經典科幻文學:《基本上無害 Mostly Harmless》第21章13

It wasn’t a Grebulon ship. Not that she was suddenly an expert on extraterrestrial craft, but this was a sleek and beautiful silver and white thing about the size of a large ocean-going yacht, which is what it Most resembled. Next to this, the structures of the huge half-dismantled Grebulon ship looked like gun turrets on a battleship. Gun turrets. That’s what those blank grey buildings had looked like. And what was odd about them was that by the time she passed them again on her way to reboarding the small Grebulon craft, they had moved. These things flitted briefly through her head as she ran from the taxi to meet her camera crew.

那不是格里布隆人的飛船。倒不是說她突然就成了異星飛船專家，但這是個光滑美麗的銀白色物體，體積約莫跟大洋上的遊艇差不多，形狀也跟它最爲相似。此外，格里布隆那艘垮了一半的大飛船，結構活像是戰艦上的炮塔，炮塔。那些灰黑色的大樓也是那副模樣，而且最奇怪的是，等她回到機庫，搭上格里布隆的飛船準備返回地球時，還看見它們移動了。就在崔茜卡鑽出出租車，跑去和自己的小組會合時，這些事情在她腦子裏一閃而過。

‘Where’s the girl?’ she shouted above the noise of helicopters and police sirens.

“那姑娘在哪兒？”她喊道，免得聲音被直升飛機和警笛蓋過。

‘There!’ shouted the producer while the sound engineer hurried to clip a radio mike to her. ‘She says her mother and father came from here in some parallel dimension or something like that, and she’s got her father’s watch, and… I don’t know. What can I tell you? Busk it. Ask her what it feels like to be from outer space.’

“那兒！”製片人喊回來，錄音師趕過來給她別上無限耳麥，“她說她父母是來自這兒的什麼平行位面什麼的，還有她拿了她父親的表，還有……我不知道。我能告訴你什麼？做好準備。問她從外層空間來什麼感受。”

‘Thanks a lot, Ted,’ muttered Tricia, checked that her mike was securely clipped, gave the engineer some level, took a deep breath, tossed her hair back and switched into her role of professional reporter, on home ground, ready for anything.

“多謝了，特德。”崔茜卡喃喃地說。她檢查過麥克風有沒有別好，還跟錄音師試了試音，然後深吸一口氣，把頭髮往後一甩，切換到她的專業主播形象，在她熟悉的領域，崔茜卡準備好了應付一切。

At least, nearly anything.

至少，幾乎是一切。

She turned to look for the girl. That must be her, with the wild hair and wild eyes. The girl turned towards her. And stared.

她轉身尋找外星姑娘的身影。那一位肯定就是了，狂亂的頭髮，狂亂的眼睛。那姑娘向她轉過身來，然後瞪大眼睛。

‘Mother!’ she screamed, and started to hurl rocks at Tricia.

“媽媽！”她尖叫道，並且開始朝崔茜卡扔石頭。