“Pluto is at its apogee, rather far from the two-dimensional space. The Federation Government is about to issue a formal attack alert to the world, and many ships will be headed there. Although the final result will be the same, at least there will be more time left.”
“冥王星正处于远日点，那个方向距二维空间比较远，联邦政府很快就会正式向全世界发出打击警报，大批的飞船都会朝那个方向去，虽然最后的结果都一样，但剩下的时间会多一些。”
“The Federation Government would like to ask you to do something.”
“联邦政府想委托你们做一件事。”
“Let’s head back to the Earth,” Cheng Xin said softly. This was the first idea that floated up through the chaos and darkness of her jumbled thoughts.
“我们回地球吧。”程心轻声说，在她已经陷入混乱和黑暗的思绪中，这个愿望最先浮上来。
“The Earth is not a bad place to wait for the end. A falling leaf seeks to return to the root. But we hope Halo will go to Pluto,” Cao Bin said.
“地球确实是一个等待终结的好地方，落叶归根嘛，但我们还是希望’星环‘号能去冥王星。”曹彬说。
“That’s not long enough to be worth worrying about. Let’s go back to Earth,” said AA.
“不在乎这点时间了，我们还是回地球吧。”艾AA说。
“Pluto?”
“冥王星？”
“The entire Solar System within the Kuiper Belt will collapse into two dimensions in eight to ten days.”
“柯伊伯带以内的太阳系空间将在八至十天里全部跌落到二维。”
“How much longer?”
“还能有多少时间？”
“What can we possibly do now?”
“现在我们还能做什么？”
“Not anything important. There’s nothing important now. But someone came up with the idea that theoretically, there might exist image-processing software that could process a two-dimensionalized image of a three-dimensional object and re-create the three-dimensional object. We hope that in the distant future, some intelligent civilization might re-create a three-dimensional representation of our world from its two-dimensionalized image. Though it would be nothing more than a dead representation, at least human civilization would not be forgotten.”
“不是什么重要的事情，现在已经没有重要事情了。有人提出这样一个想法：从理论上说，有可能存在这样一个图像处理软件，用它处理三维物体跌落到二维的图像，就能够恢复这个物体的三维图像。我们希望，在以后遥远的时间里，能有某个智慧文明从二维的太阳系中恢复我们世界的三维图像，虽然只是死的图像，人类的文化也不至于全部湮灭。”
“Luo Ji? He’s alive?!” AA cried out.
“罗辑？他还活着？！”艾从惊叫起来。
“Yes. He’s almost two hundred.”
“是的，快两百岁了吧。”
“Also, Luo Ji is on Pluto. He wants to see you.”
“另外，罗辑在冥王星上，他也很想见你们。”
“The Earth Civilization Museum is on Pluto. A large portion of humanity’s precious artifacts are stored there. The museum is buried under the surface, however, and we are concerned that during the process of falling into the plane, these artifacts would be mixed together with the strata of the crust and their structures would be damaged. We’d like to ask you to carry some of the artifacts away from Pluto on Halo and scatter them in space so that they can fall into two dimensions separately. This way, their structures would be preserved without harm in two dimensions. I guess this counts as a kind of rescue mission… Of course, I admit that the idea is nearly science fiction, but doing something now is better than doing nothing.”
“冥王星上建有地球文明博物馆，原来地球上的相当一部分珍贵文物都存放在那里。博物馆建在冥王星的地下，我们担心，在二维化的过程中，这些文物与地层物质混杂在一起，结构可能遭到破坏，想让你们用’星环‘号把部分文物运出冥王星散落在太空中，让它们单独跌落到二维，这样它们的结构就能以二维形式完整地保存下来，这也算是一种抢救吧……当然，这种事情近乎幻想，但现在，有点事情做总比闲着好。”
“All right. Let’s go to Pluto,” Cheng Xin said. In the past, this would have been an extraordinary journey. But now, nothing mattered.
“好吧，那我们去冥王星。程心说，放在以前，这也是一次非凡的航行，但现在什么都无所谓了。
A pleasant male voice spoke up. “Do you wish to go to Pluto?”
突然出现一个悦耳的男音：“请问你们要去冥王星吗？”
“Yes. What do we do?”
“是的，我们该怎么做？”
“You just have to confirm the request. There’s no need to do anything. I will complete the voyage for you.”
“你们只需要确认，什么都不需要做，我将完成航行。”
“Yes, we want to go to Pluto.”
“是的，我们去冥王星。”
“I’m Halo, or Halo’s AI. Do you wish to go to Pluto?”
“我就是‘星环’号，星环号上的AI。请问你们要去冥王星吗？”
“Authorization confirmed. Processing. Halo will accelerate at 1G in three minutes. Please pay attention to the direction of gravity.”
“确认为最高权限指令，执行中。三分钟后’星环‘号将以1G加速，请注意重力方向。”
“Who are you?” asked AA.
“你是谁？”艾从问。
Outside the porthole, they could see a few blue reflections appearing on the shell of the combined city — reflections of Halo’s nozzle lights. Cheng Xin and AA fell to one side of the spherical hall and felt their bodies grow heavier. The acceleration soon reached 1G. After the two of them — still weak from hibernation — struggled up and looked outside the porthole again, they saw the entirety of Jupiter. It was still immense, and shrinking at too slow a rate to be perceived.
从舷窗中望出去，远方太空城组合体的外壳上出现了几处蓝色的反光，那是反射的“星环”号推进器发出的光芒。程心和AA向球形舱的一侧落下去，她们感到自己的身体渐渐沉重，加速产生的重力很快达到1G。等到身体仍然虚弱的她们能够站起身来，再次透过舷窗向外看时，发现整个木星都在视野中了，但木星仍然很巨大，它变小的速度肉眼看不出来。
Cao Bin said, “Good. Better leave early. After the attack alert is issued, there might be total mayhem. Hopefully we’ll get a chance to talk again.” He closed the window link before AA and Cheng Xin could say good-bye. At this moment, AA, Cheng Xin, and Halo were not his top priorities.
曹彬说：“好了，赶快离开吧，打击警报发布后，可能会出现崩溃性动乱。我们再联系吧，但愿还有机会。”没等程心和AA道别，他就关闭了信息窗口，这时候，她们和“星环”号显然不是他最关切的事。
The ship’s AI led AA and Cheng Xin on a tour of the ship to familiarize them with it. Like its predecessor, this new Halo was still a small stellar yacht with a maximum capacity of four. Most of the space on the ship was taken up by the ecological cycling system. By conventional measures, the ecological cycling system was extremely redundant — a volume of space that would have supported forty was used to provide for only four. The system was divided into four identical subsystems, linked together and acting as each other’s backups. If any of the four failed accidentally, the other three could bring it back to life. Halo’s other distinguishing characteristic was the ability to land directly on a medium-sized solid planet. This was a rare design choice among stellar ships — similar ships typically used shuttles to carry landing parties onto planets. Directly descending into a planet’s deep gravity well required the ship to have a very strong hull, which greatly increased the cost. Moreover, the need for atmospheric flight required a streamlined profile, which was also very rare among stellar ships. All of these design features meant that if Halo could find another Earthlike planet in outer space, it could act as a habitable base for the crew on the surface of the planet for a considerable amount of time. Maybe it was these characteristics of Halo that led to it being chosen for the artifact-rescuing mission to Pluto.
起航后，程心和AA在飞船A.I。的引导下开始熟悉“星环”号。与它的前身一样，这一代“星环”号仍然是一艘小型恒星际飞船，最大的乘员数是四人。飞船上的大部分空间被生态循环系统所占据，按照常规计算，生态系统具有很大的冗余量，几乎是用可以维持四十个人的容量来支持四个人的生活。生态系统做成相同的四个，联通运行并互为备份，如果其中一个意外坏死，可由其余的资源再次激活。“星环”号的另一个特点是可以直接在中等质量的固态行星上降落，在恒星际飞船中，这是极其罕见的设计。同类飞船一般都使用随船的太空穿梭机登陆行星，直接进入行星的引力深井要求飞船具有极高的强度，这使得制造成本大大增加。另外因为要出入大气层，“星环”号具有全流线型的外形，这在星际飞船中也十分罕见。基于这样的设计，如果“星环”号在外太空找到一颗类地行星，它可以在相当长的时间里成为行星表面的一个生存基地。也许正是由于这个特点，“星环”号被派往冥王星运出文物。
There were numerous other unusual features on the yacht. For instance, it had six small courtyards, each about twenty to thirty square meters in size. Each courtyard automatically adjusted to the direction of gravity under acceleration, and, during coasting, spun independently within the ship to generate artificial gravity. Each courtyard displayed a different natural scene: a green lawn with a babbling brook running through the grass; a small copse with a spring in the middle; a beach with waves of clear water throwing up surf… These scenes were small but exquisite, like a string of pearls made of the best parts of the Earth. On a small stellar spaceship, such a design was extremely luxurious.
“星环”号上还有许多不寻常的设计，比如，飞船上有六个小庭院，分别为二十至三十平方米不等，在加速时都可以自动适应重力方向，在匀速航行时可以在飞船内独自自转，产生人工重力。每个庭院内都有不同的生态景观，比如一小块翠绿的草地和流过草地的小溪，一处中间有清泉的小树林，一小片沙滩。有翻着浪花的清水涨落……这些景观小而精致，像是用地球世界最美好的东西穿成的一串珍珠，在小型恒星际飞船上，这是极其奢侈的设计。
Cheng Xin felt both distressed and sorry for Halo. Such a perfect little world was soon going to be turned into a slice without thickness. She tried to avoid thinking about those other grander things facing imminent destruction — annihilation covered the sky of her thoughts like a giant pair of black wings, and she dared not look directly up at it.
对于“星环”号，程心感到痛心和惋惜，一个如此美好的小世界很快将变成一张没有厚度的薄片……但对于那些即将毁灭的更大的东西，她竭力避免自己去想，毁灭像一对黑色的巨翼遮盖了她思想的天空，她不敢抬头正视它。
The attack takes the form of a dimensional strike, which will collapse the space around the Solar System from three dimensions to two dimensions. The result will be the complete destruction of all life.
这是一次维度打击，将把太阳系所在空间的维度由三维降至二维，这将彻底毁灭太阳系中的所有生命。
Five hours ago, the advance warning system confirmed that a dark forest strike has been initiated against our world.
太阳系预警系统已经于五个小时前证实，对本星系的黑暗森林打击出现。
Two hours after departure, Halo received the formal dark forest attack alert issued by the Solar System Federation Government. The president, a beautiful woman who looked very young, made the announcement. She stood in front of the blue flag of the Federation and spoke without expression. Cheng Xin noticed that the blue flag resembled the ancient UN flag, though a diagram of the Sun replaced the diagram of the Earth. This most important document, marking the end of human history, was very short:
起航两个小时后，“星环”号收到了太阳系联邦政府正式向国际社会发布的黑暗森林打击警报。公告由联邦总统宣读，她是一位美丽的女性，看上去十分年轻，宣读时面无表情。她站在太阳系联邦蓝色的旗帜前，程心发现，这面旗帜与古代的联合国旗帜十分相似，只是其中的地球图案换成了太阳。人类历史上最后一份重要文献十分简短，只有两百多字，全文如下：
We have confirmed that the escape velocity for the collapsing region is the speed of light.
已经证实，脱离跌落区域的逃逸速度为光速。
The process is estimated to take eight to ten days. At this moment, the collapse is ongoing and the rate and extent of collapse are rapidly growing.
预计整个过程在八至十天内完成，截至公告发布时，太阳系三维空间向二维的跌落仍在进行中，且规模和速度正迅速扩大。
An hour ago, the Federation Government and Parliament have passed a new resolution that repeals all laws regarding Escapism. However, the government wishes to remind all citizens that the escape velocity far exceeds the maximum velocity of all human space vehicles. The probability of a successful escape is zero.
一个小时前，联郑政府和议会已经通过决议，废止有关逃亡主义的一切法律。但政府提醒所有公民，逃逸速度远大于目前人类宇宙飞行器的最高速度，逃亡成功的可能性为零。
The Federation Government, Parliament, the Supreme Court, and Federation Fleet will carry out their duties until the end.
太阳系联邦政府、太阳系议会、太阳系最高法院、太阳系联郑舰队，将行使职责到最后一刻。
AA and Cheng Xin didn’t bother to watch more news. It was possible that, just like Cao Bin said, the Bunker World had approached paradise. They wanted to see what paradise looked like, but they didn’t dare look. If everything was heading toward ruination, the more beautiful it all was, the more pain they would suffer. In any event, it was a paradise that was collapsing in the terror of death.
程心和AA没有收看更多的信息。现在，正如曹彬所说，掩体世界可能真的被建设成了天堂一般，她们很想看看天堂的样子，但没有看。如果这一切正在走向终结，越是美好就越令人痛苦，况且，那将是一个正在毁灭的恐惧中崩溃的天堂。
Halo stopped accelerating. Behind it, Jupiter became a small yellow dot. The next few days of the voyage were spent in the uninterrupted slumber produced by the sleep-aid machine. In this lonely voyage through the night before the end, just the unstoppable mad imaginings were enough to make anyone fall apart.
“星环”号停止加速，在它的后面，木星变成了一个小黄点。以后几天的航程，程心和AA都在睡眠器产生的不间断睡眠中度过，在这毁灭前夜的孤独航行中，仅不可遏止的胡思乱想就足以使人崩溃。
Halo continued to descend. On Earth, this would have involved a soul-stirring atmospheric reentry, but Halo continued to fly through the silent vacuum, decelerating by the power of its own thrusters. On the blue-black ground below, an attention-grabbing line of white text appeared: EARTH CIVILIZATION
“星环”号继续下降，如果在地球，这时应该是惊心动魄的大气层再入阶段了，但现在“星环”号仍在寂静的真空中飞行，只有靠自己的推进器进行减速。这时，下面蓝黑相间的大地上出现了一行醒目的白字：地球文明
Halo’s AI awakened AA and Cheng Xin from their dreamless sleep as the ship reached Pluto.
当程心和AA被AI从无梦的长睡中唤醒时，“星环”号已经到达冥王星。
Out of the porthole and on the monitor they could see the entirety of Pluto. Their initial impression of the dwarf planet was one of darkness, like an eye that remained perpetually shut. This far from the Sun, the light was extremely dim. Only when Halo entered low orbit could they see the colors on the surface of the planet: Pluto’s crust appeared to be made of patches of blue and black. The black was rocks — not necessarily black in color, but the light was too dim to tell otherwise. The blue was solidified nitrogen and methane. Two centuries ago, when Pluto had been near its perigee and inside Neptune’s orbit, the surface would have looked completely different. The ice cover would have partially melted and produced a thin atmosphere. From the distance, it would have appeared a deep yellow.
这时，从舷窗和监视画面中能够看到冥王星的全景，这颗行星给她们的最初印象就是黑暗，像一只永远闭着的眼睛。在这个距离上，太阳的光线已经很弱了，“星环”号进入低轨道后才能看清行星表面的色彩。冥王星有着蓝黑相间的大地，黑色的是岩石，它本身不一定是黑色的，只是光线暗的缘故；蓝色的是固态的氮和甲烷。据说两个世纪前冥王星处于海王星轨道内侧的近日点时，是一个完全不同的世界，那时它表面的冰盖部分融化，产生了稀薄的大气，远远看去呈深黄色。
The text was written in the modern script that mixed Latin and Chinese elements. After it, there were a few more lines of smaller text repeating the same thing in different scripts. Cheng Xin noticed that none of them said “museum.” The yacht was still about one hundred kilometers above the surface, which meant that the text was gigantic. Cheng Xin couldn’t make an exact estimate of the size of the characters, but she was certain that these were the largest written characters ever produced by humankind, each big enough to contain a city. By the time Halo was only about ten thousand meters above the surface, one of the large characters took up the entire field of view. Finally, Halo touched down on the broad landing field, which was the topmost dot in the Chinese character qiu (球), a part of the word Earth.
这行字是用现代东西方混合文字写成的，后面还有几行稍小的字，也是这四个字，是用几种主要的古文字写成的。程心注意到，在这些文字的后面，都找不到“博物馆”三个字。现在飞船所在的高度约一百千米，可以想见这些字的巨大，程心不好估计它们的大小，但肯定是人类写过的最大的字，每个足以容纳一座大城市。当“星环”号的高度降至万米左右时，视野中只能看全四个大字中的一个了；“星环”号最后降落的广阔的着陆场，就是汉字地球的“球”字右上的那个点。
With the guidance of the ship’s AI, Cheng Xin and AA put on light space suits and exited Halo onto the surface of Pluto. Given the frigid surroundings, the heating systems in their space suits were operating at maximum power. The landing field was empty, white, and seemed to phosphoresce in the starlight. The numerous burn marks left on the ground indicated that many spacecraft had once landed and taken off here, but Halo was the only ship here now.
在飞船AI的指示下，程心和AA穿上轻便宇宙服走出了“星环”号，沿舷梯而下，站到冥王星的表面。在极度严寒中，她们宇宙服中的制热系统全功率运行着。着陆场一片洁白，在星光下给人发出荧光的幻觉。从着陆场表面的烧灼痕迹看，曾经有许多太空飞行器在这里降落或起飞，但现在这里一片空旷。
During the Bunker Era, Pluto was akin to Antarctica on ancient Earth. No one lived here permanently, and few came to visit.
在掩体时代，冥王星类似于古地球的南极洲，没有人常住，是太阳系中人迹罕至的地方。
Halo turned on its searchlights. Due to the lack of atmosphere, there wasn’t a visible beam of light. It cast a circle of light on a distant rectangular object. This black monolith was the only protrusion above the white ground. It gave off an eerie sense of simplicity, as though it was an abstraction of the real world.
“星环”号上的探照灯亮了，由于没有大气，看不到它的光柱，它的光圈落到远处一个黑色的长方形上——这座黑色方碑是这片白色大地上唯一的突起物。它有一种诡异的简洁，像是对现实世界的某种抽象。
“I don’t know what it is, but I don’t have a good feeling about it.”
“我不熟悉，可它给我的感觉很不好。”
In the sky, a black sphere moved rapidly among the stars. It was large, but the surface was shrouded in darkness: Charon, Pluto’s moon. Its mass was a tenth of Pluto’s, and the two almost formed a double-planet system, revolving around a common center of mass.
天空中，有一个黑色的球体在群星间如幽灵般快速移动，它体积很大，看不清表面细节。这是冥王星的卫星卡戎，它的质量达到冥王星的十分之一，使得两者几乎像一个双星系统，围绕着共同的质心运行。
Cheng Xin and AA headed for the monolith. Pluto’s gravity was only one-tenth of the Earth’s, and so they proceeded by leaping. Along the way, they noticed a row of arrows pointing toward the monolith on the ground. Only when they reached the monolith did its immensity impress itself on their minds. When they looked up, it was as though a chunk had been taken out of the starry sky. They looked around and saw that there were rows of arrows coming from other directions, all pointing toward the monolith. At the foot of the monolith was another prominent protuberance: a metal wheel about a meter in diameter. To their surprise, they found the wheel to be hand-operated. Above the wheel was a diagram formed from white lines against the black surface of the monolith. Two curved arrows indicated the directions in which the wheel could be turned. Next to one of the arrows was a drawing of a half-open door, while the other bore a drawing of a shut door. Cheng Xin turned to survey the arrows on the ground pointing to the monolith. All the simple, clear, wordless instructions gave her a strange feeling, which AA voiced.
程心和AA向着方碑走去——冥王星的重力只有地球的十分之一，她们实际上是跳跃着前进。一路上，她们发现自己是沿着一排画在白色地面上的箭头前行，那些箭头一个接着一个，都指向黑色方碑。到达方碑前时，她们才发现它的高大，仰头看看，像是星空被挖空了一大块；再向四周看看，发现那排箭头并不是唯一的，有许多排箭头呈放射状会聚到方碑。在方碑的下方有一个醒目的突出物，那是一个直径一米左右的金属轮子。程心和AA惊奇地发现，那轮子居然是一个用于手动的东西，因为在轮子上方的方碑表面用白线画着提示图，有两个弧形的箭头提示着转动的方向，箭头旁画着两扇门的示意图，一扇开了一半，一扇关闭。程心再转头看看那些会聚到这里的箭头线，这些没配文字简明而强烈的提示给她一种奇怪的感觉，AA把这种感觉说了出来。
“That looks a bit familiar,” Cheng Xin said.
“这东西我有些熟悉。”程心说。
They turned the wheel clockwise. The wheel was stiff, but eventually a door opened in the surface of the monolith. Some gas escaped, and the water vapor within quickly deposited into ice crystals that glinted in the searchlight. They entered the door and saw another door facing them, also operated by a wheel. This time, there were simple written instructions above the wheel, informing them that they were in an air lock and needed to close the first door before opening the second. This was unusual, since as early as the end of the Crisis Era, pressurized buildings could open their doors directly to vacuum without needing an air lock.
她们按顺时针方向转动轮子，轮子的阻力很大，方碑上慢慢滑开了一扇大门，有一股气体散溢出来，其中的水分很快在极低温下凝成冰晶，在探照灯的光芒中一粒粒地闪亮。她们走进门，迎面又遇到一扇大门，门上也有一个手动轮，这次轮子上方出现了一条简短的文字提示，说明这是一个过渡舱，需要先把第一道门关闭才能开启第二道门。
Cheng Xin and AA turned the wheel on the inside of the door they had entered to shut it. The searchlight was cut off. They were about to turn on the lights on their space suits to hold off the terror of darkness when they noticed a small lamp in the ceiling of the narrow air lock. This was the first sign they had seen of electricity. They began to turn the wheel to open the second door. Cheng Xin was certain that even if they hadn’t closed the first door, they would still have been able to open the second. The only thing that prevented air from leaking was following the instructions. In this low-technology environment, there was no automatic mechanism to prevent errors.
程心和AA转动第一道门内侧的一个手动轮把门关闭，当探照灯光被截断后，她们不由地生出一种恐惧感，正要开启宇宙服上的照明，却发现这个扁狭的空间顶部有一盏小灯发出昏暗的光。这是她们第一次看到这个世界有电的迹象，另外，早在危机纪元末，内部有气压的建筑就已经可以直接向真空区域开门，不用过渡舱了。她们开始转动轮子开启第二道门，程心这时有一个感觉：即使第一道门不关上，第二道门照样能够打开，防止空气泄漏只有那一行文字提示而已，在这个低技术环境中，没有自动防误操作的机制。
“These things… I don’t think they’re intended for humans.”
“这些……好像不是给人看的。”
The rush of air almost toppled them, and the rapidly warming temperature fogged their visors. But the space suits told them that the external air pressure and composition was breathable; they could open their helmets.
一阵气流的冲击使她们险些跌倒，突然升高的温度使面罩一片模糊，有显示提示外部气压和空气成分都正常，可以打开面罩了。
“There’s no elevator?” AA asked. She was frightened by the steep way down.
“这么深，没有电梯？”AA说，看着陡峭的坡道不敢向下走。
“An elevator might break down over time. This building was intended to last through geologic eons.” The voice came from the other end of the tunnel, where an old man appeared. In the dim light, his long white hair and beard floated in the low gravity. They seemed to be giving off their own light.
“电梯时间长了会坏，这座建筑的使用年限可是按地质纪年设计的。”这声音来自坡道的尽头，那里站着一位老者，在昏暗的灯光中。他那长长的白发和白须在低重力下飘散开来，像是自己发光似的。
They saw a tunnel lit by a series of dim lamps heading into the earth. The dark walls of the tunnel swallowed up the dim light they emitted so that, between the cones of light, all was darkness. The floor of the tunnel was a smooth incline. Although the angle was steep, close to forty-five degrees, there were no stairs. This design was probably motivated by two considerations: There was no need for stairs in low gravity, or the path wasn’t meant for humans.
她们看到一条通向下方的隧道，尽头在很深处，隧道中亮着一排昏暗的小灯，它们发出的光被黑色的洞壁所吞噬，灯与灯的间隔段都处于黑暗中。隧道底部是一条光滑的坡道，虽然坡度很陡，几乎有四十五度，但没有台阶；这可能有两个原因：在低重力下不需要台阶，或者，这条路不是给人走的。
“Who else? Children, my legs don’t work so well anymore, so forgive me for not coming up to meet you. Come on down by yourselves.”
“还能是谁？孩子们，我腿脚不太灵便，不上去接你们了，自己下来吧。”
“Are you Luo Ji?” AA shouted.
“您是罗辑吗？”从大声问。
Cheng Xin and AA descended the incline in leaps. Due to the low gravity, this wasn’t a very dangerous maneuver. As they approached the old man, they saw that he was indeed Luo Ji. He wore a long white changshan, a Chinese-style robe, and leaned against a cane. His back was slightly bowed, but his voice was hale and loud.
程心和AA沿坡道跳跃着下降，由于重力很低，这并不惊险。随着距离的接近，她们从那个老者的脸上看出些罗辑的影子，他穿着一件中式白色长衫。拄着一根拐杖、背有些驼，但说话声音很响亮。
“Haha, there’s no need for that.” Luo Ji waved his hands. “We used to be… colleagues.” He looked at Cheng Xin and in his eyes was a surprised delight that almost seemed incongruent with his age. “You’re still so young. There was a time when I saw you only as the Swordholder, and then, gradually, you became a lovely young woman. Haha…”
“哈哈，不要这样，”罗辑笑着摆摆手说，“咱们还曾经是……同事吧。”，他打量着程心，老眼中露出与年龄不相称的惊喜，“你还是这么年轻。当年，你在我眼里只是执剑人，可到了后来，就渐渐变成了漂亮的女孩。唉，可惜转变得太慢了，现在什么都来不及了，哈哈……”
At the bottom of the incline, Cheng Xin bowed deeply. “Honored Elder, hello.”
走完坡道。来到罗辑身边时，程心对他深深鞠躬，“前辈您好。”
In Cheng Xin’s and AA’s eyes, Luo Ji had also changed. The stately Swordholder was gone. They didn’t know that the cynical, playful Luo Ji in front of them now was a return to the Luo Ji from four centuries ago, before he had become a Wallfacer. That Luo Ji had returned, as if awakening from hibernation, but the passage of time had moderated him, and filled him with more transcendence.
在程心和AA眼中，罗辑也变了，当年那个威严的执剑人已经无影无踪。但她们不知道，现在的罗辑，其实就是四个世纪前成为面壁者之前的那个罗辑，那时的玩世不恭也像从冬眠中苏醒了，被岁月冲淡了一些，由更多的超然所填补。
“You and I have both busied ourselves for nothing,” said Luo Ji to Cheng Xin.
“孩子，你看，我们俩都白忙活了。”罗辑对程心一摊手说。
“Of course, child.” He pointed behind him with his cane. “Those idiots all left on spaceships. They knew that they ultimately couldn’t escape, but they still tried to run. Foolish.”
“当然知道，孩子。”他用拐杖指指身后，“那些混蛋都跑了，坐飞船跑了，他们也知道最后跑不了，但还是跑，一群傻瓜。”
“Do you know what has happened?” AA asked.
“您知道发生了什么事吗？”，AA问。
He meant the other workers in the Earth Civilization Museum.
他指的是地球文明博物馆中其他的工作人员。
It took Cheng Xin a bit of time before she understood what he meant, but the flood of emotions and memories was interrupted by Luo Ji’s next words. “Forget it. Carpe diem has always been the right path. Of course there’s not much diem now for carpe, but we need not look for trouble. Let’s go. You don’t need to help support me. You haven’t even learned how to walk properly around here yet.”
程心好半天才明白他的意思，但随之涌起的万千思绪又被罗辑压了下去，他摆着手说：“算了算了，其实嘛，及时行乐一直是对的，现在虽然行不了什么乐，也不要自寻烦恼。好，我们走，别扶我，你们自己还没学会在这里走路呢。”
After a while, space opened up before them. Cheng Xin and AA realized that they were now in a much wider and bigger tunnel — a cavern, really. The ceiling was high above, but the space was still only lit by a dim row of lights. The cavern looked very long, and the other end was not visible.
走出一段后，眼前豁然开朗。但程心和AA很快发现，这不过是进入了另一个更宽大的隧洞而已，洞顶很高，仍由一排昏暗的小灯照明，隧洞看上去很长，在昏暗中望不到尽头。
Given Luo Ji’s advanced age of two hundred, the difficulty of locomotion under such low gravity wasn’t moving too slow, but too fast. The cane wasn’t so much a support as a decelerator.
以罗辑两百岁的踌珊脚步，在这低重力下，最困难的不是走快而是走慢，所以他手里的拐杖更多是用来减速，而不是支撑自己。
“Where are the artifacts?”
“那文物呢？”
“This is the main body of the museum,” Luo Ji said.
“看看吧，这就是这里的主体。”罗辑抬起拐杖指指隧洞说。
“In the halls down at the other end. Those aren’t so important. How long can they keep? Ten thousand years? A hundred thousand years? A million, at the most. Practically all of them will have turned to dust by then. But these –” Luo Ji pointed around them. “– were intended to be preserved for hundreds of millions of years. Why, do you still think this is a museum? No, no one visits here. This is not a place for visitors. All of this is but a tombstone — humankind’s tombstone.”
“在那头的大厅里，那些不重要，那些东西能存放多久，一万年？十万年？最多一百万年吧，大部分就都变成灰了，而这些——”罗辑又用拐杖指指周围，“可是打算保存上亿年的。怎么，你们还以为这里是博物馆吗？不是，没人来这里参观，这里不是让人参观的。这一切，只是一块墓碑，人类的墓碑。”
Cheng Xin looked around the empty, dim cavern and thought back to all she had seen. Indeed, everything was filled with hints of death.
程心看着这昏暗空寂的隧洞，想想刚才看到的一切，确实都充满着死亡的意象。
“How did such an idea come up?” AA looked all around.
“怎么想起建这个？”，AA四下张望着问。
“You ask that because you’re too young.” Luo Ji pointed to Cheng Xin and himself. “During our time, people often planned for their own gravesites while they were still alive. Finding a graveyard for humanity isn’t so easy, but erecting a tombstone is doable.” He turned to Cheng Xin. “Do you remember Secretary General Say?”
“孩子，这就是你见识少了。我们那时，”罗辑指指程心和自己，“人们常在活着的时候为自己张罗墓地，人类找墓地不太容易，建个墓碑还是可以的嘛。”他问程心，“你记得萨伊吗？”
“She was a true visionary. I’ve thought of her often through the years. Could she really have died almost four hundred years ago?” Luo Ji leaned on the cane with both hands and sighed. “She was the one who thought of this first. She wanted to do something so that humanity would leave behind a legacy that could be preserved for a long time after our civilization was gone. She planned an unmanned ship filled with cultural artifacts and information about us, but it was deemed a form of Escapism, and the project halted with her death. Three centuries later, after the Bunker Project began, people remembered it. That was a time when people worried that the world was going to end any moment. The new Federation Government decided to build a tombstone at the same time that the Bunker Project was built, but it was officially referred to as the Earth Civilization Museum so as not to be seen as a sign of pessimism. I was named the chair of the tombstone committee.
“那也是个美人，这些年我也常想起她。唉，真的是四百多年前的古人了吗？”罗辑双手撑着拐杖长叹，“是她最早想起这事，提出应该做些事，使得人类消亡以后文明的一部分遗产和信息能够长久保留。她计划发射装着文物和信息的无人飞船，当时说那是逃亡主义，她去世后事情就停了。三个世纪以后，在掩体工程开始时，人们又想起这事儿来了。你们知道，那一阵子是最提心吊胆的日子，整个世界随时都会完蛋，所以，刚成立的联邦政府就决定，在建掩体工程的同时造一座墓碑，对外叫地球文明博物馆；任命我当那个委员会的主席。
Four centuries ago, while she had worked for the PIA, Cheng Xin had met Say, the UN secretary general, a few times at various meetings. The last time was at a PIA briefing. Wade was there, too. On a big screen, Cheng Xin had given Say a PowerPoint presentation about the Staircase Project. Say had sat there quietly and listened to the whole thing without asking any questions. Afterwards, Say walked next to Cheng Xin, leaned in, and whispered, “We need more people to think like you.”
四个世纪前，在PLA工作期间，程心曾在各种会议上见过几次当时的联合国秘书长。最接近的一次是在PLA的一个汇报会上，好像当时维德也在场，她在大屏幕上放着PPT给萨伊讲解阶梯计划的技术流程。萨伊静静地听着，从头至尾没有提一个问题。散会后，萨伊走过程心的身边，附在她耳边轻轻说：“你的声音很好听。”
Cheng Xin nodded. “Of course.”
程心点点头，“当然记得。”
“At first, we engaged in a large research project to study how to preserve information across geologic eons. The initial benchmark was a billion years. Ha! A billion. Those idiots thought that would be easy — after all, if we could build the Bunker World, how difficult could this be? But they soon realized that modern quantum storage devices, while capable of storing a whole library in a grain of rice, could only preserve the information without loss for about two thousand years. After that, decay would make it impossible to decode. As a matter of fact, that only applied to the highest-quality storage devices. Two-thirds of more common varieties failed within five hundred years. This suddenly transformed the project from a detached, contemplative matter into an interesting practical problem. Five hundred years was real — you and I came from only four hundred years ago, right? So the government stopped all work on the museum and directed us to study how to back up important data about the modern world so that it could be read in five hundred years, heh heh… Eventually, a special institute had to be set up to tackle the problem so that the rest of us could focus on the museum, or tombstone.
“最初是搞一个挺大的研究项目，研究怎样把信息在地质纪年长度的时间里保存。最初定的标准是十亿年。哈，十亿年，开始时那些白痴还以为这挺容易，本来嘛，都能建掩体世界了，这算什么？但很快他们发现，现代的量子存储器，就是那科，一粒米大小可以放下一个大型图一书馆的东西，里面的信息最多只能保存两千年左右，两千年后因为内部的什么衰变就不能读取了。其实这还是说那些质量最好的存储器，根据研究，现有的普通量子存储器，有三分之二在五百年内就会坏。这下很有意思，本来我们干的这事是那种有闲心的人才干的很超脱的事，一下子成了现实问题，五百年已经有些现实了，我们这不都是四百多年前的人吗？政府立刻命令博物馆的研究停下来，转而研究怎样备份现代的重要数据，让它们至少在五个世纪后还能读出来，呵呵……后来，从我这里分出一个研究机构，我们才能继续研究博物馆，或者说墓碑。
“We informed the government that, given current technology, preserving ten gigabytes of images and one gigabyte of text — that was the basic information requirement for the museum — for one billion years was impossible. They wouldn’t believe us, and we had to show them the evidence. Finally, they agreed to lower the requirement to one hundred million years.
“我们向政府汇报说，按现有的技术，把IOG的图形图像信息和1G的文字信息（这是博物馆工程所要求的最基本的信息量）保存十亿年是不可能的，他们不相信，但我们证明了真的不可能，于是他们把保存时间降到一亿年。”
“Scientists realized that in terms of data longevity, storage devices from our time were better. They found some USB flash drives and hard drives from the Common Era and some still had recoverable data! Experiments showed that if these devices were of high quality, information was safe on them for about five thousand years. The optical disks from our era were especially resilient. When made from special metal, they could reliably preserve data for a hundred thousand years. But none of these were a match for printed material. Special ink printed on composite paper could be read in two hundred thousand years. But that was the limit. Our conventional data storage techniques could preserve information for two hundred thousand years, but we needed to get to a billion!
“科学家发现，要论信息保存的时间，咱们那个时候的存储器还好些，他们找了些公元世纪的U盘和硬盘，有些居然还能读出来。据实验，这些存储器如果质量好，可以把信息保存五千年左右；特别是我们那时的光盘，如果用特殊金属材料制造，能可靠地保存信息十万年。但这些都不如印刷品，质量好的印刷品，用特殊的合成纸张和油墨，二十万年后仍能阅读。但这就到头了，就是说，我们通常用来存储信息的手段，最多只能把信息可靠地保存二十万年。而他们要存十亿年！
“The research continued, but there was no progress. The other specialists had obviously reached conclusions, but they didn’t want to speak up. I told them, ‘Don’t worry about it. Whatever conclusions you’ve reached, no matter how bizarre or outrageous, we must accept them if there are no alternatives.’ I promised them that there was nothing that could be more bizarre and outrageous than what I’d gone through, and I would not laugh at them. So they told me that, according to the most advanced theories and techniques in every field, based on extensive theoretical research and experimentation, through analysis and comparison of multiple proposals, they did find a way to preserve information for about one hundred million years. And they emphasized that this was the only method known to be practicable. Which is –” Luo Ji lifted the cane over his head, and as his white hair and beard danced in the air, he resembled Moses parting the Red Sea. Solemnly, he intoned, “– carving words into stone.”
“研究继续进行，但没有什么进展，科学家们显然已经有了一些结论，但在我面能是欲言又止。我对他们说，没什么，不管你们得出的结果多么离奇或离谱，没有其他的结果，我们就应该接受。我向他们保证，不会有什么东西比我的经历更离奇和离谱的，我不会笑话他们。于是他们告诉我，基于现代科学在各个学科最先进的理论和技术，根据大量的理论研究和实验的结果，通过对大量方案的综合分析和比较，他们已经得出了把信息保存一亿年左右的方法，他们强调，这是目前已知的唯一可行的方法，它就是——”罗辑把拐杖高举过头，白发长须舞动着，看上去像分开红海的摩西，庄严地喊道，“把字刻在石头上！”
“But this was still an extremely difficult task. We looked for information that had survived for such a long time. Patterns drawn on prehistoric pottery survived about ten thousand years. Cave paintings in Europe were from about forty thousand years ago. If you count the markings made on stones back when our ancestors, the hominids, made the first tools as information, then the earliest instances occurred during the Pliocene, two point five million years ago. And we did indeed find information left one hundred million years ago, though it wasn’t left by humans: dinosaur footprints.
“但这也是一件极其困难的事。学者们开始寻找那些在漫长的时间中保存下来的信息。史前古陶器上的图案，保存了一万年左右；欧洲岩洞里发现的壁画，大约有四万年的历史；人类的人猿祖先为制造工具在石头上砸出的刻痕，如果也算信息的话，最早在上新世中期出现，距今约二百五十万年。可你别说，还真的找到了一亿年前留下来的信息，当然不是人类留下的，是恐龙的脚印。
AA giggled. But Cheng Xin wasn’t laughing. She was stunned.
AA嘻嘻笑了起来，但程心没笑，她被深深震撼了。
Cheng Xin walked to one of the walls. In the dim light, she saw that it was covered with dense, carved text, as well as images in relief. The wall was not the original rock, but seemed to have been infused with metal, or perhaps the surface had been coated with some durable titanium alloy or gold. Fundamentally, however, it was no different from carving words into stone. The carved text wasn’t small: each character or letter was about a square centimeter. This was another feature intended to help with information longevity, as smaller text tended to be harder to preserve.
程心走到洞壁前，在黯淡的灯光下，她看到洞壁上密密麻麻地刻满了字，还有浮雕的图形。洞壁应该不是原始岩石，可能经过了金属注入之类的处理，甚至可能表面完全换成钛合金或黄金一类的耐久金属，但从本质上讲，仍是把字刻在石头上。刻的字不是太小，每个约有一厘米见方，这应该也是为长久保存考虑，字越小越难保存。
“These lamps are really strange,” said AA.
“这灯很奇怪。”AA说。
Cheng Xin looked at the lamp on the cave wall. First, she noticed its shape: an arm poking out of the wall holding a torch. She thought this was a familiar design, but clearly that wasn’t what AA meant. The torch-shaped lamp seemed very clumsy. The size and structure resembled an ancient searchlight, but the light it emitted was very weak, about the same as an ancient twenty-watt incandescent light bulb. After passing through the thick lampshade, the light was not much brighter than a candle.
程心看看旁边洞壁上的一盏灯，首先注意到它的造型：一只伸出洞壁的手擎着一支火炬。她觉得这造型很熟悉。但AA显然指的不是这个，这盏火炬形的灯十分笨重，体积和结构都像古代的探照灯一般，但发出的光却很弱，大约只相当于古代的二十瓦白炽灯泡，透过厚厚的灯罩，只比烛光稍亮一点。
“Carving words into stone.” Luo Ji pointed at the walls of the cavern.
“把字刻在石头上。”罗辑又用拐杖指着洞壁说道。
“Of course, this approach meant that the information storage capacity was greatly reduced, leaving us with less than one-ten-thousandth of the planned amount. But they had no choice but to accept this limitation,” Luo Ji said.
“这样做能保存的信息量就小多了，不到原来的万分之一，但他们也只能接受这个结果。”罗辑说。
Cheng Xin took off a space suit glove and caressed the characters carved into the cold stone. Then she leaned against the cave wall and stared woodenly at the lamps. She realized where she had seen this design: the Panthéon in Paris. A hand holding a torch just like the one on Rousseau’s tomb. The faint yellow lights before her now didn’t seem to be electric, but like tiny flames about to go out.
程心摘下宇宙服的手套，抚摸着那寒冷石壁上的字迹，然后她背靠着洞壁，看着壁上的灯发呆。她现在想起来在哪里见过这造型：那是法国先贤祠中的卢梭墓，从墓中就伸出一只这样擎着火炬的手，现在这些灯发出昏黄的弱光，这光不像是电发出的，更像奄奄一息的小火苗。
Luo Ji said, “Back that way is the machinery dedicated to providing electricity to this complex, like a power plant. This lamp is an amazing accomplishment. There’s no filament or excitable gas inside, and I don’t know what the luminous element is, but it can continue to glow for a hundred thousand years. The doors you came through should continue to be operable under normal conditions for five hundred thousand years. After that, the doors will deform and whoever wants to come in will have to break them down. By then, these lamps will have gone out more than four hundred thousand years earlier, and darkness will reign here. But that will be but the start of the journey of a hundred million years.”
罗辑说：“后面专门为这些灯供电的部分就更大了，像一座发电厂。这灯可是一项了不起的成果，它内部没有灯丝，也没有激发气体，我不知道发亮的是什么，但能够连续亮十万年！还有你们进来时的那两扇大门，在静止状态下，预计在五十万年的时间里能够正常开启，时间再长就不行了，变形了，那时要再有人进来，就得把门破坏掉。在那时。这些灯都已经灭了有四十万年了，这里一片黑暗。但对于一亿年而言，那只是开始……”
“Ah, I used to love to talk, and then I forgot how. But now I’ve learned again. I can’t stop chattering, like a kid. I hope I’m not bothering you?”
“哦，我以前爱说话，后来不会说了，现在又爱说了，喋喋不休的，孩子。没让你烦吧？”
Cheng Xin examined the carvings on the wall carefully. They began with the relief carving of a man and a woman, perhaps an attempt to show future discoverers what humans looked like. But unlike the stiff bearing of the drawings of the man and woman on the metal plaque carried by the Pioneer probes during the Common Era, the two cave carvings were done with lively expressions and postures, evoking Adam and Eve.
程心仔细观看刻在洞壁上的内容，以一对男女的浮雕开始，也许是想未来的发现者展示人类的生物学外观，但这一对男女与公元世纪旅行者探测器上带着的金属牌上的图形不同，并非只有呆板的展示功能，表情形体动作都很生动，多少有些亚当和夏娃的样子。
“You are not very talkative,” Luo Ji said. His voice was suffused with a solicitousness that Cheng Xin had long missed.
“孩子，你好像不爱说话。”罗辑走过来对程心说，声音中有一种程心久违的慈爱。
“She’s always been like that,” said AA.
“她一直是这样。”AA说。
Carving words into stone.
把字刻在石头上。
Cheng Xin struggled to smile. “Not at all. It’s just that… looking at all this, I don’t know what to say.”
程心失神地笑笑说：“哪里，老人家，只是……面对这些我不知该说什么。”
True. What was there to say? Civilization was like a mad dash that lasted five thousand years. Progress begot more progress; countless miracles gave birth to more miracles; humankind seemed to possess the power of gods; but in the end, the real power was wielded by time. Leaving behind a mark was tougher than creating a world. At the end of civilization, all they could do was the same thing they had done in the distant past, when humanity was but a babe:
是啊，能说什么呢？文明像一场五千年的狂奔，不断的进步推动着更快的进步，无数的奇迹催生出更大的奇迹，人类似乎拥有了神一般的力量……但最后发现，真正的力量在时间手里，留下脚印比创造世界更难，在这文明的尽头，他们也只能做远古的婴儿时代做过的事。
Under the Greek letters, Cheng Xin saw another relief, which seemed to portray ancient scholars in simple robes debating in an agora surrounded by stone columns.
程心看到那一大片拉丁文下面有一幅浮雕，好像是表现穿着简洁长袍的古希腊学者们在一个被石柱围绕的广场上辩论。
Cheng Xin had a strange idea. She turned back and looked near the beginning of the cave carvings, but didn’t find what she was looking for.
这时，程心有了一个奇怪的念头，她返回去，返回到洞壁的开始处又看了一遍，没找到她想找的东西。
Cheng Xin walked along the wall. After the man and the woman came some hieroglyphs and cuneiforms, probably copied from ancient artifacts — it was possible that some of them were not even intelligible to modern men and women, and if so, how would future extraterrestrial discoverers understand them? Going further, Cheng Xin saw Chinese poetry — or, at least, she could tell the carvings were poetry based on the arrangement of the characters. But she didn’t recognize any of the characters; she could only tell they were in Great Seal Script.
程心沿着墙走。在男人和女人后面，刻着一象形文字和楔形文字，这些可能是照着远古文物上面的样子直接刻上去的，现在大概也没有人知道它们的含意，如果是这样，又如何让未来的外星发现者看懂呢？再往前，程心看到了诗，从格式看是诗，但是字她一个不认识，只知道那是大篆。
“That’s the Classic of Poetry, from a millennium before the time of Christ,” Luo Ji said. “If you keep on walking, you’ll see fragments of Classical Greek philosophy. To see letters and characters that you can read, you’ll have to walk tens of meters.”
“是《诗经》罗辑说，”再往前，那些拉丁文的东西，是古希腊哲学家着作的片段。要看到咱们能认识的字儿，还得向前走几十米。“
“Yes. Isn’t there some system to help with interpretation?”
“是的，没有辅助译解的系统吗？”
“You are looking for a Rosetta Stone?” Luo Ji asked.
“想找罗塞塔石碑那类东西？”罗辑问。
AA looked at the cave wall and then stared at Luo Ji. “You’re saying that we’ve carved things here that we don’t even understand with the hope that someday, some extraterrestrial will be able to read them?”
AA打量着洞壁，然后瞪大双眼看着罗辑说：“就是说，他们把这些连我们都看不懂的东西刻在这儿，指望将来有外星人能破译它？”
“Child, we’re talking about carving in stone, not a computer. How can we possibly fit something like that here?”
“孩子，这是石刻，不是电脑，那玩意儿怎么刻得出来刻得下？”
True, to the extraterrestrial discoverers of the far future, the human classics left on the walls here would probably resemble Linear A, Cretan hieroglyphics, and other ancient scripts that no one could read. Perhaps there was no realistic hope that anyone would. By the time the builders of this monument truly understood the power of time, they no longer believed that a vanished civilization could really leave behind any marks that would last through geologic eons. As Luo Ji had said, this wasn’t a museum.
事实是，在遥远未来的外星发现者面前，洞壁上刻下的所有人类经典，其命运大概都与最前面那些远古的象形和楔形文字一样，没“人”能懂。也许，根本就没指望谁读懂。当建造者们领略到时间的力量后，他们也不再指望一个已经消亡的文明在地质纪年的未来真能留下些什么，罗辑说过这不是博物馆。
A museum was built for visitors; a tombstone was built for the builders.
博物馆是给人看的，墓碑是给自己建的。
“I often stroll around here thinking my own crazy thoughts.” Luo Ji paused and pointed at a relief carving of an ancient soldier in armor and wielding a spear. “This is about the conquests of Alexander the Great. If he had kept on going a bit farther east, he would have encountered the Qin at the end of the Warring States Period — what would have happened then? And how would history have changed?” They walked some more, and he pointed at the cave wall again. By now, the characters carved on the wall had turned from Small Seal Script to Clerical Script. “Ah, we’ve reached the Han Dynasty. From here to later, China completed two unifications. Are a unified territory and a unified system of thought good things for civilization as a whole? The Han Dynasty ended up endorsing Confucianism above all, but if the multiplicity of schools of thinking during the Spring and Autumn Period had continued, what would have happened later? How would the present be different?” He waved his cane around in a circle. “At every moment in history, you can find endless missed opportunities.”
“我常来这里散步，想一些很有意思的事儿——”罗辑停住脚步，用拐杖指着一幅身着恺甲手持长矛的古代军人浮雕，“这是亚历山大东征，那时他要是再向前走一段，就能在战国晚期与秦相遇，那会发生什么事？现在会是什么样？”再向前走一段后，他又用拐杖向洞壁指指点点，这时，刻在上面的文字已经由小篆变成隶书，“哦，到汉朝了，从这儿到后面那一段，中国完成了两次统一，领土的统一和思想的统一，对整个人类文明来说，这是不是好事？特别是汉朝的独尊儒术，如果换成春秋那样的百家争鸣，那以后又会发生什么，现在又会是什么样？”他用拐杖在空中画了一个大圈，“在每一个历史断面上，你都能找到一大堆丢失的机遇。”
The three continued onward, and Luo Ji’s cane tapped along the ground rhythmically.
三人继续向前走，罗辑的拐杖在地面发出有节奏的嗒嗒声。
“Interesting! I hope you’re right… Look, this is where the artifacts are kept. We have a total of three halls.”
“呵呵，你想得很有意思，但愿如此……看，这就是存放文物的地方，一共有三个这样的大厅。”
“Like life,” said Cheng Xin softly.
“像人生。”程心轻声说。
“Oh, no no no.” Luo Ji shook his head vigorously. “At least not for me. I don’t think I’ve missed anything, haha.” He looked at Cheng Xin. “Child, do you think you’ve missed out? Then don’t let opportunities go by again in the future.”
“哦，不不不，”罗辑连连摇头，“至少对我来说不像，我可是什么都没丢掉，呵呵。”他关切地看着程心，“孩子，你觉得自己丢失了很多？那以后可不要再丢失了。”
“Who knows? Perhaps a flat two-dimensional civilization will be able to see all this,” said AA.
“谁知道呢？也许二维世界的扁片文明能看到这些。”AA说。
They reached the end of the cave. Turning around to survey this underground tombstone, Luo Ji sighed. “We had designed this place to last a hundred million years, but it won’t even survive a hundred.”
他们走到了隧洞的尽头，回头看看这座地下的墓碑，罗辑长叹一声：“唉。本来打算保存一亿年的东西，结果一百年不到就要完了。”
Luo Ji tapped one of the nearby boxes with his cane. “As I said, these are not so important. Most of these objects have longevities shorter than fifty thousand years, though some of the statues can survive up to a million years. But I suggest you not move the statues: Though the gravity makes them easy to move, they take up too much space… All right, pick whatever you like.”
罗辑用拐杖敲了敲旁边的一只金属箱说：“我说过，这里不是主要的部分。这些东西嘛，大部分的保存年限都在五万年以内，那些雕像据说能保存上百万年，不过我不建议你们搬雕像，虽然在这里搬起来不费劲，但太占地方……好了，你们随便拿吧，挑喜欢的拿。”
“There’s no future now,” said AA coldly. She wondered if Luo Ji was suffering from dementia.
“没有以后了。”AA冷冷地说，心想这人到底有些老糊涂了。
Cheng Xin and AA saw space open up before them once more. The room they were in didn’t resemble an exhibit hall so much as a warehouse. All the artifacts were placed in identical metal boxes, and each box was labeled in detail.
程心和AA转过身，发现眼前的视野再次开阔起来。这不是陈列厅而是存放仓库，文物都装在整齐码放的大小相同的金属箱里，每只箱子上都贴着详细的标签。
Luo Ji picked up a set of work overalls from on top of another box and retrieved a small knife and screwdriver from the pockets. “The frame takes up a lot of space. You can take it off.”
罗辑从扔在一只箱子上的一件工作服中拿出一把小刀和一个改锥，递给她们，“主要是画框大，把框拆了。”
AA picked up the screwdriver, but before she could get started on the painting, Cheng Xin cried out. “No!” The painting was Van Gogh’s Starry Night.
从拿起改锥正要撬画框，程心却低低地惊叫一声，“啊，不。”她们看到，这幅画竟是凡·高的《星空》。
Cheng Xin’s surprise wasn’t just because the painting was valuable. She had seen it once before. Four centuries ago, right after she had started working at the PIA, she had visited New York’s Museum of Modern Art on a weekend and saw a few of Van Gogh’s paintings. Van Gogh’s representation of space had left a deep impression on her. In his subconscious, space seemed to have structure. Cheng Xin wasn’t an expert in theoretical physics back then, but she knew that according to string theory, space, like material objects, was made up of many microscopic vibrating strings. Van Gogh had painted these strings: In his paintings, space — like mountains, wheat fields, houses, and trees — was filled with minute vibrations. Starry Night had left an indelible mark in her mind, and she was amazed to see it again four centuries later on Pluto.
程心吃惊并不仅仅因为画的珍贵，她曾经看过这幅画。那是在四个世纪前，她刚去PIA报到不久。在一个周末，她去了曼哈顿的纽约现代艺术馆，就在那里看到了凡·高的几幅画。她印象最深的是凡·高对空间的表现，在他的潜意识中，空间肯定是有结构的。程心当时对理论物理知道得不多，但知道按照弦论，空间与实体一样，也是由无数振动着的微弦构成的，而凡·高画出了这些弦。在他的画中，空间与山、麦田、房屋和树一样，也充满了细微的躁动，给她印象最深的就是《星空》，没想到她竟在四个世纪后的冥王星上看见了它。
“I guess paintings take up a lot of space, too,” said AA.
“原来画也很占地方。”AA说。
AA looked around excitedly. “I suggest we take paintings. We can forget about old classics and ancient manuscripts — no one will understand those.” She walked in front of one of the metal boxes and pushed what looked like a button on top, but the box didn’t open by itself, and there were no instructions. Cheng Xin walked over and struggled to lift the cover open. AA took out an oil painting.
AA很兴奋地看着周围的箱子，“我建议咱们多拿些画儿，少拿古籍手稿什么的，反正以后谁也看不懂那些东西了。”她走到一只金属箱前，在上面一处像按钮的地方按了一下，箱子没有自动打开，也没有信息提示。程心走过来，很吃力地掀起箱盖，AA从里面拿出了一幅油画。
“Get rid of the frame. That way, you can take more.” Luo Ji waved his cane carelessly. “Do you think these objects are still worth a city’s ransom? Now, even a city is worthless.”
“拆吧拆吧，这样可以多拿些。”罗辑不以为然地挥挥拐杖说，“你们还以为这些玩意儿价值连城啊？现在连城本身都一钱不值了。”
And so they pried away the frame that was perhaps five centuries old, but they kept the hard backing to avoid damaging the painting by bending the canvas. They continued to do the same to other oil paintings, and soon, empty frames littered the floor. Luo Ji came over and put his hand on a small painting.
于是，她们把画从那个可能有五个世纪历史的画框上拆下来，但仍保留着硬衬底，以免画布弯折后弄坏画面。然后她们继续拆别的油画，很快空画框就堆了一地。罗辑不知什么时候走了过来，把手放到一幅不大的油画上。
Cheng Xin and AA moved the painting aside and set it on top of a box next to the wall. They were surprised to see that it was the Mona Lisa.
程心和AA把那幅画搬到一旁，在一只靠墙的箱子上放好，她们离开时回头扫了一眼，又小小地吃了一惊。那幅画是《蒙娜丽莎》。
Cheng Xin and AA continued to work at disassembling frames. AA whispered, “Clever old man. He kept the most expensive piece for himself.”
程心和AA继续埋头拆画，AA低声说：“这老家伙很精，留下了最贵的一幅。”
“Maybe he once loved a girl named Mona Lisa?”
“也许他爱过一个叫蒙娜丽莎的女人？”
“Would you leave this one for me?”
“你能把这幅留给我吗？”
Luo Ji sat next to the Mona Lisa and caressed the ancient frame with one hand. He muttered, “I didn’t know you were here. Otherwise I could have come to see you often.”
罗辑坐在《蒙娜丽莎》旁边，一只老手抚摸着古老的画框，喃喃自语：“我不知道你在这儿，知道的话我会常来看你的。”
“I don’t think that’s the reason.”
“应该不是这个原因。”
Inside the grand tomb under the surface of Pluto, lit by the dim lamps that could shine for a hundred thousand years, Mona Lisa’s smile seemed to appear and disappear. The smile had puzzled humankind for nearly nine centuries, and it looked even more mysterious and eerie now, as though it meant everything and nothing, like the approaching Death.
在冥王星地下的宏伟墓室中，在昏暗的能亮十万年的灯光中，蒙娜丽莎的微笑若隐若现，这微笑使人们困惑了九个世纪，现在则显得更加神秘诡异，似乎包容一切，又似乎一无所有，像正在逼近的死神。
Cheng Xin saw that he wasn’t looking at the painting. His eyes stared ahead as if looking into the depths of time. Cheng Xin saw that his ancient eyes were filled with tears, and she wasn’t sure if she was mistaken.
听到声音程心抬起头来，看到老罗辑并没有看《蒙娜丽莎》，他的双眼平视着前方，像是看着时光的深处。不知是不是错觉，程心竟看到那双深陷的老眼中有了泪光。
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