經典科幻文學:《基本上無害 Mostly Harmless》 第21章9

That was it. She was exhausted and she had had a nervous breakdown and had started hallucinating some time after she got home. She had dreamt the whole story. An alien race of people dispossessed of their own lives and histories, stuck on a remote outpost of our solar system and filling their cultural vacuum with our cultural junk. Ha! It was nature’s way of telling her to check into an expensive medical establishment very quickly.

就是這個。她精疲力盡時精神崩潰，回家之後不久就開始幻想。整個故事都是黃粱一夢。一個失去了自己生活和歷史的外星種族，困在我們太陽系的邊遠哨所，用我們的文化垃圾來填補他們的文化空缺。哈！這是大自然在告訴她，她該趕緊往一家高收費的醫療機構報到了。

She was very, very sick. She looked at how many large coffees she’d got through as well, and realised how heavily she was breathing and how fast.

她病得非常嚴重。她又看了眼被自己幹掉的大杯咖啡，發現數量相當可觀，同時還意識到自己的呼吸是多麼沉重，多麼緩慢。

Part of solving any problem, she told herself, was realising that you had it. She started to bring her breathing under control. She had caught herself in time. She had seen where she was. She was on the way back from whatever psychological precipice she had been on the brink of. She started to calm down, to calm down, to calm down. She sat back in the chair and closed her eyes.

對於任何問題，她告訴自己，意識到它的存在都是解決它的一部分。她開始控制呼吸。她已經阻止了自己。她看出了自己的問題。現在她正從那不論什麼精神懸崖上往後退。她開始冷靜下來，冷靜，冷靜。她靠在椅背上，閉上眼睛。

After a while, now that she was breathing normally again, she opened them again.

過了一會，她覺得自己的呼吸已經平穩下來，於是再次睜開眼睛。

So where had she got this tape from then?

那這盤帶子又是從哪兒來的？

It was still running.

它還在放着。

All right. It was a fake.

好吧，這是僞造的。

She had faked it herself, that was it.

她自己僞造的，就這麼回事。

It must have been her who had faked it because her voice was all over the soundtrack, asking questions. Every now and then the camera would swing down at the end of a shot and she would see her own feet in her own shoes. She had faked it and she had no recollection of faking it or any idea of why she had done it.

僞造這盤帶子的人肯定是她，因爲音軌上到處都是她的聲音，不停地提問題。時不時的，在一段拍攝結束後她會把攝像機放下，然後帶子上就會出現自己的腳，腳上穿着她自己的鞋子。她僞造了這盤帶子，可她不記得自己這麼幹過，也想不起來自己爲什麼要這麼幹。

Her breathing was getting hectic again as she watched the snowy, flickering screen.

看着晃來晃去，滿是雪花的屏幕，崔西卡的呼吸又亂了。

She must still be hallucinating.

她肯定還在幻想。

She shook her head, trying to make it go away. She had no memory of faking any of this very obviously fake stuff. On the other hand she did seem to have memories that were very like the faked stuff. She continued to watch in a bewildered trance.

她甩甩頭，想擺脫這感覺。她不記得僞造了這盤顯然是僞造的帶子。另一方面，她似乎又的確有一些跟僞造的內容非常相似的記憶。她困惑，迷茫，恍恍惚惚地繼續往下看。

The person she imagined to be called the Leader was questioning her about astrology and she was answering smoothly and calmly. Only she could detect the well-disguised rising panic in her own voice.

在她的臆想中，名叫首領的那個人向她詢問了許多關於占星術的問題。她的回答得體又鎮定。只有她自己才能察覺，其實在心底，她正越來越慌張。

The Leader pushed a button, and a maroon velvet wall slid aside, revealing a large bank of flat TV monitors.

首領按了一個鈕，一堵暗紫色天鵝絨牆壁劃開，露出一大片平板電視監視器。