克蘇魯短篇翻譯習作：《與君共沉深淵》（上）
本篇是《Lovecraft's Monsters》收錄的《The Same Deep Waters as You》註1經個人潤飾後的機器翻譯，目標是想讀得精細，自己從《異形》以來就著迷這種未知的恐怖，初讀礙於英文等級囫圇吞棗看完，但覺得懸疑有趣而重讀，在此略切成上中下三篇，本篇是第一篇，用括號加上數字目錄僅為方便操作，可能有偏誤疏漏但我盡力完善達意，會有些個人色彩。版權非我所有，我只想兜售個人註解與心得，還望指教包含。
〈1〉
旅程進入最後一段，在直升機下方約300英尺不斷掠過的是鐵灰色海洋，凱芮（Kerry）開始後悔當初答應。華盛頓州北部崎嶇的海岸線從腳下消失，他們懸浮在有如今日森嚴的海面上，一旦墜機，汪洋會在任何人發現前將他們吞噬。
凱芮從來沒喜歡過大海，現在感覺更差了。
她有拒絕的選擇嗎？
「國土安全局要徵求你的意見，想要你來當顧問」是對方的需求主旨，昨天出現在她家門口的那兩人看來天生無法處理「拒絕」兩個字。他們不能告訴她要做什麽，也不能告訴她要去哪裡，只能告訴她穿暖一點、最好也準備應付雨天。
凱芮唯一能想到的情況是，也許有人想要她就訓練動物提供更直觀的見解，或是與鳥類、海豚、猩猩、馬等動物有關的事——某個古怪天才設計出一個計劃，試圖利用動物的某些能力，而他們想知道怎樣激發這些能力。她對愛國名義的號召興趣不大，她只希望這類計劃盡可能對動物好一點。
THEY WERE DOWN to the last leg of the trip, miles of iron-gray ocean skimming three hundred feet below the helicopter, and she was regretting ever having said yes. The rocky coastline of northern Washington slid out from beneath them and there they were, suspended over a sea as forbidding as the day itself. If they crashed, the water would claim them for its own long before anyone could find them.
Kerry had never warmed to the sea—now less than ever.
Had saying no even been an option? The Department of Homeland Security would like to enlist your help as a consultant, was what the pitch boiled down to, and the pair who'd come to her door yesterday looked genetically incapable of processing the word no. They couldn't tell her what. They couldn't tell her where. They could only tell her to dress warm. Better be ready for rain, too.
The sole scenario Kerry could think of was that someone wanted her insights into a more intuitive way to train dogs, maybe. Or something a little more out there, something to do with birds, dolphins, apes, horses...a plan that some questionable genius had devised to exploit some animal ability that they wanted to know how to tap. She'd been less compelled by the appeal to patriotism than simply wanting to make whatever they were doing go as well as possible for the animals.
但這樣？沒人會想到是這樣。
透過風雨在機窗上印留的水痕和顫動，她逐漸看到一座模糊的島嶼，一塊不是很引人入勝的岩石、常青樹和秘密組成的三角形土地。
它們在那裡。
在她父母出生之前，它們就在那裡了。
旅程從凌晨就開始：先是從她在蒙大拿州密蘇拉的牧場至機場安靜到不快的車程，接著是蒙大拿到華盛頓間的航程，在西雅圖的塔科馬機場落地，剩下最後一段旅程搭直升機，也就是在這最後一段，他們沒收她的手機、對她行李做檢查。凱芮剛下飛機，接著就在停機坪被轉介給一個自稱是埃斯科維多（Daniel Escovedo，西班牙姓）上校的男人，他說他掌管他們將要前往的設施。
But this? No one could ever have imagined this.
The island began to waver into view through the film of rain that streaked and jittered along the window, a triangular patch of uninviting rocks and evergreens and secrecy. They were down there.
Since before her parents were born, they'd always been down there.
It had begun before dawn: an uncomfortably silent car ride from her ranch to the airport in Missoula, a flight across Montana and Washington, touchdown at Sea-Tac, and the helicopter the rest of the way. Just before this final leg of the journey was the point they took her phone from her and searched her bag. Straight off the plane and fresh on the tarmac, bypassing the terminal entirely, Kerry was turned over to a man who introduced himself as Colonel Daniel Escovedo and said he was in charge of the facility they were going to.
「從現在開始，你只會跟我打交道」他說。
雨滴點綴他棕色的頭皮。如果他頭髮再短一點，你幾乎不會說他有頭髮。
「你覺得好玩嗎？」
「不，並沒有。」目前，這就像她同意綁架自己。
幾分鐘後他們又繫上安全帶，再次飛上天空，這次只有他們兩人坐在直升機客艙，膝對膝面對面坐著。
「我們有吵過要告訴你多少。」凱芮看著地面再次遠去時，埃斯科維多說，
「任何參與的人，無論是什麼身份，都是在『僅需知道』的基礎上做事。如果與他們的工作無關，他們就不會知道，或他們以為知道的東西未必是真相，但夠讓他們滿意。」
"You'll be dealing exclusively with me from now on," he told her. His brown scalp was speckled with rain. If his hair were any shorter, you wouldn't have been able to say he had hair at all.
"Are you having fun yet?"
"Not really, no."
So far, this had been like agreeing to her own kidnapping.
They were strapped in and back in the air in minutes, just the two of them in the passenger cabin, knee-to-knee in facing seats.
"There's been a lot of haggling about how much to tell you,"
Escovedo said as she watched the ground fall away again.
"Anyone who gets involved with this, in any capacity, they're working on a need-to-know basis. If it's not relevant to the job they're doing, then they just don't know. Or what they think they know isn't necessarily the truth, but it's enough to satisfy them."
說話時，凱芮端詳他，他比她起初感覺的年紀大，可能是五十多歲，比她大十五歲左右，但他臉上只有一點點細紋，顯然不常笑，不過即使七旬，她敢說他還是會很可怕。
「最後為你安排完全公開（法學用語）的資訊。意思是，你會知道的和我一樣多。畢竟如果你不清楚脈絡，你會不知道要看什麽，或無法判斷關聯性。但要請你先理解的是：接下來你會看到的東西，過去十五個總統大部份都不知道註2。」（OS：很負責任喔）
她的胃突然一緊，好像墜機一樣。
「怎麽可能？總統不是總司令嗎，他怎麼會不……」
「有些『僅需知道』的事安全等級比總統辦公室還高。政客來了又走，但職業軍人和情報人員，我們可是一直在。」埃斯科維多搖搖頭道。
「你說的這些角色我一個都不是。」
Kerry studied him as he spoke. He was older than she first thought, maybe in his mid-fifties, with a decade and a half on her, but he had the lightly lined face of someone who didn't smile much. He would still be a terror in his seventies. You could just tell.
"What ultimately got decided for you is full disclosure. Which is to say, you'll know as much as I do. You're not going to know what you're looking for, or whether or not it's relevant, if you've got no context for it. But here's the first thing you need to wrap your head around: What you're going to see, most of the last fifteen presidents haven't been aware of."
She felt a plunge in her stomach as distinct as if their altitude had plummeted.
"How is that possible? If he's the commander-in-chief, doesn't he…?"
Escovedo shook his head. "Need-to-know. There are security levels above the office of president. Politicians come and go. Career military and intelligence, we stick around."
"And I'm none of the above."
這種高層的事讓她越想越害怕。如果要說，她是享有特權沒錯，能接觸這麼機密的東西，這下她搞懂了，確實有些事你不想知道，因為此類特權伴隨太多代價。
「有時必須開先例。」他說，然後眼都不眨地繼續，「我真的希望能講得更好聽，但如果你洩漏任何你看到的東西，你最好考慮清楚。洩密會毀掉你的人生。首先，沒人會相信你，你會變笑柄。不用很久，你會弄丟你的電視節目。你會在很多人視為冷門的事業中失去信用。除此之外……需要再講嗎？」
It was quickly getting frightening, this inner circle business. If she'd ever thought she would feel privileged, privy to something so hidden, now she knew better. There really were things you didn't want to know, because the privilege came with too much of a cost.
"Sometimes exceptions have to be made," he said, then didn't even blink at the next part. "And I really wish there was a nicer way to tell you this, but if you divulge any of what you see, you'll want to think very hard about that first. Do that, and it's going to ruin your life. First, nobody's going to believe you anyway. All it will do is make you a laughingstock. Before long, you'll lose your TV show. You'll lose credibility in what a lot of people see as a fringe field anyway. Beyond that…do I even need to go beyond that?"
凱芮的心裡只有一個念頭：塔碧（Tabby/Tabitha，女兒），她唯一想到的是女兒。三年前的監護權爭奪戰就夠令人難過了，他們設法拆散她們，梅森（Mason，前夫）大改過去對她的看法，曾讓他著迷的特點，現在被他當作子彈，試圖讓她顯得不適任、不穩定：
庭上，她跟動物講話，她覺得牠們會回話。
Tabby—that was her first thought. Only thought, really. They would try to see that Tabitha was taken from her. The custody fight three years ago had been bruising enough, Mason doing his about-face on what he'd once found so beguiling about her, now trying to use it as a weapon, to make her seem unfit, unstable. She talks to animals, your honor. She thinks they talk back.
「我只是傳個話。」埃斯科維多上校說。「明白嗎？」
她希望自己更擅長這種交談，一般類似現況的交談，好讓她不會被這種交涉嚇到、好能直視他，讓他知道他必須演得更好才能嚇唬她、好讓她能找到恰當的遣詞讓他感到渺小，讓他察覺他像惡霸。
「我想你聽過古巴的關塔那摩監獄（911恐攻後關押要犯的監獄）？知道它幹嘛的嗎？」
「聽過。」她輕聲說道。好吧，這是最後通牒。如果說錯話，她會在蒙大拿或洛杉磯消失，然後出現在那個沒有出獄時間表的監獄裡，和160多名恐怖份子一起。他眼角抖了一下，似乎笑了。
「不用那麽怕。威脅的部分在我提到『關塔那摩』前就沒了。」
她表現得很明顯嗎？好喔，今天這種天氣還能娛樂他。
"I'm just the messenger," Colonel Escovedo said. "Okay?"
She wished she were better at conversations like this. Conversations in general. Oh, to not be intimidated by this. Oh, to look him in the eye and leave no doubt that he'd have to do better than that to scare her. To have just the right words to make him feel smaller, like the bully he was.
"I'm assuming you've heard of Guantanamo Bay in Cuba? What it's for?"
"Yes," she said in a hush.
Okay, this was the ultimate threat. Say the wrong thing and she'd disappear from Montana, or Los Angeles, and reappear there, in the prison where there was no timetable for getting out. Just her and 160 odd suspected terrorists.
His eyes crinkled, almost a smile.
"Try not to look so horrified. The threat part, that ended before I mentioned Gitmo."
Had it been that obvious? How nice she could amuse him this fine, rainy day.
〈2〉
「我們要去的地方是關塔那摩監獄的早期版，」埃斯科維多繼續說道，「是美國史上用來關押敵方戰鬥員最久的監獄。」
「久是多久？」
「他們從1928年被關到現在。」
"Where we're going is an older version of Guantanamo Bay," Escovedo went on. "It's the home of the most long-term enemy combatants ever held in U.S. custody."
"How long is long-term?"
"They've been detained since 1928."
她需要沉澱這句話。她已猜不透自己能提供什麽幫助了。動物，這一直都是她的領域，不是戰俘，尤其不是那些在一次世界大戰後十年間被俘的人。
「你確定有找對人？」她問。
「凱芮·拉里默，你很有名，《動物悄悄話》的固定班底，探索頻道的節目，現在在播第四季，口碑很好，你內斂且表裡如一，因為替富豪的奇珍異獸提供行為指導出名。你看起來很像她。」
「好吧。」她認命。他們知道自己要找誰。
She had to let that sink in. And was beyond guessing what she could bring to the table. Animals, that was her thing, it had always been her thing. Not POWs, least of all those whose capture dated back to the decade after the First World War.
"Are you sure you have the right person?" she asked.
"Kerry Larimer. Star of The Animal Whisperer, a modest but consistent hit on the Discovery Channel, currently shooting its fourth season. Which you got after gaining a reputation as a behavioral specialist for rich people's exotic pets. You look like her."
"Okay, then." Surrender. They knew who they wanted.
「有幾個囚犯？」那麼久了，居然還活著，真是奇蹟。
「63個。」一切開始超乎想像。
「他們現在應該超過一百歲了。這種年紀，還能造成威脅嗎？誰會正當化這種事——」
上校舉起一隻手。「聽起來很誇張，我同意。但從現在開始，你要理解的是，不管他們怎麼誕生或何時誕生，現在已經很難說他們還是人了。」
他從公事包裡拿出一台iPad遞給她，這刻就是世界從此巨變的轉捩點，一張照片就夠了。雖然她翻了十幾張，但第一張就夠了。那當然不是人類，那是對人類極大的嘲諷。其餘只是在這個基礎上進一步侮辱人類進化的成果。
（解析度很差，還請自己想像）
「就是你看到的這些」他說。「你聽過麻薩諸塞州有個叫印斯茅斯的城鎮嗎？」
「沒聽過。」凱芮搖搖頭。
「你不該聽過。這是一個早在南北戰爭時代就沒落的小海港。在1927至1928年的冬天，FBI和美國陸軍聯合進行一系列突襲，還有海軍支援。官方說法是——記得，當時正值禁酒令（1920-1933）——官方說突襲是為了打擊從加拿大沿海走私威士忌。真相是——」他從她麻木的手中取回iPad。
「沒有什麼比親眼看到真相更具說服力了。」
"How many prisoners?" From that long ago, it was a wonder there were any left at all.
"Sixty-three."
Everything about this kept slithering out of her grasp.
"They'd be over a hundred years old by now. What possible danger could they pose? How could anyone justify—"
The colonel raised a hand.
"It sounds appalling, I agree. But what you need to understand from this point forward is that, regardless of how or when they were born, it's doubtful that they're still human."
He pulled an iPad from his valise and handed it over, and here, finally, was the tipping point when the world forever changed. One photo, that was all it took. There were more—she must've flipped through a dozen—but really, the first one had been enough. Of course it wasn't human. It was a travesty of human. All the others were just evolutionary insult upon injury.
"What you see there is what you get," he said. “Have you ever heard of a town in Massachusetts called Innsmouth?"
Kerry shook her head. "I don't think so."
"No reason you should've. It's a little pisshole seaport whose best days were already behind it by the time of the Civil War. In the winter of 1927–28, there was a series of raids there, jointly conducted by the FBI and U.S. Army, with naval support. Officially—remember, this was during Prohibition—it was to shut down bootlegging operations bringing whiskey down the coast from Canada. The truth…" He took back the iPad from her nerveless fingers. "Nothing explains the truth better than seeing it with your own eyes."
「你無法和他們交談。問題是這個，對嗎？」她說。
「你無法與他們溝通，而你覺得我可以。」
埃斯科維多笑了，這時她才發現他還能笑。
「關於你的傳聞應該是真的，你確實會通靈。」
「是他們無法說話，還是他們不想說？」
「一直都沒有合理解釋」他說。
「被抓到時看起來還像人的囚犯，他們能說話，而且確實說過。但他們沒有一直維持人形，會突變成這樣」他指指iPad。
「你看到的是幾十年變化的結果。他們大多都這個模樣被捕捉，其它最後也變這樣。而這些變化還不只外部，他們的喉嚨也突變。或許這讓他們不能以我們理解的方式說話，或他們其實能，但他們一致假裝自己不能，因為他們同一邊的。他們的確有互相溝通，這毋庸置疑。他們的聲音經過大量錄音和分析，我們共識是這些聲音有自己的語法，很像鳥叫，只是聽起來不太悅耳。」
"You can't talk to them. That's what this is about, isn't it?" she said. "You can't communicate with them, and you think I can."
Escovedo smiled, and until now, she didn't think he had it in him.
"It must be true about you, then. You're psychic after all."
"Is it that they can't talk, or won't?"
"That's never been satisfactorily determined," he said.
"The ones who still looked more or less human when they were taken prisoner, they could, and did. But they didn't stay that way. Human, I mean. That's the way this mutation works." He tapped the iPad.
"What you saw there is the result of decades of change. Most of them were brought in like that already. The rest eventually got there. And the changes go more than skin deep. Their throats are different now. On the inside. Maybe this keeps them from speaking in a way that you and I would find intelligible, or maybe it doesn't but they're really consistent about pretending it does, because they're all on the same page. They do communicate with each other, that's a given. They've been recorded extensively doing that, and the sounds have been analyzed to exhaustion, and the consensus is that these sounds have their own syntax. The same way bird songs do. Just not as nice to listen to."
「如果他們在你這待這麼久，他們已經遠離原有文化，不管是什麼文化，幾乎一百年。那些文化早就消失了，對吧？世界變化這麼大，大到他們連變化都看不出來，別說認出這個世界了。」她說。
「你不是在做科學研究的，你是負責國家安全的。我不懂的是，為什麼過這麼久了，和他們溝通有那麽重要嗎？」
「那些變化，在海岸線會止步。把他們扔進海裡，他們會如魚得水。」他把iPad放回公事包拉上拉鍊。
「他們當年說什麼，已不重要。無論是20年後、還是60年後，我們需要搞懂的是那些當下的迫切性。」
直升機在島上降落後，凱芮還沒走出機艙，就覺得這是她一生中到過最糟糕的地方。岩石聳峭，風雨交加，距離大陸數英里，島上松樹被風吹得東倒西歪、扭來扭去的，斜得看似不懷好意。
「這地方不是一直這樣。」埃斯科維多向她保證。「有時候有冰霰（線）。」
"If they've been under your roof all this time, they've spent almost a century away from whatever culture they had where they came from. All that would be gone now, wouldn't it? The world's changed so much since then they wouldn't even recognize it," she said. "You're not doing science. You're doing national security. What I don't understand is why it's so important to communicate with them after all this time."
"All those changes you're talking about, that stops at the seashore. Drop them in the ocean and they'd feel right at home."
He zipped the iPad back into his valise.
"Whatever they might've had to say in 1928, that doesn't matter. Or '48, or '88. It's what we need to know now that's created a sense of urgency."
Once the helicopter had set down on the island, Kerry hadn't even left the cabin before thinking she'd never been to a more miserable place in her life. Rocky and rain-lashed, miles off the mainland, it was buffeted by winds that snapped from one direction and then another, so that the pines that grew here didn't know which way to go, twisted until they seemed to lean and leer with ill intent.
"It's not always like this," Escovedo assured her. "Sometimes there's sleet, too."
〈3〉
建築物內像是個大型購物廣場，呈現一個傾斜的三角形，其中一角是停機坪和船隻碼頭，另一角散佈一些附屬建築，包括她想是為那些不幸被派駐到這的人準備的辦公室和營房，全被道路小徑連成一張網絡。
然而，最顯眼的是一座龐大的磚造畸形建築，看起來完全就像怪物—一個復古的監獄遺跡—雖然它也可以被當作其他東西：一間老工廠或發電廠，或更該說是一座戰爭要塞，一座西海岸曾因懼怕日本艦隊時留下的前哨站。埃斯科維多告訴她，這座建築建於1942年。在那個時代，沒有人會質疑它的必要性，從那以後，人們開始習慣它的存在，甚至可能不知道它在。也許會有一些船員感到好奇，但岸邊間隔布滿標示，她覺得那些標示的內容應該足以讓人止步，再加上三層高的圍欄，上面纏繞一圈圈剃刀鐵絲。
It was the size of a large shopping plaza, a skewed triangular shape, with a helipad and boat dock on one point, and a scattering of outbuildings clustered along another, including what she assumed were offices and barracks for those unfortunate enough to have been assigned to duty here, everything laced together by a network of roads and pathways.
It was dominated, though, by a hulking brick monstrosity that looked exactly like what it was—a vintage relic of a prison—although it could pass for other things, too: an old factory or power plant, or, more likely, a wartime fortress, a leftover outpost from an era when the west coast feared the Japanese fleet. It had been built in 1942, Escovedo told her. No one would have questioned the need for it at the time, and since then, people were simply used to it, if they even knew it was there. Boaters might be curious, but the shoreline was studded at intervals with signs, and she imagined that whatever they said was enough to repel the inquisitive（好奇）—that, and the triple rows of fencing crowned with loops of razor wire.
在她的防雨外套裡，凱芮緊拉帽衫束繩，迎著針刺雨滴向前。十月——現在還只是十月。想像一下這裡的一月。當然，上校絲毫不介意。他們在前往附屬建築的小路上時，她轉向他，拉開帽子邊緣。
「我不會通靈，」她對他說。「你在機上那樣講，但我不是那樣看待自己的工作。」
「知道了，」他淡淡回應，既不認可也不在意。
「我是認真的。如果你要把我帶到這種地方，這點對我來說就很重要，請別背地裡竊笑。」
「你被接來了，對吧？很明顯指揮鏈的頂端有人對你信心」
這話倒讓她思索，這絕不會是隨意做出的決定。讓一個普通人參與連多數總統都不知道的事，絕不是出於一時的衝動——試試看，如果行不通，也無傷大雅。他們一定對她進行過徹底的審查，她不禁好奇他們怎麼判斷，也許是找藉口去面試她以前的客戶，或是曾參加過《動物悄悄話》的人，來確認他們真的是所宣稱的普通人，並且節目不是事先喬好的；確認她確實為他們做了她應該做的事。
Inside her rain slicker, Kerry yanked the hood's drawstring tight and leaned into the needles of rain. October—it was only October. Imagine this place in January. Of course it didn't bother the colonel one bit. They were halfway along the path to the outbuildings when she turned to him and tugged the edge of her hood aside.
"I'm not psychic," she told him. "You called me that in the helicopter. That's not how I look at what I do."
"Noted," he said, noncommittal and unconcerned.
"I'm serious. If you're going to bring me out here, to this place, it's important to me that you understand what I do, and aren't snickering about it behind my back."
"You're here, aren't you? Obviously somebody high up the chain of command has faith in you."
That gave her pause to consider. This wouldn't have been a lark on their part. Bringing in a civilian on something most presidents hadn't known about would never have been done on a hunch—see if this works, and if it doesn't, no harm done. She would've been vetted, extensively, and she wondered how they'd done it. Coming up with pretenses to interview past clients, perhaps, or people who'd appeared on The Animal Whisperer, to ascertain that they really were the just-folks they were purported to be, and that it wasn't scripted; that she genuinely had done for them what she was supposed to.
「那你呢？你看過節目嗎？」
「我有第一季的DVD，我看了幾集。」他的語氣變得若有所思，不再官樣。
「克里夫蘭動物園的北極熊，那幾集挺有趣的。你面對的是1500磅的頂級掠食者，而你面對牠時甚至沒有拿一根木棒擋在中間。就因為牠有強迫症？這需要極大的狗膽，不然就是超級笨蛋。而我不覺得你是笨蛋。」
「那我們可以從這開始。」她說。「那集是我在這的原因嗎？你覺得因為我做了那件事，所以不會輕易被這些囚犯嚇倒？」
「我想是其中一個考量吧。」腳下的碎石小徑發出嘎吱聲，直到他再次開口。
「如果你不認為自己是靈媒，那是什麼？這個能力是怎麼運作的？」
"What about you, though? Have you seen the show?"
"I got forwarded the season one DVDs. I watched the first couple episodes."
He grew more thoughtful, less official.
"The polar bear at the Cleveland Zoo, that was interesting. That's 1500 pounds of apex predator you're dealing with. And you went in there without so much as a stick of wood between you and it. Just because it was having OCD(Obsessive–compulsive disorder) issues? That takes either a big pair of balls or a serious case of stupid. And I don't think you're stupid."
"That's a start, I guess," she said. "Is that particular episode why I'm here? You figured since I did that, I wouldn't spook easily with these prisoners of yours?"
"I imagine it was factored in." The gravel that lined the path crunched underfoot for several paces before he spoke again.
"If you don't think of yourself as psychic, what is it, then? How does it work?"
「我其實不知道。」凱芮害怕這種問題，因為她從來不擅長回答。「自從我記得，它就一直存在，而且我越來越熟練，但我想那是因為我一直在運用。就像五感，但不像視覺、嗅覺或味覺。我把它比喻成平衡感。你能解釋你的平衡感怎麼運作嗎？」
他斜眼瞥了她一眼，毫無表情，但她看得出來他完全沒有頭緒。
「我的？你只要知道你需要知道的部分，記得吧？」
說得很好，很乾脆。埃斯科維多可能比看起來還有趣。
"I don't really know." Kerry had always dreaded the question, because she'd never been good at answering it. "It's been there as far back as I can remember, and I've gotten better at it, but I think that's just through the doing. It's a sense as much as anything. But not like sight or smell or taste. I compare it to balance. Can you explain how your sense of balance works?"
He cut her a sideways glance, betraying nothing, but she saw he didn't have a clue. "Mine? You're on a need-to-know basis here, remember." Very good. Very dry. Escovedo was probably more fun than he let on.
「對，」她說。「那別人的呢？大多數人沒想過這些，它太直覺了，都會被視為理所當然。少數可能知道跟內耳有關，其中還有人知道它跟前庭系統有關，那是三個充滿液體的迴路。兩個負責上下平衡、一個負責前後平衡。但你不需要知道這些才能像我們現在這樣走路，還不會跌倒。嗯……對我來說，針對動物的感覺就是這樣，它存在，但我不知道背後機制。」
他沉思，走了幾步。「所以這是你迴避問題的方式？」
凱莉對地面笑了。「通常有用。」
「不錯的煙霧彈。但是，真的嗎？」
"Right," she said. "Everybody else's, then. Most people have no idea. It's so intrinsic they take it for granted. A few may know it has to do with the inner ear. And a few of them, that it's centered in the vestibular apparatus, those three tiny loops full of fluid. One for up, one for down, one for forward and backward. But you don't need to know any of that to walk like we are now and not fall over. Well…that's what the animal thing is like for me. It's there, but I don't know the mechanism behind it."
He mused this over for several paces. "So that's your way of dodging the question?"
Kerry grinned at the ground. "It usually works."
"It's a good smokescreen. Really, though?"
「是不是真的……」她拉長語氣，發出輕微的嘆息，彷彿在思索。「這是很多因素的組合。像是接收到情緒、感覺、感官印象、心理影像，不管是靜態還是動態。任何一種或全部。有時甚至不只是這些，就是……純粹的『知道』，這是我能想到的最佳表達。」
「純粹的『知道』？」他的語氣聽起來有些懷疑。
「你參戰過吧？」
「有。」
"Really? It's…" She drew the word out, a soft hiss while gathering her thoughts. "A combination of things. It's like receiving emotions, feelings, sensory impressions, mental imagery, either still or with motion. Any or all. Sometimes it's not even that, it's just…pure knowing, is the best way I know to phrase it."
"Pure knowing?" He sounded skeptical.
"Have you been in combat?"
"Yes."
「那即使你自己沒親身到過有些戰區，如果你沒在信任的人身上見過或聽過，我會驚訝——強烈的預感告訴他們進入某棟建築或接近下一個高地時要非常小心。他們無法指出具體的理由。他們就是知道。而且他們通常是對的。」
埃斯科維多點頭。「這樣講倒是合理。」
「還有，這可能沒什麼，但他們對我做功能性核磁共振造影，只是好玩而已。第二季DVD的花絮裡有。顯然我大腦的語言中樞發展得非常好，高達百分之九十八的比例。所以，也許這與我的能力有關。」
「有趣，」埃斯科維多回道，然後沒有再說話，所以她決定就此打住。
"Then even if you haven't experienced it yourself, I'd be surprised if you haven't seen it or heard about it in people you trust—a strong sense that you should be very careful in that building, or approaching that next rise. They can't point to anything concrete to explain why. They just know. And they're often right."
Escovedo nodded. "Put in that context, it makes sense."
"Plus, for what it's worth, they ran a functional MRI on me, just for fun. That's on the season two DVD bonuses. Apparently the language center of my brain is very highly developed. Ninety-eighth percentile, something like that. So maybe that has something to do with it."
"Interesting, " Escovedo said, and nothing more, so she decided to quit while she was ahead.
小徑在前方轉彎並分道，雖然他們並沒有走往朝監獄的左側道路，但隨著他們越來越接近那座建築，在雨水掩映、狂風蔑視下，這棟大廈似乎益發壓倒性地矗立於島上的一切。它就像從海中長出來的，一座磚造的冰山，其最恐怖的部分隱藏在視線外。某些時刻風撲來時，還會帶一股魚腥味，好幾代的腥味，好像腐爛從未清理。
凱芮盯向那建築的背後，看到洶湧的海浪直達地平線。如果從遠方外邊看，這地方才算是一座島嶼。那好辦：絕不要到外邊。
她從來不怕游泳池，那是透明的。但湖泊、海洋、河流……那是完全不同的東西。那是黑暗的水域，充滿秘密和偶然埋下的墳墓。船隻的殘骸、沉沒的飛機、被淹沒的山腳房屋……這些是恐懼的墓穴，被困在另一個顯然不屬於它們的世界。就像她此刻的感受。
The path curved and split before them, and though they weren't taking the left-hand branch to the prison, still, the closer they drew to it, darkened by rain and contemptuous of the wind, the greater the edifice seemed to loom over everything else on the island. It was like something grown from the sea, an iceberg of brick, with the worst of it hidden from view. When the wind blew just right, it carried with it a smell of fish, generations of them, as if left to spoil and never cleaned up.
Kerry stared past it, to the sea surging all the way to the horizon. This was an island only if you looked at it from out there. Simple, then: Don't ever go out there.
She'd never had a problem with swimming pools. You could see through those. Lakes, oceans, rivers…these were something entirely different. These were dark waters, full of secrets and unintended tombs. Shipwrecks, sunken airplanes, houses at the bottom of flooded valleys…they were sepulchers of dread, trapped in another world where they so plainly did not belong.
Not unlike the way she was feeling this very moment.
〈4〉
她環顧埃斯科維多上校在行政大樓的辦公室，這裡幾乎和監獄裡的囚房沒什麼兩樣。辦公室沒有窗戶，照明全靠人工光源，刺眼的熒光燈讓氣氛更顯壓抑。這股光線下他看起來蒼老許多，她不敢想像同樣光線讓她看起來是什麼樣。角落的除濕機持續運轉，但空氣依然沉悶潮濕。日復一日，在礦坑裡工作就是這樣吧。
「問題來了，為什麼是現在，」他說。「自從他們被轉移到這個設施後，他們的行為基本上沒什麼變化，只有一次例外。1997年夏末，持續了大約一個月。我那時不在這裡，但根據記錄，那段時間就像……」他停頓一下，搜尋合適的用詞。「感覺像蜂巢。他們大部分時間像一整個有機體面向西南方，好像在等什麼。當時指揮官在報告中提到，他們無情地一直等。後來終於停下來，所有事情恢復正常。」
「直到現在？」她問。
「九天前，他們又開始了。」
「那個月是不是有什麼特別的？有人研究過嗎？」
As she looked around Colonel Escovedo's office in the administrative building, it seemed almost as much a cell as anything they could have over at the prison. It was without windows, so the lighting was all artificial, fluorescent and unflattering. It aged him, and she didn't want to think what it had to be doing to her own appearance. In one corner, a dehumidifier chugged away, but the air still felt heavy and damp. Day in, day out, it must have been like working in a mine.
"Here's the situation. Why now," he said. "Their behavior over there, it's been pretty much unchanged ever since they were moved to this installation. With one exception. Late summer, 1997, for about a month. I wasn't here then, but according to the records, it was like…" He paused, groping for the right words. "A hive mind. Like they were a single organism. They spent most of their time aligned to a precise angle to the southwest. The commanding officer at the time mentioned in his reports that it was like they were waiting for something. Inhumanly patient, just waiting. Then, eventually, they stopped and everything went back to normal."
"Until now?" she said.
"Nine days ago. They're doing it again."
"Did anybody figure out what was special about that month?"
「我們也是這麼認為，幾年後才搞清楚，大概是三年後，某個分析師做出聯想，即使如此，你知道，這是一種幸運的巧合。或許你也聽過，這些機構之間不會互通消息、不會共享情報。就像這邊有鑰匙，鎖在世界另一端，卻很難有人知道它們是一組的。現在情況比以前好，但直到 9/11 恐攻後，他們才開始真正思考如何更好地整合情報。」
「所以那年夏天到底怎麼了？」
「你聽這個，」他說，隨即轉身開始操作身後的設備。
"We think so. It took years, though. Three years before some analyst made the connection, and even then, you know, it's still a lucky accident. Maybe you've heard how it is with these agencies, they don't talk to each other, don't share notes. You've got a key here, and a lock on the other side of the world, and nobody in the middle who knows enough to put the two together. It's better now than it used to be, but it took the 9/11 attacks to get them to even think about correlating intel better."
"So what happened that summer?"
"Just listen," he said, and spun in his chair to the hardware behind him.
她剛剛就在琢磨這些設備。考慮到他辦公室的目的，埃斯科維多卻擁有一套看起來高端的影音設備、重低音喇叭和環繞音響，這有點太超過，更與他性格不符。他在其中一個機櫃的液晶螢幕上調出一個音檔，然後按下播放。
一開始，那段聲音很安撫人心，像是一種靜謐的低沉嗡鳴，輕柔深邃，彷彿某個電影音效設計師用來表達外太空荒涼感的聲響。但這不是太空，這必定與大海有關，一切都指向深海。這是深海的聲音，來自那永無光線抵達的黑暗深處。
隨後，一個新聲音出現，比先前的更深沉，像是緩慢的爆發，從嗡鳴中掙脫，音調逐漸攀升，然後驟然下降，回歸虛無的聲音。在短暫期待後，那聲音再次響起，像是從深淵中發出的咆哮，讓她頸背細毛豎立——一種原始的感覺，但說到底，還有什麼比海洋及其波濤下的威脅更原始呢？
這就是為什麼她從不喜歡大海，因為你永遠不知道下面有什麼，直到它逼近你
She'd been wondering about that anyway. Considering how functional his office was, it seemed not merely excessive, but out of character, that Escovedo would have an array of what looked to be high-end audio-video components, all feeding into a pair of three-way speakers and a subwoofer. He dialed in a sound file on the LCD of one of the rack modules, then thumbed the play button.
At first it was soothing, a muted drone both airy and deep, a lonely noise that some movie's sound designer might have used to suggest the desolation of outer space. But no, this wasn't about space. It had to be the sea, this all led back to the sea. It was the sound of deep waters, the black depths where sunlight never reached.
Then came a new sound, deeper than deep, a slow eruption digging its way free of the drone, climbing in pitch, rising, rising, then plummeting back to leave her once more with the sound of the void. After moments of anticipation, it happened again, like a roar from an abyss, and prickled the fine hairs on the back of her neck—a primal response, but then, what was more primal than the ocean and the threats beneath its waves?
This was why she'd never liked the sea. This never knowing what was there, until it was upon you.
「聽夠了嗎？」 埃斯科維多問，看到她默默點頭，他顯得有些好笑。
「這就是發生什麼事。他們的蜂巢意識行為正好與這聲音同時發生。」
「這是什麼？」
「這是大哉問。這聲音在1997年夏天被錄過幾次，之後再也沒出現。自1960年以來，我們就開始在海洋中佈屬監聽設備，基本上是為了監聽蘇聯潛艇，當時我們以為會跟他們開戰。這些麥克風被佈在數百英尺深，沿著一個叫做聲道的海洋層，是聲音傳導的最佳區域——簡直『恰到好處』。冷戰結束後，這些麥克風網絡不再有軍事用途，就用於科學研究，比如監聽鯨魚、地震活動、海底火山之類的。大多數時候，這些聲音都可以立即被辨認出來。那些負責聆聽這些麥克風訊息的人，99.99%的場合他們都能確切知道聽到什麼，因為這些聲音符合特定模式，他們太熟了。
「但偶爾，他們會聽到一些無法辨識的聲音，這些聲音不符合任何已知的模式。他們會給這些聲音起個可愛的名字，然後它就成為一個謎。這個聲音，他們叫它『Bloop』註6。聽起來像小孩在浴缸裡放屁，對吧？」
她指著喇叭說：「非常巨大的小孩，和非常巨大的浴缸。」
（待續）
"Heard enough?" Escovedo asked, and seemed amused at her mute nod. "That happened. Their hive mind behavior coincided with that."
"What was it?"
"That's the big question. It was recorded several times during the summer of 1997, then never again. Since 1960, we've had the oceans bugged for sound, basically. We've got them full of microphones that we put there to listen for Soviet submarines, when we thought it was a possibility we'd be going to war with them. They're down hundreds of feet, along an ocean layer called the sound channel. For sound conductivity, it's the Goldilocks zone—it's just right. After the Cold War was over, these mic networks were decommissioned from military use and turned over for scientific research. Whales, seismic events, underwater volcanoes, that sort of thing. Most of it, it's instantly identifiable. The people whose job it is to listen to what the mics pick up, 99.99 percent of the time they know exactly what they've got because the sounds conform to signature patterns, and they're just so familiar.
"But every so often they get one they can't identify. It doesn't fit any known pattern. So they give it a cute name and it stays a mystery. This one, they called it the 'Bloop.' Makes it sound like a kid farting in the bathtub, doesn't it?"
She pointed at the speakers. "An awfully big kid and an awfully big tub."
(To Be Continued)
註解、參考與心得
剩下的僅參考，贊助小費可解鎖
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