經典科幻文學:《 基本上無害 Mostly Harmless》 第12章7

He pulled his newly acquired credit card from his pocket, slid it into a crack where the window met its surrounding frame, and did something a rocket would not have been able to do. He wiggled it around a bit. He felt a catch slip. He slid the window open and almost fell backwards off the ledge laughing, giving thanks as he did so for the Great Ventilation and Telephone Riots of SrDt 3454.

他從口袋裏掏出不久前到手的信用卡，把它插進玻璃與窗框交匯處的縫隙，迅速完成了一枚導彈沒法完成的壯舉。他前後左右地輕輕扭動信用卡。他感到一個掛鉤脫開了。他把窗戶拉開，哈哈大笑，差點翻到窗戶底下去。

The Great Ventilation and Telephone Riots of SrDt 3454 had started off as just a lot of hot air. Hot air was, of course, the problem that ventilation was supposed to solve and generally it had solved the problem reasonably well up to the point when someone invented air-conditioning, which solved the problem far more throbbingly.

福特.長官應該感謝的是SrDt 3454通風與電話大暴動。SrDt 3454通風與電話大暴動的起因很簡單，不過是許許多多的熱氣。熱氣當然是通風應該解決的毛病，而且通常說來它都把這個問題解決得比較令人滿意，直到有人發明了空調。空調解決這個問題的方式當然要帥得多了。

And that was all well and good provided you could stand the noise and the dribbling until someone else came up with something even sexier and smarter than air-conditioning which was called in-building climate control.

這一切當然都很好很不錯，只要你受得了它嗡嗡直響滴水吧嗒，於是就有人發明了比空調還要性感還要機靈的東西，它名叫室內氣候控制系統。

Now this was quite something.

說起來，這可是個了不得的玩意。

The major differences from just ordinary air-conditioning were that it was thrillingly more expensive, involved a huge amount of sophisticated measuring and regulating equipment which was far better at knowing, moment by moment, what kind of air people wanted to breathe than mere people did.

跟尋常普通的空調相比，它最大的不同就是貴得讓人毛骨悚然，而且涉及數量巨大，奧祕精深的測量與調節裝備。它們在任何時刻都比那些個一般人更能瞭解人類想要呼吸什麼樣的空氣。

It also meant that, to be sure that mere people didn’t muck up the sophisticated calculations which the system was making on their behalf, all the windows in the buildings were built sealed shut. This is true.

這還意味着，爲了確保那些個一般人不會攪亂系統爲他們做出的精妙計算，樓裏的所有窗戶都必須封死。沒錯，就是這樣。

While the systems were being installed, a number of people who were going to work in the buildings found themselves having conversations with Breathe-o-Smart systems fitters which went something like this:

系統安裝好以後，幾個到大樓裏上班的人發現自己跟聰明呼吸系統調試器之間有了這樣的對話：

‘But what if we want to have the windows open?’

“可如果我們想把窗戶打開怎麼辦？”

‘You won’t want to have the windows open with new Breathe-o-Smart.

“有了新的聰明呼吸系統，你們不會想開窗戶的。”

‘Yes but supposing we just wanted to have them open for a little bit?’

“沒錯，可假設我們就是想把窗戶打開那麼一點點呢？”

‘You won’t want to have them open even for a little bit. The new Breathe-o-Smart system will see to that.’

“你們連一點點都不會想把窗戶打開的，新的聰明呼吸系統可以確保這一點。”

‘Hmmm.’

“唔。”