經典科幻文學:《 基本上無害 Mostly Harmless》 第2章12

‘I know that astrology isn’t a science,’ said Gail. ‘Of course it isn’t. It’s just an arbitrary set of rules like chess or tennis or, what’s that strange thing you British play?’

“我知道占星術不是什麼科學。”蓋爾道，“這是當然的。它不過是一套武斷的規則，就好像網球，或者象棋，或者，你們英國人搞的那個挺奇怪的東西，叫什麼來着？”

‘Er, cricket? Self-loathing?’

“呃，板球？自我厭惡？”

‘Parliamentary democracy. The rules just kind of got there. They don’t make any kind of sense except in terms of themselves. But when you start to exercise those rules, all sorts of processes start to happen and you start to find out all sorts of stuff about people. In astrology the rules happen to be about stars and planets, but they could be about ducks and drakes for all the difference it would make. It’s just a way of thinking about a problem which lets the shape of that problem begin to emerge. The more rules, the tinier the rules, the more arbitrary they are, the better. It’s like throwing a handful of fine graphite dust on a piece of paper to see where the hidden indentations are. It lets you see the words that were written on the piece of paper above it that’s now been taken away and hidden. The graphite’s not important. It’s just the means of revealing their indentations. So you see, astrology’s nothing to do with astronomy. It’s just to do with people thinking about people.

“議會民主。那些規則都是不知怎麼就自個兒冒出來的。除了從它們自己的角度去看，所有的規則都完全沒有意義。然而一旦你開始應用這些規則，就會引發各種各樣的進程，你可以從中發現相關諸人的許多事情。在占星術裏，這些規則碰巧是關於恆星和行星的，可就算它們是關於母鴨子公鴨子的也不會有什麼區別。這不過是理解問題的一種方式，它能讓問題的形狀逐漸顯露出來。規則越多、越細、越武斷，效果就越好。這就好像往一張紙上撒一把碾細的石墨粉，然後去尋找隱藏的印記在哪兒。它能幫你看出上一張紙上曾經寫過什麼東西。石墨並不重要。它只是揭示印記的一種方法。所以你看，占星術跟天文學一點關係也沒有。它只是人在考慮人的事。

‘So when you got so, I don’t know, so emotionally focused on stars and planets this morning, I began to think, she’s not angry about astrology, she really is angry and unhappy about actual stars and planets. People usually only get that unhappy and angry when they’ve lost something. That’s all I could think and I couldn’t make any more sense of it than that. So I came to see if you were OK.’

“所以今天早上，你說起恆星、行星時那麼……那麼激動，我就開始想，她不是在生占星術的氣，真正讓她生氣和不快的是天上的恆星和行星。基本上，我們只有在失去了什麼東西的時候纔會那麼生氣和不快。我老想着這事兒，但又想不出什麼頭緒來，所以就來看看你怎麼樣了。”

Tricia was stunned.

崔茜卡聽得目瞪口呆。

One part of her brain had already got started on all sorts of stuff. It was busy constructing all sorts of rebuttals to do with how ridiculous newspaper horoscopes were and the sort of statistical tricks they played on people. But gradually it petered out, because it realised that the rest of her brain wasn’t listening. She had been completely stunned.

她的大腦裏有一部分已經開始忙活，忙着組織各種各樣的反駁，什麼報紙上的占星專欄有多麼可笑，還有它是如何利用統計學的把戲騙人之類。但漸漸地它自己停了下來，因爲它意識到腦袋的其他部分壓根兒沒在聽。她完全被震住了。

She had just been told, by a total stranger, something she’d kept completely secret for seventeen years.

一個徹頭徹尾的陌生人，剛剛說出了她對全世界隱瞞了十七年的祕密。

She turned to look at Gail

她扭頭看着蓋爾。

‘I…’

“我……”

She stopped.

她停下來。

A tiny security camera up behind the bar had turned to follow her movement. This completely flummoxed her. Most people would not have noticed it. It was not designed to be noticed. It was not designed to suggest that nowadays even an expensive and elegant hotel in New York couldn’t be sure that its clientele wasn’t suddenly going to pull a gun or not wear a tie. But carefully hidden though it was behind the vodka, it couldn’t deceive the finely honed instinct of a TV anchor person, which was to know exactly when a camera was turning to look at her.

在她扭頭的時候，吧檯背後一個細小的攝像頭也開始轉動。這完全打亂了她的節奏。大多數人都不會注意到它。它原本就不是設計來讓人注意的。它原本就不是設計來暗示說，如今就連紐約一家昂貴高雅的酒店也拿不準自己的顧客會不會突然掏出把槍來，或者不打領帶。可儘管它小心翼翼地躲在伏特加背後，還是騙不過一個新聞主播精心打磨的直覺。這種直覺專門用來偵測攝像機在什麼時候對準了自己——分秒不差。

‘Is something wrong?’ asked Gail.

“怎麼了？”蓋爾問。

‘No, I… I have to say that you’ve rather astonished me,’ said Tricia. She decided to ignore the security camera. It was just her imagination playing tricks with her because she had television so much on her mind today. It wasn’t the first time it had happened. A traffic monitoring camera, she was convinced, had swung round to follow her as she walked past it, and a security camera in Bloomingdales had seemed to make a particular point of watching her trying on hats. She was obviously going dotty. She had even imagined that a bird in Central Park had been peering at her rather intently.

“沒什麼，我……我得說你真讓我吃了一驚。”崔茜卡決定不去管攝像頭。那肯定是她的想象力在搗鬼，因爲一整天她滿腦子都是電視。這種事兒也不是頭一次了。記得有天她走過一個交通攝像頭，覺得那東西一路扭過來目送她離開；還有一次在百貨公司，一個攝像頭好像專門看着她試帽子。她大概快瘋了。在中央公園的時候，她甚至想象有隻鳥挺在意地望着自己。

She decided to put it out of her mind and took a sip of her vodka. Someone was walking round the bar asking people if they were Mr. MacManus.

崔茜卡決定忘掉這事兒，於是抿了口伏特加。有人在酒吧裏四處晃悠，問大家是不是馬克馬努斯先生。

‘OK,’ she said, suddenly blurting it out. ‘I don’t know how you worked it out, but…’

“好吧。”她突然衝口而出，“我不知道你是怎麼想出來的，可……”

‘I didn’t work it out, as you put it. I just listened to what you were saying.’

“我沒想出什麼來，不是像你說的那樣。我只是聽你說話而已。”

‘What I lost, I think, was a whole other life.’

“我失去的，我想，是另一種生活。”