經典科幻文學:《基本上無害 Mostly Harmless》 第17章2
‘No obviously not,’ said the bird after a few seconds. ‘Good, well your hearing range is obviously between 20 and 16 KHz. So. Is this comfortable for you?’ it said in a pleasant light tenor. ‘No uncomfortable harmonics screeching away in the upper register? Obviously not. Good. I can use those as data channels. Now. How many of me can you see?’
“不，顯然不行。”幾秒鐘後那隻鳥說，“好吧，那，你的聽力範圍顯然在20赫茲到16000赫茲之間。這種聲音聽着舒服嗎？”它發出一種好聽的男聲，“上音域裏沒有什麼刺耳的泛音讓你不快嗎？顯然沒有。很好，我可以把這些作爲數據通道。好了，你能看見幾個我？”
Suddenly the air was full of nothing but interlocking birds.
突然之間，空氣裏塞滿了互相連接的鳥。
Random was well used to spending time in virtual realities, but this was something far weirder than anything she had previously encountered. It was as if the whole geometry of space was redefined in seamless bird shapes.
蘭登早習慣了在虛擬世界裏消磨時間，但這比她過去遇見的任何東西都要詭異的多。就好像整個空間的幾何體系都被無縫連接的鳥重新定義了一遍似的。
Random gasped and flung her arms round her face, her arms moving through bird-shaped space.
蘭登倒抽了一口氣，趕緊拿胳膊捂住自己的臉，她的胳膊穿過了鳥的空間。
‘Hmmm, obviously way too many,’ said the bird. ‘How about now?’
“唔，顯然太多了些。”鳥說，“現在怎麼樣？”
It concertina-ed into a tunnel of birds, as if it was a bird caught between parallel mirrors, reflecting infinitely into the distance.
它摺疊成一條無數只鳥壘成的隧道，就好像一隻鳥映在平行的鏡子裏，把身影無限地傳向遠方。
‘What are you?’ shouted Random.
“你是個什麼東西？”蘭登喊道。
‘We’ll come to that in a minute,’ said the bird. ‘Just how many, please?’
“這個我們馬上就要講到了。”鳥說，“告訴我多少個，請？”
‘Well, you’re sort of…’ Random gestured helplessly off into the distance.
“唔，你就好像……”蘭登無助地朝遠處做個手勢。
‘I see, still infinite in extent, but at least we’re homing in on the right dimensional matrix. Good. No, the answer is an orange and two lemons.’
“明白了，長度上仍然是無限的，但至少我們已經達到了正確的空間矩陣。好，不，答案是一個橙子和兩個檸檬。”
‘Lemons?’
“檸檬？”
‘If I have three lemons and three oranges and I lose two oranges and a lemon what do I have left?’
“如果我有三個檸檬和三個橙子，然後我丟了兩個橙子和一個檸檬，那麼我還剩下些什麼？”
‘Huh?’
“什麼？”
