from the Scandinavian Peninsula. The currents between the islands were strong and rapid. In the past, few people had inhabited the islands, and most were seasonal fishermen. Now that seafood mainly came from aquaculture, open-sea fishing had virtually disappeared. The islands had again grown desolate, and probably resembled how they had looked during the time of the Vikings.
这里地处挪威北部的罗弗敦群岛，拔地而起的一系列险峻的岛屿由冰川蚀刻而成，在西部峡湾与北海之间形成了一道长达一百六十千米的屏障，如一道墙，将北冰洋与斯堪的纳维亚半岛北端隔开，岛间海峡水流湍急。以前这里的居民就很少，主要人口是捕鱼季节的渔民。现在，海产品主要来自养殖，海洋捕捞业已经消失，这里又变得荒凉起来，大概与更早的维京海盗出没时代差不多了。
Faced with the forlorn desolation at the world’s end, Cheng Xin nonetheless felt serenity in her heart. Not long ago, she had thought her own life had reached its terminus, but now there were many reasons to continue living. She saw a sliver of blue revealed at the edge of the leaden sky, and the sun peeked out of the opening for a few minutes, instantaneously changing this cold world. It reminded her of a line from Tianming’s stories:… as if the painter of this world-picture scattered a handful of gold dust boldly over the surface of the painting. This was her life now, hope hidden in despair, warmth felt through frost.
面对着这世界尽头的荒凉和肃杀，程心的心中却是坦然的。就在不久前，她还认为自己的生命已经走到了尽头，但现在，有太多的理由让生活继续下去。她看到，铅云低垂的天边有一道露出蓝天的缝隙。刚才，太阳从那道云缝中露出了几分钟，立刻使这阴冷的世界变了样子，很像云天明故事中的一句描写：“仿佛绘制这幅画的画师抓起一把金粉豪爽地撒向整个画面。”她现在的生活就是这样，凄迷中藏着希望，阴冷中透出温暖。
Mosken was only a tiny isle in the archipelago, and Helseggen was a nameless mountain — these names had changed at the end of the Crisis Era.
默斯肯只是群岛中众多岛屿里很小的一座，赫尔辛根山也是一座无名的山峰，这是公元世纪的地名，在危机纪元末期，这两个地名都变了。
AA had come with her, as well as a few IDC experts, including Bi Yunfeng, Cao Bin, and Palermo the linguist.
同来的还有艾AA和包括毕云峰、曹彬、语言学家巴勒莫在内的几个IDC专家。
Mosken’s only inhabitant was an old man named Jason. He was more than eighty years of age and had come from the Common Era. His square face showed the marks left by the years and reminded Cheng Xin of Fraisse. When he was asked if there was anything special in the vicinity of Helseggen and Mosken, Jason pointed to the western edge of the island. “Of course. Look there.”
默斯肯是座小岛，没有常住居民，岛上只住着一位叫杰森的老人。八十多岁了，是一个公元人，他那方正的北欧面庞饱经风霜，让程心想起了弗雷斯。在被问起默斯肯岛和赫尔辛根山一带有什么特别的东西时，杰森老人一指岛的西端：“当然有，看那里。”
“What’s that for?” asked AA.
“那是干什么用的？”AA好奇地问。
They saw a white lighthouse. Although it was only dusk, the lighthouse was already lit and blinked rhythmically.
那是一座白色的灯塔，现在只是黄吞，塔灯已经有节奏地发出光芒。
“Ha! Children these days…” Jason shook his head. “It’s an ancient navigation aid. Back during the Common Era, I was an engineer responsible for designing lighthouses and beacon lights. As a matter of fact, many lighthouses remained in use until the Crisis Era, though they’re all gone by now. I built this lighthouse here so that kids would know that such a thing existed once.”
“看看，孩子们果然已经不知道那是什么了……”杰森摇着头感慨地说，“那是古代为船指引航向用的。在公元世纪，我是个设计灯塔和航标灯的工程师，其实，直到危机纪元，海洋上还有许多灯塔在使用，现在全没了。我来这儿建了这座灯塔，是为了让孩子们知道，以前还有这么一种东西。”
The IDC members were all interested in the lighthouse. It reminded them of the centrifugal governor for steam engines, another ancient technology that had disappeared. But a brief investigation showed that this couldn’t be what they were looking for. The lighthouse had been constructed recently and utilized modern building materials that were strong and light. It had taken only half a month to complete. Jason was also certain that historically, Mosken did not have a lighthouse. Thus, based on timing alone, the lighthouse had nothing to do with Tianming’s hidden message.
IDC的来人都对灯塔很感兴趣，这让他们想到了蒸汽机离心调速器，同样是一个已经消失的古代技术装置。但稍加探究就明白，这不是他们要找的东西。灯塔刚建成，用的是轻便坚固的现代建筑材料，工期只有半个月。杰森还肯定地说，这座岛历史上从没有过灯塔，所以仅从时间上看，这东西与云天明的情报无关。
“Where?”
“在哪里呢？”
“Right there. You may not be able to see it, but you can hear it.”
“那里，从这个方向看不见，但能听到声音。”
“Sure thing, but the waves are powerful today, child. You’ll get seasick,” Jason said.
“当然可以，不过孩子，今天海上浪大，你会晕船的。”杰森说。
Cheng Xin’s party looked at each other and then turned to Jason as one. Someone asked, “I thought you said there was nothing special here.”
IDC的人们面面相觑，然后一起盯着杰森，有人问：“你不是说再没什么特别的东西了吗？”
Jason shrugged at the cold sky and sea. “What could be here? I don’t like this bleak and dreary place, but they wouldn’t let me build a lighthouse anywhere else.”
杰森对着阴冷的天空和大海耸耸肩，“能有什么？这荒凉的鬼地方，我可不喜欢，但在别的岛上，他们不让我建灯塔。”
“Why?”
“为什么？”
“The Moskstraumen is nothing special for us locals. It’s just part of the sea. You can often see it there.”
“我是本地人，大旋涡对我们而言不是什么特别的东西，它是这片海洋的一部分，在那里常常出现。”
“The maelstrom, of course. It will swallow up any boat.”
“因为那里有一个大旋涡，能吞掉所有的船。”
Jason shook his head. “I can’t sail straight across. Not today. We have to go the long way around.”
杰森连连摇头，“不能从这片海域直接过去，今天不能，必须绕那边走。”
So everyone decided to go to Helseggen and take a look around. Just as they were about to get into the helicopter, AA suddenly had the idea to go over on Jason’s tiny boat.
于是大家决定，到海峡对面的赫尔辛根山上去看一看。就在他们登上直升机时，AA突发奇想，想乘杰森的那艘小艇渡海过去。
“Anything else interesting or special around here?” someone asked.
“这一带还有什么特别的东西吗？”有人问。
AA pointed to the mountain across the strait. “This is a really short ride.”
AA指着海对面的赫尔辛根山说：“就这么近的路，能晕船？”
The helicopter could take them to investigate the maelstrom, but Cheng Xin wanted to go over on a boat, and the others agreed. Jason’s boat, the only one available on the island, could seat five or six safely. Cheng Xin, AA, Bi Yunfeng, Cao Bin, and Palermo got onto the boat while the others took the helicopter.
直升机起飞去勘探大旋涡，但程心想先坐船去看看，其他人也都同意。岛上只有杰森那一艘小艇，只能安全地坐下五六个人，程心、AA、毕云峰、曹彬和巴勒莫上了船，其余的人上了直升机。
“Oh, I remember now!” Cao Bin shouted.
“哦，我想起来了！”曹彬突然在风中喊道。
They quieted, and did hear a rumbling from the sea, like thousands of horses stampeding in the distance.
大家安静下来，听到那片海面发出一阵低沉有力的隆隆声，像远处万马奔腾。
The boat left Mosken Island, bumping over the waves. The wind over the open sea was stronger and colder, and salty spray struck their faces without cease. The surface of the sea was a dark gray, and appeared eerie and mysterious in the dimming light. The rumbling grew louder, but they still couldn’t see the great whirlpool.
小艇颠簸着驶离默斯肯岛，海上的风更大更冷，咸涩的水沫不断扑到脸上。海面呈暗灰色，在渐暗的天光下显得诡异莫测，那种隆隆声渐渐增大，但仍看不到旋涡。
“What? Who?” asked AA.
“什么？那是什么？”AA问。
“Edgar Allan Poe,” said Cheng Xin.
“爱伦·坡。”程心说。
“A nineteenth-century writer.”
“一个19世纪的小说家。”
Cheng Xin also remembered. She had thought that perhaps Tianming had found out something new about this place through the sophons, but the real answer was far simpler.
程心也想起来了，她原以为云天明是通过智子知道了这里的什么事，现在看来没那么复杂。
Written narrative literature had disappeared more than a century ago. “Literature” and “authors” still existed, but narratives were constructed with digital images. Classical written novels and stories were now treated as ancient artifacts. The Great Ravine had caused the loss of the works of many ancient writers, including Poe.
一个世纪前，以文字为基础的叙事文学就消亡了，但文学和作家仍然存在，不过叙事是用数字图像进行的。现在，古典的文字小说已经变成了文物，大低谷后，一大批古代的作家和作品失传了，其中就包括爱伦·坡。
Jason said, “Right. Poe wrote a story about Mosken –‘A Descent into the Maelstrom.’ I read it when I was younger. It’s very exaggerated. I remember him writing that the surface of the whirlpool formed a forty-five-degree angle. That’s absurd.”
老杰森说：“不错，爱伦·坡是写过一篇默斯肯大旋涡的小说，我年轻时看过，多少有些夸张，记得他说旋涡的水墙倾斜四十五度，哪有那么陡峭。”
“Then let’s cross it!” Bi Yunfeng said.
“越过它！”毕云峰说。
The rumbling grew even louder. “Where’s the whirlpool?” someone asked.
轰鸣声更大了。“涡呢？”有人问。
Jason pointed at the sea surface. “The maelstrom is lower than the surface here. Look at that line: you have to cross it to see the Moskstraumen.” The passengers saw a fluctuating band of waves whose frothy tips formed a long, white arc that extended into the distance.
老杰森指着海面说：“旋涡比海面低，你们看那条线，越过它才能看到大旋涡。”那是一条波动的浪带，浪尖上有泡沫，形成一条白线，以一个大大的弧形伸向远方。
Jason glared at him. “That’s a line separating life from death. A boat that crosses cannot return.”
“哪是生死线，船一旦过去是回不来的。”杰森瞪着毕云峰说。
“Cheaper than a bar of soap,” AA interjected. Jason didn’t know what she was talking about.
“比香皂便宜。”AA插了一句杰森听不明白的话。
“Forty minutes to an hour.”
“四十分钟到一个小时吧。”
“How long could a boat circle around the inside of the whirlpool before being pulled under?”
“船在大旋涡中转多长时问才能被吸进去？”
“But my boat –“
“可我的船……”
“Then we should be fine. The helicopter will save us in time.”
“那就没事，直升机会救我们上去。”
“We’ll compensate you.”
“我们会赔你一艘。”
Carefully, Jason aimed the boat at the band of waves and navigated through. The boat swayed from side to side violently and then stabilized. Some invisible force seemed to seize it, and the boat began to glide along in the same direction as the waves as if riding on rails.
杰森驾着小艇小心翼翼地越过了那条浪带，船晃了晃，都后变得平稳了，被什么力量攫住，仿佛进入了海面下的一条轨道，沿着与浪带一致的方向向滑行。
“The maelstrom has caught us,” Jason cried out. “My God, this is the first time I’ve been this close!”
“船被旋涡抓住了！哦，天，我也是第一次这么近看到！”杰森喊道。
The Moskstraumen revealed itself below them as though they stood on top of a mountain. The monstrous funnel-shaped depression was about a kilometer in diameter. The slanting sides were indeed not as steep as the forty-five degrees mentioned by Poe, but they were at least thirty degrees. The surface of the vortex was smooth as a solid. Since the boat was only at the edge of the whirlpool, the spin wasn’t very fast. But as they got closer to the center, the spin would become faster. At the tiny hole down in the center, the speed of the churning sea was highest, and the bone-shattering rumbling came from there. The rumbling expressed a mad power capable of grinding everything into pieces and sucking them out of existence.
像登上了山顶俯视一般，默斯肯大旋涡展现在他们面前。这个巨大的漏斗状凹陷直径约有一千米。倾斜的水墙确实没有爱伦·坡说的四十五度倾角，但肯定有三十度，水墙的表面致密而平滑，仿佛固体一般。船现在刚刚进人大旋涡的势力范围，速度还不太快，旋涡的转速是向下逐渐增加的，在底部那个小小的孔洞处转速达到最高，摄人心魄的轰鸣声就是从那里传出来的，那轰鸣显示了一种碾碎一切、吮吸一切的力量和疯狂。
“Now you see: this is the gate of hell. No normal boat can return,” said Jason.
“看到了吧，那条线是地狱之门，只要是常规功率的船，越过它就别想回去！”杰森说。
By now, the boat was so deep down in the whirlpool that the frothy waves at the rim were no longer visible. Behind them was the mountain formed of seawater, and they could only see the slow-moving top of the mountain at the other side of the whirlpool. Everyone felt the terror of being at the mercy of an irresistible force. Only the helicopter hovering overhead gave them any measure of comfort.
现在，船滑落到了更深处，泡沫线已经看不到了，海面也完全看不到了，他们后面是一道海水的山脊，只有从大旋涡对面远处的边缘上还能看到缓缓移动的山峰顶部。所有人都感觉到了一种被不可抗拒的力量所捕获的恐惧，只有在上空盘旋的直升机带来一些安慰。
Jason did as she asked. The boat was electrically powered, and the quiet engine sounded like a mosquito in the rumbling of the whirlpool. The boat approached the wave band at the edge of the maelstrom and appeared to come close to leaving, but then lost momentum and turned away from the froth, like a tossed pebble that passed the apex of its trajectory. They tried a few more times, but each time, they slid back down farther into the maelstrom.
杰森按她说的做了。这是一艘电动艇，引擎的声音在旋涡的轰鸣中像蚊子叫。小艇加速接近泡沫线，眼看就要冲过去了，接下来却无力地向下转向，离开了泡沫线，如同一颗抛出的石子越过抛物线的顶端一样。他们又努力了几次，每一次都滑落下来，一次比一次滑得更深。
“I refuse to believe we can’t force our way out,” said AA. She shouted at Jason, “Follow a straight line at maximum power!”
“我就不信出不去。你沿着切线，最大功率向前冲！”AA对杰森喊道。
“Let’s have supper,” said Jason. The sun had not yet set behind the clouds, but since it was the Arctic summer, it was already after 9 P. M. Jason took a large cod out of the hold and explained that it had been freshly caught. Then he took out three bottles of wine, placed the fish on a large iron platter, and poured a bottle of wine over the fish. With a lighter, he set the fish on fire, explaining that this was the local method of preparation. Five minutes later, he began to pull pieces off of the still-burning fish and eat them. The passengers imitated him, enjoying the fish, wine, and the magnificence of the maelstrom.
“孩子们，该吃晚饭了。”老杰森说。现在云后的太阳还没有落下去，但在这北极圈里的夏季，这时已经是夜里21点多了。杰森从舱里拎出一条大鳍鱼，说是刚钓上来的，然后又拿出三瓶酒，把鱼放到一个大铁盘子上，把一瓶酒浇到鱼上，用打火机嘭地一下点着了。火烧了不到五分钟，他就从仍燃烧着的鱼上扯肉吃，声称这是当地的烹调法。于是他们就吃着鱼，喝着酒，欣赏着大旋涡的景色。
“Child, I recognize you,” Jason said to Cheng Xin. “You were the Swordholder. I’m sure you and your people came here for some important mission, but you must keep your cool. We can’t avoid the apocalypse, so we must enjoy the present.”
“孩子，我认识你，你是执剑人吧？”杰森对程心说，“你们到这里来，一定是为了重要的使命。不过要淡定，淡定，既然末日躲不掉，就应该享受现在。”
“I doubt you could keep your cool if that helicopter weren’t there,” said AA.
“如果上面没有直升机，你还会这么淡定？”AA说。
“Ha, kid, I would. I surely would. Back in the Common Era, I was only forty when I found out I had a terminal illness. But I wasn’t afraid, and I never even planned to go into hibernation. It was only after I went into shock that the doctors put me into hibernation. By the time I woke up, it was already the Deterrence Era. I thought I had been given a new life, but that turned out to be just an illusion. Death only backed off a little ways to wait for me on the road ahead…”
“我会的，孩子，告诉你吧，我会的。公元世纪我得绝症时才四十岁，可我很淡定，根本没打算冬眠，我是在休克中被冬眠的，自自己根本不知道。醒来时已经是威慑纪元，当时以为是来生转世了，结果发现没有来生这回事，死亡只是退远了些，还在前边等着我……”
It had been twenty minutes since they entered the whirlpool, and the boat had slid about a third of the way down toward the bottom. The boat became more slanted, but due to centrifugal force, the passengers weren’t sliding toward the portside. The wall of water filled their field of view, and they could no longer see the top, even on the other side of the whirlpool. Everyone avoided looking up at the sky because, in the maelstrom, the boat moved along with the spinning wall of water, and it was almost impossible to feel the motion — the boat seemed to adhere to the side of a watery basin. But if they looked up, the motion instantly became evident. The cloud-filled sky spun overhead faster and faster, making them dizzy. Since the centrifugal force was stronger lower in the vortex, the water wall below the boat became even smoother and felt more solid, like ice. The rumbling from the eye of the maelstrom overwhelmed every other sound, and conversation was no longer possible. The Sun in the west peeked out of cracks in the cloud cover, and a ray of golden light shone into the swirling vortex. But the light couldn’t reach the maw at the bottom, and only illuminated a small part of the wall of water, making the bottom appear even more dark and menacing by contrast. Mist and fog swirled out of the eye at the center, forming a rainbow in the ray of sunlight that arced grandly across the rotating abyss.
“进人旋涡已经二十分钟，小艇已滑落下水墙总高度的三分之一，艇身的倾斜角度越来越大，但由于离心力的缘故，艇中的人们并没有滑到左舷。这时，他们的目力所及之处全是水墙，即使从对面也看不到远处的峰顶了。他们都不敢看天空，因为在旋涡中，小艇是与水墙一起转动，相对几乎静止，所以几乎感觉不到旋涡的旋转，小艇仿佛是紧贴在一个静止的海水盆地的边坡上；但如果看天，大旋涡的旋转立刻显现出来，布满云层的天空以越来越快的速度整体转动，让人头晕目眩。由于离心力的增加，船下的水墙表面更加致密平滑，固体感也更强，如结冰一般。大旋涡底部的吮洞传出的轰鸣声压住了一切，让大家再也不能对话。这时，太阳又从西方的云缝中露出来，把一束金光射进大旋涡，然而照不到底，只照亮了水墙的一小部分，使旋涡深处看上去更黑暗了。量m的水雾从涡底咆哮的吮洞中喷出，在阳光中形成一道彩虹，瑰丽地跨越旋转的深渊。
“The night I finished building the lighthouse, I took my boat out to the sea to look at it from a distance. And all of a sudden I had a thought: Death is the only lighthouse that is always lit. No matter where you sail, ultimately, you must turn toward it. Everything fades in the world, but Death endures.”
“灯塔建好的那天夜里，我远远地在海上看着它发光，突然悟出来：死亡是唯一一座永远亮着的灯塔，不管你向哪里航行，最终都得转向它指引的方向。一切都会逝去，只有死神永生这时。”
The helicopter came to their rescue. Hovering about two or three meters above the boat, it dangled a rope ladder so that everyone in the boat could climb out. Then the empty boat drifted away and continued to circle the monstrous vortex. The unfinished cod on the boat still glowed with the remnants of a blue flame.
直升机来救他们了，悬停在小艇下方两三米处，垂下一架悬梯让艇上的人爬上去。然后，空着的小艇漂远了，继续在旋涡中转着大圈，艇上没有吃完的鲜鱼上还燃着蓝幽幽的火苗。
“I remember Poe describing a rainbow in the maelstrom as well. I think it was even in moonlight. He called it a bridge between Time and Eternity.” Jason was shouting, but no one could hear what he was saying.
“记得爱伦·坡也描写过旋涡中的彩虹，好像还是在月光下出现的，他说那是连接今生与来世的桥！”杰森大声说，但没有人能听清池的话。
The helicopter hovered above the maw of the maelstrom, and as everyone looked down at the spinning funnel, they soon felt nauseated and dizzy. Someone entered directions into the navigation system for the helicopter to spin, matching the whirlpool’s rotation below. This way, the whirlpool appeared still, but the world outside — sky, sea, and mountains — began to spin around them. The maelstrom seemed to become the center of the world, and the observer’s nausea wasn’t reduced in the slightest. AA vomited up all the fish she had eaten.
直升机急停在大旋涡的正上方，机上的人们看着下面旋转的大水坑、不一会儿就感到头晕恶心。于是有人给驾驶系统发出指令，让直升机以与旋涡相同的转速在空中旋转，这样在他们眼，下面的旋涡确实静止下来了。但旋涡之外的整个世界却开始转动，天空、大海和山脉都在围绕着他们旋转，大旋涡仿佛成了世界的中心，眩晕感一点儿也没有减轻，AA哇地一下把刚吃进去的鱼都吐了出来。
But the question remained: What did lowering the speed of light have to do with black holes? What did black holes have to do with the cosmic safety notice?
现在的问题是，降低光速与黑洞之间有什么关系？黑洞与宇宙安全声明又有什么关系？
Half an hour later, the boat fell into the eye and disappeared abruptly. Amidst the unchanging rumbling, they seemed to detect the sound of the boat being ground apart.
半个小时后，小艇旋落到涡底，瞬间被吮洞吞没了，在轰鸣声中可以隐约听到船体被折断绞碎时发出的咔嚓声。
As she gazed at the whirlpool below, another whirlpool appeared in Cheng Xin’s mind: It was made up of a hundred billion silver stars spinning in the sea that was the universe, taking 250 million years to complete one rotation — it was the Milky Way. The Earth was not even as big as a mote of dust in this whirlpool, and the Moskstraumen was but another mote of dust on the Earth-dust.
看着下而的大旋涡。程心脑海中出现了另一个旋涡，由一千亿颗恒星组成，发着银光在宇宙之海中旋转，两亿五千万年转一圈，那就是银河系；地球在其中连一粒灰尘都算不上，而默斯肯旋涡又只是地球上的一粒灰尘。
The helicopter dropped Jason off at Mosken, and Cheng Xin promised to compensate him with a new boat as soon as possible. Then they said farewell and the helicopter headed for Oslo, the nearest city with a sophon-free room.
直升机把杰森送回了默斯肯岛，程心许诺尽快把赔他的船送来，然后与老人告别。直升机飞向奥斯陆，那里有最近的智子屏蔽室。
The Moskstraumen’s meaning was so obvious that no thought was required.
默斯肯大旋涡暗示着什么根本不用想，太明显了。
Everyone remained deep in thought through the voyage, not even conversing with their eyes.
航程中，大家都在沉默地思考，甚至连目光的交流也没有。
There was a threshold here that had to be crossed — hard to do for normal patterns of thinking, but not so for this group, among the most brilliant minds humanity had to offer. Cao Bin, in particular, was good at unconventional ideas. As a physicist who had crossed three centuries, he knew something else: Back during the Common Era, a research group had successfully reduced the speed of light through a medium in a lab to seventeen meters per second, slower than someone riding a bike. Of course, this was not the same as lowering the speed of light through vacuum, but at least it made what he imagined next seem not so crazy.
这里有一道坎儿，常规思维比较难以跨越，但也并不是太难。这些人毕竟属于人类中最有智慧的那一群，特别是曹彬，作为一位跨越三个世纪的物理学家，他善于极端思维，而且他还知道这样一个事实：早在公元世纪，就有一个研究小组在实验室中把介质中的光速降到每秒十七米，比块速骑行的自行车还慢。当然，这与降低真空中的光速在本质上是不同的，但至少使下面的设想不再显得那么疯狂了。
Lowering the speed of light in vacuum to one-tenth, one-hundredth, or even one-thousandth of its natural speed would mean thirty thousand kilometers per second, three thousand kilometers per second, and three hundred kilometers per second, respectively. It was hard to tell how black holes would be involved.
设想把光速降低到现有真空光速的十分之一、百分之一，甚至千分之一，分别是每秒三万千米、每秒三千千米和每秒三百千米，与黑洞有关系吗？一时看不出来。
A black hole couldn’t change the speed of light; all it could do was to change the wavelength.
黑洞本身并不能改变光速，只是改变光的波长。
“Sixteen point seven!” Cao Bin shouted. The fire in his eyes quickly set the other eyes around him ablaze.
“十六点七！”曹彬脱口而出这个数字，他的双眼放射出光芒很快把周围那些眼睛都点燃了。
What if the speed of light were reduced even further, to thirty kilometers per second? Would that involve black holes? It still seemed essentially the same process as before… wait!
再降，把真空光速降至现在的万分之一，即每秒三十千米，与黑洞有关系吗？似乎与前面没有本质的区别，仍然看不出什么……不，等等！
The third cosmic velocity of the Solar System was 16.7 kilometers per second. A spacecraft from the Earth could not leave the Solar System without exceeding this limit.
每秒十六点七千米，太阳系的第三字宙速度，如果达不到这个速度就不可能飞出太阳系。
It was the same with light.
光也一样。
If the speed of light through vacuum in the Solar System were reduced to below 16.7 kilometers per second, light would no longer be able to escape the gravity of the Sun, and the Solar System would become a black hole. This was an inescapable consequence of the derivation of the Schwarzschild radius of an object, even if the object was the Solar System. More precisely, the necessary speed limit would be even lower if a larger Schwarzschild radius were desired.
如果太阳系中通过真空的光速降低到每秒16.7公里以下，光将无法再逃脱太阳的引力，太阳系将变成一个黑洞。这是推导物体的史瓦西半径的必然结果，即使物体是太阳系。更准确地说，如果需要更大的史瓦西半径，必要的速度限制甚至更低。
Since nothing could exceed the speed of light, if light couldn’t leave the Solar System’s event horizon, nothing else could either. The Solar System would be hermetically sealed off from the rest of the universe.
由于光速不可超越，如果光出不去，那就什么都出不去，没有任何东西可以飞出太阳系黑洞的视界。这个星系将与宇宙的其余部分彻底隔绝，变成一个绝对封闭的世界。
And therefore completely safe — as far as the rest of the universe was concerned.
对于宇宙的其他部分来说，这样的世界绝对安全。
Take a distant star, a barely visible dot. Anyone casually glancing at it would say: Oh, that star is safe; that star will not threaten us.
有一颗遥远的星星，那是夜空中一个隐约可见的光点，所有望了它一眼的人都说：那颗星星是安全的。
How would a distant observer see the Solar System black hole created by lowering the speed of light? There were two possibilities: for technologically primitive observers, the Solar System would simply disappear; and, for technologically advanced observers, they should be able to detect the black hole, but instantly understand that the system was safe.
低光速的太阳系黑洞从远处观察是什么样子，不得而知，但只能有两种可能：在落后的观察者眼中太阳系消失了；对于先进的观察者，低光速黑洞应该能被远程观察到，但观察者立刻就明白它是安全的。
This was the cosmic safety notice. The impossible was possible, after all.
这曾是一件被认为不可能的事，现在真的有可能做到。
The helicopter continued above the clouds. It was now after 11 P. M., and the sun slowly set in the west, leaving only a slice visible. In the golden light of the midnight sun, everyone tried to imagine life in a world where light moved just below 16.7 kilometers per second, tried to imagine the creeping light of such a sunset.
直升机飞行在云层之上，这时已经是夜里23点多，太阳正在西方缓慢地落下。这午夜的夕阳照进机舱，在金色的暖光中，大家都在想象，想象着光速姆秒16.7千米的世界的生活，想象着那个世界的夕阳每秒16.7千米的光芒。
Later, people would call a black hole formed by lowering the speed of light a “black domain.” Compared to black holes where the speed of light was unaltered, a reduced-lightspeed black hole had a much larger Schwarzschild radius. The interior was not a space-time singularity, but a fairly open region.
后来，人们把低光速黑洞称为黑域，因为相对于原光速黑洞，低光速黑洞的史瓦西平径很大。内部不是时空奇点，而是一个广阔的区域。
Ultimately, this last piece of the puzzle could not be deciphered. Like the missing arms of Venus de Milo, the paintings of Needle-Eye remained mysterious. But as this detail formed the foundation for all three stories and described an elegant ruthlessness, an exquisite cruelty, and a beautiful death, it must have hinted at a great secret of life and death.
这个隐喻最终无法解读，如维纳斯的断臂一般。针眼的画成了一个永远的谜，这个情节构成了三个故事的基础，从它所显现出来的典雅的冷酷、精致的残忍和唯美的死亡来看，可能暗示着一个生死枚关的巨大秘密。
By now, most of the puzzle pieces in Yun Tianming’s stories had fallen into place. But one piece remained: the paintings of Needle-Eye. The interpreters couldn’t figure out the dual-layer metaphor or find any bearing coordinates. Some thought that the paintings might be another bearing coordinate for the Moskstraumen, symbolizing the event horizon of the black domain. They reasoned that from an outside observer’s perspective, anything entering the black domain would be forever fixed at the event horizon, which resembled being painted into a picture. But most interpreters disagreed. The meaning of the Moskstraumen was very clear, and Tianming had used the Glutton’s Sea to act as a bearing coordinate. There was no need for another.
至此。云天明情报的大部分拼图已经完成，只剩一块：针眼画师的画。解读不出它的双层隐喻，也找不到含义坐标。有解读者认为，画可能是默斯肯旋涡的一个含义坐标，象征着黑洞的视界，因为从外部观察者的角度看。任何进人黑洞的物体都将永远固定在视界上，很像是被画人画中。但大多数解读者都不同意这个想法，默斯肯旋涡的含义十分明显，云天明还使用了饕餮海来进一步固定其含义，没必要再设置一个含义坐标了。
[Excerpt from A Past Outside of Time, Three Paths of Survival for Earth Civilization]
【摘自《时间之外的往事》地球文明的三条生路】
This was also a plan devised entirely by the Earth itself; it had not been described in the message from Yun Tianming.
这完全是地球世界自己的计划，云天明的情报中没有提到这个选择。
II. The Black Domain Plan: This involved transforming the Solar System into a reduced-lightspeed black hole to broadcast a cosmic safety notice. Out of all the choices, this was the most technically challenging. Within a region of space fifty AU (or 7.5 billion kilometers) in radius, a physical constant had to be altered. This was dubbed God’s Engineering Project. The theoretical unknowns were immense.
二、黑域计划通过把太阳系转化为低光速黑洞发布宇宙安全声明。这是所有选择中技术难度最高的，需要在半径达五十个天文单位（约七十五亿千米）的广阔空间里改变宇宙基本常数，被称为上帝工程，在理论上存在着巨大的‘未知。
I. The Bunker Project: This was the plan with the most hope for success, because it was based entirely on known technologies and involved no theoretical unknowns. In some sense, the Bunker Project could be viewed as a natural continuation of the development of the human race. Even without the threat of a dark forest strike, it was time for humanity to begin colonizing the rest of the Solar System. The Bunker Project just made the effort more focused and the goals clearer.
一、掩体计划成功希望最大的一个选择，完全基于人类现有的技术，没有理论上的未知。其实，掩体计划可以看做人类发展的自然延续，即使没有黑V森林打击的威胁，人类也到了向太阳系大规模移民的时代，只是掩体计划更为集中，目的也更为明确。
But if the Black Domain Plan were to succeed, it would provide the most protection for Earth civilization. Setting aside its effect as a cosmic safety notice, the black domain itself would act as a highly effective protective barrier. Any external missile, such as a photoid, would be traveling at a very high velocity to produce the necessary destructive power, and would thus enter the black domain with a speed far in excess of the modified speed of light inside. Under the theory of relativity, such an object would have to proceed at the (new, low) speed of light as soon as it crossed the barrier, and its excess kinetic energy would be converted to mass. The first part of the object entering the black domain would suddenly slow down and acquire a much larger mass, while the rest of the object, still moving at the unaltered speed of light, would run into the first part, thereby destroying the entire missile with the impact. Calculations showed that even objects made of strong-interaction materials such as droplets would be completely shattered at the boundary of the black domain. Thus, a black domain was also dubbed “the cosmic safe.”
但黑域计划一旦成功，对地球文明所提供的安全保障是三个选择中最高的。除了宇宙安全声明所产生的保障外，进一步研究还发现，黑域本身就是一个高效防御屏障。来自外界的高速攻击体，如光拉，进入低光速区域后其速度立刻大大超越光速，而按照相对论原理，它只能以低光速行，剩余的巨大动能则转化为巨大的质量，攻击体首先进入低光速区的部分质量急剧增大，速度则瞬间骤降，而仍在原光速区的后面部分将以原光速高速撞击到前部，这一效应将彻底摧毁攻击体。据计算，即使用强互作用力材料制造的像水滴那样的超坚固物体，在通过黑域边界时也将被完全粉碎。所以，人们把黑域称为宇宙保险拒。
III. Lightspeed Spaceflight Plan: Although the theoretical foundation for curvature propulsion was unknown, it was clearly easier than the Black Domain Plan.
三、光速飞船计划曲率驱动技术在理论上未知，但实现难度明显低于黑域技术。
But Earth civilization would pay a heavy price. The Solar System would be completely divided from the rest of the universe, equivalent to humanity shrinking their universe from 16 billion light-years across to one hundred AU. Moreover, it was impossible to know what life in such a world would be like. It was certain that electronic and quantum computers would have to operate at extremely low speeds, so humanity might regress to a low-technology society. This would be an even more absolute seal than the technology seal imposed by the sophons. Besides being a cosmic safety notice, the Black Domain Plan was also a form of technological self-mutilation. Humans would never be able to escape from this reduced-lightspeed trap.
但地球文明将为此付出巨大的代价，太阳系将与宇宙的其余部分完全隔绝，相当于人类把自己置身的宇宙直径从一百六十亿光年缩小至五十个天文单位。在光速为每秒16.7千米的世界里生活是什么样子现在还不得而知，但可以肯定的是，那个世界中的电子计算机和量子计算机只能以极低的速度运行，人类可能退回到低技术社会，这是比智子更强的技术锁死。所以，黑域安全声明除了自我隔绝外，还有技术自残的一面。这也就意味着人类将永远没有力量飞出自造的低光速陷阱了。
There was yet another advantage to the Black Domain Plan: Out of all three choices, it was the only plan that allowed humanity to continue to live on the familiar surface of the Earth and avoid an exile in space.
黑域计划还有一个好处，在三个选择中，只有它能使人类免除太空中的颠沛流离，长久生活在熟悉的地球世界。
Lightspeed spaceflight could not, however, provide any security for Earth civilization. It was only good for escape into the stars. Of all three plans, this involved the most unknowns. Even if it succeeded, members of the human race who escaped into the vast emptiness of space faced unpredictable dangers. Also, the dangers of escapism meant that the plan faced numerous political barriers and traps.
光速飞船几乎无法为地球丈明提供任何安全保障，这一技术只能用于星际逃亡。这是三个选择中未知因素最多的一个，即使实现，进入茫茫外太空的人类前途也凶险莫测。同时，由于逃亡主义的危险性，这一计划的实现在政治上充满障碍和陷阱。
Yet a portion of humanity was certain to be obsessed with lightspeed spaceflight for reasons other than survival.
但注定有一部分人迷恋光速飞船，原因在生存之外。
For people of the Broadcast Era, the only smart choice was to carry out all three plans simultaneously.
对于广播纪元的人类，明智的做法是三个计划同时进行。
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