经典科幻文学:《基本上无害 Mostly Harmless》 第17章7

‘Explain!’

“快说。”

‘Would you like to see your home?’

“想去看看你的家吗？”

‘See it? It was destroyed!’

“看看？它都被炸烂了！”

‘It is discontinuous along the probability axis. Look!’

“它在概率的轴线上终断了。看！”

Something very strange and wonderful now swam into view in the rain. It was a huge, bluish-greenish globe, misty and cloud-covered, turning with majestic slowness against a black, starry background.

某种非常古怪而奇特的东西滑进了兰登的视线，只见雨中出现了一个巨大的球体，有些蓝，有些绿，雾蒙蒙地映在白云底下，衬着布满繁星的黑色背景缓缓转动，颇有气势。

‘Now you see it,’ said the bird. ‘Now you don’t.’

“现在你看见它了。”指南鸟说，“现在你又看不见了。”

A little less than two miles away, now, Arthur Dent stood still in his tracks. He could not believe what he could see, hanging there, shrouded in rain, but brilliant and vividly real against the night sky – the Earth. He gasped at the sight of it. Then, at the moment he gasped, it disappeared again. Then it appeared again. Then, and this was the bit that made him give up and stick straws in his hair, it turned into a sausage.

阿瑟.邓特离他们已经不到两里。他停下脚步，他没法相信自己的眼睛。飘在半空的那个东西，虽然被雨水包裹，但在夜空下仍然明亮耀眼，鲜活真实——那是地球。看见它，他的呼吸都停止了。然后，就在他屏住呼吸的时候，它又消失了。接着再次出现。然后——到现在他终于放弃努力，开始往头发里插稻草——它变成了一根香肠。

Random was also startled by the sight of this huge, blue and green and watery and misty sausage hanging above her. And now it was a string of sausages, or rather it was a string of sausages in which many of the sausages were missing. The whole brilliant string turned and span in a bewildering dance in the air and then gradually slowed, grew insubstantial and faded into the glistening darkness of the night.

看见这根蓝绿色、水汪汪、雾蒙蒙的大香肠悬在自己脑袋上，兰登也吓了一跳。现在它又变成了一大串香肠，或者更准确的说，一大串中间缺了很多根香肠。整串明晃晃的香肠在空中翻转，跳起一支让人着迷的舞，接着渐渐放慢了速度，变得虚无缥缈，最后消失在闪着微光的夜色里。

‘What was that?’ asked Random, in a small voice.

“那是什么？”兰登低声问。

‘A glimpse along the probability axis of a discontinuously probable object.’

“概率轴线上一个中断的可能物体。”

‘I see.’

“哦。”

‘Most objects mutate and change along their axis of probability, but the world of your origin does something slightly different. It lies on what you might call a fault line in the landscape of probability which means that at many probability co-ordinates, the whole of it simply ceases to exist. It has an inherent instability, which is typical of anything that lies within what are usually designated the Plural sectors. Make sense?’

“大多数物体都沿着自己的概率轴线变异更迭，可你的母星稍有不同。你可以把它想象成位于概率平面的一条故障线上，也就是说在许多个概率坐标上，它干脆就整个不存在了。它有一种内在的不稳定性，有种区域大家通常叫它复区，对那里头的任何物体这都是很常见的。明白？”

‘No.’

“不。”

‘Want to go and see for yourself?’

“想自己去看看吗？”

‘To… Earth?’

“去……地球？”

‘Yes.’

“对。”

‘Is that possible?’

“这可能吗？”