kircheis

"The guy I kicked in the balls, did they have to amputate them?"

“被我踢到头的那个家伙有没有把头切掉？”

Still no answer. Not even a trace of amusement. Could this possibly be the one educated person in Russia who didn't speak Common?

仍然没有回答，甚至没有发笑的痕迹。难道这些受过教育的俄国人都不会说公用语吗？

Meals were brought to her, lights went on and off, but no one came to speak to her and she was not allowed out of her room. She heard nothing through the heavy doors, and it became clear that her punishment for her misbehavior on the trip was going to be solitary confinement for a while.

食物带来了，灯闪亮而后熄灭，但是没有人来和她说话，她也无法走出房间。厚厚的门隔断了一切声音，看来孤独的禁闭是对她在旅途中不礼貌的企图逃跑的惩罚。

She resolved not to beg for mercy. Indeed, once it became clear to her that she was in isolation, she accepted it and isolated herself still further, neither speaking nor responding to the people who came and went. They never tried to speak to her, either, so the silence of her world was complete.

她绝对不会请求怜悯。事实上，一旦她是被隔绝的这个事实被发现后，她接受了并且把自己隔离的更远了，不说话也不对人们的进出做任何反应。他们从不对她说话，那么，就让她的世界安静得彻底一点。

They did not understand how self-contained she was. How her mind could show her more than mere reality ever could. She could recall memories by the sheaf, by the bale. Whole conversations. And then new versions of those conversations, in which she was actually able to say the clever things that she only really thought of later.

他们不明白她有多沉默寡言。她的头脑表现出她的实际情况比仅仅的事实多很多。她能唤醒回忆，很多很多，全部的谈话。现在那些谈话有了新的含义，只有在后来的反思之后她才能说出那些对话真正的聪明之处。

She could even relive every moment of the battles on Eros. Especially the battle where she fell asleep in the middle. How tired she was. How she struggled frantically to stay awake. How she could feel her mind being so sluggish that she began to forget where she was, and why, and even who she was.

她甚至能再度体验艾洛斯的战斗学校中的每一刻，特别是她昏倒的那场战斗。她多么疲倦，她多么疯狂的与昏迷作斗争，她如何感觉自己的意识渐渐迟缓然后她开始忘记自己的所在，还有为什么，甚至自己是谁。

To escape from this endlessly repeating scene, she tried to think of other things. Her parents, her little brother. She could remember everything they had said and done since she returned, but after a while the only memories that mattered to her were the early ones from before Battle School. Memories she had suppressed for nine years, as best she could. All the promises of the family life that was lost to her. The good-bye when her mother wept and let her go. Her father's hand as he led her to the car. That hand had always meant that she was safe, before. But this time that hand led her to a place where she never felt safe again. She knew she had chosen to go -- but she was only a child, and she knew that this was what was expected of her. That she should not succumb to the temptation to run to her weeping mother and cling to her and say no, I won't do it, let someone else become a soldier, I want to stay here and bake with Mama and play mother to my own little dolls. Not go off into space where I can learn how to kill strange and terrible creatures -- and, by the way, humans as well, who trusted me and then I fell . . . a . . . sleep.

为了逃离那永无终止的重复画面，她试着去想其他事情。她的父母，弟弟，她能够记起回家后他们说的每一句话和做的每一件事，但是不久之后，思维中唯一有意义的就是在进入战斗学校之前的那些回忆。她尽力抑制了九年的记忆。所有家庭生活的承诺和她失去的一切。那次母亲哭着让她离去的再见，父亲领着她进入汽车的手。那只手在此之前一直意味着她是安全的，但是这一次还是那只手送她去了她永远不再觉得安全的地方。她知道她可以选择去与不去，但是她只是个小孩，她知道这是她被期望做的事情，所以她不能屈服于扑入哭泣的母亲的怀抱并且说不的诱惑。我不能这么做，让其他人成为士兵，我想要呆在家里和妈妈烤面包，和洋娃娃扮家家酒。不想走入太空去学如何杀死奇怪的可怕的生物，还有，人类，那些信任我的人，然后我……昏倒了。

Being alone with her memories was not all that happy for her.

和自己的思维独处完全没有让她感到快乐。

She tried fasting, simply ignoring the food they brought her, the liquids too, nothing by mouth. She expected someone to speak to her then, to cajole. But no. The doctor came in, slapped an injection into her arm, and when she woke up her hand was sore where the I.V. had been and she realized that there was no point in refusing to eat.

她尝试着绝食，简单的忽略了他们带来的食物，水也一样，什么也不吃。她希望有人来和她说话，来哄骗她，但是没有。医生来了，在她的手臂上打了一针，当醒过来的时候手痛极了，然后她意识到绝食没用。

She hadn't thought to keep a calendar at first, but after the I.V. she did keep a calendar on her own body, pressing a fingernail into her wrist until it bled. Seven days on the left wrist, then switch to the right, and all she had to remember in her head was the number of weeks.

她一开始没想到做日历，但是在这之后，她在自己身体上作了一个日历。挤压手指甲直到手腕流血，每七天在左手腕，然后转换到右手，在她脑中记住的只有星期的数目。

Except she didn't bother going for three. She realized that they were going to outwait her because, after all, they had the others they had kidnapped, and no doubt some of them were cooperating, so it was perfectly all right with them if she stayed in her cell and got farther and farther behind so that when she finally did emerge, she'd be the worst of them at whatever it was they were doing.

除了她不烦恼去拥护第三个国家之外，她意识到这些人正打算不再等待她因为在这之后，他们就会拥有其他被绑架的孩子，无疑有一些会合作的。所以只要她呆在那儿藏得越来越远直到最后暴露就够好了。她是他们能得到中最糟糕的。

Fine, what did she care? She was never going to help them anyway.

很好，她还在乎什么？她从不打算帮助他们。

But if she was to have any chance to get free of these people and this place, she had to be out of this room and into a place where she could earn enough trust to be able to get free.

但是假如她有任何从这些任何这个地方逃跑的机会，她就需要离开这个房间去到她能够得到更多信任以便逃跑的地方。

Trust. They'd expect her to lie, they'd expect her to plot. Therefore she had to be as convincing as possible. Her long time in solitary was a help, of course -- everyone knew that isolation caused untold mental pressures. Another thing that helped was that it was undoubtedly known to them by now, from the other children, that she was the first one who broke under pressure during the battles on Eros. So they would be predisposed to believe a breakdown now.

信任，他们预料她会说假话的，他们预料到她的密谋。因此她必须令人信服。她的长期孤独是一个帮助，当然，任何人都知道孤独会导致精神上的压力。另一方面可以帮助她的是，无疑他们也知道，从其他孩子那里知道她是第一个在艾洛斯的战斗中被压力压倒的。所以他们能够倾向于相信她再度崩溃了。

She began to cry. It wasn't hard. There were plenty of real tears pent up in her. But she shaped those emotions, made it into a whimpering cry that went on and on and on. Her nose filled with mucus, but she did not blow it. Her eyes streamed with tears but she did not wipe them. Her pillow got soaked with tears and covered with snot but she did not evade the wet place. Instead she rolled her hair right through it as she turned over, did it again and again until her hair was matted with mucus and her face stiff with it. She made sure her crying did not get more desperate -- let no one think she was trying to get attention. She toyed with the idea of falling silent when anyone came into the room, but decided against it -- she figured it would be more convincing to be oblivious to other people's coming and going.

　　她开始哭泣，这并不难。有这么多眼泪积压在她的心中。但是她发展了那些情感，把它们变成了哀诉，不断的哭。她的鼻子感觉很粘，但是她没有去擦，她的眼睛满是泪水但她也没有擦，她的枕头全都被眼泪弄湿了还沾满了鼻涕，但是她没有让开那些湿漉漉的地方。反之她在床上滚动着，让头发在上面擦过，不断的反复直到她的头发粘满了粘液，她的脸也为此而僵硬。她确定她的哭泣不够令人绝望，没人认为她的哭泣是为了引起注意。她玩弄着这些想法然后归于沉默直到有人进入房间，但是她决定背对他。她知道忘却他人的存在将更为可信。

kircheis

It worked. Someone came in after a day of this and slapped her with another injection. And this time when she woke up, she was in a hospital bed with a window that showed a cloudless northern sky. And sitting by her bed was Dink Meeker.

这有用了。有人在一天后进来给她打了另一针，这次当她醒来的时候，她在一个有窗的医院房间里凝视北方无云的天空，坐在她旁边的是丁·米克。

"Ho Dink," she said.

“嗨，丁。”她说。

"Ho Petra. You pasted these conchos over real good."

“嗨，佩查，你最近做得真不错。”

"One does what one can for the cause," she said. "Who else?"

“每个人为了自己的原因做自己能做的事。”她说，“还有谁？”

"You're the last to come out of solitary. They got the whole team from Eros, Petra. Except Ender, of course. And Bean."

“你是最后一个从单独禁闭中出来的。他们绑架了艾洛斯上的整个小队，佩查，除了安德，还有豆子之外。”

"He's not in solitary?"

“他不是被单独禁闭？”

"No, they didn't keep it a secret who was still in the box. We thought you made a pretty fine showing."

“没有，他们没把谁还被关着当成秘密，我想你表演得不错。”

"Who was second longest?"

“谁是第二长的？”

"Nobody cares. We were all out in the first week. You lasted five."

“没注意。我们都在第一个星期就出来了，你持续了五个。”

So it had been two and a half weeks before she started her calendar.

所以从她开始日历后，已经过了两个半星期了。

"Because I'm the stupid one."

“因为我是最蠢的。”

"Stubborn is the right word."

“最固执比较正确。”

"Know where we are?"

“知道我们在哪儿？”

"Russia."

“俄国。”

"I meant where in Russia."

“我是说俄国哪儿。”

"Far from any borders, they assure us."

“离任何地方都不近，他们确定的告诉我们。”

"What are our resources?"

“我们的资源有什么？”

"Very thick walls. No tools. Constant observation. They weigh our bodily wastes, I'm not kidding."

“很厚的墙，没有工具，持续的观察，他们测量了我们身体的消耗，我不是开玩笑。”

"What have they got us doing?"

“他们想要我们做什么？”

"Like a really dumbed-down Battle School. We put up with it for a long time till Fly Molo finally gave up and when one of the teachers was quoting one of Von Clausewitz's stupider generalizations, Fly continued the quotation, sentence after sentence, paragraph after paragraph, and the rest of us joined in as best we could -- I mean, nobody has a memory like Fly, but we do OK -- and they finally got the idea that we could teach the stupid classes to them. So now it's just . . . war games."

“一个真正的地下战斗学校。我们忍受了那么长时间直到弗莱·莫罗最终放弃，而有一个教师提供了一份冯·克劳斯维兹的愚蠢的计划。弗莱沿用了这个计划，一句句，一段段，保持我们最良好的加入。我的意思是，没人记得弗莱，但是我们做得不错，而他们最终得到了这个主意认为我们可以替他们教这些愚蠢的班。所以只是……战争游戏。”

"Again? You think they're going to spring it on us later that the games are real?"

“又来了？你真认为他们打算在游戏结束后再让我们干一次？”

"No, this is just planning stuff. Strategy for a war between Russia and Turkmenistan. Russia and an alliance between Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and Turkey. War with the United States and Canada. War with the old NATO alliance except Germany. War with Germany. On and on. China. India. Really stupid stuff, too, like between Brazil and Peru, which makes no sense but maybe they were testing our compliance or something."

“不，只是个计划材料。俄国和土库曼斯坦之间的战略计划。俄国和一个土库曼斯坦、哈萨克斯坦、阿塞拜疆、土耳其之间的联盟，对抗美国和加拿大，对抗德国之外的旧NATO联盟，对抗德国，等等。中国，印度，真是愚蠢的计划，就像巴西和秘鲁之间，根本没意义，除非他们在考验我们的顺从。”

"All this in five weeks?"

“只有五星期？”

"Three weeks of kuso classes, and then two weeks of war games. When we finish our plan, see, they run it on the computer to show us how it went. Someday they're going to catch on that the only way to do this that isn't a waste of time is to have one of us making the plan for the opponent as well."

“三个星期的课程，两个星期的战争游戏，当我们结束计划，看，他们在电脑上运行并给我们展示它是怎么运行的。有一天他们会抓住唯一一条路去做就是让我们中的一个人给他们制定计划，这并不浪费时间。”

"My guess is you just told them."

“我想是你告诉他们的。”

"I've told them before but they're hard to persuade. Typical military types. Makes you understand why the whole concept of Battle School was developed in the first place. If the war had been up to adults, there'd be Buggers at every breakfast table in the world by now."

“我告诉过他们但他们根本不听，典型的军国分子。让你知道为什么整个战斗学校的观念都发展到第一层。如果战争由成年人来打，虫子现在已经在世界上的每张早餐桌上了。”

"But they are listening?"

“但他们还是听了？”

"I think they record it all and play it back at slow speeds to see if we're passing messages subvocally."

“我想他们记录了下来然后很慢的送回去来看我们是否通过这个来传递信息了。”

Petra smiled.

佩查笑了。

"So why did you finally decide to cooperate?" he asked.

“所以你最后决定合作？”他问。

She shrugged. "I don't think I decided."

她耸肩，“我还没决定。”

"Hey, they don't pull you out of the room until you express really sincere interest in being a good, compliant little kid."

“嗨，除非你表示愿意做一个好孩子，他们才不会让你出门呢。”

She shook her head. "I don't think I did that."

她摇头，“我不认为我会这么做。”

"Yeah, well, whatever you did, you were the last of Ender's jeesh to break, kid."
A short buzzer sounded.

　　“啊，好吧，无论你打算怎样，你是安德小组里面最后一个了，孩子。”一个短暂的蜂鸣器响了。

"Time's up," said Dink. He got up, leaned over, kissed her brow, and left the room.

“时间到。”丁说，他站了起来，俯身吻了她的额头，然后离开了房间。

Six weeks later, Petra was actually enjoying the life. By complying with the kids' demands, their captors had finally come up with some decent equipment. Software that allowed them very realistic head-to-head strategic and tactical war-gaming. Access to the nets so they could do decent research into terrains and capabilities so their wargaming had some realism -- though they knew every message they sent was censored, because of the number of messages that were rejected for one obscure reason or another. They enjoyed each other's company, exercised together, and by all appearances seemed to be completely happy and compliant Russian commanders.

六个星期过去了，佩查的确在享受这样的生活。顺从孩子们的要求，那些绑架者最终给了他们一些像样的装备。软件可以让他们非常迅速的进行战略战术游戏，网络访问令他们能够对地形和能力进行足够的研究所以他们的战争游戏更加逼真了。尽管他们知道发出的每个信息都是经过审核的，因为信息编号功能因为某个莫名的原因被拒绝了。他们享受着彼此的战队，互相训练，每一次出现看起来都非常快乐而且顺从俄国的要求。

Yet Petra knew, as they all knew, that every one of them was faking. Holding back. Making dumb mistakes which, if they were made in combat, would lead to gaps that a clever enemy could exploit. Maybe their captors realized this, and maybe they didn't. At least it made them all feel better, though they never spoke of it. But since they were all doing it, and cooperating by not exposing those weaknesses by exploiting them in the games, they could only assume that everyone felt the same about it.

但是佩查知道，就像他们都知道的，每个人都在欺骗，隐瞒。制造隐蔽的错误，如果他们在格斗中，能够一个足够聪明的敌人制造充分的缝隙。也许他们的绑架者知道了，也许不知道，但至少这让他们感觉更高兴，尽管他们从不说出来。但是自从他们都开始做这些，而且合作着不让战争游戏揭露他们的弱点，他们就只能假定任何人都有同样的感觉。

They chatted comfortably about a lot of things -- their disdain for their captors, memories of Ground School, Battle School, Command School. And, of course, Ender. He was out of the reach of these bastards, so they made sure to mention him a lot, to talk about how the IF was bound to use him to counter all these foolish plans the Russians were making. They knew they were blowing smoke, that the IF wouldn't do anything, they even said so. But still, Ender was there, the ultimate trump card.

　　他们平静的交谈了很多东西，他们对绑架者的轻蔑，对地上学校的记忆，战斗学校，指挥学校，还有，安德战队。他已经脱离了这些人的控制范围，所以他们确定多提起他，多说说国际舰队如何让他去制定这些俄国制定的蠢计划。他们知道他们在制造烟雾，国际舰队不会做任何事，他们甚至这样说，但是至少，安德在那里，那是最后的王牌。

kircheis

Because I have found an charming novel, the translation pauses for not more than a week.

菲梵红茶

朱里安 这是啥啊

萧秋雨

哪里找的啊？怎么看怎么象我发在＜科幻世界＞论坛上那个啊．
不过后来被迫撤下来了．

不过里面的某些名字和我处理的不一样，长度倒是一样的．
此pose~被萧秋雨在2004年7月10日18:42编辑过

kircheis

没得找，自己翻译的。后来懒得继续乐而已

萧秋雨

这个原因啊，哪天我把我翻好的送你得了，找我ＱＱ（你知道否？）或者邮件联系吧，初稿早出来１年了。你也不知道说，哈哈．要看＜影中傀儡＞米？

kircheis

好啊，传到费沙空间上来好了。大家一起看。

萧秋雨

对不起，那是不被允许的，因为我已经向＜科幻世界＞杂志申请了小说翻译了．
商品可以给个别人传阅，但是如果公开发布，我就违约要承担赔偿责任，因为人家有版权啊．

kircheis

哎，这么说安德系列难道是你翻译的？我全都买了。
好啊，mail给我吧！我很喜欢那个，谢了。