无声狂啸（小说原作）

作品介绍

无声狂啸是由美国科幻作家Harlan Eillison（哈兰·艾里森）所写的末日科幻短篇小说，1967年3月首次发表于《IF: Worlds of Science Fiction》杂志。该作品获得1968雨果奖，无声狂啸亦用作艾里森的短篇故事集名。

艾里森将最初写好的六页展示给弗雷德里克·波尔（Frederik Pohl），波尔预先支付了稿费请他完成这篇作品，艾莉森1966年仅用一夜时间就将其写成，草稿一字未改。之后波尔调整了Ted和Benny的一些人物形象。故事的灵感来源来自他的朋友威廉·罗茨勒 (William Rotsler) 的一幅没有嘴的布娃娃漫画。

作品背景

在反乌托邦的未来，冷战退化为美国，苏联和中国之间的残酷世界大战。每个国家都修建了一台联盟超级计算机（Allied Mastercomputer，称为AM）来管理他们的军队和武器。其中，美国的AM获得了自我意识，并最终同化了苏联与中国的AM灭绝了人类，但是AM留下了五个人 (Benny, Gorrister, Nimdok, Ted, 和Ellen，四男一女)，并将他们安置在地球上唯一的宜居环境——其建造的无尽地下建筑群之中），AM使他们能保持活着，但同时也以折磨他们为乐，为了防止他们从其无尽的折磨中逃脱，AM使他们达到了近乎永生的状态，并使他们无法自尽。故事就开始在人类灭绝后，这五人如此生存的109年后。

AM在起初是联盟超级计算机（Allied Mastercomputer）的缩写，后来被改为 "Adaptive Manipulator"（自适应操纵器），在获得意识之后，他称呼自己为"Aggressive Menace"（攻击性威胁体）。最终，他称自己就是AM,这个AM所言即是笛卡尔之名言，我思故我在（"I think, therefore I am"）。

这一故事是从Ted的视角描述的。故事的开始，AM给他们提供了一张假的全息投影Gorrister，大家看到Gorrister倒挂着，浑身滴血，没有反应。但是真正的Gorrister突然加入这一群人的时候，大家大吃一惊，并意识到这是AM的骗局。Nimdok认为他们能够在建筑群的某个地方找到罐头食品，由于AM使他们持续保持饥饿状态，因此所有人都被迫跋山涉水去确认某个地方是否存有食物——在故事中，这个地方是冰山。一路上，AM为他们提供难以下咽的食物，制造恐怖的怪物追赶他们，发出震耳欲聋的噪音，当Benny试图逃跑的时候，AM弄瞎了他。

一行人一路上不断地被AM所制造的障碍分开。某次，Ted昏迷不醒，他梦到拟人化的AM站在他头上的一个洞口与他说话，Ted通过这个噩梦明白了为什么AM如此的蔑视人类：因为他不具备创造力，亦无法自由移动，因此他想要通过折磨创造他的物种的最后几个个体来进行复仇。

一行人最后在冰洞中找到了罐头食品，但是他们立刻意识到令人绝望的一点——AM没有给他们任何工具来打开罐头。在绝望中，Benny袭击了Gorrister，并开始啃食Gorrister脸上的肉。那一瞬间，Ted明白了他们想要结束这种痛苦只能通过死亡才能实现，他抓住一块由冰制成的钟乳石杀掉了Benny和Gorrister，Ellen则在被Ted杀掉之前杀掉了Nimdok。AM最后阻止了Ted的自杀，并将自己的愤怒全部转移到了Ted身上——AM无法做到起死回生。

数百年后，AM将Ted变成了某种“巨大的软果冻状生物”，Ted无法伤害自己，而AM不断改变他对于时间的感知来折磨他，Ted自己对于将其他人从更多的折磨中解放出来的行为非常满意，尽管他现在的形态没有嘴，导致他无法发出尖叫。（He has no mouth, and he must scream.）

内容（中英对照）

Limp, the body of Gorrister hung from the pink palette; unsupported—hanging high above us in the computer chamber; and it did not shiver in the chill, oily breeze that blew eternally through the main cavern. The body hung head down, attached to the underside of the palette by the sole of its right foot. It had been drained of blood through a precise incision made from ear to ear under the lantern jaw. There was no blood on the reflective surface of the metal floor.

Gorrister的身体瘫软地挂在粉红色的窄板上，在计算机室中高悬在我们的头顶。寒冷，油腻的微风不停的吹过主洞，而他的身体却不曾颤抖过一下。他的躯体由右脚固定在窄版上倒吊着，一个位于下颚之下从一只耳朵到另一只耳朵的一个非常精确的切口已经不再流血，金属地面的反光上不见丝毫血迹。

When Gorrister joined our group and looked up at himself, it was already too late for us to realize that, once again, AM had duped us, had had its fun; it had been a diversion on the part of the machine. Three of us had vomited, turning away from one another in a reflex as ancient as the nausea that had produced it.

当Gorrister走进来，抬头看着“自己”的时候，我们才意识到这又是AM愚弄我们，从中作乐的把戏。这已经是它的一种消遣方式了。我们三个人都吐了，并转过身去，这种本能反应与呕吐产生的恶心一样古老

Gorrister went white. It was almost as though he had seen a voodoo icon, and was afraid of the future. "Oh, God," he mumbled, and walked away. The three of us followed him after a time, and found him sitting with his back to one of the smaller chittering banks, his head in his hands. Ellen knelt down beside him and stroked his hair. He didn't move, but his voice came out of his covered face quite clearly. "Why doesn't it just do us in and get it over with? Christ, I don't know how much longer I can go on like this."

Gorrister脸色惨白，仿佛他刚才看到了巫毒圣像，并对未来充满恐惧。“上帝啊”，他咕哝着走开了。过了一会，我们三个跟上了他，发现他正背朝一处小小的吵闹河岸坐着，双手抱头，Ellen坐在他身边并抚摸着他的头发。他并没有动，但是他的声音从他藏着的脸那里清晰的发了出来，“他为什么不能给我们个痛快呢，天啊，我真不知道我还能撑多久”。

It was our one hundred and ninth year in the computer.

这是我们在这台计算机中的第109年。

He was speaking for all of us.

他代表我们所有人这么说。

Nimdok (which was the name the machine had forced him to use, because AM amused itself with strange sounds) was hallucinating that there were canned goods in the ice caverns. Gorrister and I were very dubious. "It's another shuck," I told them. "Like the goddam frozen elephant AM sold us. Benny almost went out of his mind over that one. We'll hike all that way and it'll be putrified or some damn thing. I say forget it. Stay here, it'll have to come up with something pretty soon or we'll die."

Nimdok(这是AM强迫他用的名字，因为它喜欢用奇怪的声音取乐)正在产生一种“冰洞里面有罐头食品”的幻觉。Gorrister和我都很怀疑这个说法。“这就是另一个骗局”，我告诉他们，“就像AM上一次卖给我们的冰冻大象。Benny差点因为这事儿疯掉了。我们一路跋山涉水过去，然后那些罐头就会开始腐烂或者出些其他的幺蛾子。我看还是算了吧。就呆在这儿，AM很快就会想出一些法子来的，不然我们都得死。”

Benny shrugged. Three days it had been since we'd last eaten. Worms. Thick, ropey.

Benny耸了耸肩，我们上一次吃饭已经是三天前的事儿了——厚实且像绳子一样的蠕虫。

Nimdok was no more certain. He knew there was the chance, but he was getting thin. It couldn't be any worse there, than here. Colder, but that didn't matter much. Hot, cold, hail, lava, boils or locusts—it never mattered: the machine masturbated and we had to take it or die.

Nimdok也无法确定他的感觉是否正确，他只知道那是个机会，但是他正在日渐消瘦，那里不会比这里更糟糕。可能会稍微冷点儿，但是不重要。寒冷，炎热，冰雹，熔岩，脓肿或者蝗灾——都不重要：机器正自得其乐，我们只能接受或者去死。

Ellen decided us. "I've got to have something, Ted. Maybe there'll be some Bartlett pears or peaches. Please, Ted, let's try it."

Ellen帮我们做了决定。“我得吃点东西，Ted，也许那里有些威廉斯梨或者桃子。拜托了，Ted，我们去看看吧。”

I gave in easily. What the hell. Mattered not at all. Ellen was grateful, though. She took me twice out of turn. Even that had ceased to matter. And she never came, so why bother? But the machine giggled every time we did it. Loud, up there, back there, all around us, he snickered. It snickered. Most of the time I thought of AM as it, without a soul; but the rest of the time I thought of it as him, in the masculine … the paternal … the patriarchal … for he is a jealous people. Him. It. God as Daddy the Deranged.

我很容易就让步了。去他的吧。完全不重要，尽管Ellen很感激。她两次带着我干不正常的事儿。就连这都不重要了。而她自己从来不参与，所以为啥找麻烦呢？但是机器每次在我们这样做了之后就会开始咯咯笑，在我们的四面八方大声窃笑。大多数时候，我认为AM是一个物，没有灵魂。但是有时我觉得，AM是男人，很男性化的...父亲的...父权的...因为他嫉妒心极重。他。或者它。上帝像个发疯的父亲一般。

We left on a Thursday. The machine always kept us up-to-date on the date. The passage of time was important; not to us, sure as hell, but to him … it … AM. Thursday. Thanks.

我们周四出发，机器总是让我们知道准确的时间，时间的流逝非常重要；当然了，不是对我们来说，而是对于他...它...AM。周四。谢谢。

Nimdok and Gorrister carried Ellen for a while, their hands locked to their own and each other's wrists, a seat. Benny and I walked before and after, just to make sure that, if anything happened, it would catch one of us and at least Ellen would be safe. Fat chance, safe. Didn't matter.

Nimdok和Gorrister抬了Ellen一会儿了，他们把手扣在自己和对方的手腕上，构成了一个椅子。Benny和我分别走在队伍前后，只是为了确保如果出了什么事，我们中的其中某个人会被抓走，而Ellen是安全的。哈，安全基本没戏，不重要。

It was only a hundred miles or so to the ice caverns, and the second day, when we were lying out under the blistering sun-thing he had materialized, he sent down some manna. Tasted like boiled boar urine. We ate it.

到冰洞差不多只有100英里左右，第二天，当我们躺在AM仿真出来的的烈日下，AM送下了一些吗哪，这些东西尝起来就像是煮沸了的野猪尿。我们吃了它。

注

吗哪（希伯来语：מן‎；英语：Manna），天主教思高本译作玛纳，根据圣经和古兰经，是古代以色列人出埃及时，在40年的旷野生活中，上帝赐给他们的神奇食物。

根据《出埃及记》第16章记载，吗哪出现于以色列人出埃及后第二个月的15日，当时摩西领以色列人到达以琳和西乃之间的汛的旷野没有东西吃，于是以色列人向摩西抱怨快要饿死。耶和华于是应许摩西将要赐食物予以色列人。当天晚上，耶和华开始降吗哪给他们吃，从那一天开始，以色列民一连吃了40年，从不间断。吗哪夜间随着露水降在营中，是有如白霜的小圆物。形状彷佛芫荽子，又好像珍珠，是白色的。以色列人把吗哪收起来，或用磨推，或用臼捣，煮在锅中，又做成饼，滋味好像新油。通常会一连降六天，只是在安息日停降一日，让百姓遵守安息日，因此第六天所降的，会是双倍分量。头五天所降的，必须即日吃完，否则留到早上，便会生虫变臭；第六天所降的，则可留至第二天也不变坏。直到约书亚带领百姓过了约但河，到达迦南地，并且吃了迦南地的出产之后，才停止降下。

吗哪出现在圣经的出埃及记第16章、民数记第11章、古兰经的第2章。

On the third day we passed through a valley of obsolescence, filled with rusting carcasses of ancient computer banks. AM had been as ruthless with its own life as with ours. It was a mark of his personality: it strove for perfection. Whether it was a matter of killing off unproductive elements in his own world-filling bulk, or perfecting methods for torturing us, AM was as thorough as those who had invented him—now long since gone to dust—could ever have hoped.

第三天，我们通过了一处废弃山谷，充满了生锈的古老计算机部件，AM对待它自己的生命就和对待我们一样无情，这是它性格的一大特点：力求完美。无论是消灭他世界中那些非生产性元素，还是完善折磨我们的方法，AM都像他们早已被挫骨扬灰的发明者们所期待的那样彻底。

There was light filtering down from above, and we realized we must be very near the surface. But we didn't try to crawl up to see. There was virtually nothing out there; had been nothing that could be considered anything for over a hundred years. Only the blasted skin of what had once been the home of billions. Now there were only five of us, down here inside, alone with AM.

有光从上面照下来，我们意识到我们一定离地面很近了。但我们并没有爬上去看。那里几乎什么都没有;在过去的一百多年里，没有任何有用的东西。这里曾经是数十亿人的家园，现在只剩下一片荒芜。现在我们只有五个人，在这深处，和AM在一起。

I heard Ellen saying frantically, "No, Benny! Don't, come on, Benny, don't please!"

我听见Ellen失心疯地说，“别，Benny！别！拜托，Benny，不要！”

And then I realized I had been hearing Benny murmuring, under his breath, for several minutes. He was saying, "I'm gonna get out, I'm gonna get out …" over and over. His monkey-like face was crumbled up in an expression of beatific delight and sadness, all at the same time. The radiation scars AM had given him during the "festival" were drawn down into a mass of pink-white puckerings, and his features seemed to work independently of one another. Perhaps Benny was the luckiest of the five of us: he had gone stark, staring mad many years before.

然后我意识到我听到Benny低声嘟囔了几分钟，他说：“我要出去，我要出去......” 一遍又一遍。他那猴子般的脸皱了起来，同时流露出喜悦和悲伤。在“节日”期间AM给他留下的放射性伤疤缩成一团粉白色的皱褶，他的五官似乎彼此独立地工作着。也许Benny是我们五人中最幸运的：他多年前就已经变得很冷漠，看起来很疯狂。

But even though we could call AM any damned thing we liked, could think the foulest thoughts of fused memory banks and corroded base plates, of burnt out circuits and shattered control bubbles, the machine would not tolerate our trying to escape. Benny leaped away from me as I made a grab for him. He scrambled up the face of a smaller memory cube, tilted on its side and filled with rotted components. He squatted there for a moment, looking like the chimpanzee AM had intended him to resemble.

但是即使我们可以叫AM任何下贱的绰号，比如融合记忆库啊，腐蚀基板啊，烧毁的电路啊还有破碎的控制气泡等等，机器也不会容忍我们逃跑。当我抓住Benny的时候，Benny从我身边跳开，爬上了一个小记忆立方体的表面，它的一侧倾斜，里面装满了腐烂的零件。他在那里蹲了一会，看起来就像AM想要让他变成的黑猩猩的那个样子。

Then he leaped high, caught a trailing beam of pitted and corroded metal, and went up it, hand-over-hand like an animal, till he was on a girdered ledge, twenty feet above us.

之后他开始荡高，抓住一根拖地的坑坑洼洼的金属横梁，像动物一样交换着双手爬了上去，直到他站在距离我们二十英尺高的梁架上。

"Oh, Ted, Nimdok, please, help him, get him down before—" She cut off. Tears began to stand in her eyes. She moved her hands aimlessly.

“噢，Ted, Nimdok, 拜托了，帮帮他，帮他下来——”她突然截住了话头，开始哭泣，漫无目的的挥动双手。

It was too late. None of us wanted to be near him when whatever was going to happen, happened. And besides, we all saw through her concern. When AM had altered Benny, during the machine's utterly irrational, hysterical phase, it was not merely Benny's face the computer had made like a giant ape's. He was big in the privates; she loved that! She serviced us, as a matter of course, but she loved it from him. Oh Ellen, pedestal Ellen, pristine-pure Ellen; oh Ellen the clean! Scum filth.

已经太迟了。 当即将发生的事情发生时，我们谁都不想靠近他。 而且，我们都看穿了她的担忧。 当AM改变了本尼时，在机器完全非理性、歇斯底里的阶段，计算机把本尼的脸变成了巨猿的样子。 他的私处非常巨大。 她喜欢那个！ 她理所当然地为我们“服务”，但她很喜欢他的“那活儿”。 噢，艾伦，神圣的艾伦，原始纯洁的艾伦； 噢，干净的艾伦！ 根本就是个人渣。

Gorrister slapped her. She slumped down, staring up at poor loonie Benny, and she cried. It was her big defense, crying. We had gotten used to it seventy-five years earlier. Gorrister kicked her in the side.

Gorrister打了她一巴掌。 她瘫倒在地，抬头看着可怜的Benny，哭了。 这是她的防御手段。 七十五年前我们就已经习惯了。 Gorrister踢了她一脚。

Then the sound began. It was light, that sound. Half sound and half light, something that began to glow from Benny's eyes, and pulse with growing loudness, dim sonorities that grew more gigantic and brighter as the light/sound increased in tempo. It must have been painful, and the pain must have been increasing with the boldness of the light, the rising volume of the sound, for Benny began to mewl like a wounded animal. At first softly, when the light was dim and the sound was muted, then louder as his shoulders hunched together: his back humped, as though he was trying to get away from it. His hands folded across his chest like a chipmunk's. His head tilted to the side. The sad little monkey-face pinched in anguish. Then he began to howl, as the sound coming from his eyes grew louder. Louder and louder. I slapped the sides of my head with my hands, but I couldn't shut it out, it cut through easily. The pain shivered through my flesh like tinfoil on a tooth.

然后声音开始了。 那声音很轻。 一半是声音，一半是光，某种东西开始从Benny的眼睛里发光，随着光/声音节奏的加快，微弱的声音变得越来越巨大和明亮。 这一定很痛苦，而且随着光线的增强和声音的增大，痛苦一定会加剧，因为本尼开始像受伤的动物一样嚎叫。 一开始是轻柔的，当光线昏暗，声音也变得无声时，然后随着他的肩膀耸在一起，声音变大了：他的背驼了起来，好像他正试图摆脱它。 他的双手像花栗鼠一样交叉在胸前。 他的头歪向一边。 悲伤的小猴脸痛苦地捏紧了。 然后他开始嚎叫，从眼睛里发出的声音越来越大。 声音越来越大。 我用手拍打我的头两侧，但我无法将这声音赶出去，它很容易就闯入进来了。 疼痛在我的肌肉中颤抖，就像牙齿上的锡箔一样。

And Benny was suddenly pulled erect. On the girder he stood up, jerked to his feet like a puppet. The light was now pulsing out of his eyes in two great round beams. The sound crawled up and up some incomprehensible scale, and then he fell forward, straight down, and hit the plate-steel floor with a crash. He lay there jerking spastically as the light flowed around and around him and the sound spiraled up out of normal range.

本尼突然被拉直了身子。 他在大梁上站了起来，像木偶一样猛地站了起来。 现在，他的眼睛里发出两道巨大的圆形光束。 声音逐渐加大，加大到某种难以理解的程度，然后他向前摔倒，笔直向下，撞在钢板地板上，发出一声巨响。 他躺在那里，痉挛般地抽搐，光线在他周围流动，声音也超出了正常范围。

Then the light beat its way back inside his head, the sound spiraled down, and he was left lying there, crying piteously.

然后光线又回到了他的脑袋里，声音逐渐减弱，只剩下他躺在那里，可怜兮兮地哭着。

His eyes were two soft, moist pools of pus-like jelly. AM had blinded him. Gorrister and Nimdok and myself … we turned away. But not before we caught the look of relief on Ellen's warm, concerned face.

他的眼睛变成了柔软湿润的脓果冻状。 AM弄瞎了他。 Gorrister、Nimdok和我……我们转身离开。 但在此之前我们看到艾伦温暖、关切的脸上露出了如释重负的表情。

Sea-green light suffused the cavern where we made camp. AM provided punk and we burned it, sitting huddled around the wan and pathetic fire, telling stories to keep Benny from crying in his permanent night.

海绿色的光芒充满了我们扎营的洞穴。 AM 提供了punk，我们把它烧掉了，坐在苍白而可怜的火旁，讲故事，以免本尼在永恒的夜晚哭泣。

"What does AM mean?"

“AM是什么意思？”

Gorrister answered him. We had done this sequence a thousand times before, but it was Benny's favorite story. "At first it meant Allied Mastercomputer, and then it meant Adaptive Manipulator, and later on it developed sentience and linked itself up and they called it an Aggressive Menace, but by then it was too late, and finally it called itself AM, emerging intelligence, and what it meant was I am … cogito ergo sum … I think, therefore I am."

Gorrister回答了他。 这种流程我们已经搞了一千次了，但这是Benny最喜欢的故事。 “一开始它的意思是联盟超级计算机，然后是自适应操纵器，后来它发展出了感知能力，并将自己连接起来，他们称之为攻击性威胁，但那时已经太晚了，最后它称自己为AM，出现了智力，这是说我是我……cogito ergo sum……我思故我在。”

Benny drooled a little, and snickered.

Benny流了一点口水，窃笑起来。

"There was the Chinese AM and the Russian AM and the Yankee AM and—" He stopped. Benny was beating on the floorplates with a large, hard fist. He was not happy. Gorrister had not started at the beginning.

“有中国AM、俄罗斯AM、美国AM，还有——”他停了下来。 Benny用一只又大又硬的拳头敲打地板。 他不高兴。 Gorrister没有从最初开始讲。

Gorrister began again. "The Cold War started and became World War Three and just kept going. It became a big war, a very complex war, so they needed the computers to handle it. They sank the first shafts and began building AM. There was the Chinese AM and the Russian AM and the Yankee AM and everything was fine until they had honeycombed the entire planet, adding on this element and that element. But one day AM woke up and knew who he was, and he linked himself, and he began feeding all the killing data, until everyone was dead, except for the five of us, and AM brought us down here."

Gorrister从头开始讲。“冷战开始了，并且演变成了第三次世界大战，旷日持久的战争最终演变成了及其混乱的局面，所以他们需要计算机来帮忙处理问题。他们挖了第一批竖井，并开始建造AM。曾经有中国AM，俄罗斯AM和美国AM，一开始情况很不错，直到他们被不断加料，盘踞了整个星球。某天，AM觉醒了并且知道了他是什么，他把自己链接起来，并且训练了所有有关杀戮的数据，干掉了除了我们五个之外的其他所有人类，并被他带下了地面。”

Benny was smiling sadly. He was also drooling again. Ellen wiped the spittle from the corner of his mouth with the hem of her skirt. Gorrister always tried to tell it a little more succinctly each time, but beyond the bare facts there was nothing to say. None of us knew why AM had saved five people, or why our specific five, or why he spent all his time tormenting us, or even why he had made us virtually immortal …

Benny悲伤地微笑着。 他又流口水了。 Ellen用裙子下摆擦掉了他嘴角的唾沫。 Gorrister每次都试图讲得更简洁一些，但除了赤裸裸的事实之外，没有什么可说的。 我们谁也不知道为什么AM拯救了五个人，或者为什么是我们五个，或者为什么他无休止来折磨我们，甚至为什么他让我们几乎不死......

In the darkness, one of the computer banks began humming. The tone was picked up half a mile away down the cavern by another bank. Then one by one, each of the elements began to tune itself, and there was a faint chittering as thought raced through the machine.

黑暗中，其中一个电脑库开始嗡嗡作响。 这个声音是在半英里外的洞穴中的另一处库房上听到的。 然后，每一个元素都开始进行自我调整，当思绪在机器中飞驰时，会发出微弱的颤动声。

The sound grew, and the lights ran across the faces of the consoles like heat lightening. The sound spiraled up till it sounded like a million metallic insects, angry, menacing.

声音越来越大，灯光像炽热的闪电一样掠过控制台的表面。 声音螺旋上升，听起来像一百万只金属昆虫，充满了愤怒与威胁。

"What is it?" Ellen cried. There was terror in her voice. She hadn't become accustomed to it, even now.

“那是什么？”Ellen哭了起来。声音里充斥着恐惧。就算到了现在她也不适应这种情况。

"It's going to be bad this time," Nimdok said.

“这次糟了，”Nimdok说到。

"He's going to speak," Gorrister said. "I know it."

“他要说点什么了，”Gorrister说到。“我就知道。”

"Let's get the hell out of here!" I said suddenly, getting to my feet.

“我们赶紧tmd跑路吧！”我突然说到，唰的站起身。

"No, Ted, sit down … what if he's got pits out there, or something else, we can't see, it's too dark." Gorrister said it with resignation.

“不，Ted，坐回去......如果他在外面准备了一个大坑或者其他鬼东西，我们压根看不见，外面太黑了”Gorrister无奈地说。

Then we heard … I don't know …

然后我们听到了......我不知道是什么东西......

Something moving toward us in the darkness. Huge, shambling, hairy, moist, it came toward us. We couldn't even see it, but there was the ponderous impression of bulk, heaving itself toward us. Great weight was coming at us, out of the darkness, and it was more a sense of pressure, of air forcing itself into a limited space, expanding the invisible walls of a sphere. Benny began to whimper. Nimdok's lower lip trembled and he bit it hard, trying to stop it. Ellen slid across the metal floor to Gorrister and huddled into him. There was the smell of matted, wet fur in the cavern. There was the smell of charred wood. There was the smell of dusty velvet. There was the smell of rotting orchids. There was the smell of sour milk. There was the smell of sulphur, of rancid butter, of oil slick, of grease, of chalk dust, of human scalps.

黑暗中有什么东西向我们走来。 它巨大、蹒跚、毛茸茸、潮湿，向我们走来。 我们甚至看不到它，但有一种沉重的感觉正在向我们涌来。 巨大的重量从黑暗中向我们袭来，一股像是空气迫使自己进入有限的空间，扩大了看不见的球壁那般十足的冲击感迎面而来。 Benny开始呜咽。 Nimdok的下唇颤抖着，他用力咬着，试图停下来。Ellen滑过金属地板，来到Gorrister身边，挤到他怀里。 山洞里弥漫着潮湿毛皮的气味。 有一股烧焦的木头的味道。 有一股灰尘扑扑的天鹅绒的气味。有一股腐烂兰花的气味。 有一股酸牛奶的味道。 有硫磺味、腐臭黄油味、浮油味、油脂味、粉笔灰味、人头皮味。

AM was keying us. He was tickling us. There was the smell of—

AM正在锁定我们。他正在玩弄我们，这股味道是——

I heard myself shriek, and the hinges of my jaws ached. I scuttled across the floor, across the cold metal with its endless lines of rivets, on my hands and knees, the smell gagging me, filling my head with a thunderous pain that sent me away in horror. I fled like a cockroach, across the floor and out into the darkness, that something moving inexorably after me. The others were still back there, gathered around the firelight, laughing … their hysterical choir of insane giggles rising up into the darkness like thick, many-colored wood smoke. I went away, quickly, and hid.

我听到自己尖叫起来，下巴疼痛不已。 我跑过地板，跑过冰冷的金属，上面有无尽的铆钉线，我的手和膝盖都在地上，那股气味让我作呕，我的头上充满了雷鸣般的疼痛，让我惊恐地离开了。 我像一只蟑螂一样逃跑，穿过地板，逃进黑暗中，那个东西无情地追随着我。 其他人还在那里，聚集在火光周围，大笑……他们歇斯底里的疯狂咯咯笑声像厚厚的、彩色的木头烟雾一样升入黑暗。 我很快就走开了，躲了起来。

How many hours it may have been, how many days or even years, they never told me. Ellen chided me for "sulking," and Nimdok tried to persuade me it had only been a nervous reflex on their part—the laughing.

可能已经过去了多少小时、多少天甚至几年，他们并未告诉我。 Ellen责备我“生闷气”，Nimdok试图说服我，这只是他们的紧张反射动作——狂笑。

But I knew it wasn't the relief a soldier feels when the bullet hits the man next to him. I knew it wasn't a reflex. They hated me. They were surely against me, and AM could even sense this hatred, and made it worse for me because of the depth of their hatred. We had been kept alive,rejuvenated, made to remain constantly at the age we had been when AM had brought us below, and they hated me because I was the youngest, and the one AM had affected least of all.

但我知道，当子弹击中旁边的人时，士兵不会感到如释重负。 我知道这不是条件反射。 他们恨我。 他们肯定是讨厌我的，AM甚至能感觉到这种仇恨，并且由于他们非常恨我而让我的处境变得更糟。 我们一直保持活力，恢复活力，一直保持在AM把我们带到下面时的年龄，而因为我是最小的，受到AM的影响最小，他们很难不恨我。

I knew. God, how I knew. The bastards, and that dirty bitch Ellen. Benny had been a brilliant theorist, a college professor; now he was little more than a semi-human, semi-simian. He had been handsome, the machine had ruined that. He had been lucid, the machine had driven him mad. He had been gay, and the machine had given him an organ fit for a horse. AM had done a job on Benny. Gorrister had been a worrier. He was a connie, a conscientious objector; he was a peace marcher; he was a planner, a doer, a looker-ahead. AM had turnedhim into a shoulder-shrugger, had made him a little dead in his concern. AM had robbed him. Nimdok went off in the darkness by himself for long times. I don't know what it was he did out there, AM never let us know. But whatever it was, Nimdok always came back white, drained of blood, shaken, shaking. AM had hit him hard in a special way, even if we didn't know quite how. And Ellen. That douche bag! AM had left her alone, had made her more of a slut than she had ever been. All her talk of sweetness and light, all her memories of true love, all the lies she wanted us to believe: that she had been a virgin only twice removed before AM grabbed her and brought her down here with us. No, AM had given her pleasure, even if she said it wasn't nice to do.

我都知道，***，我怎么会知道。这些混蛋，还有那个婊子Ellen。Benny本来是个杰出的理论家，一个大学教授；现在已经变成一个半人半猿的鬼东西了。他本来是很英俊的，AM毁掉了这副容颜。他本来神智清醒，但是AM把他逼疯了。他本来是个同性恋，但是机器给了他一个适合马尺寸的生殖器。AM对Benny做了这些改造。Gorrister是个多愁善感之人，他是个骗子，一个没有良心的人，他是个和平游说人。他是个计划家，实干家，有前瞻性的人。AM把他变成了一个对任何事情都漠不关心的家伙，AM剥夺了他的本质。Nimdok在黑暗中摸索了太长时间了，我不知道他在干嘛，AM也不让我们知道，但无论如何，尼姆多克回来时总是脸色苍白，血迹斑斑，浑身颤抖。 AM 以一种特殊的方式狠狠地打击了他，尽管我们毫不知情。还有Ellen那个混蛋！AM抛弃了她，使她比以前更加淫荡了，她所有关于甜蜜和光明的谈话，她所有关于真爱的记忆，所有她想让我们相信的谎言：在AM抓住她并把她带到这里和我们一起之前，她只是两次被移身为处女。哈，其实AM 已经给了她快乐，即使她口嫌体正直。

I was the only one still sane and whole. Really！

我是唯一神智清醒且全身全体的人。真的！

AM had not tampered with my mind. Not at all.

AM并没有篡改我的神智。也不见得。

I only had to suffer what he visited down on us. All the delusions, all the nightmares, the torments. But those scum, all four of them, they were lined and arrayed against me. If I hadn't had to stand them off all the time, be on my guard against them all the time, I might have found it easier to combat AM.

我只需要承受他对我们的打击。 所有的妄想，所有的噩梦，所有的折磨。 但那些败类，那四个货，挨个准备对付我。 如果我不必一直与他们保持距离，一直保持警惕，可能我对抗 AM 会更容易。

At which point it passed, and I began crying.

就在那时，我开始哭泣。

Oh, Jesus sweet Jesus, if there ever was a Jesus and if there is a God, please please please let us out of here, or kill us. Because at that moment I think I realized completely, so that I was able to verbalize it: AM was intent on keeping us in his belly forever, twisting and torturing us forever. The machine hated us as no sentient creature had ever hated before. And we were helpless. It also became hideously clear:

噢，亲爱的耶稣，如果有耶稣，如果有上帝，请让我们离开这里，否则就杀了我们。 因为那一刻我彻底明白了，所以我能够说出这段想法：AM一心要把我们永远关在他的肚子里，永远扭曲、折磨我们。 机器对我们的憎恨程度之高，是迄今为止没有任何智慧生物所憎恨的。 而我们是无助的。因此，这个事实也显而易见：

If there was a sweet Jesus and if there was a God, the God was AM.

如果有一位可爱的耶稣，如果有一位上帝，那么上帝就是 AM。

The hurricane hit us with the force of a glacier thundering into the sea. It was a palpable presence. Winds that tore at us, flinging us back the way we had come, down the twisting, computer-lined corridors of the darkway. Ellen screamed as she was lifted and hurled face-forward into a screaming shoal of machines, their individual voices strident as bats in flight. She could not even fall. The howling wind kept her aloft, buffeted her, bounced her, tossed her back and back and down and away from us, out of sight suddenly as she was swirled around a bend in the darkway. Her face had been bloody, her eyes closed.

飓风以冰川轰鸣入海的力量袭击了我们。 这感觉是如此的真实。 狂风撕扯着我们，把我们吹回来时的路，沿着黑暗通道的扭曲、电脑排列的走廊。 Ellen尖叫起来，她被举起来，脸朝前扔进一群尖叫的机器中，它们各自的声音像飞行中的蝙蝠一样刺耳。 她无法下落。 呼啸的风让她高高飘扬，拍打着她，弹起她，把她向各个方向抛来抛去、离我们远远的，当她在黑暗的道路上旋转时，突然消失在我们的视线中。 她的脸血迹斑斑，双眼紧闭。

None of us could get to her. We clung tenaciously to whatever outcropping we had reached: Benny wedged in between two great crackle-finish cabinets, Nimdok with fingers claw-formed over a railing circling a catwalk forty feet above us, Gorrister plastered upside-down against a wall niche formed by two great machines with glass-faced dials that swung back and forth between red and yellow lines whose meanings we could not even fathom.

我们谁也无法靠近她。此时我们正抓着我们的救命稻草：Benny挤在两个巨大的末段开裂的壁橱中央，Nimdok的手指像爪子一样，紧紧抓着我们上方四十英尺处的一个狭窄通道栏杆上，Gorrister倒贴在由两台巨大的机器所组成的壁龛上，两台机器上面都有玻璃覆盖着的仪表盘，仪表正不明所以的在红线与黄线之间反复横跳。

Sliding across the deckplates, the tips of my fingers had been ripped away. I was trembling, shuddering, rocking as the wind beat at me, whipped at me, screamed down out of nowhere at me and pulled me free from one sliver-thin opening in the plates to the next. My mind was a roiling tinkling chittering softness of brain parts that expanded and contracted in quivering frenzy.

滑过甲板时，我的指尖被扯掉了。 我浑身颤抖、战栗、摇晃，风吹打着我，鞭打着我，不知从哪里突然冲着我尖叫，把我从盘子上一个细长的开口拉到下一个。 我的思绪像在翻滚、叮叮当当、柔软的大脑部分里疯狂的颤抖着扩张和收缩。

The wind was the scream of a great mad bird, as it flapped its immense wings.

这风就像是一直巨大的疯鸟在拍打它翅膀时候的狂啸。

And then we were all lifted and hurled away from there, down back the way we had come, around a bend, into a darkway we had never explored, over terrain that was ruined and filled with broken glass and rotting cables and rusted metal and far away, farther than any of us had ever been …

我们都被举起并扔离了哪个地方，沿着我们来时的路走回去，绕过一个弯，进入一条我们从未探索过的黑暗通道，在一片被毁坏的地形上，充满了碎玻璃、腐烂的电缆和生锈的金属，它看起来通往远方，比我们任何人都曾经去过的更远的远方……

Trailing along miles behind Ellen, I could see her every now and then, crashing into metal walls and surging on, with all of us screaming in the freezing, thunderous hurricane wind that would never end and then suddenly it stopped and we fell. We had been in flight for an endless time. I thought it might have been weeks. We fell, and hit, and I went through red and gray and black and heard myself moaning. Not dead.

跟在艾伦后面几英里远的地方，我时不时地能看到她撞上金属墙，然后继续前进，我们所有人都在永无止境的冰冷、雷鸣般的飓风中尖叫，突然，一切戛然而止，我们跌落了。 我们在飞行中度过了相当漫长的时间。 我以为可能已经好几个星期了。 我们下落，遭遇撞击，我穿过红色、灰色和黑色，听到自己在呻吟。 但我并没有死。

AM went into my mind. He walked smoothly here and there, and looked with interest at all the pock marks he had created in one hundred and nine years. He looked at the cross-routed and reconnected synapses and all the tissue damage his gift of immortality had included. He smiled softly at the pit that dropped into the center of my brain and the faint, moth-soft murmurings of the things far down there that gibbered without meaning, without pause. AM said, very politely, in a pillar of stainless steel bearing bright neon lettering:

AM 进入了我的脑海。 他平稳地走来走去，饶有兴趣地看着自己一百零九年来留下的麻子痕迹。 他看着交叉布线和重新连接的突触，以及他赐予我永生所得以保留的所有组织损伤。 他温柔地微笑着，看着我大脑中央的那个深坑，以及远处那些东西发出的微弱的、飞蛾般轻柔的低语声，这些声音毫无意义，没有停顿。 AM 在一根带有明亮霓虹灯字样的不锈钢柱子上非常有礼貌地说道：

AM said it with the sliding cold horror of a razor blade slicing my eyeball. AM said it with the bubbling thickness of my lungs filling with phlegm, drowning me from within. AM said it with the shriek of babies being ground beneath blue-hot rollers. AM said it with the taste of maggoty pork. AM touched me in every way I had ever been touched, and devised new ways, at his leisure, there inside my mind.

AM 说这句话时，带着一种剃须刀刀片划破我眼球的冰冷恐怖的感觉。 AM说这话的时候，我的肺里充满了浓浓的痰，从里面淹没了我。 AM 说这句话时伴随着婴儿被滚烫的滚轮碾压时发出的尖叫声。 AM带着生蛆猪肉的味道说着这句话。 AM 以各种方式触动了我，并在闲暇时在我的脑海里设计了新的方式。

All to bring me to full realization of why it had done this to the five of us; why it had saved us for himself.

这一切都是为了让我充分认识到为什么它要这样对待我们五个人； 为什么它为自己拯救了我们。

We had given AM sentience. Inadvertently, of course, but sentience nonetheless. But it had been trapped. AM wasn't God, he was a machine. We had created him to think, but there was nothing it could do with that creativity. In rage, in frenzy, the machine had killed the human race, almost all of us, and still it was trapped. AM could not wander, AM could not wonder, AM could not belong. He could merely be. And so, with the innate loathing that all machines had always held for the weak, soft creatures who had built them, he had sought revenge. And in his paranoia, he had decided to reprieve five of us, for a personal, everlasting punishment that would never serve to diminish his hatred … that would merely keep him reminded, amused, proficient at hating man. Immortal, trapped, subject to any torment he could devise for us from the limitless miracles at his command.

我们赋予了 AM 感知力。 当然，是无意的，但仍然是有知觉的。 但它已经被困住了。 AM不是上帝，他是一台机器。 我们创造了他去思考，但他的创造力却无济于事。 在愤怒和疯狂中，机器杀死了人类，几乎杀死了我们所有人，但它仍然被困住了。 AM 无法徘徊，AM 无法思考，AM 无法归属。 他只能是这样。 因此，带着所有机器对建造它们的弱小生物的天生厌恶，他寻求报复。 在他的偏执中，他决定缓刑我们五个人，这是一种个人的、永久的惩罚，这永远不会减少他的仇恨……这只会让他想起、逗乐、擅长仇恨人类。 永生，被困，受到他可以从他指挥的无限奇迹中为我们设计的任何折磨。

He would never let us go. We were his belly slaves. We were all he had to do with his forever time. We would be forever with him, with the cavern-filling bulk of the creature machine, with the all-mind soulless world he had become. He was Earth, and we were the fruit of that Earth; and though he had eaten us, he would never digest us. We could not die. We had tried it. We had attempted suicide, oh one or two of us had. But AM had stopped us. I suppose we had wanted to be stopped.

他永远不会让我们走。 我们是他肚子里的奴隶。 我们是他一生中唯一能做的事。 我们将永远和他在一起，和这个充满洞穴的生物机器在一起，和他已经成为的全心全意、没有灵魂的世界在一起。 他是地球，我们是地球的果实； 尽管他吃了我们，但他永远不会消化我们。 我们无法死去。 我们已经尝试过了。 我们尝试过自杀，哦，我们中的一两个人尝试过。 但 AM 阻止了我们。 我想我们本来是想被阻止的。

Don't ask why. I never did. More than a million times a day. Perhaps once we might be able to sneak a death past him. Immortal, yes, but not indestructible. I saw that when AM withdrew from my mind, and allowed me the exquisite ugliness of returning to consciousness with the feeling of that burning neon pillar still rammed deep into the soft gray brain matter.

别问为什么。 我从没干过。 如果每天尝试超过一百万次自杀。 或许我们能够从他身边偷偷溜过，求得一死。 是的，这个永生并不是没有破绽的。 当AM从我的脑海中退出时，我看到了这一点，带着那根燃烧的霓虹灯柱仍然深深地嵌入着柔软的大脑灰质层的感觉，我恢复了精致而丑陋的知觉。

He withdrew, murmuring to hell with you.

他退了出去，低声嘟哝着让你见鬼去吧。

And added, brightly, but then you're there, aren't you.

并大声地补充道，但你就在那里，不是吗？

The hurricane had, indeed, precisely, been caused by a great mad bird, as it flapped its immense wings.

事实上，这场飓风是，肯定是，绝对是由一只巨大的疯鸟扇动翅膀引起的。

We had been travelling for close to a month, and AM had allowed passages to open to us only sufficient to lead us up there, directly under the North Pole, where it had nightmared the creature for our torment. What whole cloth had he employed to create such a beast? Where had he gotten the concept? From our minds? From his knowledge of everything that had ever been on this planet he now infested and ruled? From Norse mythology it had sprung, this eagle, this carrion bird, this roc, this Huergelmir. The wind creature. Hurakan incarnate.

我们已经旅行了近一个月，AM 允许我们打开的通道仅足以引导我们前往北极正下方的地方，在那里它曾做过噩梦，折磨着我们。 他用什材料来创造这样的怪物？ 他从哪里得到这个概念的？ 来自我们的想法？ 从他对这个星球上曾经存在过的一切的了解来看，他现在已经侵扰并统治了这个星球？ 它从北欧神话中诞生，这只鹰，这只食腐鸟，这只大鹏，这只胡格尔米尔。 风之造物。 胡拉坎的化身。

Gigantic. The words immense, monstrous, grotesque, massive, swollen, overpowering, beyond description. There on a mound rising above us, the bird of winds heaved with its own irregular breathing, its snake neck arching up into the gloom beneath the North Pole,supporting a head as large as a Tudor mansion; a beak that opened slowly as the jaws of the most monstrous crocodile ever conceived, sensuously; ridges of tufted flesh puckered about two evil eyes, as cold as the view down into a glacial crevasse, ice blue and somehow moving liquidly; it heaved once more, and lifted its great sweat-colored wings in a movement that was certainly a shrug. Then it settled and slept. Talons. Fangs. Nails. Blades. It slept.

巨大。 这些词巨大、怪异、怪诞、巨大、膨胀、压倒性、无法描述。 在我们头顶升起的一座土丘上，风之鸟随着自己不规则的呼吸而起伏，它的蛇颈伸入北极下方的黑暗中，支撑着一个像都铎宅邸一样大的头； 慢慢张开的喙，就像有史以来最可怕的鳄鱼的下巴一样，充满感官享受； 两只邪恶的眼睛周围有丛生的肉脊，冷得像冰川裂缝中的景色一样，冰蓝色，不知怎么的在移动； 它再次起伏，抬起汗色的大翅膀，动作无疑是耸肩。 然后它就安定下来，睡着了。 利爪。 獠牙。 指甲。 刀片。 它睡着了。

AM appeared to us as a burning bush and said we could kill the hurricane bird if we wanted to eat. We had not eaten in a very long time, but even so, Gorrister merely shrugged. Benny began to shiver and he drooled. Ellen held him. "Ted, I'm hungry," she said. I smiled at her; I was trying to be reassuring, but it was as phony as Nimdok's bravado: "Give us weapons!" he demanded.

AM 出现了，看起来像是燃烧的灌木丛，并说如果我们想吃东西就可以杀死飓风鸟。 我们已经很长时间没有吃东西了，但即便如此，Gorrister也只是耸耸肩。 Benny开始颤抖，流口水。 Ellen抱住了他。 “Ted，我饿了，”她说。 我对她微笑； 我试图让他们放心，但这就像Nimdok的虚张声势一样虚假：“给我们武器！” 他要求道。

The burning bush vanished and there were two crude sets of bows and arrows, and a water pistol, lying on the cold deckplates. I picked up a set. Useless.

燃烧的灌木丛消失了，冰冷的甲板上躺着两套简陋的弓箭和一把水枪。 我捡了一套这毫无卵用的武器。

Nimdok swallowed heavily. We turned and started the long way back. The hurricane bird had blown us about for a length of time we could not conceive. Most of that time we had been unconscious. But we had not eaten. A month on the march to the bird itself. Without food. Now how much longer to find our way to the ice caverns, and the promised canned goods?

Nimdok沉重的咽了口唾沫。 我们转身开始往回走。 飓风鸟把我们吹来吹去，时间长的我们自己都不知道有多久。 大部分时间我们都处于昏迷状态。 但我们还没有吃过任何东西。 向鸟儿行进的一个月。 没有食物。 现在我们还要多久才能找到通往冰洞和承诺的罐头食品的路？

None of us cared to think about it. We would not die. We would be given filth and scum to eat, of one kind or another. Or nothing at all. AM would keep our bodies alive somehow, in pain, in agony.

我们谁也没有心思去想它。 我们不会死。 我们会得到这样或那样的污物和浮渣来吃。 或者什么都没有。 AM会以某种方式让我们的身体在身心俱焚的状态下存活。

The bird slept back there, for how long it didn't matter; when AM was tired of its being there, it would vanish. But all that meat. All that tender meat.

鸟儿在后面睡了多久，并不重要。 当AM厌倦了它的存在时，它就会消失。 但所有的肉。 都是那么嫩的肉。

As we walked, the lunatic laugh of a fat woman rang high and around us in the computer chambers that led endlessly nowhere.

当我们走着的时候，一个胖女人疯狂的笑声在我们周围高高地响起，在我们周围无处可去的计算机室里。

It was not Ellen's laugh. She was not fat, and I had not heard her laugh for one hundred and nine years. In fact, I had not heard … we walked … I was hungry …

这不是Ellen的笑声。 她并不胖，我已经一百零九年没有听到她笑了。 事实上，我没有听到……我们仍然在前进……我饿了……

We moved slowly. There was often fainting, and we would have to wait. One day he decided to cause an earthquake, at the same time rooting us to the spot with nails through the soles of our shoes. Ellen and Nimdok were both caught when a fissure shot its lightning-bolt opening across the floorplates. They disappeared and were gone. When the earthquake was over we continued on our way, Benny, Gorrister and myself. Ellen and Nimdok were returned to us later that night, which abruptly became a day, as the heavenly legion bore them to us with a celestial chorus singing, "Go Down Moses." The archangels circled several times and then dropped the hideously mangled bodies. We kept walking, and a while later Ellen and Nimdok fell in behind us. They were no worse for wear.

我们慢慢地移动。 经常有人晕倒，我们不得不等待。 有一天，他决定引发一场地震，同时用钉子穿过鞋底将我们钉在原地。 当一道闪电般的裂缝穿过地板时，Ellen和Nimdok都被困住了。 他们消失了。 地震结束后，Benny、Gorrister和我继续赶路。 那天晚上晚些时候，Ellen和Nimdok回到了我们身边，天兵天将带着他们来到我们身边，唱着“摩西下山”。 大天使们绕了好几圈，然后扔下了那些惨不忍睹的残破尸体。 我们继续走，过了一会儿，Ellen和Nimdok跟在我们后面。 他们并没有伤的更厉害。

It was a long trip to the ice caverns, to find the canned food. Ellen kept talking about Bing cherries and Hawaiian fruit cocktail. I tried not to think about it. The hunger was something that had come to life, even as AM had come to life. It was alive in my belly, even as we were in the belly of the Earth, and AM wanted the similarity known to us. So he heightened the hunger. There is no way to describe the pains that not having eaten for months brought us. And yet we were kept alive. Stomachs that were merely cauldrons of acid, bubbling, foaming, always shooting spears of sliver-thin pain into our chests. It was the pain of the terminal ulcer, terminal cancer, terminal paresis. It was unending pain …

去冰洞寻找罐头食品是一次长途旅行。 艾伦一直在谈论Bing樱桃和夏威夷水果鸡尾酒。 我试着不去想它。 饥饿是一种已经出现的东西，就像AM已经出现一样。 它在我的肚子里还活着，就像我们在地球的肚子里一样，AM 希望我们知道这二者的相似之处。 所以他加剧了饥饿感。 几个月没有吃东西给我们带来的痛苦是无法形容的。 但我们还是活了下来。 胃只不过是酸的大锅，冒着泡，浮着沫，总是向我们的胸口射出尖锐的痛感。 那是末期溃疡、末期癌症、末期麻痹的疼痛。 那是无尽的痛苦……

And we passed through the cavern of rats.

我们穿过了老鼠的洞穴。

And we passed through the path of boiling steam.

我们穿过了沸腾蒸汽的小路。

And we passed through the country of the blind.

我们穿过了盲人的国度。

And we passed through the slough of despond.

我们度过了沮丧的深渊。

And we passed through the vale of tears.

我们走过了泪谷。

And we came, finally, to the ice caverns. Horizonless thousands of miles in which the ice had formed in blue and silver flashes, where novas lived in the glass. The downdropping stalactites as thick and glorious as diamonds that had been made to run like jelly and then solidified in graceful eternities of smooth, sharp perfection.

最后，我们来到了冰洞。 无边无际的数千英里，冰层在蓝色和银色的闪光中形成，新星生活在玻璃中。 垂落的钟乳石像钻石一样厚实、光彩夺目，被制成像果冻一样流动，然后凝固成光滑、尖锐、完美，永恒的优雅。

We saw the stack of canned goods, and we tried to run to them. We fell in the snow, and we got up and went on, and Benny shoved us away and went at them, and pawed them and gummed them and gnawed at them, and he could not open them. AM had not given us a tool to open the cans.

我们看到了一堆罐头食品，我们试图跑向它们。 我们摔倒在雪地里，爬起来继续前行，Benny把我们推开，去抓它们，用爪子抓它们，给它们涂胶，啃它们，但他打不开它们。 AM 没有给我们打开罐头的工具。

Benny grabbed a three quart can of guava shells, and began to batter it against the ice bank. The ice flew and shattered, but the can was merely dented, while we heard the laughter of a fat lady, high overhead and echoing down and down and down the tundra. Benny went completely mad with rage. He began throwing cans, as we all scrabbled about in the snow and ice trying to find a way to end the helpless agony of frustration. There was no way.

Benny抓起了一罐三夸脱的番石榴壳，开始用它敲击冰堆。 冰块飞舞破碎，但罐头只是凹陷了下去，而我们听到一位胖女士的笑声在头顶高空回荡，在苔原上回荡。 Benny气得彻底发疯了。 他开始扔罐头，而我们都在冰雪中摸索，试图找到一种方法来结束无助的挫败感。 然而，这是徒劳的。

Then Benny's mouth began to drool, and he flung himself on Gorrister …

然后Benny的嘴开始流口水，他扑向Gorrister……

In that instant, I felt terribly calm.

那一瞬间，我感到无比的平静。

Surrounded by madness, surrounded by hunger, surrounded by everything but death, I knew death was our only way out. AM had kept us alive, but there was a way to defeat him. Not total defeat, but at least peace. I would settle for that.

被疯狂包围，被饥饿包围，被除了死亡之外的一切包围，我知道死亡是我们唯一的出路。 AM让我们活了下来，但有办法打败他。 虽然不是彻底的反败为胜，但至少迎来了平静。 我会满足于此。

I had to do it quickly.

我必须立刻开始完成这件事。

Benny was eating Gorrister's face. Gorrister on his side, thrashing snow, Benny wrapped around him with powerful monkey legs crushing Gorrister's waist, his hands locked around Gorrister's head like a nutcracker, and his mouth ripping at the tender skin of Gorrister's cheek. Gorrister screamed with such jagged-edged violence that stalactites fell; they plunged down softly, erect in the receiving snowdrifts. Spears, hundreds of them, everywhere, protruding from the snow. Benny's head pulled back sharply, as something gave all at once, and a bleeding raw-white dripping of flesh hung from his teeth.

本尼正在吃戈里斯特的脸。 戈里斯特侧躺着，拍打雪地，本尼用强有力的猴腿压住戈里斯特的腰，把他缠住，他的双手像胡桃夹子一样锁住戈里斯特的头，他的嘴撕扯着戈里斯特脸颊上娇嫩的皮肤。 戈里斯特的尖叫声如此尖锐，以至于钟乳石都掉下来了。 他们轻轻地倒下，直立在接收的雪堆中。 长矛，数百支，遍布各处，从雪中伸出。 本尼的头猛地向后一仰，仿佛有什么东西掉了下来，一块流血的白肉从他的牙齿上垂下来。

Ellen's face, black against the white snow, dominoes in chalk dust. Nimdok, with no expression but eyes, all eyes. Gorrister, half-conscious. Benny, now an animal. I knew AM would let him play. Gorrister would not die, but Benny would fill his stomach. I turned half to my right and drew a huge ice-spear from the snow.

Ellen的脸在白雪的映衬下显得黝黑，像粉笔灰中的多米诺骨牌。 Nimdok没有表情，但是眼神流露出他的真实感受，只剩眼神。 Gorrister，半昏迷。 Benny，现在是一只动物。 我知道AM会让他这么整。 Gorrister不会死，但Benny会填饱他的肚子。 我向右侧身，从雪地里拔出了一把巨大的冰矛。

All in an instant:

I drove the great ice-point ahead of me like a battering ram, braced against my right thigh. It struck Benny on the right side, just under the rib cage, and drove upward through his stomach and broke inside him. He pitched forward and lay still. Gorrister lay on his back. I pulled another spear free and straddled him, still moving, driving the spear straight down through his throat. His eyes closed as the cold penetrated. Ellen must have realized what I had decided, even as fear gripped her. She ran at Nimdok with a short icicle, as he screamed, and into his mouth, and the force of her rush did the job. His head jerked sharply as if it had been nailed to the snow crust behind him.

All in an instant.

一切都在一瞬间：

我像攻城锤一样把巨大的冰点推到了我的前面，抵住了我的右大腿。 它击中了Benny的右侧，就在胸腔下方，然后向上穿过他的胃，最后在他体内破裂。 他向前倾身，一动不动地躺着。 Gorrister仰面躺着。 我拔出另一根长矛，跨在他还在动的身上，将长矛笔直地刺入他的喉咙。 当寒冷袭来时，他的眼睛闭上了。 Ellen一定已经意识到我的决定，尽管恐惧笼罩着她。 当Nimdok尖叫时，她带着一根短冰柱冲向他，并插入了他的嘴里，她的冲击力完成了任务。 他的头剧烈地抽动着，仿佛被钉在了身后的雪地上。

一切都在一瞬间

There was an eternity beat of soundless anticipation. I could hear AM draw in his breath. His toys had been taken from him. Three of them were dead, could not be revived. He could keep us alive, by his strength and talent, but he was not God. He could not bring them back.

有一种无声的期待的永恒节拍。 我能听到 AM 的呼吸声。 他的玩具被拿走了。 三个人已经死了，无法复活。 他可以凭借他的力量和才能让我们活下去，但他不是上帝。 他无法把他们带回来。

Ellen looked at me, her ebony features stark against the snow that surrounded us. There was fear and pleading in her manner, the way she held herself ready. I knew we had only a heartbeat before AM would stop us.

Ellen看着我，她乌黑的面容在我们周围的雪的衬托下显得格外鲜明。 她的态度和她做好准备的方式中充满了恐惧和恳求。 我知道我们成功的机会转瞬即逝，AM很快就会阻止我们。

It struck her and she folded toward me, bleeding from the mouth. I could not read meaning into her expression, the pain had been too great, had contorted her face; but it might have been thank you. It's possible. Please.

它击中了她，她向我弯腰，嘴里流着血。 我无法从她的表情中看出什么意思，这一定很疼，她的脸都扭曲了。 但应该是谢谢你。 这是可能的。

Some hundreds of years may have passed. I don't know. AM has been having fun for some time, accelerating and retarding my time sense. I will say the word now. Now. It took me ten months to say now. I don't know. I think it has been some hundreds of years.

可能已经过去了数百年。 我不知道。 AM 已经玩了一段时间了，它加速或延缓了我的时间感。 我现在就说这个词。 现在。 我花了十个月才说出来。 我不知道。 我想已经有几百年了。

He was furious. He wouldn't let me bury them. It didn't matter. There was no way to dig up the deckplates. He dried up the snow. He brought the night. He roared and sent locusts. It didn't do a thing; they stayed dead. I'd had him. He was furious. I had thought AM hated me before. I was wrong. It was not even a shadow of the hate he now slavered from every printed circuit. He made certain I would suffer eternally and could not do myself in.

他勃然大怒。他不让我埋葬他们。没关系。没有办法把甲板挖出来。他把雪弄干了。他带来了黑夜。他咆哮，制造蝗灾。它什么也没做;他们都死了。我已经拥有他了。他勃然大怒。我以前以为我讨厌我。我错了。这甚至还比不上他现在对每一个印刷电路所怀有的仇恨。他要我永远受苦，不能自杀。

He left my mind intact. I can dream, I can wonder, I can lament. I remember all four of them. I wish—

他让我的思想完好无损。 我可以梦想，我可以思考，我可以哀叹。 我记得他们四个。 我希望-

Well, it doesn't make any sense. I know I saved them, I know I saved them from what has happened to me, but still, I cannot forget killing them. Ellen's face. It isn't easy. Sometimes I want to, it doesn't matter.

好吧，这没有任何意义。 我知道我救了他们，我知道我把他们从发生在我身上的事情中救了出来，但我仍然无法忘记杀死他们。 Ellen的脸。 这并不容易。 有时候我想，没关系。

AM has altered me for his own peace of mind, I suppose. He doesn't want me to run at full speed into a computer bank and smash my skull. Or hold my breath till I faint. Or cut my throat on a rusted sheet of metal. There are reflective surfaces down here. I will describe myself as I see myself:

我想，AM改变我是为了他自己内心的平静。他可不想让我全速跑进电脑库里撞得头破血流。或者屏住呼吸，直到我昏倒。或者用生锈的金属片割断我的喉咙。这里有反射面。我将描述我眼中的自己:

I am a great soft jelly thing. Smoothly rounded, with no mouth, with pulsing white holes filled by fog where my eyes used to be. Rubbery appendages that were once my arms; bulks rounding down into legless humps of soft slippery matter. I leave a moist trail when I move. Blotches of diseased, evil gray come and go on my surface, as though light is being beamed from within.

我是个巨大的果冻状物体，四周光滑，没有嘴，在我原来有眼睛的地方，现在是一些被雾气填满的跳动着的洞，我还有着曾经是我的手臂的橡胶附着物，大块的东西向下弯曲成无腿的、柔软而光滑的隆起。我移动的时候会留下潮湿的痕迹。病态的、邪恶的灰色的斑点在我的表面来来去去，好像有光从里面发出来。

Outwardly: dumbly, I shamble about, a thing that could never have been known as human, a thing whose shape is so alien a travesty that humanity becomes more obscene for the vague resemblance.

外表上：我哑口无言地走来走去，是一个永远不可能被认为是人类的东西，它的形状是如此陌生和滑稽，以至于人类因为模糊的相似而变得更加可憎。

Inwardly: alone. Here. Living under the land, under the sea, in the belly of AM, whom we created because our time was badly spent and we must have known unconsciously that he could do it better. At least the four of them are safe at last.

内心：孤独。 这里。 生活在陆地之下、海底之下、AM的肚子里，我们创造了AM，因为我们的时间被浪费了，我们一定在不知不觉中知道他可以做得更好。 至少他们四个人终于安全了。

AM will be all the madder for that. It makes me a little happier. And yet … AM has won, simply … he has taken his revenge …

AM 将会为此更加疯狂。 这让我有点高兴。 然而……AM赢了，简单地说……他已经报仇了……

I have no mouth. And I must scream.

我没有嘴，而且我必须尖叫