經典科幻文學:《 基本上無害 Mostly Harmless》 第2章10

What about all those star charts and planetary motions and so? We all knew (apparently) what happened when Neptune was in Virgo, and so on, but what about when Rupert was rising? Wouldn’t the whole of astrology have to be rethought? Wouldn’t now perhaps be a good time to own up that it was all just a load of hogwash and instead take up pig-farming, the principles of which were founded on some kind of rational basis? If we’d known about Rupert three years ago, might President Hudson have been eating the boysenberry flavour on Thursday rather than Friday? Might Damascus still be standing? That sort of thing.

那一大堆的星象圖、行星運動圖又怎麼說？咱們都知道當海王星在室女宮的時候會怎麼樣，以及諸如此類的事。這是過去的星象理論。可當魯珀特上升的時候又會怎麼樣？整個占星術是不是都得重新來過？或者我們該不該乾脆承認，這一切其實不過是堆豬食，大家還不如都轉行養豬算了？說到底，養豬這一行至少還有些理性基礎。如果三年前咱們就發現了魯珀特，哈德遜總統會不會把星期五的波森莓點心改到星期四吃？大馬士革會不會還立着沒倒？等等等等。

Gail Andrews had taken it all reasonably well. She was just starting to recover from the initial onslaught, when she made the rather serious mistake of trying to shake Tricia off by talking smoothly about diurnal arcs, right ascensions and some of the more abstruse areas of three-dimensional trigonometry.

其實蓋爾?安德魯斯應付得還算不壞。她努力想從崔茜卡的開場大屠殺中恢復過來，於是搬出週日弧、上升角以及三維三角學裏一大堆更加深奧的理論，巴望着能從容不迫地把對方糊弄過去。然而很快她就大吃一驚，發現自己完全打錯了主意。

To her shock she discovered that everything she delivered to Tricia came right back at her with more spin on it than she could cope with. Nobody had warned Gail that being a TV bimbo was, for Tricia, her second stab at a role in life. Behind her Channel lip gloss, her coupe sauvage and her crystal blue contact lenses lay a brain that had acquired for itself, in an earlier, abandoned phase of her life, a first class degree in mathematics and a doctorate in astrophysics.

無論她扔給崔茜卡什麼，對方都能加倍奉還，她壓根兒對付不來。沒人警告過她，當電視美女只不過是崔茜卡這輩子的第二選擇。在她的名牌口紅、她的名師髮型和她的水晶藍隱形眼鏡背後，崔茜卡有個了不起的腦子，這個腦子曾經爲她拿過一個第一流的數學博士學位，加上一個天體物理學的博士學位。

As she was getting into the elevator Tricia, slightly preoccupied, realised she had left her bag in her room and wondered whether to duck back out and get it. No. It was probably safer where it was and there wasn’t behind her.

崔茜卡有些心不在焉地走進電梯，突然意識到自己把包落在了房間裏。她考慮着要不要趕回去把它拿上。不。它待在房間裏多半更安全些，再說裏頭也沒裝着什麼她特別需要的東西。電梯門在她身後關上，她沒動彈。

Besides, she told herself, taking a deep breath, if life had taught her anything it was this:

再說了，她深吸一口氣，告訴自己說，如果生活真的教會了她什麼，那就是：

Never go back for your bag.

永遠不要回去拿你的包。

As the elevator went down she stared up at the ceiling in a rather intent way. Anyone who didn’t know Tricia McMillan better would have said that that was exactly the way people sometimes stared upwards when they were trying to hold back tears. She must have been staring at the tiny security video camera mounted up in the corner.

電梯下降的時候，她的眼睛緊緊盯着天花板。不怎麼了解崔茜卡?麥克米倫的人可能會說，想憋住眼淚的時候大家常這麼往上看，跟她現在一模一樣。但崔茜卡看的是裝在角落裏的微型攝像機。

She marched rather briskly out of the elevator a minute later, and went up to the reception desk again.

一分鐘之後，她精神抖擻地大步走出電梯。她又去了前臺。

‘Now, I’m going to write this out,’ she said, ‘because I don’t want anything to go wrong.’

“我說，我還是把它寫下來吧，”她說，“我可不想出任何岔子。”

She wrote her name in large letters on a piece of paper, then her room number, then ‘IN THE BAR’ and gave it to the receptionist’ who looked at it.

她在一張紙上寫下了自己的姓名，字寫得特別大；接下來是她的房間號，還有“在酒吧”。然後她把紙遞給接待，對方看了看。

‘That’s in case there’s a message for me. OK?’

“如果有口信給我的話，明白？”

The receptionist continued to look at it.

接待還在看。

‘You want me to see if she’s in her room?’ he said.

“你是想讓我幫你看看她在不在房間嗎？”他問。

Two minutes later, Tricia swivelled into the bar seat next to Gail Andrews, who was sitting in front of a glass of white wine.

兩分鐘之後，崔茜卡一陣風似的旋進蓋爾?安德魯斯身邊的座椅。蓋爾面前放着杯白葡萄酒。

‘You struck me as the sort of person who preferred to sit up at the bar rather than demurely at a table,’ she said.

“我覺得你是那種寧願坐吧檯，也不願規規矩矩地找張桌子坐的人。”她說。

This was true, and caught Tricia a little by surprise.

這話完全正確，讓崔茜卡有些猝不及防。

‘Vodka?’ said Gail.

“伏特加？”蓋爾問。