經典科幻文學:《 基本上無害 Mostly Harmless》 第1章2

It looked again. All It got was an error message. It tried to look up the error message in its error message look-up table and couldn’t find that either. It allowed a couple of nanoseconds to go by while it went through all this again. Then it woke up its sector function sector function supervisor hit immediate problems. It called its supervising agent which hit problems too. Within a few millionths of a second virtual circuits that had lain dormant, some for years, some for centuries, were flaring into life throughout the ship. Something, somewhere, had gone terribly wrong, but none of the supervising programs could tell what it was. At every level, vital instructions were missing, and the instructions about what to do in the event of discovering that vital instructions were missing, were also missing.

它又找。結果只有一個出錯提示。它試着在它的《出錯信息手冊》裏查找那個出錯提示，結果同樣找不到。它花了兩個十億分之一秒把這些情況又過了一遍。然後它喚醒了它的部門事務主管。部門事務主管是直接處理問題的。它叫來了它自己的主管幹事，它也是處理問題的。幾個百萬分之一秒不到，全船的虛擬電路都齊刷刷地恢復了生氣，它們有的已經睡了幾年，有的已經睡着好幾個世紀了。在什麼地方有什麼東西出了大問題，可沒有一個監管程序知道問題究竟在哪兒。每個級別上都不見了各種關鍵指令，而關於在發現關鍵指令丟失時該如何處理的指令也沒了蹤影。

Small modules of software – agents – surged through the logical pathways, grouping, consulting, re-grouping. They quickly established that the ship’s memory, all the way back to its central mission module, was in tatters. No amount of interrogation could determine what it was that had happened. Even the central mission module itself seemed to be damaged.

小型的軟件模塊——執事們——在邏輯路徑裏跑來跑去，組合、商議、重新組合。它們很快得出結論，飛船的記憶體已經一塌糊塗，故障一路延伸到了中央任務模塊。再多的問詢也無法確定究竟出了什麼問題。就連中央任務模塊本身似乎也已經損壞。

This made the whole problem very simple to deal with. Replace the central mission module. There was another one, a backup, an exact duplicate of the original. It had to be physically replaced because, for safety reasons, there was no link whatsoever between the original and its backup. Once the central mission module was replaced it could itself supervise the reconstruction of the rest of the system in every detail, and all would be well.

這麼一來，問題倒變得很容易解決：換掉中央任務模塊就行。飛船上還有一個，一個備份，跟原件完全相同、半點不差。現在要做的就是手動完成替換，因爲考慮到安全原因，原件和備份之間向來不存在任何一點聯繫。一旦替換了中央任務模塊，它就可以獨當一面，監督系統其他部分完成重建。一切都會好的。

Robots were instructed to bring the backup central mission module from the shielded strong room, where they guarded it, to the ship’s logic chamber for installation.

於是，守護備份的機器人收到指令，把備份的中央任務模塊從保險庫帶到飛船的控制室，準備安裝。

This involved the lengthy exchange of emergency codes and protocols as the robots interrogated the agents as to the authenticity of the instructions. At last the robots were satisfied that all procedures were correct. They unpacked the backup central mission module from its storage housing, carried it out of the storage chamber, fell out of the ship and went spinning off into the void.

接下來自然牽扯到漫長的緊急密碼和協議交換，因爲機器人先得在執事那裏確認指令的真實性。最後機器人終於滿意了，所有程序都按部就班、正確無誤，於是，它們從存儲箱取出備份的中央任務模塊，把它帶出了保險庫，然後掉出飛船，打着旋兒消失在虛空裏。

This provided the first major clue as to what it was that was wrong.

關於飛船究竟出了什麼毛病，這算是第一個重大提示。

Further investigation quickly established what it was that had happened. A meteorite had knocked a large hole in the ship. The ship had not previously detected this because the meteorite had neatly knocked out that part of the ship’s processing equipment which was supposed to detect if the ship had been hit by a meteorite.

進一步的調查很快確認了事情的真相。一塊隕石在飛船上砸出了個大洞。之所以一開始沒有發現這個問題，是因爲隕石剛好砸掉了負責偵察飛船有沒有被隕石擊中的處理裝置。

The first thing to do was to try to seal up the hole. This turned out to be impossible, because the ship’s sensors couldn’t see that there was a hole, and the supervisors which should have said that the sensors weren’t working properly weren’t working properly and kept saying that the sensors were fine. The ship could only deduce the existence of the hole from the fact that the robots had clearly fallen out of it, taking its spare brain, which would have enabled it to see the hole, with them.

現在首先要做的就是試着把這個洞補起來。結果，這竟是一項不可能完成的任務，因爲飛船的傳感器看不見那個洞，而應該指出傳感器出了毛病的監管程序也出了毛病，不停地說傳感器好得很。飛船隻能推測出洞的存在，因爲顯然已經有機器人從那兒掉出去了，還捎帶弄丟了飛船的備用大腦，也就是那個能讓它看見大洞的東西。

The ship tried to think intelligently about this, failed, and then blanked out completely for a bit. It didn’t realise it had blanked out, of course, because it had blanked out. It was merely surprised to see the stars jump. After the third time the stars jumped the ship finally realised that it must be blanking out, and that it was time to take some serious decisions.

飛船試圖理性地思考這個問題，可惜沒有成功，然後它就徹底昏過去了一小會兒。當然它自己並沒有意識到自己昏過去了，因爲它已經昏過去了。它只是看到星星在跳，覺得有些吃驚。等第三次看見星星跳的時候，它終於意識到自己肯定是昏過去了，於是認定必須立刻對某些重大問題做出決定。

It relaxed.

它放鬆下來。

Then it realised it hadn’t actually taken the serious decisions yet and panicked. It blanked out again for a bit. When it awoke again it sealed all the bulkheads around where it knew the unseen hole must be.

然後它意識到那些重大決定還沒做呢，於是就驚慌失措起來。它又昏過去了一小會兒。這回醒來的時候，它用所有的防水材料堵起了那個它知道存在、卻看不見的洞所在的位置。

It clearly hadn’t got to its destination yet, it thought, fitfully, but since it no longer had the faintest idea where its destination was or how to reach it, there seemed to be little point in continuing. It consulted what tiny scraps of instructions it could reconstruct from the tatters of its central mission module.

自己顯然還沒有抵達目的地，它斷斷續續地想，不過既然它已經完全不曉得目的地在哪兒或者應該怎麼過去，繼續走彷彿也沒什麼意思了。它努力在自己的中央任務模塊裏蒐集起剩下的那點渣子，重建出幾句零零碎碎的指令。

‘Your !!!!! !!!!! !!!!! year mission is to !!!!! !!!!! !!!!!, !!!!!, !!!!! !!!!! !!!!! !!!!!, land !!!!! !!!!! !!!!! a safe distance !!!!! !!!!! monitor it !!!!! !!!!! !!!!!…’

“你們的！！！！！ ！！！！！ ！！！！！年任務是！！！！！ ！！！！！ ！！！！！，！！！！！，！！！！！ ！！！！！ ！！！！！！ ！！！！！， 地！！！！！！ ！！！！！！ ！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！一段安全距離！！！！！ ！！！！！ ！！！！！對它進行監控！！！！！ ！！！！！ ！！！！！……”

All of the rest was complete garbage.

其餘的部分就完全是垃圾了。

Before it blanked out for good the ship would have to pass on those instructions, such as they were, to its more primitive subsidiary systems.

在它徹底昏迷之前，飛船必須把這些個可憐巴巴的指示傳遞給自己那些比較原始的輔助系統。

It must also revive all of its crew.

它還必須喚醒所有船員。

There was another problem. While the crew was in hibernation, the minds of all of its members, their memories, their identities and their understanding of what they had come to do, had all been transferred into the ship’s central mission module for safe keeping. The crew would not have the faintest idea of who they were or what they were doing there. Oh well.

還有一個問題。船員冬眠的時候，所有成員的大腦——他們的記憶、他們的身份以及他們對自己任務的理解——全都轉移到了飛船的中央任務模塊，由它保管。醒過來以後他們壓根兒不會知道自己是誰或者他們在這兒幹嗎。

Just before it blanked out for the final time, the ship realised that its engines were beginning to give out too.

最後一次昏迷之前，飛船意識到自己的引擎也開始不行了。

The ship and its revived and confused crew coasted on under the control of its subsidiary automatic systems, which simply looked to land wherever they could find to land and monitor whatever they could find to monitor.

船員甦醒，跟飛船一道滑行，輔助自動控制系統開始操作，搜尋着陸地點，能找到哪兒算哪兒，能監控什麼就監控什麼。

As far as finding something to land on was concerned, they didn’t do very well. The planet they found was desolately cold and lonely, so achingly far from the sun that should warm it, that it took all of the Envir-O-Form machinery and LifeSupport-O-Systems they carried with them to render it, or at least enough parts of it, habitable. There were better planets nearer in, but the ship’s Strateej-O-Mat was obviously locked into Lurk mode and chose the most distant and unobtrusive planet and, furthermore, would not be gainsaid by anybody other than the ship’s Chief Strategic Officer. Since everybody on the ship had lost their minds no one knew who the Chief Strategic Officer was or, even if he could have been identified, how he was supposed to go about gainsaying the ship’s Strateej-O-Mat.

找地方降落這部分進行得不大順利。他們找到的那個行星冷颼颼的，一片荒涼，跟應該溫暖它的太陽隔了十萬八千里。他們用盡了攜帶的環境塑形機和生命維持系統才把它，或者至少是它上頭足夠大的一部分，搞成能住人的模樣。靠恆星近些的地方倒有更好的行星，可飛船的戰略監管系統顯然鎖定在了潛伏模式，所以才選了最遠最不打眼的地方，而且任何人反對都無效，除非飛船的戰略總指揮親自說話。可既然大家都失了憶，誰還知道戰略總指揮到底是哪一個？再說就算能把他找出來，也沒人曉得他該怎麼去反對飛船的戰略監管系統。

As far as finding something to monitor was concerned, though, they hit solid gold.

至於尋找監控對象這部分，他們可算是挖到了寶。