經典科幻文學:《基本上無害 Mostly Harmless》 第21章1

Misty grey buildings loomed and flickered. They bounced up and down in a highly embarrassing way.

霧濛濛的灰色大樓若隱若現地閃爍着。它們上上下下地蹦，樣子非常讓人難堪。

What sort of buildings were they?

它們是什麼大樓？

What were they for? What did they remind her of?

它們幹嘛用的？它們讓她想到了什麼？

It’s so difficult to know what things are supposed to be when you suddenly turn up unexpectedly on a different world which has a different culture, a different set of the most basic assumptions about life, and also incredibly dull and meaningless architecture.

你突然毫無準備地出現在一個不同的世界，這裏有不同的文化，對生命有不同的基本假設，而且還有無聊到不可思議，毫無意義的建築物。在這種情況下，你真的很難鬧明白自己看見的究竟是什麼東西。

The sky above the buildings was a cold and hostile black. The stars, which should have been blindingly brilliant points of light this far from the sun were blurred and dulled by the thickness of the huge shielding bubble. Perspex or something like it. Something dull and heavy anyway.

大樓上的天空是一種冰冷而充滿敵意的黑色。離太陽這麼遠，星星本該是些亮的炫目的光點，但事實上它們卻被厚厚的大防護泡搞的模糊不清，暗淡無光。

Tricia wound the tape back again to the beginning.

崔茜卡把帶子倒回到開頭。

She knew there was something slightly odd about it.

她知道里頭肯定有些什麼古怪。

Well, in fact, there were about a million things that were slightly odd about it, but there was one that was nagging at her and she hadn’t quite got it.

好吧，其實大概一百萬樣東西都有些古怪，但有一樣在不停地困擾她，可她就是拿不準那究竟是什麼。

She sighed and yawned.

她一面打了個哈欠。

As she waited for the tape to rewind she cleared away some of the dirty polystyrene coffee cups that had accumulated on the editing desk and tipped them into the bin.

趁倒帶的時間她把編輯臺上積累的聚苯乙烯咖啡杯收攏，丟進了垃圾桶裏。