Not many people were dining. They chose a table by the window and sat down. Shi Qiang tapped the tabletop to activate an interface and then ordered a few dishes. “I can’t read the foreign writing, so I’ve only ordered Chinese ones.”
就餐的人不多，他们选择一个靠窗的桌子坐下，史强在桌面上点了一下，激括了一个操作界面，在上面点起菜来：“洋文不认识，我就只点汉字的了啊。”
“The world seems like it’s built using bricks made from displays,” Luo Ji sighed.
“这个世界，好像就是用显示屏当砖头建起来的。”罗辑感慨地说。
“A film? You can go online with this gadget!” Shi Qiang reached over and tapped the pack, and one of the miniature pictures sank in like a button. Then the advertisement he selected took over the entire pack.
“什么贴膜，用这玩意儿就可以上网！”大史说着，伸手在烟盒上随便点了一下，一块缩略图像按钮一样下陷了，接着被选择的广告画面占满了整个烟盒。
“That’s right. Anything smooth can light up.” As Shi Qiang spoke he took out a pack of cigarettes and passed it to Luo Ji. “Look at this. Just a pack of cheap cigarettes.” As soon as Luo Ji held the pack in his hands, it started displaying an animated image of several miniature pictures that seemed like an options menu.
“是啊，只要光滑点的地方就能点亮。”大史说着掏出那盒烟递给罗辑，“看这个，就一盒很便宜的烟。”罗辑刚把烟盒拿到手中，就看到上面开始显示动态图像，是几幅缩略图，好像是一个选择界面。
“This… it’s just a film that can display images,” Luo Ji said as he looked at the pack.
“这……也就是一种能显示图像的贴膜吧。”罗辑看着烟盒说。
In the picture, Luo Ji saw a family with one child sitting in a living room. The picture obviously came from the past, and a shrill voice sounded from the pack: “Mr. Luo, this is the era you used to live in. We know that in that age, owning a house in the capital was the grand dream of every person. Now, the Greenleaf Group can help you achieve that dream. As you can see, this is a wonderful age. Houses have turned into leaves on a tree, and the Greenleaf Group can provide you with every kind of leaf.” Here the picture showed a scene of leaves being added to a tree branch, and then a dazzling variety of hanging homes, one of which was even completely transparent, with furnishings inside that seemed suspended in midair. “Of course, we can also build you a traditional home on the surface to return you to the warmth of the Golden Age, and build you a warm… family…” A lawn and detached home, perhaps another old photo, appeared onscreen. The voice artist in the ad spoke in fluent “ancient Chinese,” but paused momentarily before the word “family,” then said it with particular emphasis. After all, it was something the speaker didn’t have, something that belonged to the past.
罗辑看到了一个一家三口坐在客厅里的画面，这图像显然来自过去，一个尖细的声音从烟盒上响起：“罗辑先生，这就是你曾生活过的那个时代，我们知道，在那时，拥有一套首都的住房是每个人最华丽的梦想，现在，绿叶集团能够帮助您实现它。您看到了，这个美好的时代，房子已经变成树上的叶子，绿叶集团为你提供各种叶子。（图像上出现了向巨树的树枝上挂装叶子的画面，接着出现了令人眼花缭乱的各种悬挂型成品房间，甚至有一套全透明的，里面的家具好像是悬在空中。）当然，我们也可以为您在地面上建造传统住房，让您回到黄金时代的温馨之中，为您建造一个温暖的，家……”（画面上出现了草坪和别墅，可能也是过去的图像，广告播音员说着流利的“古汉语”，但在说“家”这个词的时候他停顿了一下，加重了语气，这毕竟是一个他们已经没有、只属于过去的东西。）
Shi Qiang took the cigarette pack out of Luo Ji’s hands, withdrew the last two cigarettes, passed one to him, and then crumpled the empty pack into a ball and tossed it onto the table. On the crumpled ball, the images still flashed, but the sound had disappeared. “Whenever I go anywhere, the first thing I do is to turn off every screen that’s around me. They’re so annoying,” Shi Qiang said, turning off the tabletop and floor displays with his hands and feet. “But the people here can’t be away from them.” He pointed around them. “There aren’t any computers anymore. Anyone who wants to go online or something can just tap any smooth surface. Clothing and shoes can be used as computers, too. Believe it or not, I’ve even seen toilet paper that you can go online with.”
大史从罗辑手中拿过烟盒，取出了里面的最后两支烟，递给罗辑一支，然后把空烟盒团成一团扔到桌子上，在那皱纸团中，图像仍在闪亮着映出，但声音消失了。“每到一个地方，我第一件事就是把眼前和周围的这些玩意儿都关上。看着麻烦，”大史说着，手脚并用，把桌上和脚下地板上的显示窗口依次关闭，“但他们离不开这个。”他指指周围，“这时候已经没有电脑这东西了，谁想上网什么的，找个平点儿的地方直接点就行了，还有衣服、鞋子，都能当电脑用。不管你信不信，我还见过能上网的手纸。”
Luo Ji pulled out a napkin. It was just ordinary, non-wired paper, but the paper box activated, and the pretty woman on it hawked bandages to Luo Ji, evidently aware of today’s experiences and guessing that his arms and legs might have gotten scraped up.
罗辑把餐巾纸抽出一张，倒是不能上网的普通纸，但放纸巾的盒子被激活了，一位漂亮女孩儿在上面向罗辑推销创可贴，她显然通过他今天的经历，推测他胳膊腿上可能有擦伤。
“This is the information age. Our times were pretty damn primitive,” Shi Qiang said with a laugh.
“这他妈才叫信息时代，咱那会儿，有点儿原始了。”大史笑着说。
While they waited for their food, Luo Ji asked Shi Qiang about his life. He felt a little guilty for only asking now, but looking back on how the day had gone, he had been something of a clockwork machine ticking relentlessly forward. Only now did he have a bit of free time.
在等待上菜的时间，罗辑问起大史现在的生活，这时才问起这个，他有种愧疚感，但回想这一天，他就像一个上了发条的机器，一直被推着走，这才有了一点空闲时间。
“God,” Luo Ji sighed, and stuffed the napkin back in the box.
“天啊。”罗辑感叹道，把纸塞回盒子里。
“They had me retire. It’s not a bad deal,” Shi Qiang said simply.
“他们让我退休，待遇也不错。”史强简单地说。
“They’re around. And the PSB is still the PSB. But even before hibernation I wasn’t connected to it anymore. The unit I was with later now belongs to the Asian Fleet. You know, the fleet is like a big country, so I’m a foreigner now.” Saying this, he exhaled a long cloud of smoke. He watched the cloud ascend, as if he was trying hard to unravel a mystery.
“都在，而且公安局还叫公安局，公共安全事务局，但在冬眠前已经和我没关系了。我后来的单位现在属于亚洲舰队，你知道，舰队本身就是一个大国，那我现在是外国人了。”大史说着，长长地吐出一口烟，两眼盯着上升的烟雾，像是在努力解开一个谜团。
“Was it the Public Security Bureau, or the unit you were at later? Are they still around?”
“是公安局，还是你后来的那个单位，它们都还在？”
“Countries don’t have the significance they used to… The world’s changed. It’s confusing. Fortunately, Da Shi, you and I are the kind of indifferent people who can live, and live well, no matter what happens.”
“国家已经不是以前的意义了……这世界变化得，真是让人困惑。不过大史，好在你我都属于那类没心没肺的人，怎么着都能过下去而且过得好。”
“Luo, my boy, to tell you the truth, I’m not as open-minded as you in certain things. I’m not as uninvolved. If I’d been through everything you have, I’d have fallen apart long ago.”
“罗老弟，说句实话，有些事情我还真没你豁达，没你看得开，我要是像你这么历练上一遭，可能早散架了。”
“Sure, but if I gave up all responsibility, you wouldn’t have much of an appetite at all right now.” Shi Qiang tossed his cigarette into the ashtray, activating a cigarette advert.
“要那样，你现在可是吃什么都不香了。”大史把烟蒂扔进桌子上的烟缸，激活了烟缸的香烟广告。
Luo Ji picked up the crumpled cigarette pack from the table, opening it to reveal the image that was still showing, with only a little discoloration. It was playing the Greenleaf Group advert. He said, “Whether as messiah, or as refugee, I can always use what resources I have to try and live a happy life. You might think I’m selfish, but to be honest, this is the only thing I respect about myself. Da Shi, let me say something about you. You look like a careless person, but deep in your bones you’re someone who prizes responsibility. Leave that responsibility completely behind now. Look at this age. Who needs us? Carpe diem is our most sacred duty.”
罗辑拿起桌上那个揉成团的烟盒，展开来，发现上面的图像还能显示，只是有些变色，正在重播绿叶集团的广告。罗辑说：“不管是当救世主还是成了难民，我总能利用现有的资源尽量过得快活，你可以认为我自私，但说实话，这是我唯一看得上自己的一点。大史，我可要说你一句：你这人看上去大大咧咧，骨子里还是个重责任的人，现在把责任彻底扔了吧，看看这个时代，谁还用得着我们？及时行乐就是我们最神圣的责任。”
“I can’t just leave someone to die, you mean? That’s the life I’ve got, a life of saving yours,” Shi Qiang said disapprovingly as he cast his eyes about him, probably looking for someplace selling cigarettes. Then he looked back, leaned in to Luo Ji, and whispered, “But you really were a messiah for a little while, my boy.”
“不能见死不救是不是？我就这个命，救你命的命。”大史不以为然地说，同时眼睛四下瞄着，可能是想找个卖烟的地方，然后他把目光收回来，探头低声对罗辑说：“不过老弟，你当救世主，还真有一阵儿当真了呢。”
Luo Ji realized he had misspoken. “Oh, no, Da Shi, you’ve still got to carry out your responsibility to me. I’ll die if I leave you. Already today you’ve saved me one, two, three times. Or at least two and a half!”
罗辑自觉失言：“哦，大史，你对我的责任当然是要尽的，我离了你活不了，你今天已经救了我……一二三，三次命了，至少两次半！”
“I was seriously paranoid back then. I don’t want to think about it. Believe it or not, Da Shi, I’m certain that while I was asleep, they not only cured my illness, but also conducted psychiatric treatment. Really, I’m not the same person now that I was back then. How could I have been so stupid as to have that kind of idea? That sort of delusion?”
“我那时已经是一个严重的妄想症患者了，不堪回首啊。大史，不管你信不信，我敢肯定，在苏醒前他们不但治好了我的病，还在睡眠状态下对我进行过精神治疗。真的，现在的我与那时根本就不是一个人，我怎么会傻到有那种想法，那种妄想？”
“How did you come up with the idea of putting a spell on that star?”
“你怎么会想到对星星发咒语呢？”
“It’s impossible for anyone in that position to be of sound mind. Fortunately, I’m now back to normal.”
“谁在那个位置上也不可能心智健全，好在我恢复正常了。”
“Okay. We’ll talk about something happy. My son is still alive.”
“好吧，说件喜事儿：我儿子还活着。”
“What delusion? Let me hear it.”
“什么妄想？说说看。”
“What?” Luo Ji asked, practically jumping up in his surprise.
“什么，”罗辑吃惊得差点儿跳起来。
“He’s not…”
“他不是……”
“I don’t know how long he spent in prison, but afterward he went into hibernation. He said it was to come to the future to see me. Who knows where the kid got the money. Now he’s on the surface, and he’s arranged to come over tomorrow.”
“我也不知道他在监狱里待了多长时间，后来也冬眠了，说是要到未来来看我，谁知道这小子哪儿来那么多钱。他现在在地面上，说好明天过来。”
“I just learned about it two days ago. He looked me up. We haven’t met, just spoken by phone.”
“我也是前天才知道，是他找到我，还没见他的面儿，只通了电话。”
“It’s difficult to explain briefly. Besides, there’s no point. In your work, you must have run into delusional patients, people who were always thinking someone wanted to kill them. Is there any point to listening to those people talk?” Luo Ji methodically tore the cigarette pack into pieces. This time the display was destroyed, but the scraps still flashed in a grotesquely colored heap.
“一两句说不清，再说，也没什么意思。你在以前的工作中肯定也遇到过妄想症患者，比如总觉得有人要杀他，听这种人的话，有意思吗？”罗辑说着，把手中的烟盒慢慢撕碎，这次显示被破坏了，但碎纸片仍在闪烁，成了光怪陆离的一堆。
Luo Ji stood up excitedly, sweeping flashing scraps of paper to the floor. “Oh, Da Shi, that’s just… We’ve got to drink to that.”
罗辑兴奋得站了起来，把闪光的纸片扔了一地：“啊，大史，这简直是……我们得好好喝两瓶。”
But Luo Ji’s attention had shifted to the server. Her face and body were unrealistically beautiful, and he saw that the other servers sliding between the tables had the same angelic appearance.
但罗辑的注意力已经转移到服务员身上，这个女孩儿，无论是相貌还是身材，都美得有些不真实，罗辑还发现，餐厅中在席间袅袅穿行的其他服务员也都是这种天仙般的形象。
“A drink, then. The alcohol in this age tastes awful, but it’s still the same strength.”
“喝吧，这时候的酒太难喝，但劲儿可没减小。”
Then the food came. Luo Ji didn’t recognize anything, and Shi Qiang said, “Nothing’s good. There are restaurants supplied by traditional farms, but those are all high-end places. We’ll eat at one when Xiaoming comes.”
这时，菜上来了，罗辑一样都没认出是什么，大史说：“好吃不了，倒是有供应传统农产品的饭店，但那都是很高档的地方。等晓明来了我们就去那里吃。”
“Sort of.”
“算是吧。”
“Robots?” Luo Ji asked. At last the future had something he had seen in one of his childhood science fiction stories.
“机器人？”罗辑问，这个未来总算有了一样他儿时在科幻小说中看到的东西。
“What do you mean, ‘sort of’?”
“怎么叫算是呢？”
“Hey, don’t stare like an idiot. They’re fake,” Shi Qiang said, without looking up.
“嗨嗨，别盯着它傻看，假的。”大史头也不抬地说。
Shi Qiang pointed to a robot server and said, “This silly girl only knows how to serve food. They travel fixed paths. How stupid is that? Once I saw a table that had been temporarily moved, but they kept bringing dishes to the original location, so everything crashed to the ground.”
大史指指机器服务员说：“傻妞一个，就会上菜，它们走的路线都是固定好的，傻到什么程度？我见过一次饭桌临时挪了地方，它们照样往原地儿放盘子，结果噼里啪啦都摔了。”
Like lightning, Shi Qiang’s eyes shot from the knife in the server’s hands to Luo Ji across the table from him. He leapt up, vaulted the table, and pulled Luo Ji violently off his chair to the floor. Almost simultaneously, the robot stabbed the knife right where Luo Ji’s heart would have been. The knife went through the back of the chair, activating its information interface. The robot retracted the knife and stood beside the table with a serving tray in its other hand, still with the sweet smile on its unrealistically beautiful face. Panicked, Luo Ji struggled to stand up, then hid behind Shi Qiang. But Shi Qiang just waved his hand, saying, “Don’t worry. It’s not that agile.”
大史的服睛闪电般地从服务员拿餐刀的手上穆到对面的罗辑身上，他敏捷地跳起来，探身越过桌面，把罗辑从椅子上猛地拉下来。几乎与此同时，美女机器人挥刀刺去，餐刀剌在原来是罗辑心脏的位置，有力地穿透了椅背，椅子被激活的信息界面闪亮起来。机器人抽回刀，另一只手仍拿着托盘站在桌旁，那甜美的笑还留在她那美得不真实的脸蛋儿上。惊慌失措的罗辑挣扎着站起来，朝大史身后躲，史强摆摆手说：“别怕，它没那么灵活。”
When the robot server had laid out the food, it smiled sweetly and wished them a good meal. Its voice did not sound robotic, but was incredibly lovely. Then, it extended a slender hand and picked up the dinner knife in front of Shi Qiang…
机器人服务员上完了菜，露出甜美的笑容说：“请二位慢用。”它的声音不是机器腔，十分柔美。接着，它伸出一只纤纤素手拿起了史强前面的一把餐刀……
The robot stood motionless, holding the knife and smiling, and once again wished them a good meal in its gentle voice.
果然，机器美女站着没动，继续持刀微笑，再次用柔美的声音祝他们美餐一顿。
“It’s probably a software failure,” the engineer said, wiping away cold sweat.
“可能是软件故障。”工程师擦着冷汗说。
The startled diners had clustered around them looking at the scene in amazement. Then the duty manager came rushing over. When she heard Shi Qiang accusing the restaurant’s robot of attempted murder, she shook her head. “Sir, that’s impossible! Their eyes don’t see people. They only see the sensors on the tables and chairs!”
周围被惊动的食客们纷纷围拢过来，吃惊地看着这怪异的场面，然后值班经理很快赶来了，在听到大史控告餐厅的机器人杀人时，她连连摇头：“先生，不可能的！它的视觉看不到人，只能看到桌子和椅子上的传感器！”
While the duty manager was considering how to rebut this, the robot stabbed the knife at the chair a second time, putting it precisely through the hole punctured the first time and eliciting a few screams.
就在值班经理仍想否认时，机器人美女再次挥刀向椅背刺去，餐刀精确地穿进上次刺出的洞，引来一片惊呼声。
“I’ll testify that it picked up a dinner knife and tried to kill that man. We saw it with our own eyes!” one man said in a loud voice. The other onlookers added their proof.
“我证明，它是拿餐刀刺杀这位先生的，我们都亲眼看见了！”一个人大声说，围观的人们也纷纷做出证明。
“Have a pleasant meal,” it said with a smile.
“二位先生请慢用。”机器美女微笑着说。
A number of other people arrived, including the restaurant’s engineer. When he pressed the back of the robot’s head, the smile left her face and she said, “Forced shutdown. Breakpoint data backed up.” Then she froze in place.
餐厅里又有几个人过来了，其中有他们的工程师，他在美女的后脑部接了一下，美女的表情变得严肃起来，说：“强制关机，断点资料已备份。”然后就僵站在那里不动了。
“Does this happen often?” Shi Qiang said with a sarcastic smile.
“常见的事吗？”大史讥笑着问。
“No, no. I swear, I’ve never even heard of anything like this,” the engineer said, then directed two assistants to haul the robot out.
“不不，我发誓，这事儿我听都没听说过。”工程师说着，指挥两名侍者把机器人搬走。
“Hibernators. In their era, people had experience with this kind of sudden incident,” someone else said. His clothing displayed a swordsman.
“冬眠者，他们那个时代，人们对这类突发事件都有足够的应对能力。”另一个人说，他的衣服上映出一个武侠剑客。
Sitting there, his shock not yet abated, Luo Ji felt the uncomfortable hole in the chair back. “Da Shi, it seems the whole world is against me. I used to have a favorable impression of it.”
罗辑坐在那里，惊魂未定，椅子靠背上的洞让他后背很不舒服：“大史，好像这整个世界都在和我过不去……本来，我对这个世界印象挺好的。”
The duty manager energetically explained to the customers that until the cause of the failure was identified, the restaurant would use real human servers, but about half of the customers left anyway.
值班经理则极力对食客们解释，说在故障原因查清之前将用真人来服务，但餐厅里的人还是走了一大半。
“You both reacted pretty fast,” one bystander said admiringly.
“先生，你们的反应真快。”一个旁观者敬佩地说。
The duty manager said to Luo Ji and Shi Qiang, “Sirs, this was truly… Anyway, I guarantee that you’ll receive compensation.”
值班经理对罗辑和史强说：“二位先生，这真的是……不过我保证，你们会得到赔偿的。”
“Good. Now let’s eat.” Shi Qiang beckoned Luo Ji to retake his seat, and a human server brought over new dishes to replace those that had spilled.
“那好，我们接着吃吧。”大史招呼罗辑又在饭桌旁坐下来，真人服务员把刚才弄撒的菜又重新端上来一份。
“Does everyone have so much space to live in these days?”
“现在人们都住得这样宽敞吗？”
“You kill me, my boy. That attitude of yours has always killed me,” Shi Qiang said, sticking up a thumb.
“我就服你这一点，老弟，我一直就服你这一点。”大史竖起拇指说。
“Here: to carpe diem, to living one day at a time. One hour at a time, even,” Luo Ji said as he raised his glass. “Here’s to your still-living son.”
“来，及时行乐，活一天算一天，活一小时算一小时。”罗辑举起酒杯，“祝贺你还有儿子！”
Shi Qiang considered one of the dishes in front of him, then said, “I’ve got some ideas about this.” He looked up and poured Luo Ji a drink. “Ignore it for now. I’ll tell you in detail later.”
大史看着菜盘沉思着说：“关于这事，我有了一些想法，”他抬起头给罗辑倒酒，“先别管它，同去再和你细说吧。”
“Are you really okay?” Shi Qiang said, shooting him a smile.
“你真的没事儿？”大史笑望着罗辑说。
The leaf where Shi Qiang lived was at the top of the tree. It was a spacious house, and was fully equipped with facilities for comfortable living. It had a gym, and even an indoor garden with a fountain.
史强住的叶子位于这棵树的顶部，是一套很宽敞的房间，生活设施齐全舒适，有健身房，甚至还有一个带喷泉的室内花园。
“I’ve been a messiah. Nothing scares me.” He shrugged, then drained his glass. The taste of the alcohol made him wince. “This is like rocket fuel.”
“我救世主都当过了，还怕什么。”罗辑耸耸肩说，然后喝干了一杯，酒的味道让他咧嘴皱眉，“这好像是火箭燃料。”
He said, “The fleet gave me these temporary living quarters. They said I can buy a better leaf with my retirement money.”
史强说：“这是舰队给我的临时住所，他们说我可以用退休金买一片更好的叶子。”
“Probably. This kind of structure is the best use of space. A big leaf is equivalent to an entire building from our era. But mainly it’s because there are fewer people. Far fewer, ever since the Great Ravine.”
“应该是吧，这种建筑能最好地利用空间，一片大叶子就顶我们那时的一幢楼呢，不过主要还是因为人少了，大低谷以后，人少了很多。”
“But Da Shi, your country is in space.”
“大史，你的国家可是在太空中。”
“I won’t be going there. I’m already retired, you know.”
“我不会去那儿，我不是已经退休了嘛。”
Luo Ji’s eyes felt more comfortable here, largely because most of the information windows in Shi Qiang’s house were closed, although there were scattered flashes in the walls and on the floor. Shi Qiang tapped an interface on the floor with his foot, turning one wall entirely transparent and unfurling the night city before their eyes. It was a dazzling, giant forest of Christmas trees chained together by the lights of the traffic.
罗辑在这里感到眼睛舒服了许多，主要是因为史强把房间里的大部分信息窗口都关上了，但还是有零星的几个在墙面和地板上闪动着。史强用脚点着地扳上的一个操作界面，把一堵墙全部调成透明的了，夜色中的城市在他们面前展开，是一片璀璨的巨型圣诞树的森林，飞车流的光链穿行其间。
Luo Ji went over to the sofa, which was hard as marble to the touch. “Is this for sitting?” he asked. At Shi Qiang’s affirmative, he sat gingerly down on it, only to feel like he was sinking into soft clay. The sofa’s cushions and backrest adapted to a person’s body, forming a mold completely in sync with their body shape, keeping pressure to a minimum.
罗辑走到沙发前，它摸着像大理石般坚硬。“这是坐的吗？”他问，得到大史肯定的回答后，他小心地坐了上去，感觉却像陷到一块软泥里，原来沙发的座垫和靠背能够自动适应人体的形状，给坐在上面的人形成一个与其身体表面完全贴合的模子，使压强最小。
“Do you have any sleeping pills?” he asked. Now that he was in a space that felt safe, exhaustion hit him.
“有安眠药吗？”罗辑问，来到这个他认为安全的空间里，疲惫才向他袭来。
His vision from the slab of iron ore in the Meditation Room of the UN Building two centuries ago had become reality.
两个世纪前他在联合国大厦静思室中那块铁矿石上的幻觉变成了现实。
Although Luo Ji thought he would witness some sort of high-tech hardware-over-the-network transmission, the reality was much simpler than he imagined. In a few minutes, a small, flying delivery van pulled up outside the transparent wall and delivered the medicine through the portal that had just opened up with a slender mechanical arm. Luo Ji took the medicine from Shi Qiang. It was a traditional box without any active display. The instructions said to take one pill, so he opened the pack, took one out, and reached out for the glass of water on the coffee table.
罗辑以为他又要看到什么网络传输硬件之类的高技术，但事情比他想的简单，几分钟后，一辆小型送货飞车悬停在透明的墙壁外，用一支细长的机械手把药从透明墙上刚出现的圆洞中递进来。罗辑接过大史递来的药。这倒是一个传统的包装盒，没有什么显示被激活，他看到说明是每次一粒，就拆开包装拿出一粒，伸手去拿茶几上的水杯。
“Wait a moment,” Shi Qiang said, taking the box out of Luo Ji’s hands and reading it carefully before returning it to him. “What does this say? The one I asked for was called River of Dreams.”
“你等等。”大史从罗辑手中拿过药盒，细细看了看，又递给罗辑，“这上面写的是什么，我要的药名叫梦河。”
“No, but you can buy them here,” Shi Qiang said, and operated the wall again. “Here. Nonprescription sleeping pills. This one, River of Dreams.”
“没有，在这儿就可以买。”大史说着，又在墙上操作起来，“这里，非处方安眠药，这个，梦河。”
“Then you’d die for sure. But you’d die comfortably. So it’s often used for suicide.”
“那你死定了，但死得很舒服，所以这东西常被用来自杀。”
“It’s short-term hibernation medicine. It can make someone hibernate for ten days to a year.”
“这是短期冬眠药物，可以使人进入十天至一年的冬眠期。”
“No. It requires a whole set of external systems to sustain internal bodily circulatory functions before short-term hibernation can be achieved.”
“不，在服药后要有一整套系统在体外维持人体的内循环功能，才能实现短期冬眠。”
“I bought it. Right here.”
“买的，就在这里买的。”
“You just swallow it?”
“吃了就行吗？”
“And if you take it without them?”
“要是只吃药呢？”
Luo Ji saw a long string of complicated English-language drug names. “I don’t recognize it. But it’s certainly not River of Dreams.”
罗辑看到那是一长串很复杂的英文药名，“我也不认识，不过肯定不是什么梦河。”
“Where did this come from?” the doctor asked warily.
“这是哪儿来的？”医生警觉地问。
Shi Qiang activated a window on the coffee table and began looking for a medical consult. With Luo Ji’s help, they found one, a white-clothed consulting physician who examined the box, then looked from the box to Shi Qiang with a peculiar expression.
史强在茶几上激活了一个窗口，开始在上面寻找医疗咨询。在罗辑的协助下他终于找到了一家，那名穿白衣的咨询医生看了看药盒，把眼睛转向拿药盒的大史，目光有些异样。
“What’s it got to do with hibernation?”
“这……”和冬眠有什么关系？“
Shi Qiang closed the window and tossed the box onto the table. He looked straight at Luo Ji for a while, then said, “Damn it.”
史强关闭了窗口，把药盒扔到茶几上，与罗辑对视良久后说：“妈的。”
“Impossible. This is a prescription drug. It’s only for use in the hibernation center.”
“不可能，这是一类处方药，只能在冬眠中心内部使用。”
“How many times have I saved your life today, my boy?” Shi Qiang asked, rubbing his hands.
“老弟，今天这是我第几次救你的命了？”大史搓着手问。
When his head touched back against the sofa, the hard headrest quickly adapted to the back of his head and began to form an impression of its shape. But the process didn’t stop there. His head and neck continued to sink, until the headrest on either side formed a pair of tentacles that squeezed tight around his neck. He had no time to cry out, but could only open his mouth and eyes and scramble with his hands.
当罗辑的头靠到沙发靠背上时，坚硬的靠背迅速适应他的后脑勺的形状，开始为他的那个部位形成印模，但这个过程没有停止，罗辑的头和颈部一直陷下去，然后，靠背在颈部两侧的部分形成了一双触手，死死地卡住了罗辑的脖子，他甚至没来得厦叫出声来，只能张大嘴，眼睛凸出，两手乱抓。
Shi Qiang bounded into the kitchen and returned with a knife, which he used to hack at the tentacles a few times, then resorted to his own hands to pry them from Luo Ji’s neck. When Luo Ji left the sofa and pitched forward onto the floor, the sofa’s surface lit up and displayed a large string of error messages.
大史跳起来冲进厨房，拿来一把刀，向那双触手两边猛捅了几下，然后用手把它们从罗辑的脖子上用力分开。罗辑离开沙发，向前仆倒在地板上，沙发表面则闪亮起来，显示出一大片错误信息。
“This is… the… sixth,” Luo Ji said, through gasps. He vomited onto the floor. When he finished, he leaned back weakly against the sofa, but then pulled back immediately, as if shocked. He didn’t know where to put his hands. “How long will it be before I can be as agile as you and save my own life?”
“好像……第六次。”罗辑喘息着说完，就在地板上呕吐起来，吐完后他无力地靠到沙发上，随后又立刻触电似的离开，他的两只手甚至都不知往哪儿放了，“什么时候，我才能学成你那么机灵，能救自己的命？”
“Damn it,” Luo Ji said, pitching back onto the sofa. Then he was subjected to the final attempt on his life that day.
“妈的。”罗辑说，猛地躺回沙发上，就在这时，他遭遇了今天的最后一次未遂谋杀。
“It’s not that bad. I’ve got an idea about the whole situation, at least. The first attempt on your life failed, and then there were five more attempts. This is stupidity, not professional behavior. Something somewhere must have gone wrong… Let’s contact the police immediately. We can’t wait for them to crack the case.”
“没那么糟，我对这整件事总算有个概念了。第一次谋杀不成功，又接连干了五次，这不是专业行为，是犯傻，肯定是有什么地方弄错了……我们得马上联系警方，等着他们破案怕是不行了。”
“Then I’m dead meat. This is a twisted world.”
“那我就死定了，这个变态的世界。”
“Who made a mistake, and where? Da Shi, it’s been two centuries. Don’t just apply your mind-set from our time.”
“什么地方，谁弄错了？大史，已经过了两个世纪，别拿你那时的思维来套。”
“Probably never,” Shi Qiang said. A vacuum cleaner-like machine glided over to clean up the vomit on the floor.
“大概永远不行。”大史说，有一台类似于吸尘器的机器滑过来清理地板上的呕吐物。
“Wow. So there are actual footbeats in this society. Come on in, officers.”
“哇，原来这个社会还有活着的捕快警官们请进。”
“It’s the same thing, my boy. Certain things are the same no matter the age. As for whose mistake it is, I really don’t know. I even wonder whether such a ‘who’ actually exists…”
“一样，老弟，这种事情，在什么时代都有一样的地方。至于说谁弄错了，我真不知道，我甚至怀疑这个‘谁’是不是真的存在……”
The doorbell rang. Shi Qiang opened it to see several people standing outside. They wore civilian clothes, but Shi Qiang identified them before the leader had even flashed his ID.
这时门铃响了，史强打开门，看到门外站着几个人，他们都穿着便装，但没等为首的亮出证件，他已经看出了他们的身份。
“They’re installing a firewall for this leaf,” Officer Guo explained. “Rest assured, you’re safe now. And I’ll guarantee that you’ll receive compensation from the municipal PSB system.”
“他们在为这片叶子安装防火墙。”郭警官解释说，“请放心，你们现在是安全的，另外我保证，你们会得到政府公共安全系统的赔偿。”
Three of them entered the house, leaving two others outside to guard the door. The officer in charge, who looked about thirty years old, surveyed the room. Like Shi Qiang and Luo Ji, he had all the displays on his clothes turned off, which put them at ease, and he spoke a pure, fluent “ancient Chinese” without any English words.
有三个人进了屋，另外两人警惕地守在门外。为首的警官看上去三十岁左右，他打量着房间，同大史和罗辑一样，他衣服上的显示全部关闭，还有让两人感到舒服的一点是，他说话不带英文词，讲一口流利纯正的“古汉语”
“I’m Officer Guo Zhengming with the PSB’s Digital Reality Department. I apologize for our tardy arrival. That was negligent. The last time there was a case like this was half a century ago.” He bowed to Shi Qiang. “I pay my respects to my senior officer. Aptitude like yours is very rare in the force these days.”
“我是市公安局数字现实处的郭正明，我们来晚了，真是对不起，这确实是工作上的疏忽。这类案件最近一次发生也是半个世纪前了。”他向大史深鞠一躬，“向前辈表示敬意，您的这种素质，在现在的警务人员中已经很难看到了。”
As Officer Guo was speaking, Luo Ji and Shi Qiang noticed that all of the information windows in the house had switched off. The leaf had evidently been cut off from the external hyper-information world. The other two officers were hard at work. They were holding something he hadn’t seen in ages: a notebook computer. But the computer was as thin as a sheet of paper.
在郭警官说话时，罗辑和大史都注意到房间里的所有信息窗口都熄灭了，显然，这片叶子已与外部的超级信息世界断开了。另外两名警察在忙活着，罗辑从他们手中看到了一件久违的东西：笔记本电脑，只是那台电脑薄得像一张纸。
“Today,” Shi Qiang said, counting off on his fingers, “we’ve been guaranteed compensation four times.”
“我们今天，”大史扳着指头数了数，“已经获得四次赔偿了。”
Shi Qiang said, “I understand that. I’ve been in that position. Do you need us to brief you on the situation?”
大史说：“理解理解，我以前也有你这种时候，需要我们介绍情况吗？”
“I know. And lots of people in lots of departments have lost their jobs over this. I beg for your cooperation, so that I don’t join them. Thanks in advance,” he said, bowing to them.
“我知道，而且还有许多部门的许多人要为你们这事儿丢掉职位，所以恳请二位协助，以便使我不包括在内。先谢谢了。”郭说着，向罗辑和大史鞠躬。
“Can you tell us what’s happening?”
“那能说说是怎么回事吗？”
“Killer 5.2.”
“KILLER第5.2版。”
“No. We’ve actually been tracking you all along. It’s just negligence.”
“不用，其实对你们的跟踪一直在进行，只是疏忽了。”
“What?”
“什么？”
“It’s a network virus. The ETO first released it about a century into the Crisis Era, and then there were lots of subsequent variants and upgrades. It’s a murder virus. First it establishes the identity of the target by a variety of methods including the chip everyone has implanted in their body. When it locates the target, the Killer virus manipulates every possible piece of external hardware to carry out the murder. Its concrete manifestation is what you experienced today. It seems like everything in the world wants to kill you. So, at the time, people called it a ‘modern hex.’ For a while, the Killer software was even commercialized and sold on the online black market. You entered the personal ID number of your target and uploaded the virus. Then, even if that person was able to evade death, they would still have a hard time living in society.”
“一种计算机网络病毒，地球三体组织在危机一个世纪左右首次传播的，以后又有多次变种和升级。这是一种谋杀病毒，它首先识别目标的身份，有多种方式，包括通过每人体内的身份芯片。一旦发现和定位了目标，KILLER病毒就操纵一切可能的外部硬件进行谋杀，具体表现就是你们今天经历的，好像这世界上的所有东西都想杀你，所以当时有人把这东西叫现代魔咒。有一段时间KILLER软件甚至商业化了，从网络黑市买来后，只要输人目标的身份特征，把病毒放到网上，那这人就是逃脱一死，在社会上也很难生活下去。”
“Software from a century ago can still run today?” Luo Ji asked incredulously.
“一个世纪前的软件现在还能运行？”罗辑感到很不可思议。
“The industry developed as far as that? Incredible!” Shi Qiang exclaimed.
“这个行当已经进化到这种程度了，高！”大史感叹道。
“Sure it can. Computer technology stopped advancing long ago. When the Killer virus first appeared, it killed quite a few people, including a head of state, but eventually it was controlled by firewalls and antivirus software and gradually faded away. This version of Killer is programed specifically to attack Dr. Luo, but because the target was in hibernation, it never had the opportunity to take any concrete action. It stayed dormant and wasn’t detected or recorded by the information security system. It was only when Dr. Luo emerged into the world today that Killer 5.2 activated itself and carried out its mission. It’s just that its creators were wiped out a century ago.”
“可以的，计算机技术早就停止进步了，一个世纪前的软件现在的系统都能兼容。KILLER病毒在刚出现时杀死了不少人，包括一位国家元首，但后来被杀毒软件和防火墙抑制住了，渐渐消失。可这一版KILLER是专为攻击罗辑博士编制的，由于目标一直处于冬眠状态，所以它从来没有机会进行显性的动作和表现，一直处于潜伏状态，没有被信息安全系统发现和记录。直到罗辑博士今天在外界出现，KILLER5.2才激活了自己并完成使命，只是，现在它的创造者已经灭亡了一个世纪。”
“They were still trying to kill me a century ago?” Luo Ji said. A mood he thought was gone forever returned, and he struggled to dispel it again.
“直到一个世纪前，他们还在追杀我？”罗辑说，已经消失的某种思绪又回来了，他极力摆脱了它。
“Yes. The key thing about this version of the Killer virus is that it was programmed specifically for you. It was never activated, which is why it was still lurking in wait today.”
“是的，关键是这个版本的KILLER病毒是为您专门编制的，从未被激活过，所以才能潜伏到今天。”
“The entire system will be cleaned of Killer 5.2, but that will take some time. Before it’s completed, you have two choices. First, Dr. Luo can be given a temporary false identity, but this will not totally guarantee his safety and might lead to other more serious consequences. Due to the technological sophistication of the ETO software, Killer 5.2 might have already recorded other characteristics of its target. In one case that caused a sensation a century ago, when a protected individual was given a false identity, Killer used fuzzy recognition to simultaneously kill over a hundred people, target included. The other choice, and my personal recommendation, is for you to live up on the surface for a while. Killer 5.2 won’t have any hardware to manipulate up there.”
“正在全系统清理KILLER5.2，但这需要时间，完成之前有两个选择：一是暂时给罗辑博士一个虚假的身份，但这并不能绝对保证安全，还可能造成其他更严重的后果。因为ETO的软件技术十分高明，KILLER5.2有可能已经记录了目标更多的特征。一个世纪前曾经有过一个轰动一时的案例：在被保护人使用假身份后，KILLER进行模糊识别，同时杀死了包括目标在内的上百人；另一个选择是我建议的：你们到地面上去生话一段，在那里，KILLER5.2没有硬件可以操纵。”
Shi Qiang said, “I agree. Even without this situation, I’ve been wanting to go up to the surface.”
大史说：“同意，即使没有这事，我也想到地面上去。”
“Then what are we supposed to do now?” Shi Qiang asked.
“那我们以后怎么办？”大史问。
Shi Qiang explained, “Most of the reawakened hibernators live on the surface. It’s hard for them to adapt down here.”
大史解释说：“冬眠苏醒者大部分都生活在地面上，在这里很难适应的。”
“What’s on the surface?” Luo Ji asked.
“地面上有什么？”罗辑间。
“That’s right. So you ought to spend at least some time up there,” Officer Guo said. “Many aspects of modern society — politics, economics, culture, lifestyle, and relations between the sexes — have changed greatly in two centuries, so it takes some time for us to adapt.”
“是这样，至少应该去过菠一段时间。”郭警官说，“现代社会的方方面面，政治、经济、文化‘生活习惯和两性关系等等，与两个世纪前相比已经变化很大，我们很难一下子适应的。”
“But you’ve adapted well enough,” Shi Qiang said, looking him over. He and Luo Ji had both noticed that the officer had said “us.”
“可你适应得很好。”大史打量着郭警官说，他和罗辑都注意到了他说“我们”。
“Are there many other hibernators like you who have totally adapted to modern life?” Luo Ji asked.
“在冬眠者中，像你这样真正适应现代生话的人多吗？”罗辑问。
“I went into hibernation because of leukemia, and I was quite young when I reawakened, just thirteen years old,” Guo Zhengming said with a laugh. “But people still don’t understand the difficulties I’ve had. I don’t know how many times I’ve gone for psychological treatment.”
“我是因自血病冬眠的，苏醒的时候年龄小，才十三岁。”郭正明笑笑说，“不过后来的难处别人也很难体会，仅仅精神治疗我就不知道经历过多少次。”
“Lots. But you can still live quite well on the surface.”
“多，不过地面上也可以过得很好。”
“Special Contingent of Future Reinforcements commander Zhang Beihai reporting,” Zhang Beihai said, and saluted.
“增援未来特遣一队指挥官章北海报到。”章北海敬礼说。
Behind the commander of the Asian Fleet flowed the brilliant Milky Way. Fleet Command was in orbit around Jupiter and rotated continuously to produce artificial gravity. Zhang Beihai noticed that the room lights were relatively dim, and the wide windows seemed intended to integrate the interior environment with space outside as closely as possible.
在亚洲舰队司令官的背后，灿烂的星河浩荡流过。木星轨道上的舰队司令部时刻处于旋转状态，以产生人工重力。章北海发现，这里的室内照明都比较暗，窗子却很宽大，似乎尽力使内部环境与外部的太空融为一体。
The commander saluted back. “Greetings, predecessor.” He looked quite young, his Asian features illuminated by the glow of his epaulets and cap insignia. When he was issued a uniform on the sixth day after he reawakened, Zhang Beihai had noticed the familiar emblem of the space force: a silver star shining rays in four directions, the rays in the shape of sword. Two centuries had passed, and while the insignia had not changed much, the fleet had become an independent country, with a president as its supreme leader. The commander was just in charge of the military.
司令官向章北海还礼：“前辈，你好。”他看上去很年轻，东方人的脸庞被肩章和帽徽发出的光芒照亮。在苏醒后的第六天，当章北海领到舰队的军装时，他在帽檐上看到了熟悉的太空军军徽：主体是一颗发出四道光芒的银星。那四道光芒又是四柄利剑的形状。两个世纪过去了，军徽的变化不大，但此时舰队本身已经成为一个独立的大国，它的最高领导人是总统，司令官仅负责军事。
“Commander Chang Weisi of the Chinese Space Force asked me to convey his greetings.”
“中国太空军司令员常伟思将军托我向您问好。”
Zhang Beihai said, “That’s too much, Commander. We’re all just new recruits now, who have to learn everything.”
章北海说：“不敢，首长，我们现在是一切都要学习的新战士。”
Zhang Beihai’s words touched something in the commander’s heart. He turned and looked out through the window at the river of stars, like the upper reaches of a long river. “He was an exceptional general, one of the founders of the Asian Fleet. Today’s space strategy still uses the framework he established two centuries ago. I wish that he could have seen this day.”
章北海这话触动了司令官心中的什么东西，他转身面对着窗外的星河，仿佛在眺望时间长河的上游。“他是一名卓越的将帅，是亚洲舰队的奠基人之一，现在的太空战略，仍然在他两个世纪前创立的框架之内，真希望他能看到今天。”
The commander smiled and shook his head. “You can’t say that. You’ve already learned everything there is to know here. And the knowledge you’ve got, we’ll never be able to learn. That’s why we awakened you now.”
司令官微笑着摇摇头，“不要这么说，这里的一切你们都能学会，而你们所具有的某些素质，我们是永远学不到的，这也是现在苏醒你们的原因。”
Zhang Beihai was transfixed by the Jovian scene. Countless times he had dreamed of the new domain that now presented itself before his eyes. He waited until Jupiter had moved out of the window before speaking. “Commander, the great achievements of this age are what make our mission unnecessary.”
章北海被木星的景象迷住了。这无数次在梦中见到的新疆域，此时真实地呈现在眼前。直到木星缓缓移出窗口，他才开口说话：“首长，正是这个时代的伟大成就，使我们的使命变得没有必要了。”
“But all of this began in his… in your time.”
“但这一切都是从他那时……从你们那时开始的。”
Then Jupiter appeared, at first as a sliver of an arc that quickly took over the entire field of view in the window, bathing the office in its orange light. The dreamlike patterns of hydrogen and helium in its vast gaseous ocean were on a breathtaking scale and fascinating in their detail. The Great Red Spot moved into view. The superstorm that could hold two Earths looked like the giant, pupilless eye of this blurry world. The three fleets had put their primary base on Jupiter because its hydrogen-helium ocean held an inexhaustible supply of fusion fuel.
这时，木星出现了，先是一个弧形的边缘，很快占满了窗于的全部视野，整间办公室全部沉浸在它发出的橘黄色光芒中，在那广阔的氧氦大气海洋中，呈现着梦幻般的花纹，总体构图的宏大令人窒息，局部的细密又使人迷惑。大红斑缓缓移入窗口，这个可以容纳两个地球的超级龙卷风，此时看上去像是这个迷离世界的一只没有瞳仁的巨眼。三大舰队都把木星作为主要基地，是因为其氢氨海洋中有取之不尽的核聚变燃料。
“Today’s achievements are far beyond anything he ever dreamed.”
“今天的成就已经远远超出了他的梦想。”
The commander turned to him and said, “No, that’s not right. The Future Reinforcement Plan was a farsighted initiative. During the Great Ravine, when the space armed forces were on the brink of collapse, the special reinforcement contingents played a major role in stabilizing the overall situation.”
司令官转过身来说：“不，不能这样说，增援未来计划是一个高瞻远瞩的举措。在大低谷时代，太空武装力量已经到了崩溃的边缘，在那时，增援特遣队对稳定局势发挥了巨大的作用。”
“I’m sorry, but that’s how things are,” the commander said. The lines on his face turned gentle. “After you left, they sent more special reinforcement contingents to the future, and the last to be sent out were the first to be reawakened.”
“很抱歉，情况是这样的。”司令官说，这时他脸上的线条变得很柔和，“在你们之后，又派出了多批增援未来特遣队，最后派出的被最先唤醒。”
“Commander, this was actually what we all hoped for,” Zhang Beihai said excitedly.
“首长，这确实是我们每个人的愿望。”章北海激动地说。
“But our contingent arrived too late to be of assistance.”
“可我们这一支却来晚了。”
“Right. Eventually your contingent was the only one left in hibernation. The Great Ravine ended and the world entered a period of rapid development. Defeatism had practically vanished, so there was no need to reawaken you. At the time, the fleet made the decision to keep you until the Doomsday Battle.”
“是的，当冬眠中的特遣队只剩你们一支时，大低谷已经过去很久，世界进入高速发展期，失败主义几乎消失了，唤醒你们也就没有必要，当时，舰队曾做出决定：让你们直达末日之战。”
“That’s understandable, Commander, since their knowledge framework was closer to that era’s.”
“首长，这是可以理解的，这样他们的知识结构与当时更接近一些。”
“And it’s the highest honor of all space servicemen. They were well aware of this when they made that decision. But present circumstances are totally different, as you of course know.” The commander pointed at the river of stars behind him. “The Doomsday Battle might never even take place.”
“也是所有太空军人最高的荣誉，他们清楚这点，才这样决定。但现在情况发生了彻底的变化，你当然已经知道，”司令官指指他身后流动的星河，“末日之战可能根本就不会发生了。”
The commander shook his head. “The length of service for all special contingent personnel will resume from the date of reawakening, and ranks will be elevated one or two levels.”
司令官摇摇头，“从苏醒之日起，特遣队所有人员的军龄将继续，军衔在原有基础上提升一至两级。”
“Commander, that shouldn’t be. We don’t want to spend our remaining years in an office. We want to go to the fleet’s front lines. Two centuries ago, the space force was our dream. Without it, our lives have no meaning. But even at our present ranks, we are unqualified for work in the fleet.”
“首长，这样不行，我们不想在机关里了却残生，只想到舰队的第一线。在两个世纪前，太空舰队就是我们每个人的梦想，离开它，生活就没有意义了。但即使在现有的军阶上，我们也无法胜任舰队的工作。”
“That’s excellent, Commander. My small regret as a soldier counts for nothing compared with the great victory humanity is about to welcome. I just hope you’ll be able to fulfill our one request: to let us join the fleet at the lowest level, as ordinary soldiers, to do whatever work we can.”
“这很好，首长，与人类即将迎来的伟大胜利相比，作为军人的这点小小的遗憾真算不了什么。只是希望能答应我们一个请求：让我们到舰队的最基层去做普通士兵，干自己力所能及的工作。”
“I never said I wanted you to leave the fleet. Precisely the opposite. You will all be working in the fleet to complete a highly important mission.”
“我没有说让休们离开舰队，恰恰相反，你们都将在战舰上工作，完成一个极其重要的使命。”
The commander did not answer him. Instead, as if it had only just occurred to him, he said, “Are you okay with talking while standing like this?” The commander’s office had no chairs, and the table had been designed to be high enough to work at while standing. Fleet Command’s rotation produced one-sixth of Earth’s gravity, which meant there wasn’t much difference between standing and sitting.
司令官没有回答，像突然想起来似的说：“一直这样站着能适应吗？”司令部的所有办公室中都没有椅子，办公桌的高度也是为站着使用设计的，司令部旋转产生的重力只有地球重力的六分之一，站立和坐着感觉差别不大。
“Thank you, Commander. But what mission can there be for us today?”
“谢谢首长，但，现在我们还能有这样的使命吗？”
Zhang Beihai smiled and nodded. “Not a problem. I spent a year in space.”
章北海笑着点点头，“没问题，我在太空中也待过一年的时间。”
“Then you must be aware of the mental seal.”
“那你一定了解思想钢印的事。”
“And the language? Do you have any communication problems in the fleet?”
“那语言呢？同舰队的人交流有困难吗9”
The commander was speaking standard Chinese, but the three fleets had formed a language of their own, similar to the modern Chinese and modern English on Earth, but with the two languages blended more closely. Chinese and English words each accounted for half of the vocabulary.
现在司令官在讲标准的汉语，但三大舰队已经形成了自己的语言，与地球上的现代汉语和现代英语都有些相似，只是把这两种语言更均匀地融合了，词汇中汉、英各占一半。
“At first — mostly because I couldn’t distinguish between Chinese and English vocabulary — but I was able to understand it pretty quickly. Speaking is more difficult.”
“开始有些不适应，主要是分不清汉英词汇，但很快就能听懂了，表达要困难些。”
“That doesn’t matter. If you just use English or Chinese when you speak, we’ll be able to understand you. So that means that the General Staff Department has fully briefed you?”
“没关系，你们就直接说汉语或英语，我们都能理解。这么说，参谋部已经同你们充分交流了。”
“Recent investigations still haven’t discovered any signs of the Imprinted. What’s your read?”
“最近的调查，仍然没有发现钢印族的任何迹象，对此你怎么看？”
“That’s right. In the first few days on base, they gave us a comprehensive introduction to everything.”
“是的，到基地后的这些天，他们向我们全面介绍了情况。”
“That’s right.”
“是的。”
The commander nodded with approval. “An excellent analysis. This is the opinion of General Staff.”
司令官赞许地点点头：“分析得很好，这也是总参谋部的看法。”
“Commander, the second alternative is very dangerous.”
“首长，后一种情况很危险。”
“I believe that one possibility is that the Imprinted have disappeared. Another possibility is that they’ve been deeply hidden. If a person has an ordinary defeatist mentality, they will speak of it to others. But a one-hundred-percent unshakeable technologically hardened faith will inevitably produce a corresponding sense of mission. Defeatism and Escapism are intimately related, and if the Imprinted really exist, then their ultimate mission is bound to be accomplishing an escape into the universe. But to achieve this goal, they have to deeply conceal their true thoughts.”
“我认为，一种可能是钢印族已经消失，另一种可能是他们隐藏得很深。如果一个人只是有一般的失败主义思想，他是会对别人倾述的；但这种被技术固化的信念，是百分之百的坚定不移，这样的信念必然产生相应的使命感。失败主义与逃亡主义是紧密相联的，如果钢印族真的存在，那么他们必然把实现宇宙逃亡作为自己的终极使命，而为了实现这个目标，必须深深地隐藏自己的真实思想。”
“Yes, it is, particularly with the Trisolaran probe so close to the Solar System. The fleet is divided by command system classifications into two major groups. The first, a distributed command system, is a traditional structure akin to the naval craft you once commanded. The captain’s orders are carried out by various operating personnel. The second is a centralized command system. The captain’s orders are carried out automatically by the ship’s computer. The most recently built advanced space warships, as well as those currently under construction, fall into this category. It is mainly against this category of warship that the mental seal poses a threat, because the captain wields enormous power in the command system. He can unilaterally control when the ship leaves and returns to port, its speed and course, and even a large portion of its weapons systems. Under this command system, you could call the ship an extension of the captain’s body. Right now, 179 of the 695 stellar-class warships in the fleet have a centralized command system. The commanding officers on board these ships will be the focus of review. Originally, all the warships involved in the review process were supposed to be docked and sealed up, but present circumstances no longer permit this, because the three fleets are preparing to intercept the Trisolaran probe when it arrives. This will be the first actual engagement between the Space Fleet and the Trisolaran invaders, so all warships must be on standby.”
“是的，尤其是在三体探测器已经逼近太阳系的时候。目前，以指挥系统的类型来分。舰队的战舰分为两大类：一类是分散型指挥系统，这是一种传统的结构，与你指挥过的海上舰艇类似，舰长的命令是由各级操作人员执行的；另一类是集中型指挥系统，舰长的命令由飞船的计算机系统自动执行，后期建造和正在建造中的先进的太空战舰都属于这种类型。思想钢印所产生的威胁，主要是针对这一类型的战舰，因为在这种指挥系统中，舰长拥有极大的权力，他可以单独控制战舰的起航和停泊，控制航向航速，也可以控制很大一部分武器系统的使用。在这种指挥系统中，可以说，战舰就像是舰长身体的一部分。目前，在舰队所拥有的695艘恒星级战舰中，集中型指挥系统的有179艘，这些战舰上的指挥官，将是重点审查对象。本来，在审查过程中，所涉及到的战舰都应处于停泊封存状态，但从目前情况看做不到这一点，现在，三大舰队都在积极准备对三体探测器的拦截行动，这是太空舰队对三体入侵者的第一次实战，所有战舰必须随时处于待命状态。”
“Who is reliable?” the commander asked. “We don’t know the extent of the mental seal, and we have no information about the Imprinted. In these circumstances, no one can be trusted, not even me.”
“谁可靠呢，”司令官问道，“我们不知道思想钢印的使用范围，更没有钢印族的任何信息，在这种情况下，谁都不可靠，包括我。”
The sun appeared outside the window. Although its light was far weaker than on Earth from this distance, the commander’s body was hidden in a glare when the disc passed behind him, leaving only his voice: “But you are all reliable. When you entered hibernation, the mental seal didn’t exist. And one of the most important factors for your selection two centuries ago was your loyalty and faith. You are the only trustworthy group available to us in the fleet right now. So the fleet has decided to put the authority of the centralized command system into your hands, to appoint you as acting captains, through whom every order issued by the former captains must pass before being issued to the command system.”
这时，太阳在窗外出现了，虽然从这里看，它的亮度比在地球要弱许多，但当日轮经过司令官身后时，他的身体还是隐没于泛出的光芒中，只有声音传了过来。“但你们是可靠的，在你们冬眠时，思想钢印还不存在，而你们在两个世纪前被选中，很重要的因素就是忠诚和信念，你们是舰队中目前唯一能找到的可信赖的群体了。所以，舰队决定，把集中型指挥系统的舰长权限交给你们，你们将被任命为执行舰长，原舰长对战舰的所有指令，都要通过你们来向指挥系统发出。”
“So, Commander, the command authority for centrally commanded warships must be turned over to reliable individuals,” Zhang Beihai said. He had been speculating about his mission but had not guessed it yet.
“那么，首长，这期间必须把集中型指挥系统的舰长权限交给可靠的人。”章北海说，他一直在猜测自己的任务，但还没猜出来。
“Saying no to an order is not our tradition.”
“接到任务先说不行，这不是我们的传统吧。”
Two tiny suns ignited in Zhang Beihai’s eyes. He said, “Commander, I’m afraid that’s not possible.”
章北海的眼睛中，有两个小太阳在燃烧，他说：“首长，这恐怕不行。”
“Commander, we’re from two centuries ago, after all. In the context of the navy of our time, it’s like using an official in the Beiyang Fleet to command a twenty-first century destroyer.”
“首长，我们毕竟来自两个世纪前，放到我在海军的那个时候，这就等于让北洋水师的管代来指挥二十一世纪的驱逐舰。”
“Do you think that the Qing admirals Deng Shichang and Liu Buchan20 would really be unable to command your destroyers? They were educated, and their English was good. They would have learned. Today, captaining a space warship doesn’t involve technical details. Captains issue general commands, but the warship is a black box to them. Besides, the warships will be docked at base while you serve as acting captain. They won’t be navigating. Your duty will be to convey the former captains’ commands to the control system once you’ve determined whether or not the commands are normal. You’ll be able to pick that up as you learn.”
“你是不是认为邓世昌和刘步蟾真的就不能指挥你们的驱逐舰？他们都有文化，英语很好，可以学习嘛。现在，太空战舰舰长的指挥工作是不涉及技术细节的，只发出宏观命令，战舰对他们是一个黑箱状态。再说，你们作为执行舰长期间，战舰只是停泊在基地，并不起航，你们的任务就是向控制系统传达原舰长的命令。在这之前判断这些命令是否正常，这个通过学习应该能做到。”
The commander’s use of “our” and “tradition” warmed Zhang Beihai, letting him know that the bloodline of the military of two centuries ago still endured in the space fleet of today.
司令官话中的“我们”和“传统”这两个词让章北海有一种温暖的感觉，他知道，两个世纪前那支军队的血脉仍在太空舰队中延续。
“We’ll have too much power in our hands. You could let the former captains retain a portion of that power, and we could supervise their orders.”
“那我们掌握的权限也太大了，可以让原舰长仍掌握这些权限，我们对他们的命令进行监督。”
As the personnel craft flew past the Asian Fleet’s Jupiter base, Zhang Beihai felt he was flying over a range of towering mountains, except each was a docked warship. The naval base had entered nightside orbit around Jupiter, and the steel mountain clusters slept silently under the surface phosphorescence and the silvery moonlight from Europa overhead. A moment later, a ball of white light rose from the edge of the mountain range, lighting the moored ships in perfect clarity in an instant. To Zhang Beihai, it looked like a sunrise over the mountains, casting a moving shadow of the fleet upon the turbulent Jovian atmosphere down below. When a second light rose over the other side of the fleet, he realized it wasn’t the sun, but two warships that were entering the dock and turning their fusion engines toward the base to decelerate.
交通艇飞过亚洲舰队木星军港，章北海感到自己是飞行在层峦叠障的群山之上，每一道山脉就是一艘停泊的太空战舰。军港此时正运行在木星的背阴面，在行星表面发出的磷光和上方木卫二发出的银白色月光中，这钢铁的群山静静沉睡着。不一会儿，一团耀眼的自光从山脉尽头升起，一瞬间把停泊的舰队照得清晰无比。章北海感觉自己在目睹群山上的日出，舰队甚至在木星汹涌的大气层上投下了一个移动的阴影。直到第二个光团在舰队另一侧升起，章北海才知道它们不是太阳，而是两艘正在人港的军舰，减速时它们的核聚变发动机正对着港口方向。
“If you think about it carefully, you’ll realize that won’t work. If the Imprinted really do occupy key battle positions, they’ll take any necessary measures to evade your supervision, including assassinating their supervisors. A centrally supervised ship on standby requires just three commands to take off, after which it’s too late to do anything. The system must only acknowledge commands from the acting captain.”
“仔细想想你就知道这不行，如果钢印族真的存在并占据了关键战位，他们可以采用各种手段避开你们的监督，包括刺杀监督者。你要知道，一艘处于待命状态的集中型指挥系统的战舰，使它起航只需三个命令，到时候一切都来不及的。所以，必须让指挥系统只承认执行舰长的命令。”
The fleet’s chief of staff, who was delivering Zhang Beihai to his new post, told him that more than four hundred warships, representing two-thirds of the Asian Fleet, were now moored at the base. The remainder of the fleet’s ships now cruising the Solar System and beyond were also expected to return to port.
据送章北海赴任的舰队参谋长介绍，现在港内停泊着四百多艘战舰，相当于亚洲舰队战舰总数的三分之二，亚洲舰队在太阳系内外围空间巡航的其余舰只也将陆续回港。
“Don’t worry about that. You’ve got a good grasp of things, judging from the last phase of basic training. Your task now is to familiarize yourself with the systems to the point that everything can proceed in an orderly manner once you go aboard. It’s not as hard as you think… Competition among the three fleets for the task of intercepting the Trisolaran probe has turned into bickering, but a preliminary agreement was hammered out by the Joint Conference yesterday: Each fleet’s ships will assemble back at base. A special committee will supervise the execution of the maneuver to avoid any ships being dispatched without authorization to carry out the interception.”
“不用这么急，从前一段的基础培训看，你们都掌握得很好。下面对工作的熟悉到舰上后按部就班地进行就可以，没你们想的那么难……现在三大舰队都力争承担拦截三体探测器的任务，吵成一团，在昨天的联席会议上总算达成一个初步协议：各舰队的所有战舰全部回港集结，并有一个专门委员会监督这一行动的执行，以免某一舰队擅自出动舰只实施拦截行动。”
“Hmm. No, the order recalling the ships was given for another reason — a real one, not an excuse, although it does sound a little ridiculous. You haven’t been watching the news lately, I take it?”
“哦，不，命令所有战舰回港是基于另一个理由，这理由是真实的，不是借口，但说起来有些可笑。最近你没看新闻吧？”
Zhang Beihai had to tear himself away from the grand spectacle of the fleet and return to reality. “Sir, won’t recalling all of the ships provoke any Imprinted there are to immediate action?”
陶醉于舰队壮观景象中的章北海不得不回到现实中来：“参谋长，这样召回所有舰只，会不会刺激和迫使可能存在的钢印族立即行动？”
“No. I’ve been reading materials on Natural Selection.”
“没有，我一直在看’自然选择‘号的资料。”
“Yes, but it’s a question of honor. There’s considerable political capital to be gained by the fleet that makes first contact with Trisolaris. Why did I call it ridiculous? Because it’s cheap and absolutely risk-free. The worst thing that could happen is if the probe self-destructs during the interception process, so everyone’s gunning for it. If it was a battle with the main Trisolaran Fleet, then all sides would try to preserve their strength. Politics today isn’t all that different from your time… Look, there’s Natural Selection.”
“不错，这只是一个荣誉问题。同三体世界进行首次接触的舰队，在政治上能得分不少。为什么我说可笑呢？这是一件毫无风险的便宜事，最大的失败也不过是探测器在拦截过程中自毁，所以大家都抢着做这件事。如果这是同三体主力舰队的战斗，各方大概都会想尽办法保存实力，所以说现在的政治，与你们那时也差不多……看，那就是’自然选择‘号。”
“Why has it come to that? Any technological information and intelligence obtained from a successful interception would be shared.”
“为什么要这样呢，如果任何一方拦截成功，得到的情报和技术信息应该是共享的。”
As the personnel craft approached Natural Selection and the sheer bulk of the iron mountain gradually became clear, the image of Tang floated up in Zhang Beihai’s mind. Natural Selection, comprised of a disc-shaped body and a separate cylindrical engine, looked entirely different from that seagoing aircraft carrier of two centuries before. When Tang met its untimely end, it was like he had lost his spiritual home, even though he had never moved in. Now, this giant spaceship gave him a new feeling of home. On Natural Selection’s stalwart hull, his spirit found a place to live after two centuries of wandering, like a child enfolded in the embrace of some enormous power.
在变通艇飞向“自然选择”号的过程中，这座钢铁山峰的巨大渐渐显现出来。这时，章北海的脑海中浮现出“唐”号的影子。“自然选择”号的外形与那艘两个世纪前的海上航空母舰完全不同，前者圆盘形的主舰体与圆柱形的发动机形成两个完全分离的部分。当“唐”号夭折时，章北海仿佛失去了一个精神家园，尽管那个家园他从未人住过。现在，这艘巨型宇宙飞船又给了他家园的感觉，在“自然选择”号伟岸的舰体上，他那流浪了两个世纪的心灵找到了归宿，他像一个孩子一样扑向某种巨大力量的怀抱。
Natural Selection now occupied Zhang Beihai’s entire field of view so that only part of it was visible from the personnel craft. He noticed that the outer walls of the ship were mirror-smooth, a broad mirror that perfectly reflected the atmospheric ocean of Jupiter, as well as the gradual approach of the personnel craft.
现在，“自然选择”号已占据了全部视野，从交通艇上只能看到它的一部分，章北海看到，飞船的外壁如镜面般光滑，完美地映出木星的大气海洋，从这个广阔的镜面上，也能看到渐渐驶近的交通艇的映像。
Natural Selection was the flagship of the third squadron of the Asian Fleet, and in gross tonnage and performance it was second to none. Possessing the latest non-media fusion propulsion system, at full thrust it could accelerate to 15 percent of the speed of light, and its impeccable internal ecological systems could sustain a long-term voyage. In fact, an experimental version of this system was first put into use on the moon seventy-five years ago and had not yet exhibited any major defects or faults. Natural Selection’s weapons were the most powerful in the fleet, too. Its gamma-ray lasers, railguns, high-energy particle beams, and stellar torpedoes made up a four-way weapons system that could obliterate the surface of an Earth-sized planet.
“自然选择”号是亚洲舰队第三分舰队的旗舰，无论是在吨位还是性能上，它都是舰队首屈一指的。它拥有最新一代的无工质聚变推进系统，全功率推进时，可以加速到光速的百分之十五。它的舰内生态循环系统十分完美，能够进行超长时间续航。事实上，这套生态系统的实验型号七十五年前就在月球上开始了试运行，到目前为止仍未出现任何大的故障和缺陷。“自然选择”号的武器系统也是舰队里最强大的，它那由伽马射线激光、电磁动能炮、高能粒子束和星际鱼雷所构成的四位一体的武器系统，能够单独摧毁一个地球大小的行星的表面。
An oval opening appeared in the outer wall of the ship. The craft flew straight inside and came to a halt. The chief of staff opened the cabin door and exited first. Although Zhang Beihai was slightly nervous because he hadn’t seen the craft pass through an air lock, he immediately sensed the influx of fresh air from the outside. The technology to maintain a pressurized compartment opening directly into space without allowing air to leak out was not something he had seen before.
飞船外壁上出现了一个椭圆形的入口，交通艇径直飞入，并很快减速停下，参谋长打开舱门率先出艇。这时章北海略略紧张了一下，因为他意识到交通艇并没有经过过渡舱，但他立刻感到从从门外涌入的清新空气。有气压的舱室直接向太空开口，却能够避免舱内空气外泄，这是一种他尚不知晓的技术。
Zhang Beihai and the chief of staff were inside a giant sphere the diameter of a soccer field. Spaceship compartments typically adopted a spherical structure, because during acceleration, deceleration, or change of direction, any point on the sphere could serve as a floor or ceiling, and during weightlessness, the center of the sphere would be the crew’s main activity space.
章北海和参谋长身处一个巨大的球体内，最大直径处有足球场大小。太空飞船的舱室普遍采用这种球形结构，飞船加速、减速和转向时，球体的任何一处都可能成为甲板或天花板，而在失重状态下，球体的中心是人员的主要活动空间。
In Zhang Beihai’s time, cabins had been modeled on the structure of Earth buildings, so he was not at all used to this entirely new cabin structure. The chief of staff told him that this was the fighter hangar, but since there were no fighters right now, a formation of Natural Selection’s two thousand officers and soldiers was floating in the center of the sphere.
在章北海所来自的时代，太空舱室仍然仿照地球建筑结构，所以他对这种全新的太空舱室结构很不适应。参谋长告诉他，这里是飞船上歼击机的机库，但现在这里没有一架星际歼击机，在球形中央的空间中，悬浮着由“自然选择”号两千名官兵组成的方阵。
Now, he was astonished at the sight of more than two thousand people floating in space in such a neat formation without any supports. These days, personnel moved through weightless cabins primarily by using magnetic belts, fabricated from superconductors and containing a circuit that generated a magnetic field that interacted with the magnetic field that was always present in the cabins and corridors of the spacecraft. With a tiny controller in hand, they could move freely inside the ship.
现在，看到两千多人在毫无依托的空间中排列成如此严整的悬浮方阵，章北海很是惊讶。现在，人员在失重的舱内移动主要是借助磁力腰带，这种腰带由超导体制成，内部有环形电流，所产生的磁场能够与飞船船舱和廊道中无所不在的磁场相互作用，通过握在手中的一个小小的控制器，就可以在飞船内部自如地移动。
Zhang Beihai was now putting on such a belt, but it would require skill to master.
章北海自己现在就系着一条这样的腰带，但要掌握它还需要学习技巧。
Before Zhang Beihai entered hibernation, national space forces had begun conducting drills in the weightlessness of space. They had developed specifications and drill books as a result, but implementation had been particularly difficult. Personnel could use their space suits’ microthrusters to move about outside the cabin, but since they lacked propulsion equipment inside, they had to maneuver by pushing against bulkheads and paddling the air. Under such conditions, it was very difficult to form neat lines.
早在章北海冬眠前的时候，各国太空军就开始在太空失重状态下进行队列操练，并制定了相应的规范和操典。然而实施起来十分困难，在舱外，人员只能借助航天服上的微型喷汽推进器移动，在舱内则没有任何推进设备，只能通过推舱壁和划动空气来移动和定位。在这种情况下，排成一个整齐的队列是很困难的。
Three officers were in front of the formation, and his gaze eventually rested on the young woman in the center with four glittering stars on her shoulder — Natural Selection’s captain, no doubt. A typical representative of new space humanity, taller even than Zhang Beihai, who was himself quite tall. She drifted easily over from the formation, her slender body floating through space like an elegant musical note. When she reached Zhang Beihai and the chief of staff she stopped, and the hair that had been floating behind her rippled around the fair skin of her neck. Her eyes were full of sunshine and vitality, and Zhang Beihai immediately trusted her, because the Imprinted would never wear such an expression.
在方阵前面有三名军官，章北海的目光最后落在中间的那位美丽的年轻女性身上，她的肩上有四颗星在闪亮，应该是“自然选择”号的舰长。她是太空新人类的典型代表，比起身材高大的章北海来还要高出不少，她从方阵前轻盈地移过来，那高挑苗条的身材像飘浮在空间中的一个飘逸的音符。当她在章北海和参谋长面前停下时，本来飘在后面的秀发很有弹性地在白皙的颈项旁跳动着，她的眼睛充满清澈的阳光和活力，章北海立刻信任了她，因为钢印族不可能有这样的目光。
“Dongfang Yanxu, captain of Natural Selection,” she said, saluting him. A note of playful challenge appeared in her eyes. “On behalf of the entire crew, I offer a gift to my forbear.” She extended her hand, and he saw that, although the object she held in it had changed quite a bit, it was still recognizably a pistol. “If you really find that I have defeatist thinking and Escapist goals, you may use this to kill me.”
“我是’自然选择‘号舰长东方延绪。”她向章北海敬礼说，眼睛中露出一种俏皮的挑战，“我代表全舰官兵送给前辈一件礼物。”她向前伸出双手，章北海看到了她拿着的那件东西，外形虽变化很大，但他仍能认出那是一支手枪，“如果真发现我有失败主义思想和逃亡企图，前辈可以用它杀了我。”
He watched the formation of space soldiers, a generation that had grown up in the fleet. Their tall, slender bodies had none of the clumsy sturdiness of people growing up under Earth’s gravity, but possessed the light agility of spacers.
章北海看着方阵中的太空战士们。他们都是在舰队中成长的一代人，身材修长，没有地球重力下长大的人的强壮和笨拙，却充满了太空一族的轻灵和敏捷。
“There’s my boy!” Shi Qiang shouted, pointing at a man bounding up the steps. From this distance, Luo Ji could make out only that the man was in his forties, so he was a little surprised at Shi Qiang’s certainty. As Shi Qiang hurried down the stairs to welcome his son, Luo Ji turned his eyes from the reunion to the surface world before him.
“那是我儿子！”大史指着一个正在跑上台阶的男人喊道。罗辑远远地只能看出那人四十多岁的样子，大史这么肯定让他有些惊奇。史强迎着那人快步走下台阶，罗辑没有看他们父子团聚，他的注意力集中在眼前的地面世界上。
Getting to the surface was easy. The trunk of every giant tree building was a pillar supporting the dome of the underground city, and from the trunk you could take an elevator directly to the surface, passing through more than three hundred meters of rock. When Luo Ji and Shi Qiang exited the elevator, they felt nostalgic, a feeling prompted by one thing: The walls and floor of the exit hall did not have activated display windows. Information was displayed on actual display screens that hung from the ceiling. It looked like an old subway station, and most of the handful of people in it wore clothes that didn’t flash.
到地面去很容易，每一棵巨树建筑的树干就是一根支撑地下城市穹顶的支柱，从树干中乘电梯就可直达地面。其间要穿过三百多米的地层。当罗辑和史强走出电梯时，有种怀旧的感觉，产生这种感觉的原因是：出口大厅的墙壁和地板上没有被激活的显示窗口了，各种信息显示在悬挂于天花板上的真正的显示屏上。这里看上去像以前的地铁站，人不多，大部分人的衣服都不闪亮。
When they passed through the hall air lock, they were met by a hot wind blowing dusty air.
当他们走出大厅的密封门时，一阵热风扑面而来，带着尘土的气息。
The sky was yellow. He now realized why the image of the sky showing in the underground city was shot from a height of ten thousand meters, because, from the ground, the sun was only visible as a hazy outline. Sand covered everything on the ground, and cars passed by on the streets dragging dusty tails. It was another sight from the past for Luo Ji: cars that traveled on the ground. They didn’t seem to run on gasoline. They came in all kinds of weird shapes, and some were new and some old, but they all shared one feature: Every car had a flat sheet installed on the roof, like an awning. Across the street, he saw an old-era building with sand-covered windowsills and windows that were either boarded up or glassless black holes. However, people were evidently living in some of the rooms, because he saw clothing hanging outside to dry and even some potted flowers on the windowsills. Though the airborne sand and dust kept visibility low, he soon located a couple of familiar building outlines farther away and knew for certain that he was in the same city where he had spent half his life two centuries ago.
天空是黄色的，现在罗辑知道为什么地下城的天空影像要从万米高空拍摄了，从地面看天，只能见到一轮边缘模糊的太阳。沙土覆盖着地面的一切，当车辆从街道上驶过时，都拖着长长的尘尾。现在罗辑又看到了一样过去的东西：在地面上行驶的车。这些车显然不是用汽油驱动的，它们形状各异，有新有旧，但都有一个共同点：车顶上都装着一块像遮阳篷似的片状物。在街道对面，罗辑看到了过去的楼房，它们的窗台上都积满了沙土，大部分窗子不是被封死就是成了一个没有玻璃的黑洞，但有些房间里显然是住着人的，罗辑看到了晾在外面的衣服，甚至还看到了有的窗台上放着的几盆花草。他向远处看，虽然浮着沙尘的空气能见度不高，但他还是很快看到了两个熟悉的建筑轮廓，于是知道这确实是自己两个世纪前度过半生的城市。
He walked down the steps to the two men who were hugging and pounding each other in their excitement. Seeing the middle-aged man up close, he knew that Shi Qiang hadn’t made a mistake.
罗辑走下台阶，来到那两个激动得互相拥抱捶打的男人旁边，他走近一看这个中年人的样子，就知道史强没有认错人。
“Dad, when you figure it, I’m only five years younger than you,” Shi Xiaoming said, wiping tears from the corners of his eyes.
“爸，算起来我现在只比你小五岁了。”史晓明说，一边擦去眼角体的泪水。
“Oh, Dr. Luo. You used to be world famous,” Shi Xiaoming said, as he looked Luo Ji up and down.
“啊，您好，罗老师，您当初可是世界大名人啊！”史晓明瞪眼打量着罗辑说。
The three of them headed toward Shi Xiaoming’s car, which was parked at the side of the road. Before they got in, Luo Ji asked about the thing on the roof.
他们三人向停在路边的史晓明的车走去，上车前，罗辑问车顶上那一大片东西是什么。
“It’s an antenna. Up on the surface, we have to use whatever electricity leaks through from the underground city, so the antennas are a little larger, and the power is only enough to run the cars on the ground. They can’t fly.”
“天线呗，地面上只能取人家地下城市里漏出来的那点儿电，所以天线就得大些，就这动力也只够在地上跑，飞不起来。”
The car wasn’t fast, due either to the power or the sand on the road. Luo Ji looked out the window at the sandy city. He had a belly full of questions, but Shi Xiaoming and his father kept talking and he couldn’t get a word in.
车开得不快，不知是因为动力不足还是行驶在沙地上的缘故。罗辑看着车窗外沙尘中的城市，有一肚子的问题想问，但史晓明和他父亲说个没完。他插不上嘴。
“Not bad, kiddo. I was afraid some damn white-bearded old man would be calling me Dad,” Shi Qiang said with a chuckle. Then he introduced Luo Ji to his son.
“还不错，小子，我他妈真怕一个白胡子老头叫我爹呢。”史强大笑着说，然后把罗辑介绍给儿子。
“Oh, good… You didn’t bring my granddaughter with you?”
“哦，挺好……没把我孙女带来？”
“After the divorce, she went with her mom. I looked up her file. She lived into her eighties and died in Year 105.”
“离婚后跟了她妈，我也查了档案，这孩子是在危机105年去世的，活了八十多岁呢。”
“Nineteen.”
“19年。”
“Too bad I never met her… How old were you when your sentence ended?”
“可惜没见过面儿……你是哪年刑满出来的？”
“Mom passed away in Year 34 of the Crisis. Me and your granddaughter were with her then.”
“妈是危机34年去世的，当时我和你孙女都在她身边。”
“What did you do then?”
“以后干了什么？”
“Everything. At first, with no other way out, I kept up the swindles, but then I did a bit of legitimate business. After I had the money, I saw the signs of the Great Ravine and went into hibernation. I didn’t know then that things would get better later on. I just wanted to see you.”
“什么都干，开始没出路，继续招摇撞骗呗，后来也干了点儿正经买卖，有了些钱。看到大低谷的苗头后，就冬眠了。那时也没想到后来能好起来，只是想来看看你。”
“Land-use rights were extended past the original seventy-year period, but I only got to stay a short time before it was demolished. The one we bought later is still there, but I haven’t been to see it.” Shi Xiaoming pointed outside. “The city population isn’t even one percent of what it was in our day. Do you know what the most worthless thing is? That house. You dedicated your entire life to it, Dad, but everything’s empty now. You can live wherever you like.”
“七十年后又续了产权，但接着住了不长时间就拆迁了，后来买的那一套倒是还在，我也没去看过。”史晓明指指外面，“现在城里的人口还不及我们那时的百分之一，知道这里最不值钱的是什么？就是爸你一辈子供的房子，现在都空着，随便住了。”
“Is our house still there?”
“咱家的房子还在吗？”
Finally Luo Ji managed to seize a gap in their conversation to ask, “Do all reawakened hibernators live in the old city?”
罗辑好不容易抓住了一个两人谈话的问喊，问：“苏醒的冬眠者都住在旧城里吗？”
“No way! They live outside. There’s too much sand in the city. But mostly, it’s because there’s nothing to do. Of course, you can’t go too far from the underground city, or you can’t get electricity.”
“哪儿啊，都住在外面，城里风沙太大，主要也是没什么事情干。当然也不能住得离地下城太远，否则就取不上电了。”
“What do all of you do?” Shi Qiang asked.
“你们还能干什么事？”史强问。
“Think: What can we do that the kids can’t? Farming!” Shi Xiaoming, like other hibernators, no matter their age, had the habit of calling modern people “kids.”
“你想想，这年头我们能干孩子们不能干的是什么？种地呗！”同其他冬眠者一样，不管法律年龄如何，史晓明还是习惯把现代人叫“孩子们”。
The car left the city and drove east. As the sand lessened to reveal the highway, Luo Ji recognized it as the old expressway between Beijing and Shijiazhuang, although both sides were piled high with sand now. The old buildings still stood there amid the sand, but what brought a spark of life to this desertified plain of northern China were the small oases ringed by sparse trees, which Shi Xiaoming said were hibernator settlements.
车出了城市，向西驶去，沙尘小了些，公路露了出来。罗辑认出这就是当年的京石高速公路。现在，路两旁都是漫漫黄沙，过去的建筑还都屹立在沙中，但真正使沙化的华北平原显出生机的，是一处处由稀疏的树林围起来的小绿洲，据史晓明说，这些地方就是冬眠者的居住点。
They drove into one oasis, a small residential community surrounded by a sand-break of trees that Shi Xiaoming called New Life Village #5. When he got out of the car, Luo Ji felt time flowing backward: rows of six-story apartments fronted by open space, old men playing chess on stone tables, mothers pushing baby carriages, and a few children playing soccer on the sparse lawn growing on the sand…
车驶入了一个绿洲，这是被防沙林围起来的一个居民小区。史晓明说这叫新生活五村。一下车，罗辑就有时光倒流的感觉，他看到了一排排熟悉的六层居民楼，楼前的空地上，有坐在石凳上下棋的老人和推着婴儿车的母亲，在从沙土中长出的稀疏的草坪上，有几个孩子在玩足球……
Shi Xiaoming lived on the sixth floor with a wife nine years younger than him. She had entered hibernation in Year 21 due to liver cancer, but was completely healthy now. They had a four-year-old son who called Shi Qiang “Grampa.”
史晓明家住在六楼，他现在的妻子比他小九岁，是危机21年因肝癌冬眠的，现在十分健康，他们有一个刚满四岁的儿子，孩子叫史强祖爷爷。
A sumptuous lunch had been laid out to welcome Luo Ji and Shi Qiang: local farm produce, chicken and pork produced at other nearby farms, and even home-brewed alcohol. They called three of their neighbors to join them, three men who — like Shi Xiaoming — had entered hibernation relatively early, back when it was expensive and available only to rich members of the upper class or their sons and daughters. Now, gathered here after a span of more than a century, they were all just ordinary people. Shi Xiaoming introduced one neighbor as Zhang Yan, the grandson of Zhang Yuanchao, the man he had cheated back in the day.
为史强和罗辑接风的午宴很丰盛，都是地道的农产品，还有附近农场产的鸡和猪肉，甚至酒都是自酿的。邻居的三个男人也被叫过来一起吃。他们和史晓明一家一样，都是较早的几批冬眠者。那时冬眠是一件十分昂贵的事，所以这些人当初都是很富有的社会上层人士或他们的子女，但现在，跨越了一百多年的岁月相聚在此，大家都是普通人了。史晓明特别介绍一位邻居，说他叫张延。是当年被他骗过的张援朝的孙子。
“Remember how you made me return the money I cheated him out of? I began the day I got out, and that’s how I met Yan. He had just graduated from college. Taking inspiration from his two neighbors, we went into the funeral business and called our firm the High and Deep Company. ‘High,’ for space burials. We shot ashes into the Solar System, and later on we were able to launch entire bodies. For a price, of course. ‘Deep,’ for mine burials. At first we used abandoned shafts, and later on we dug new ones, since they would work equally well as anti-Trisolaris tombs too.”
“您不是让我把骗人家的钱都还上吗？我出去后就开始还了，因此认识了延子，当时他刚大学毕业。我们受了他们家两个老邻居的启发，傲起了殡葬业务，我们的公司名字叫高深公司。高是指太空葬，除了送骨灰出太阳系，后来发展到可以把整个遗体发射出去，当然价钱不低；深是指矿井葬，开始用的是废矿井，后来也挖掘新的，反正都是防三体人掘墓呗。”
Zhang Yan took over: “We call the modern people ‘walltappers,’ because when they first get here they’re always touching the wall out of habit, trying to activate something.”
张延接着说：“我们都管现代人叫点墙的，因为他们刚来时总不由自主地向墙上点，想激活些什么。”
“What’s our legal status here?” Luo Ji asked.
“你们这里在法律上是什么地位呢？”罗辑问。
“But along the road I saw the fields you plant. Can you really support yourselves by growing crops?”
“可我路上看到你们种的地，庄稼长成那德性，能养活人？”
The man called Yan was a little older — he looked to be in his fifties or sixties. Shi Xiaoming explained that Yan had been reawakened once before and lived for more than thirty years before going back into hibernation.
被史晓明叫作延子的人看上去有些老了，五六十岁的样子，晓明解释说延子中间苏醒过三十多年，之后才再次冬眠。
They all said it was pretty good.
几个人都说还不错。
“Why not? In the cities these days, agricultural products are luxury items… The government’s actually quite good to hibernators. Even if you don’t do anything, you can still live comfortably off government subsidies. But you’ve got to have something to do. The idea that hibernators all know how to farm is nonsense. No one was a farmer at first, but this is all we can do.”
“怎么不能”现在在城市里，农产品都属于奢侈品……其实政府对冬眠者还是相当不错的，就是什么都不干，靠国家给的补贴也能过舒服日子。但总得找点儿事干，要说冬眠人会种地那是瞎说，当初谁也不是农民，但我们也只有这个可干了。“
“So life’s okay?” Shi Qiang asked.
“这里日子过得还可以吗？”史强问。
Shi Xiaoming said, “Completely equivalent to modern residential areas. We count as the city’s distant suburbs, and we have a proper district government. It’s not just hibernators who live here. We also have modern people, and people from the city often come out here for fun.”
史晓明说：“与现代人居住区完全平等的地位，我们算城市的远郊区，有正规的区政府。这里住的也不全是冬眠者，也有现代人城里也常有人到这里来玩儿。”
The conversation quickly turned to the history of the past two centuries.
谈话很快转移到前两个世纪的近代史上。
Instantly their faces grew serious. Seeing that the meal was almost over, Shi Xiaoming allowed the topic to continue. “You’ve probably learned a little about it over the past few days. It’s a long story. For more than a decade after you went into hibernation, life was pretty good. But later on, when the pace of economic transformation picked up, the standard of living declined by the day and the political climate constricted. It really felt like wartime.”
人们的面容一下子都凝重起来，史晓明看看饭快吃完了，才把话题继续下去：“你们这些天来多少也知道一些吧，这说起来话长了。你们冬眠后的十几年里，日子过得还行，但后来，世界经济转型加速，生活水平一天天下降，政治空气也紧张起来了，真的感觉像是战争时期了。”
A neighbor said, “It wasn’t just a few countries. The entire Earth was like that. Society was on edge, and if you said something wrong they would say you were ETO, or a traitor to humanity, so nobody felt safe. And film and television from the Golden Age began to be restricted, and then was banned worldwide. Of course, there was too much of it to ban effectively.”
一个邻居说：“不是哪几个国家，全球都那样儿，社会上很紧张，一句话说不对，就说你是ETO或人奸，搞得人人自危。还有黄金时代的影视，开始是限制，后来全世界都成禁品了，当然东西太多也禁不住。”
“They were afraid of eroding the fighting spirit,” Shi Xiaoming said. “Still, so long as there was food to eat, you could make do. But later on, things got worse, and the world began to starve. This was about twenty years after Dr. Luo went into hibernation.”
“怕消磨斗志呗。”史晓明说，“不过只要有饭吃，还能凑合着过，但后来，事情不妙了，全世界都开始挨饿，这大概是罗老师他们冬眠后二十多年的事吧。”
“So what was the deal with the Great Ravine?” Luo Ji brought up the question he had long been wanting to ask.
“大低谷是怎么回事，”罗辑问出了他早想问的问题。
“Why?”
“为什么？”
“Because of the economic transition?”
“是因为经济转型？”
“Right. But environmental deterioration was also a major factor. The environmental laws were there, but in those pessimistic times, the general attitude was, ‘What the hell is environmental protection for? Even if Earth turns into a garden, isn’t it all going to the Trisolarans anyway?’ Eventually, environmental protection was seen as no less treasonous to humanity than the ETO. Organizations like Greenpeace were treated like ETO branches and suppressed. Work on the space forces accelerated the development of highly polluting heavy industry, which made environmental pollution unstoppable. The greenhouse effect, climate anomalies, desertification…” He sighed.
“是，但环境恶化也是重要原因。当时的环保法令倒还都有，但那正是悲观时期，人们普遍都有一个想法：环保有屁用？就算把地球保成一个花园儿，还不是留给三体人？到后来，环保甚至与ETO划上等号，成了人奸行为，像绿色和平组织这类的。都给当做ETO的分支镇压了。太空军工使得高污染重工业飞速发展，环境污染是制止不了了，温室效应，气候异常，沙漠化……唉。”
“When I entered hibernation, desertification was just starting,” another neighbor said. “It’s not what you imagine, like the desert advancing from the Great Wall. No! It was patchwork erosion. Perfectly fine plots of land in the interior began turning to desert simultaneously, and it spread from those points, like how a damp cloth dries in the sun.”
“我冬眠以前正是沙漠化开始时。”另一个邻居说，“不是你们想象的那样儿，沙漠从长城那边儿向这边儿推进，不是！那叫插花式侵蚀，内地好好的一块块地方，同时开始沙化，从各个点向外扩散，就像一块儿湿布被晒干那样。”
Shi Xiaoming gave a few bitter chuckles. “Ah, Dr. Luo. A hundred years? In your dreams! A hundred years back from that time would have been… around the 1930s or so. A paradise compared to the Great Ravine! No way the two are the same. For one thing, there were so many more people than in the Great Depression –8.3 billion!” He pointed at Zhang Yan. “He saw the Great Ravine when he reawakened for a while. You tell them.”
史晓明苦笑三声，“我的罗老师啊，倒退一百年？您做梦吧！那时再往前一百年就是……”二十世纪三十年代左右吧，与大低谷相比那是天堂了！大低谷不比一九三几年，人多啊，八十三亿！“他说着指指张延，”他见过大低谷，那时他苏醒过一阵儿。“
“Did the prediction that the standard of living would go backward a hundred years come true?” Luo Ji asked.
“生活水平倒退一百年的预言真成了现实？”罗辑问。
Zhang Yan drained his glass. Eyes blank, he said, “I have seen the grand march of hunger. Millions of people fleeing famine on the great plains through sand that blocked out the sky. Hot sky, hot earth, and hot sun. When they died, they were divided up on the spot… It was hell on Earth. There are tons of videos to watch if you want. You think of that time, and you feel lucky to be alive.”
张延喝干了一杯酒，两眼发直地说：“我见过饥饿大进军，几千万人逃荒，太平原上沙土遮天，热天热地热太阳，人一死，立马就给分光丁……真他蚂是人间地狱，影像资料多的是，你们可以自己看，想想那个时候都折寿啊。”
“Then agricultural production plummeted, and grain reserves were exhausted. And then… and then came the Great Ravine.”
“然后是农业大减产，储备粮耗光，然后……然后就是大低谷了。”
Luo Ji got up and went over to the window. From here he could see the desert across the protective tree line, its yellow covering of sand extending silently to the horizon under the noonday sun. The hand of time had smoothed over everything.
罗辑站起身走到窗前，从这里可以越过防沙林带眺望外面的沙漠，黄沙覆盖的华北平原在正午的阳光下静静地向天边延伸，时间的巨掌已经抚平了一切。
“The Great Ravine lasted for about half a century, and in those fifty-odd years, the world population dropped from 8.3 billion to 3.5 billion. Think about what that means!”
“大低谷持续了半个世纪吧，就这么五十来年，世界人口由八十三亿降到三十五亿，体们想想吧，这是什么事儿！”
“And then?” Shi Qiang asked.
“后来呢？”大史问。
Zhang Yan let out a long breath, as if no longer having to talk about that period of history had taken a burden off his shoulders. “After that, well, some people came to terms with it, and then more and more people did. They wondered whether it was worth it to pay so high a price, even if it was for victory in the Doomsday Battle. Think about what’s more important: the child dying of starvation in your arms, or the continuation of human civilization? Right now you might think the latter choice is more important, but you wouldn’t have in that day and age. No matter what the future might bring, the present is most important. Of course, that mind-set was outrageous at first, the classic thinking of a traitor to humanity, but you couldn’t stop people from thinking it. And very soon the entire world thought so. There was a popular slogan back then, which soon became a famous historical quote.”
张延长出一口气，好像不用再谈那一段历史让他如释重负似的，“后来嘛，有人想开了，越来越多的人想开了，都怀疑即使是为了末日战争的胜利，付出这么多到底值不值。你们想想，怀里快饿死的孩子和延续人类文明，哪个重要？你们现在也许会说后者重要，但把你放到那时就不会那么想了，不管未来如何，当前的日子才是最重要的。当然，在当时这想法是大逆不道，典型的人奸思想，但越来越多的人都这么想，很快全世界都这么想了，那时流行一句口号，后来成了历史的名言……”
“Right, that one. Civilization is meant for us.”
“对对，是这个，给岁月以文明。”
“And after that?” Shi Qiang asked.
“再后来呢？”史强又问。
“‘Make time for civilization, for civilization won’t make time,'” Luo Ji contributed, without looking back from the window.
“’给岁月以文明，而不是给文明以岁月。‘”罗辑接下来说，他仍看着窗外投有回头。
“A second Enlightenment, a second Renaissance, a second French Revolution… You can find all that stuff in the history books.”
“第二次启蒙运动，第二次文艺复兴，第二次法国大革命……那些事儿，你们看历史书去吧。”
Luo Ji turned back in surprise. The predictions he had made to Zhuang Yan two centuries before had come to pass. “A second French Revolution? In France?!”
罗辑惊奇地转过身来，他向庄颜预言过的事竟然提前两个世纪变成现实了。“第二次法国大革命？还在法国？”
“No, no. That’s just a saying. It was the entire world! After the revolution, the new national governments terminated their space strategies and poured their attention into improving people’s lives. And then critical technology emerged: Genetic engineering and fusion technology were harnessed for large-scale food production, ending the age of weather-dependent food. From then on, the world would no longer be hungry. Everything moved quickly after that — there were fewer people, after all — and in the space of just two decades, life returned to pre-Great Ravine levels. Then Golden Age levels were restored. People had set their hearts on this road of comfort, and no one wanted to go back.”
“不不，只是这么个说法，是在全世界！大革命后，新上来的各国政府都全部中止了太空战略计划，集中力量改善民生。当时出现了一个很关键的技术：利用基因工程和核聚变的能量，集中大规模生产粮食，结束了靠天吃饭的日子，这以后全世界才不再挨饿。接着一切都恢复得很快，毕竟人少了，只用二十多年时间，生活就恢复到了大低谷前的水平，然后又恢复到黄金时代的水平。人类铁了心地沿着这条舒服道儿走下去，再也不打算回头了。”
“And after that?” Luo Ji asked.
“再后来呢？”罗辑问。
“That’s not freaky,” Luo Ji said. “Emancipation of human nature inevitably brings with it scientific and technological progress.”
“这不邪门儿，”罗辑说，“人性的解放必然带来科学和技术的进步。”
“There’s another term you might find interesting, Dr. Luo,” said the first neighbor, drawing closer to him. An economist before hibernation, he had a deeper understanding of the issues. “It’s called civilization immunity. It means that when the world has suffered a serious illness, it triggers civilization’s immune system, so that something like the early Crisis Era won’t happen again. Humanism comes first, and perpetuating civilization comes second. These are the concepts that today’s society is based on.”
“有一个说法罗博士一定感兴趣。”一个邻居凑近罗辑说，他在冬眠前是一名经济学家，想问题也深些，“叫文明免疫力，就是说人类世界这大病一场，触发了文明机体的免疫系统，像前危机时期①那样的事儿再也不会发生了，人文原则第一，文明延续第二，这已是当今社会的基础理念。”【注：①指三体危机出现后至大低谷结束的时期。】
“After that came the freaky stuff.” Shi Xiaoming grew excited. “Originally, the countries of the world had planned to live in peace and push the Trisolar Crisis onto the back burner, but what do you think happened? There was swift progress everywhere. Technology sped forward and broke through all the technical obstacles that had stood in the way of space strategy before the Great Ravine, one after the other!”
“再后来，邪门儿的事儿发生了。”史晓明兴奋起来，“本来，世界各国都打算平平安安过日子，把三体危机的事儿抛在了脑后，可你想怎么着，一切都开始飞快进步，技术进步最快，大低谷前太空战略计划中的那些技术障碍竟然一个接一个都突破了！”
“You don’t actually have to think about any of this, though,” the economist said. “From now on, just think about how to live a good life. That old revolutionary slogan is just an adaptation of the old saying from the Golden Age: ‘Make time for life, or life won’t make time.’ To new life!”
“其实你们现在不用考虑那么多的事儿，”经济学家说，“只想着怎么把今后的日子过好就行，那句革命中的名言，其实是套用帕斯卡的一句话：给时光以生命，而不是给生命以时光。来，为了新生活！”
“After about half a century of peace following the Great Ravine, the world turned its thoughts back to the Trisolaran invasion and felt it ought to reconsider the war. With humanity’s power now on a completely different plane than before the Great Ravine, a global state of war was again declared, and construction was begun on a space fleet. But unlike the first time, national constitutions were clear about one thing: Resource expenditure for the space strategy had to be kept within a specified range, and must not have a disastrous impact on the world economy and on community life. And that’s when the space fleets became independent countries…”
“大低谷后大约过了半个世纪的平安日子吧。全世界又想起三体入侵这回事了，觉得还是应该考虑战争的事，况且现在人类的力量与太低谷前不可同日而语。于是又宣布全球进入战争状态，开始建造太空舰队。但这次和以前不一样，各国都在宪法上明确：太空战略计划所消耗的资源应限制在一定的范围内，不应对世界经济和社会生活产生灾难性的影响。太空舰队就是在这一时期成为独立国家的……”
When they had drained their last glass, Luo Ji praised the economist for putting things so well. Now his mind had space only for Zhuang Yan and the child. He wanted to get settled as soon as possible, and then go wake them.
他们喝干了最后一杯酒，罗辑向经济学家致意，认为这话说得很好，他现在心里所想的，只有庄颜和孩子，他要尽快安顿下来，再去苏醒她们。
After boarding Natural Selection, Zhang Beihai found that the modern command system had evolved far beyond what he had imagined. The giant spacecraft, equal in volume to three of the largest seagoing carriers of the twenty-first century, was practically a small city, but it had no bridge or command module, or even a captain’s room or operations room. In fact, it had no specific functional compartments whatsoever. All of them were identical, regular spheres that differed only in size. At any location inside the ship, you could just use a data glove to activate a holographic display, which, due to the high cost, was a rarity even in Earth’s super-wired society. And at any location, so long as you had the appropriate system permissions, you could pull up a complete command console, including a captain’s interface, which effectively made the entire ship, even the passageways and bathrooms, a bridge, command module, captain’s room, and operations room! To Zhang Beihai, it felt like the evolution from a client-server model to a browser-server model in late-twentieth-century computer networks. With the former, you could only access the server through specific software installed on a computer, but using the latter, you could access the server from any computer on the network so long as you had the right permissions.
在进入“自然选择”号后，章北海才发现现代指挥系统的演进已超出他的想象。这艘太空巨舰，体积相当于三艘二十一世纪海上最大吨位的航空母舰，几乎是一座小城市，但既没有驾驶舱和指挥舱，也没有舰长室和作战室，事实上，任何特定功能的舱室都没有，舰上的舱室几乎都一样，都是规则的球形，只是大小不同。在舰上的任何位置，都可以用数据手套激活全息显示屏，这在已经超信息化的地球世界都很少见，因为在那里，全息显示也是很昂贵的东西。同时，在任何位置，只要拥有相应的系统权限，就可以调出完整的各级指挥界面。包括舰长指挥界面，也就是说，舰上的任何地方都可以成为驾驶舱、指挥舱、舰长室或作战室，甚至包括廊道和卫生间！在章北海的感觉中，这很像二十世纪末计算机网络系统的演变，那是由客户，服务器模式，向流览器/服务器模式的转变，前者只能在安装了特定软件的计算机上才能对服务器进行存取，而后者，用户可以在网络任何位置的计算机上访问服务器，只要有相应的权限就行。
Make time for civilization, make time for life.
给岁月以文明，给时光以生命。
For Zhang Beihai, this was another aspect of modern technology that few people had imagined: the elimination of single-purpose facilities. Only the first tendrils of this trend had appeared on Earth, but it was part of the fundamental structure of the far more advanced world of the fleet. This world was spare and simple. Devices were no longer permanently installed, but would appear when necessary at any location required. The world, made complex by technology, was becoming simple again, its technology hidden deeply behind the face of reality.
这是章北海看到的另一个以前很少有人想象到的现代技术特色——去设施倾向。这种倾向在地球上还只是初露端倪，但“去设施化”已成为比地球世界更先进的舰队世界的基本结构。这个世界到处都是简洁空荡的，几乎见不到任何设施，只有在需要时，设施才会出现，而且是在任何需要的位置出现。世界在被技术复杂化后，正在重新变得简洁起来，技术被深深地隐藏在现实的后面。
Zhang Beihai and Dongfang Yanxu were situated in an ordinary cabin that, like every other one, had no special instruments or screens. It was just a spherical compartment whose bulkheads were white most of the time, making it feel like the inside of a giant Ping-Pong ball. When gravity was produced by ship acceleration, any part of the spherical bulkhead could be transformed into a shape suitable for use as a chair.
现在，章北海和东方延绪就同在一间普通舱室中。与其他地方一样，这里没有任何仪表和屏幕，只是球形舱，舱壁在平时是白色的，置身其中仿佛处于一个大乒乓球里。当飞船加速产生重力时，球形舱壁的任何一处都可以变形适应身体的形状而成为座椅。
“Now we come to your first onboard lesson,” Dongfang Yanxu said. “Of course, you really shouldn’t be getting this lesson from a captain who’s under review, but no one in the fleet is more trustworthy than I am. Today, we’ll demonstrate how to launch Natural Selection and put it into navigation mode. And, in fact, so long as you remember what you see today, you’ll have closed off the primary opening for the Imprinted.” As she spoke, she used her data glove to call up a holographic star chart in the air. “This may be a little different from the spatial maps of your time, but it still uses the sun as the origin.”
’现在我们来上你在舰上的第一课。“东方延绪说，”当然课不应该由我这个接受审查的舰长来讲，但舰队中别的人也不比我更可靠。我们今天演示如何启动‘自然选择’号，使其进入航行状态，其实你只需要记住今天看到的，就封死了钢印族的主要出路。“她说着。用数据手套在空中调出了一幅全息星图，”它与你们那时的空间图可能有了些变化，但仍是以太阳为坐标原点的。“
“I studied this in training, so I can read it fine,” Zhang Beihai said, looking at the star chart. His memory of the ancient Solar System map he and Chang Weisi had stood in front of two centuries ago was still fresh. This chart, however, precisely marked out the positions of all celestial bodies within a radius of one hundred light-years of the sun, at a scale more than a hundred times greater than the older one.
“在培训中学过，我基本能看懂。”章北海说，看到星图，二百年前与常伟思站在那幅古老的太阳系空间图前的情形仍历历在目，现在的这幅星图，精确地标注了以太阳为中心半径一百光年范围内的所有天体位置，空间范围是当年那幅图的上百倍。
“You don’t really need to understand much. In the present state, navigation to any position on the map is prohibited… If I were Imprinted, and wanted to hijack Natural Selection to flee into the cosmos, I’d first need to select a heading, like this.” She activated a point on the map, turning it green. “Of course, we’re just in simulation mode right now, because I no longer have permissions. When you obtain captain’s permissions, I’ll have to go through you to perform the operations. But if I really submitted this operation request, it would be a dangerous act, and you should refuse it. You should also report me.”
“其实不需要看懂，目前情况下，向图中的任何位置航行都是不允许的如果我是钢印族，企图劫持‘自然选择’号向宇宙中逃亡，那我首先需要选择一个方向，就是这样……”东方延绪把星图上的某一点激活为绿色，“当然我们现在处于模拟状态，我已经没有这个权限，你即将获得舰长权限。我就要通过你来进行这个操作，但如果我真的提出了这个操作要求，那就是一个危险的举动，你应该拒绝，并可以报警了。”
Once the heading was activated, an interface appeared in the air. Zhang Beihai was already quite familiar with the appearance and operations from his training, but he still listened patiently to Dongfang Yanxu’s explanation and watched how she brought the huge ship from complete shutdown to hibernation, then to standby, and finally to Slow Ahead.
在航行方向被激活后，空中出现了一个操作界面。在以前的培训中，章北海早已把这个画面和相应的操作烂熟于心，但他还是耐心地听着东方延绪的讲解，看她如何把这巨舰由全关闭状态提升至休眠状态，然后进一步提升至待命状态，最后进入“前进一”状态。当他和特遣队的其他成员看到这一界面时，最令他们感到惊异的是它的简洁，其中没有任何技术细节。
“Yes. Much simpler.” When he and the other special contingent members first saw the interface, they were surprised at its simplicity, and the total lack of technical detail.
“是的，简单多了。”当他和其他特别特遣队成员第一次看到这个界面时，他们对它的简单性和完全缺乏技术细节感到惊讶。
“This display only shows general parameters. How do you see the ship’s operational status?”
“这里只显示简单的总体参数，那你们如何知道飞船的运行状况呢？”
“If these were real operations, Natural Selection would now leave port. What do you think? Simpler than spaceship operations in your day?”
“现在，如果是真实操作，‘自然选择’号就起航出港了。怎么样，比你们那时的飞船操作简单吧？”
“The operation is totally automatic, leaving the technical process entirely hidden from the captain.”
“一切都是自动操作，技术过程对舰长全部隐藏起来。”
“Operational status is monitored by officers and noncommissioned officers at lower levels. Their displays are more complex — the further down you go, the more complicated the interface becomes. As captain and vice-captain, we must focus our attention on more important matters… Very well, let’s continue. If I were Imprinted… There I go with that supposition again. What do you think?”
“运行状况由下面各级军官和军士来监视，他们的显示界面要复杂些，级别越向下，所面对的界面越复杂。作为舰长和副舰长，我们必须集中注意力思考我们应该思考的事……好，我们继续：如果我是钢印族……我又这样假设了，你对这个假设看法如何？”
“Given my position, any response would be irresponsible.”
“以我的身份，对这个问题不管怎么回答都是不负责任的。”
“Fine. If I were Imprinted, then I’d set the throttle directly to Ahead Four. No other ship in the fleet can catch Natural Selection under Ahead Four acceleration.”
“好吧。如果我是钢印族，我会把推进功率直接设定为‘前进四’，舰队中的任何其他舰只，都不可能追上在‘前进四’状态下加速的‘自然选择’号。”
“But you couldn’t do that, even if you had the permissions, because the system will only proceed to Ahead Four if it detects that all passengers are in a deep-sea state.”
“但你做不到，即使有权限好像也不行。只有检测到全体乘员都处于深海状态时，系统才会进入‘前进四’推进。”
Under maximum propulsion, the ship’s acceleration could reach 120 gs, but this exerted a force more than ten times what a human could tolerate under normal conditions. To go to maximum, they had to enter a “deep-sea state,” which consisted of the cabins being filled with an oxygen-rich “deep-sea acceleration fluid” that trained personnel could breathe directly. As they breathed, it would fill their lungs and then the rest of their organs. First dreamed up in the first half of the twentieth century, the liquid was intended at the time to facilitate ultra-deep dives. Pressure was in equilibrium inside and outside of a human body filled with deep-sea acceleration fluid, meaning it could sustain high pressures like a deep-sea fish. The environment of a liquid-filled cabin in a rapidly accelerating spacecraft was like that of the deep sea, so the liquid was now being used to protect human bodies against the ultra-high acceleration of space travel. Hence the term “deep-sea state.”
当处于最高推进功率时，飞船的加速将达到120G，所产生的超重是正常状态下人体承受极限的十多倍，这时就要进入深海状态，即在舱室中注满一种叫“深海加速液”的液体。这种液体含氧量十分丰富，经过训练的人员能够在液体中直接进行呼吸，在呼吸过程中，液体充满肺部，再依次充满各个脏器。这种液体早在二十世纪上半叶就有人设想过，当时的主要目的是实现超深潜水，当人体充满深海加速液时，与深海中的压力内外平衡，就具备了深海鱼类那样的超级承压能力。在飞船超高加速的过载状态下，充满液体的舱室压力环境与深海类似，这种液体现在被用于作为宇宙航行超高加速中的人体保护液，所谓“深海状态”也就由此得名。
Dongfang Yanxu nodded. “But you should know that there’s a way to get around that. If you set the spacecraft to remote control, then it will assume that no one is on board and won’t perform the check. This setting is part of the captain’s permissions.”
东方延绪点点头说：“但你们也一定知道，有办法绕过这种检测。只要把飞船设定为遥控状态，系统就会认为舰内没有人，也就不进行这样的检测了，这种设定也属于舰长权限。”
“Let me try it and you tell me if I’ve got it right.” Zhang Beihai activated an interface in front of him and began setting up remote control mode for the spacecraft, looking at a small notebook from time to time as he did so.
“我做一下，你看对不对。”章北海也在自己面前激活了一个界面，开始进行设定飞船遥控状态的操作，这过程中他不时看看手上的一个小本子。
“You’ve learned quickly.”
“不过你学得很快。”
“Oh, it’s just habit. For particularly important things, it’s always more reassuring to write them down like this. It’s just that I can’t find a pen now. I brought two with me into hibernation, but only the pencil was still usable.”
“呵，我习惯这样，尤其对最重要的事。总感觉这样记下来比较踏实。现在找不到笔了，我在冬眠之前带了两支，可现在就那支铅笔还能用。”
Dongfang Yanxu smiled at the notebook. “There are more efficient recording methods now.”
“现在有更高效率的记录方法。”东方延绪看着那个小笔记本笑着说。
“That’s because the command system retains a lot of the navy’s style. After all these years, the names of things haven’t even changed. The engine orders, for example.”
“那是因为指挥系统中保留了许多海军的风格，这么多年了，甚至有些名词都没变，比如设定推进功率是‘前进几’等等。”
“The space fleet did have its origins in the navy… Okay, you’ll soon be receiving system permissions as the acting captain of Natural Selection. This warship is in class-A standby, or, as they called it in your time, ‘fired up and ready to go.'” She extended her slender arms and turned a circle in the air.
“太空舰队就是起源于海军……好了，你将很快被授予‘自然选择’号执行舰长的系统权限，战舰也将进入A级待命状态，用你们那时的话来说，‘升火待发’。”东方延绪伸出修长的手臂在空中转了一圈。
Zhang Beihai had not been able to figure out how to perform that action using the superconducting belt. “We didn’t ‘fire up’ in those days. But you evidently know quite a bit of naval history,” he said, changing the subject from the sensitive issue that was liable to make her hostile to him.
章北海一直也没有学会用超导腰带做这个动作。“我们那时已经不升火了，不过看得出来，你对海军的历史很了解。”章北海尽力避开这个容易使她对他产生敌意的敏感话题。
“No.”
“不是。”
“Are you advising me to stay?”
“这是在劝我留下吗？”
“A grand old branch of the service.”
“一个浪漫的军种。”
“Yes. But I’m going to leave it. I plan on resigning.”
“是的，不过我就要离开它了，我打算辞职。”
“Ideological work. That’s the word, isn’t it? Wasn’t that your duty once?”
“思想工作，是这个词吧，这不曾经是你的职责吗？”
“Because of the review?”
“因为审查？”
“Dongfang, don’t deliberately widen the gap. There are similarities between the two of us. Soldiers in all ages have to bear up under humiliation.”
“东方，不要有意拉大代沟，我们之间总是有共同之处的，任何时代，军人都需要忍辱负重。”
She turned to look at him, her thick black hair leaping again from the lack of gravity. “You encountered this sort of thing all the time back then, didn’t you?”
东方延绪转头看着章北海，她那浓密的黑发又在失重中弹跳起来，“你们那时常遇到这种事儿，是吗？”
“Doesn’t the space fleet inherit that grandeur?”
“太空舰队不是继承了这种浪漫吗？”
“Two centuries have passed. This is no longer your time.”
“两个世纪已经过去，这不是你们的时代了。”
“Not necessarily. But if we did, every comrade would understand, because undergoing review is one of the duties of a soldier.”
“也不一定，但如果遇到，每个同志都会理解的，接受审查也是军人职责的一部分。”
“Not anymore. I have a new duty.”
“现在不是了。我有新的职责。”
“Are we kids to you?”
“对你来说我们是孩子吗？”
“I can see that in your eyes.”
“这我从你眼里看出来了。”
She floated easily around him, as if carefully studying him. “Is it that we’re children to you? Half a year ago I went to Earth, and in one hibernator district, a six- or seven-year-old boy called me a kid.”
东方延绪在失重中轻盈地围着章北海飘浮着，似乎在仔细研究他，“是不是在你们眼里，我们都是孩子？半年前我到过地球一次，在一个冬眠者居住区，一个六七岁的男孩叫我孩子。”
“They didn’t come, and they didn’t want me to go. You know, trends at the time pointed toward a very bleak future. They criticized me for being irresponsible. She and her mother moved out, and in the dead of night the day after they left, the Special Contingent received the order. I didn’t even have time to see them again. It was on a late winter’s night, a cold one, that I left home carrying my bags… Of course, I’m not expecting you to understand any of this.”
“她们没有来，也不想让我来，你知道，按当时的趋势，未来的前景是很黑暗的，她们责备我这样做不负责任。她和她母亲都不回家住了，可就在她们离开后的第二天深夜，特遣队出发的命令下来了，我都没来得及同她们最后见上一面。那是个冬天的深夜，很冷，我就那么背着背包离开了家……当然，我没指望你能理解这些。”
“In our day, seniority was very important. In the countryside, there were adults who called children Aunt and Uncle because of family seniority.”
“在我们那时，辈分是很重要的，在当时的农村，也有大人依照辈分把孩子叫大伯大姑的。”
“Do you think my eyes look good?”
“你觉得我的眼睛好看吗？”
“Like my daughter’s eyes.” Zhang Beihai’s quick and calm answer surprised Dongfang YanXu. He did not look away from the East. She was in a white sphere, as if the whole world had disappeared because of her beauty.
“像我女儿的眼睛。”章北海不动声色的回答迅速而从容，令东方延绪很吃惊。他并没有把目光从东方身上移开，她身处洁白的球体中，仿佛整个世界都因她的美丽而隐去似的。
“But your seniority is unimportant to me.”
“但你的辈分在我眼中不重要。”
He laughed.
章北海笑了笑。
“Your daughter, and your wife — they didn’t come with you? Special Contingent family members were allowed to hibernate, too, as far as I’m aware.”
“你女儿，还有妻子，没陪你来吗，据我所知，特遣队的家属都可以冬眠。”
“They saw the Great Ravine.” She lowered her eyes and remained silent for a while. Then she activated a holographic window and switched to an external display mode.
“都经历了大低谷。”东方延绪垂下了眼睛，沉默了一会儿后，她在面前激活了一个全息显示窗口，把整体显示模式调到外部状态。
“I understand… What happened to them?”
“理解……她们后来呢？”
“Dongfang,” he called softly.
“东方。”章北海轻轻地唤了一声。
“My wife died in Year 47. My daughter in Year 81.”
“我妻子是在危机47年去世的，女儿在81年去世。”
Zhang Beihai had experienced this feeling before, 190 years ago, when he floated in space wearing nothing but a space suit, holding a pistol loaded with meteorite bullets.
章北海有过这种感觉，那是一百九十年前，他穿着航天服只身悬浮于太空中，握着装有陨石子弹的手枪……
“Hmm?” The captain turned around, her eyes shining with the starlight of the Milky Way.
“嗯？”美丽的舰长转过身来，她的双眸中映着银河系的星光。
“I like it this way, where you can ignore the spacecraft and the fleet and everything outside your own mind,” she said.
“我喜欢这样，飞船和舰队什么的，都是外在的工具，在精神上都是可以省略的。”东方延绪说。
The bulkheads of the white sphere melted like wax and Natural Selection vanished, leaving them suspended in infinite space, facing the misty starfield of the Milky Way. They were now two independent beings in the universe, unattached to any world, with nothing but the abyss surrounding them. They hung in the universe like the Earth, the sun, and the galaxy itself, with no origin and no destination. Simply existing…
白色的球形舱壁像蜡一样消融了，“自然选择”号本身也消失了，他们悬浮在无际的太空中。面对着银河系迷雾般的星海，他们变成了宇宙中的两个独立的存在，不依附于任何世界，四周只有空间的深渊，同地球、太阳和银河系一样悬浮于宇宙中，没有从哪里来，也不想到哪里去，只是存在着……
“If the day comes when I have to kill you, please forgive me,” he said gently.
“如果有一天我不得不杀了你，请原谅。”章北海轻声说。
He looked at her in the sunlight coming from five AU away. She was a lithe feather floating against the backdrop of the starfield.
章北海看看她，在从五个天文单位外照来的阳光中，她像是一根飘浮在星海背景上的轻盈的羽毛。
She met his words with a smile. “Do I look to you like I’m Imprinted?”
东方延绪对这话付之一笑，“你看我像钢印族吗？”
“Is that bad?”
“这样不好吗？”
“The probe’s gone out!”
“三体舰队探测器熄灭了！”
“We belong to the Earth and the sea, you belong to the stars.”
“我们属于大地和海洋，你们属于星空。”
The report from the duty officer came as a shock to Dr. Kuhn and General Robinson. They knew that once the news got out it would make waves in both the Earth International and the Fleet International, particularly since the latest observations of the probe’s speed meant that it would cross the orbit of Jupiter in just six days.
得到值勤军官的这个报告，肯博士和罗宾逊将军万分震惊，他们也知道，这个消息一旦发布，将在地球国际和舰队国际中掀起巨大波澜。
“No. It’s very good.”
“不，这样很好。”
Kuhn and Robinson were on the Ringier-Fitzroy Station that orbited the sun along the outside rim of the asteroid belt. Floating in space five kilometers away from the station were the most peculiar objects in the Solar System: a set of six giant lenses, the top one 1,200 meters in diameter, and the five below it slightly smaller in size. This was the latest incarnation of the space telescope, but unlike the previous five generations of the Hubble, this space telescope had no barrel, or any connecting material at all between the six giant lenses. They floated independently, the rim of each lens equipped with multiple ion thrusters that could precisely adjust the distance between them or change the orientation of the entire group. Ringier-Fitzroy Station was the control center for the telescope, but even from this close, the transparent lenses were practically invisible. When technicians and engineers would fly between them during maintenance, the universe on either side would be grossly distorted, and if they were at the proper angle, the protective iris on the surface would reflect the sunlight and reveal the entire giant lens, whose curved surface would then resemble a planet covered in bewitching rainbows. The telescope broke with the Hubble series naming convention and was dubbed the Ringier-Fitzroy Telescope, to commemorate the two men who discovered the tracks of the Trisolaran Fleet. Although their discovery had no scholarly significance, the name was fitting, because the primary purpose of this massive telescope, a joint project of the three major fleets, was the continued monitoring of the Trisolaran Fleet.
肯和罗宾逊现在正在林格一斐兹罗监测站中，这个监测站处在小行星带外侧的太阳轨道上。在距监测站五公里处的太空中，飘浮着一个太阳系中最怪异的东西，那是一组六个的巨型透镜，最上面的一个直径达一千二百米。后面的五个尺寸要小一些，这就是最新一代的太空望远镜。与以前的五代哈勃望远镜不同，这个太空望远镜没有镜筒，甚至六个巨型镜片之间也没有任何联接物，它们各自独立飘浮着，每个镜片的边缘上都装有多台离子推进器，它们可以借助这些推进器精确地改变彼此的相对距离，也可以改变整个透镜组的指向。林格一斐兹罗监测站是太空望远镜的控制中心，但即使从这样近的距离上，也几乎看不到透明的透镜组。但在进行维护工作时，工程师和技师会飞到透镜之间，这时他们就发现两侧的宇宙发生了怪异的扭曲，如果一侧透镜处于合适的角度，镜面的防护虹膜反射阳光，巨型透镜就完全可见了。这时它那弧形的表面看上去像是一个布满妖艳彩虹的星球。这一代太空望远镜不再以哈勃命名，而是叫林格————斐兹罗望远镜，以纪念首次发现三体舰队踪迹的那两个人，尽管他们的发现没什么学术意义，但三大舰队联合建造的这座巨型望远镜。主要用途还是监视三体舰队。
Right now, Kuhn wanted to squeeze in some observation time for his own study of the cosmos, while Robinson worked to stop him, so as to safeguard the fleet’s interests. They argued about other things, too: For example, Kuhn reminisced over the wonderful way that Earth’s superpowers, headed up by the United States, were leading the world, in contrast to the fleets’ current inefficient bureaucracy; but every time he did so, Robinson would ruthlessly dismantle Kuhn’s ridiculous historical fantasies. But the most heated argument was over the station’s rotation speed. The general insisted on a slow rotation for minimal gravity, even to the point of keeping the station in an entirely weightless state with no rotation at all, while Kuhn stumped for a fast rotation and Earth standard gravity.
现在，肯博士总是想挤出观测时间来进行自己的宇宙学研究，而罗宾逊则以维护舰队的利益极力阻止。他们还有一些其他方面的争议，比如肯总是回忆当年以美国为首的各地球大国是多么出色地领导世界，现在的三大舰队又是多么的官僚和低效率，而罗宾逊则每次都无情地戳穿肯博士那可笑的历史幻觉。不过最激烈的争议还是在监测站的自转速度上，将军坚持只产生低重力的慢速旋转，甚至干脆不自转，让站内处于美妙的失重状态；而肯则坚持要产生标准地球重力的自转速度。
A team like Ringier and Fitzroy — a lead scientist from Earth and a head of military affairs from the fleet — had always been in charge of the telescope, and in every such team there were the same differences of opinion that Ringier and Fitzroy had.
望远镜的负责人一直延用着林格和斐兹罗这样的组合：首席科学家来自地球，军事负责人则来自舰队。每一届组合都有着与林格和斐兹罗之问相似的争论。
“The three fleets don’t know how to do anything but struggle over power. This is just perfect — the target’s been lost…” Kuhn grumbled, waving his arms for emphasis. He forgot the station was now in a weightless state, and his movements caused him to perform a somersault.
“三大舰队成天就知道争名夺利！现在可好，目标弄丢了……”肯气愤地说，他没注意到目前监测站已经处于失重状态，他剧烈的肢体动作几乎使自己在空中翻了一个跟头。
But what was happening now overwhelmed all of that. The probe having “gone out” meant that its engines had turned off. Two years before, far beyond the Oort Cloud, the probe had begun to decelerate, which meant that its engine had started up in a sun-facing direction, enabling the space telescope to track the probe by engine light. Now that the light had gone out, tracking was no longer possible, because the probe itself was far too small — probably no bigger than a truck, based on the wake it left crossing the interstellar dust. An object that small out on the periphery of the Kuiper Belt, no longer emitting its own light and reflecting the weak light of the distant sun even more weakly — even a telescope as powerful as Ringier-Fitzroy couldn’t see such a tiny dark object so far off in the darkness of space.
现在发生的事情压倒了一切。所谓探测器熄灭，是说它的发动机关闭了。远在奥尔特星云之外，三体舰体探测器就开始减速，减速时它的发动机对着太阳方向启动，太空望远镜就是根据探测器发动机发出的光来对其进行跟踪，而发动机的光芒一旦熄灭，这种跟踪就不可能进行了，因为探测器本身实在太小了，从它穿越星际尘埃时产生的尾迹形态推测，它可能只有一辆卡车大小，这样小的一个物体现在处于遥远的柯伊伯带外围，本身停止发光，而那一带远离太阳，只有微弱的阳光，探测器的反光更弱，即使是林格一斐兹罗这样强大的望远镜，也不可能从那个遥远的黑暗太空看到这么小的一个暗物体。
For the first time, General Robinson did not defend the fleet. The Asian Fleet had originally dispatched three light, high-speed ships to track the probe at close range, but after the dispute erupted among the three fleets over the right to intercept, the Joint Conference had issued a resolution recalling all craft to base. The Asian Fleet repeatedly protested that the three fighter-class spaceships had been stripped of all weapons and external equipment and were carrying a crew of just two people each to achieve maximum acceleration for tracking the target, and even so, they could not possibly intercept the probe. However, the European and North American Fleets were unconvinced, and insisted that all spaceships in transit be recalled and replaced by three spaceships dispatched by Earth International as a fourth party. If not for that, the fleet ships would already have made close contact with the probe and begun tracking it.
罗宾逊将军第一次没有为舰队辩解。本来，亚洲舰队已经派出了三艘轻型高速飞船去对探测器进行近距离跟踪，但三大舰队随之爆发了拦截权之争，后来联席会议又做出了所有战舰回港的决议。尽管亚洲舰队反复解释，说这三艘飞船都是歼击机级别的，为了尽快加速，拆除了所有的武器和外部设施，每艘船上只有两名乘员，只能跟踪目标，根本不可能进行拦截行动。但欧洲和北美两大舰队还是不放心，坚持已起航的跟踪飞船必须全部撤回，改由第四方地球国际派出三艘跟踪飞船。如果不是这样，现在跟踪飞船已经与探测器近距离接触并进行跟踪了。
Earth’s ships, dispatched by the European Commonwealth and China, had not even passed the orbit of Neptune.
而地球上由欧洲联合体和中国后来派出的跟踪飞船，现在还没有飞出海王星轨道。
“Are you the Trisolaran commander? Maybe the probe wasn’t ever planning on remaining in the Solar System, but was just going to pass through anyway!” Kuhn said. Then a thought suddenly struck him. “If the engines are off, then it can’t change course! Can’t you just figure out where it’s headed and send the tracking spacecraft to wait for it?”
“你以为你是三体司令官吗？那个探测器也许根本没打算停留，就是要掠过太阳系的！”肯说着，突然想到了一点：“发动机停了，它就不可能再改变轨道！让跟踪飞船在计算好的位置等它不就行了？”
“Perhaps. Its engines might start up again,” the general said. “It’s still traveling pretty fast, and if it doesn’t decelerate it won’t be able to rest in solar orbit. It’ll pass right through the Solar System.”
“也许……它的发动机还会启动的。”将军说，“它的速度现在仍然很快。如果不减速就无法进入太阳轨道，会掠过太阳系的。”
“What can we do? Let the fleet figure it out.”
“我们能有什么办法？让舰队去想吧。”
The general turned tough. “Doctor, you’ve got to realize the nature of the situation. Even though this isn’t our fault, the media won’t care. The Ringier-Fitzroy system was, after all, responsible for tracking the probe in deep space, so a good portion of that dirty water is going to land on our heads.”
将军又变得强硬起来：“博士，你要对目前的局面有一个正确的理解：虽然这件事我们没有责任，但媒体不管这个，林格————斐兹罗系统毕竟是负责对探测器进行深空跟踪的，到最后相当一部分脏水还得泼到我们头上。”
The general shook his head. “That’s not precise enough. It’s not like an air force search in Earth’s atmosphere. One miniscule error, and you’ll be hundreds of thousands or even millions of kilometers off course. In such a huge area, the tracking craft won’t be able to find such a tiny, dark target… But we’ve got to come up with a way somehow.”
将军摇摇头，“精度不够！你以为那是大气层内地球空军的空中搜索吗？稍微一点点的轨道误差就有几十万甚至上百万公里，在那么大的空间范围内，一个这么小这么暗的东西，跟踪飞船很难找到目标……唉，总得想出些办法呀？”
Kuhn said nothing, but remained with his body perpendicular to the general’s for a while. Then he asked, “Is there anything else outside Neptune’s orbit that could be useful?”
肯没有说话，身体与将军垂直，想了一会儿，他问：“现在在海王星轨道外面还有些什么可利用的东西？”
The three small craft newly tasked with tracking the probe had been dispatched from those ships.
丁程的前期开发，即将担任跟踪探测器任务的三艘小型飞船就是从这些飞船上派出的。
“For the fleet, probably nothing. For Earth…” The general turned to ask the duty officer and soon learned that the UN Environmental Protection Organization had four large ships near Neptune, working on the early stages of the Fog Umbrella Project.
“舰队方面大概什么也没有了，地球方面……”将军转向值勤军官，向他们询问。他很快得知，在海王星有四艘联合国环境保护组织的大型飞船，从事“雾伞”。
“And they’re there to mine oil film?” Kuhn asked. The reply was affirmative. Oil film was a substance found in Neptune’s rings. At high temperatures, it turned into a rapidly diffusing gas that then condensed into nanoparticles in space, forming space dust. It was so called because when it evaporated, it became highly diffusive, so a small quantity of the substance could form a large patch of dust, like a tiny droplet of oil spreading into an oil film of molecular thickness across a large area of water. Dust formed from this oil film had another property: Unlike other types of space dust, “oil-film dust” was not easily dispersed by the solar wind.
“它们是去开采油膜矿吗？”肯问道，他马上得到了肯定的回答。油膜矿是在海王星的星环中发现的一种物质，它能够在高温下变成迅速扩散的气体，然后在太空中冷凝成微小的纳米颗粒，形成太空尘埃。之所以叫这个名称，是因为这种物质蒸发后的气体在太空中扩散性很强，少量物质就可以形成大片尘埃，其过程与小小的油滴在水面扩散成大片分子厚度的油膜相似。油膜物质所形成的太空尘埃还有另一特性：与其他的太空尘埃不同，“油膜尘埃”很难被太阳风所驱散。
“There is. And the Fog Umbrella spaceships brought along a few, too, for blasting Neptune and its satellites. I’m not sure of the precise number.”
“有的，‘雾伞’工程的飞船也装载了一些，在海王星环和卫星上爆破用，具体数目不清楚。”
“I’d say one is enough,” Kuhn said excitedly.
“好像一颗就够了。”肯兴奋起来。
It was the discovery of oil film that made the Fog Umbrella Project possible. The plan was to use nuclear blasts in space to evaporate and spread the oil-film substance into a cloud of oil-film dust between the sun and Earth as a means of decreasing the sun’s radiation on Earth and alleviating global warming.
正是由于油膜物质的发现，使“雾伞”计划成为可能，这个计划是用核爆炸在太空中蒸发和扩散油膜物质，在太阳与地球之间形成一团“油膜尘埃”，降低太阳对地球的辐射，达到缓解地球温室效应的目的。
Like Wallfacer Rey Diaz had predicted two centuries prior when he developed the stellar hydrogen bomb for his Wallfacer plan, although the weapon would be of limited use in the Doomsday Battle, the major powers wanted it to prepare for the possible outbreak of interplanetary war between humans. More than five thousand bombs had been manufactured, mostly during the Great Ravine, when international relations grew volatile due to lack of resources, and humanity was pushed to the brink of war. When the new era dawned, the horrifying weapons became dangerous nonessentials that were kept in storage in outer space, although they still belonged to countries on Earth. A few of them were blown up in planetary engineering projects, and another set was sent into orbit in the remote Solar System with the notion that the fusion materials could supplement the fuel of long-range spacecraft. However, because of the difficulty involved in dismantling the bombs, this idea was never realized.
两个世纪前面壁者雷迪亚兹的战略计划中所研制的恒星型氢弹，后来共制造了五千多颗。虽然这种武器在末日之战中作用有限，但正如雷迪亚兹所言，各大国主要是为可能爆发的人类之间的行星际战争准备的，核弹主要在大低谷时期制造，那时由于资源的匮乏，国际关系极其紧张，人类自身的战争一触即发。进入新时期后，这些骇人听闻的武器成了危险的鸡肋，虽然其所有权都属于地球国家，但还是都被送入太空存贮，少部分已经用于行星工程的爆破，还有一部分送入太阳系外围轨道。曾有人设想将核弹中的聚变材料可以作为远程飞船的燃料补充，但由于核弹的拆解很困难，这个设想一直没有真正实现过。
“I remember there’s supposed to be a stellar bomb near Neptune orbit from before the wars,” Kuhn said.
“我记得，海王星轨道附近应该还有前战争时期的恒星型核弹吧？”肯又问。
“Give it a try. It’s the only thing we’ve got.”
“试试吧，只有这一个办法了。”
“Do you think it’ll work?” Robinson asked, his eyes aglow. He was a little rueful that he hadn’t thought up such a simple idea himself, and that Kuhn had snatched the opportunity to go down in history.
“你觉得能行，”罗宾逊两眼放光地问道，他后悔这么简单的事自己怎么没想到，一个载入史册的机会让肯抢去了。
“If your idea works, Doctor, then the Ringier-Fitzroy Station will forever revolve fast enough to generate Earth gravity.”
“如果行，博士，以后林格一斐兹罗监测站将永远按产生1G重力的速度旋转。”
“Why isn’t it lit by the sun, like the tail of a comet?” the pilot said. He and the commander were the only crew on Blue Shadow. He knew the density of the dust cloud was as thin as a comet’s tail, or about the same as a vacuum created in an Earth-based laboratory.
“为什么它不能被阳光照出来呢，就像彗星的尾巴那样……”飞船驾驶员说，“蓝影”号上只有他和指令长两个人。他知道，尘埃云的密度确实像彗星尾一样稀薄，几乎和地球上实验室中造出的真空差不多。
“Maybe the sunlight is too weak.” The commander looked back at the sun, which, in the lonely space between Neptune’s orbit and the Kuiper Belt, looked like a large star, its disc shape only barely distinguishable. Still, even the weak sunlight could still cast shadows on the bulkhead. “Besides, a comet tail is only visible from a certain distance away. We’re just at the edge of the cloud.”
“可能是阳光太弱吧。”指令长回头看看太阳，在这海王星轨道和柯伊伯带之间的冷寂空间，太阳看上去只是一颗刚能看出圆盘形状的大星星。阳光倒是还可以在舱壁上照出亮影，但已经十分微弱了。“再说，彗尾也要在一定的距离外才能看到，我们可是就在云的边缘。”
“It’s the biggest thing humanity has ever made,” the commander of Blue Shadow said, as he looked out the spacecraft’s window into the pitch-black of space. Nothing was visible, but he tried to convince himself that he could see the dust cloud.
“这可是人类造出来的最大的东西了。”‘蓝影’号飞船的指令长看着舱外漆黑的太空说，他极力想象自己能看到尘埃云，但确实什么都看不到。
The pilot tried to conjure up a mental image of the thin yet gigantic cloud. A few days ago, he and the commander had seen with their own eyes how small the cloud was when compressed into a solid. At the time, the giant spaceship Pacific had arrived from Neptune and left behind five things when it stopped in this section of space. The Blue Shadow’s mechanical arm first retrieved a stellar hydrogen bomb from the early days of the war, a cylinder five meters long and a meter and a half in diameter. Next it picked up four large spheres between thirty and fifty meters in diameter. The four spheres, the oil film harvested from Neptune’s rings, were placed at points several hundred meters from the bomb. Once Pacific had departed the vicinity, the bomb exploded, forming a small sun whose light and heat surged into the cold abyss of space and instantly vaporized the surrounding spheres. The gaseous oil film diffused rapidly under the typhoon of H-bomb radiation, then cooled into countless tiny particles of dust, forming a cloud. The cloud had a diameter of two million kilometers, greater than that of the sun.
驾驶员在脑子里极力想象着这个巨大但稀薄的存在。在几天前，他和指令长亲眼目睹了这团巨云压缩成固体时的大小。当时，来自海王星的巨型飞船“太平洋”号停泊在这片太空，放下了它运载的五件货物。首先放置的是来自前战争时期的一颗恒星型氢弹，它是一个长五米直径一点五米的圆柱体；随后，飞船的机械臂从舱内取出了四个大球体，它们的直径从三十米到五十米不等，这四个球体被放置在氢弹周围几百米处，它们都是采自海王星星环的油膜物质。“太平洋”号飞离后，氢弹爆炸，所形成的小太阳把光和热量疯狂地倾泻到这寒冷的太空深渊中，周围的球体在瞬间汽化，油膜汽体在氢弹辐射的飓风中迅速扩散，随后在冷却中化为无数微小的颗粒，尘埃云形成了。这团云的直径达二百万公里，比太阳的直径还大。
Following the formation of the cloud, Pacific returned to Neptune base, leaving behind three small spaceships that would track the probe closely once its wake showed. Blue Shadow was one of them. The small high-speed ship had been dubbed a “space racer.” With a small capsule that could seat five as its only payload, its remaining volume was entirely occupied by a fusion engine, giving it high acceleration and maneuverability. Once the dust cloud took shape, Blue Shadow flew through the entire area to test whether wakes would be left, with quite satisfactory results. Of course, the wakes could only be observed by the space telescope more than one hundred AU distant. From Blue Shadow itself, its own wake was invisible, and the surrounding space was as deserted as it always had been. Still, after passing through the cloud, the pilot insisted that the sun looked a little dimmer, that its formerly sharp circumference had gone a bit blurry. Instrument observations confirmed the sole visual impression they had of this giant creation.
“太平洋”号完成了造云作业后就返回海王星，留下了三艘小型飞船，在探测器显示尾迹后对其进行近距离跟踪，“蓝影”号就是其中一艘。这种高速小飞船被称做太空赛车，其唯一的有效载荷就是一个仅能容纳五人的小舱，其余部分全是聚变发动机，具有极高的加速能力和机动性。尘埃云形成后，“蓝影”号曾穿过整个云区，以实验是否能在云中留下尾迹，结果是令人满意的。当然，尾迹只能由一百多个天文单位外的太空望远镜观测到，在“蓝髟”号上无论是尘埃云还是自己的尾迹，什么都看不到，周围的太空空寂依旧。不过在穿过云团后，太阳处于云后，这时驾驶员坚持说看出太阳变暗了一点点，而且它原来清晰的边缘变得模糊了，仪器的观测也证明了这一点，这是这个巨大的人造物留给他们的唯一视觉印象。
The dust cloud was located in the region that the Trisolaran probe was expected to pass through, according to path observations made prior to its engine shutting off. Dr. Kuhn and General Robinson hoped to precisely determine the probe’s path and position by the tracks it left in the man-made dust cloud.
尘埃云形成的位置，是三体探测器预计将要通过的区域，这是按三体探测器的发动机停机前所观测到的轨道计算出来的。肯博士和罗宾逊将军的这个计划，是期望通过三体探测器在人造尘埃云中留下的尾迹精确测定它的轨道和位置。
“Less than three hours to go,” the commander said, looking at his watch. The dust cloud was actually a giant, thin satellite in orbit around the sun, its position constantly changing. When it eventually moved out of the space where the probe might pass through, another dust cloud would have to be created behind it.
“只剩下不到三小时了。”指令长看看表说。尘埃云实际上就是一颗围绕着太阳运行的稀薄的巨型卫星，它的位置在运行中不断移动，一段时间后就会移出探测器可能通过的区域。那时就要在另一个更靠后的位置再造一团尘埃云。
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