Blessed Night 福佑之夜
By Nancy Kress 南希·克雷斯
Translated by Noc
201408
彗星科幻
(译文见后)
He walked as fast as he could without running. Running would use too much energy, cost him too much air. He walked, trying not to swing his arms too much, toward the night. He’d been walking for over two days and had one more day’s supply of air and water. If he didn’t reach Alpha Base by then, he would die. And the planet kept turning under him, carrying him backwards. He had to walk faster than CJ-10a’s rotation to reach the base, which was set just beyond the planet’s terminator in the blessed narrow edge between perpetual day and perpetual night.
“Jenny, darling, I don’t know if I can make it,” he said to the recorder built into his helmet. The radio had been destroyed during the skimmer crash, and his tracker was too damaged to beam his location, but the recorder still worked. If he died, someone from the base would eventually find his body. He wanted his wife to know his last thoughts.
“I’m slowing down a little, Jenny. Only my body, not my mind. And never my heart. I love you.”
How often had he said that to her? A hundred times, a thousand times. He could never say it enough.
“Why this planet, Jenny? Why me?”
Questions without answers. Like the entire planet.
CJ-10a was the closest planet to its orange dwarf star. Small and surprisingly dense, its gravity was nearly one gee. Tidally locked, the planet kept one scorched and barren face toward its sun, the other frozen and barren face toward the stars. Only at the terminator was there alien life: lichen, primitive plants, prokaryotes, and worms. Nothing interesting, nothing a man could believe was important. Everything important was light-years away.
“Jenny, the light is so hard. So bright. It’s not like our light, it’s orange-y, and it makes the rocks look just a little orange. There’s a place on the horizon where the orange light is darker, I think that might be the terminator. But it doesn’t get any closer! The damn planet is fighting me. If I don’t reach night, where Alpha is—”
No. Unthinkable. He would reach the base, with its warmth and artificial Earth atmosphere and food and rest. A bed—he would lie in a bed with clean sheets, after he took a hot shower, scalding hot. Every part of him stank. Then he would eat a big plateful of food. Two platefuls, three.
Except…he didn’t feel hungry. Why didn’t he feel hungry? He hadn’t eaten for two days. Something gnawed at his mind: a painful thought, a doubt. He pushed it away. The important thing was not to think but to keep going, keep walking toward Alpha, with its safety and its interstellar transmitter. At Alpha he could not only talk to Jenny but also hear her sweet voice answer. Meanwhile, he must keep moving. He began yet again to explain to Jenny how he must walk toward the base faster than the rotation of the planet carried him in the opposite direction. He felt compelled to tell her, just as he felt compelled to say how much he loved her. Words were his lifeline to everything he fought to keep.
But he was so tired.
“Next month is our anniversary, Jenny. Three years married. Remember when I proposed? You were so surprised. We were having dinner at that Italian place on Fourth Street, the one destroyed last year in the shelling. You had veal scaloppini and I had the pasta. You wore that blue dress with the lace collar. When I asked you to marry me, you were so happy that you cried. You know why I’m doing this, don’t you? Why I’m on this cursed planet? For us. I want to buy us a house someplace away from the war, someplace where no missiles can hit us and no soldiers invade house-to-house, somewhere we can—what’s that?”
A movement to his left caught his eye. There couldn’t be anything out here! Unless a rover from base… For a moment he felt a wild surge of hope. Rescue…
But it wasn’t a rover.
“Jenny, I thought I saw an animal. Big, as big as a wolf. No, more like a tiger. But with glowing skin, like those house-cats with jellyfish genes.”
#
“A tiger?” the researcher said. “Why a tiger?”
His colleague shrugged.
#
“Jenny, darling, I know I couldn’t have seen a—oh my god, there it is again! It’s gorgeous, it glows gold with black stripes and it moves like…like flowing water! Muscles rippling under the skin. It… no, it’s gone now, leaping over an outcropping of rock. I don’t have the strength to follow, which probably wouldn’t be a good idea anyway, but I—here comes something else.”
A dot of silver on the horizon. It moved toward him, not fast. He waited, still walking, while its path angled toward his. When it drew near, he blinked in disbelief.
“Jenny, it’s a huge bird, tall as a man. It’s walking on stilt legs, you know, like a heron, and its feathers are all silver and red…. Now it’s spreading its wings, they must be ten feet across, you never saw such a gorgeous wings. It’s flying! Just soaring off into the orange sky, all silver and crimson and—”
#
“Stop the experiment,” the researcher said. “Tigers, birds—a little hallucination is one thing, we expected that, but soldiers won’t be any use if they fire at non-existent animals.” The researcher pressed a button.
The treadmill stopped. The man on it, dressed in shorts and a tee-shirt, looked bewildered. The clamps that held him in place released. He swayed but remained upright, saying, “Jenny, the planet has stopped rotating. I don’t understand…”
“Take him away,” the researcher said, and a robot picked up the man and carried him out of the room. He didn’t resist. The researcher felt in the pocket of his lab coat for his cigarettes; they weren’t there. The war had been going on a long time and many items were in short supply. Although the war…something about the war, about the experiment, tugged at his mind. But he had no time for distractions. He turned to his colleague. “Still, that’s two-thirds of the objectives met. This dosage worked much better. The subject stayed fully awake for fifty-four hours, with enough energy to keep walking.”
“Awake and walking and hallucinating,” his colleague said. He made a note on his tablet. “The Army needs our subjects to keep a firm grip on the reality we hand them. You should know that. The Army isn’t paying us to develop a drug that causes soldiers to see tigers and giant birds.”
The first researcher didn’t like being reprimanded. Also, he owned a small amount of stock in the drug company and he hoped that this drug would succeed. Runaway inflation caused by the war had made everything so expensive. Some months he had trouble paying his mortgage. He said, “But you have to admit that the hallucination followed the scenario we gave him.”
“Until the tiger and the giant bird.”
“And,” the first researcher said, ignoring the interruption, “it was a really complete hallucination, much better than we got with previous subjects. Very detailed.”
“No. His astronomy doesn’t even make sense. You can’t have a tidally locked planet that rotates. And if it did, there wouldn’t be a terminator to walk toward.”
“He’s not a trained astronomer. Real-life users of the drug wouldn’t be given scenarios outside their areas of expertise.”
“Also, no bird with a ten-foot wingspan could fly in the thin air of that planet he dreamed up.”
The two researchers glared at each other. Then both began talking at the same time. The first pointed out all the ways that the Army needed more controlled and rational hallucinations—rational! They must be rational!—to keep their soldiers focused throughout days and nights of sustained battle. The second researcher hotly described the disaster if soldiers, especially constantly awake soldiers with augmented energy, fired at things that did not exist.
#
Behind a one-way mirror, the chief scientist stood in a darkened hallway and watched the two figures arguing in an empty room. “How long have they been awake?”
His assistant said, “Fifty-four hours, sir.”
“Good. It’s a very complete hallucination, don’t you agree? I think we finally have the right dosage. They actually believe they are scientific researchers observing a hallucinatory subject.”
“Yes,” his assistant said. “They do.”
Somewhere in the distance, explosions sounded. More shelling.
The chief scientist moved away from the one-way mirror. He said, a little desperately, “We haven’t succeeded so well before. No break in the shared hallucination, and it’s both self-consistent and detailed.”
“Yes,” the assistant said.
“They don’t seem to have even the suspicion of doubt that subjects sixteen through twenty-four expressed.”
“No. They didn’t mention any doubt.”
“Write up the report and I’ll sign it.”
“Yes, sir,” the assistant said.
In the empty room, the two men dressed in shorts and sweaters were still arguing. More explosions sounded, a little closer. The assistant glanced uneasily behind the chief scientist, down the hallway, where a large mirror was set into the blank wall.
他竭力快走，但没让自己跑起来。奔跑会用掉太多能量，耗费太多空气。他朝着黑夜前进，努力不让手臂摇摆得太厉害。他已经走了两天多，剩下水和空气还够用一天。要是到那时他还没有抵达阿尔法基地，他就会死。行星在他脚下旋转，把他拖向后方。他必须走得比CJ-10a的自转速度更快才能到达基地——它就建在晨昏线另一侧，永昼与永夜之间那块受到福佑的狭窄地带。
“简妮，亲爱的，我不知道自己能不能成功，”他对着头盔里的内置录音器说。无线电在滑翔机坠毁的时候弄坏了，追踪系统也损毁严重，没法发射他的位置信息，不过录音器还能用。如果他死了，基地的人终会找到他的尸体。他想让妻子知道他最后的想法。
“我放慢了点速度，简妮。只是身体，不是思想。更不会是我的心。我爱你。”
这话他对她说过多少次？一百次，一千次。他永远都觉得不够。
“为什么是这颗行星，简妮？为什么是我？”
无解之谜。正如同这整颗行星。
CJ-10a绕着一颗橙矮星旋转，是离它最近的行星。体积小，而密度大得惊人，其重力约为1个g。这是一颗潮汐锁定的行星，焦灼而贫瘠的一面始终朝向恒星，冰冷而同样贫瘠的一面朝向群星。只有在晨昏线处才存在外星生命：地衣，原始植物，原核生物，还有蠕虫。没什么有趣的东西，没有人类会觉得重要的东西。重要的东西都在数光年之外。
“简妮，这儿的光线真强。那么亮。不像我们那里的光线，它是橘色的，在它的照射下，石头也有点变成橘黄色了。地平线上有块地方的橘色光线比较暗，我觉得那里可能就是晨昏线。可它总是那么远！如果我走不到那儿，阿尔法基地所在的黑夜——”
不。别多想。他会抵达基地的，那里有温暖的人工地球大气，能获得食物和休憩。一张床——他会躺在干净的床单上，在那之前他要洗个热水澡，滚烫的那种。他浑身上下都臭烘烘的。然后他要吃一大盘子食物。两盘，三盘。
除非……他没感到饿。怎么会这样？他已经两天没吃东西了。什么东西正啮咬着他的大脑：某个棘手的念头，某种疑问。他把它撇在一边。重要的是继续前进，别想其他的，朝着安全的、配有星际通信机的阿尔法基地不断前行。在基地，他不仅能对简妮说话，还能听到她甜美的回答。与此同时，他必须继续向前。他又开始对简妮解释他必须如何如何地走快些，朝着基地，用超过行星自转的速度——这颗行星正在拖他的后腿。他感觉自己不得不这么说下去，就像他身不由己地说有多爱她一样。说话就是他的救命稻草，使他勉力维系的一切不至于分崩离析。
可他太累了。
“下个月就是我们的周年纪念日了，简妮。结婚三年。还记得我求婚的那一刻吗？你是多么惊讶。我们在第四街的那家意大利餐馆吃晚饭，那餐馆去年在炮击中被毁了。你点了小牛仔扒，我点了意大利面。你穿着那条蕾丝领子的蓝裙子。我问你是否愿意嫁给我时，你喜极而泣。你知道我这么做的原因，对吧？我跑到这颗该死的行星上的原因？是为了我们。我想给我们俩买套房子，离战争远远的，在那里不会有导弹击中我们，不会有士兵挨家挨户的侵袭，在那里我们能——那是什么东西？”
左边有动静吸引了他的注意。这里不可能有其他东西！除非是从基地来的越野车……有那么一瞬间他被强烈的希望淹没。得救了……
可那不是越野车。
“简妮，我觉得我看到了只动物。很大，和狼一样大。不，更像老虎。不过它的皮肤会发光，就像那种带着水母基因的家猫。”
#
“老虎？”研究员说。“为什么是老虎？”
他的同事耸耸肩。
#
“简妮，亲爱的，我明知我不可能看到——哦天啊，它又出现了！它非常漂亮，身上黑色的条纹泛着金光，它移动起来就像……就像流动的水！肌肉在皮肤下如波浪般起伏。它……不，它跃过一块露出地表石头，消失了。我没力气跟着它，反正那也不是个好主意，不过我——有其他东西过来了。”
地平线上的一个银色小点。它朝着他移动，速度并不快。他等待着，但并没有停下脚步，而那东西根据他的行进方向不断调整着自己的运动角度。当它靠近之后，他不敢置信地直眨眼睛。
“简妮，那是只大鸟，和人差不多高。它用高跷般的腿行走，呃……就像苍鹭，它的羽毛满是银色和红色……现在它展开了翅膀，它们一定有十尺宽，你绝对没见过这么美丽的翅膀。它飞起来了！向着橘色的天空翱翔，闪耀着银色和深红色的光辉——”
#
“停止实验，”研究员说。“老虎，鸟——一点点小幻觉是一回事，还在我们的预料之内，可朝着虚无缥缈的动物开火的士兵派不上任何用场。”研究员按下按钮。
跑步机停了下来。那个站在跑步机上面、穿着短裤和T恤的人似乎陷入了迷惑。固定住他的夹臂松开了。他摇摇晃晃，不过仍然维持站着的姿势，他说，“简妮，行星不转了。我不明白……”
“把他带走，”研究员说，一个机器人抬起他，将他带出房间。他没抵抗。研究员在白大褂的口袋里摸索香烟，可没找到。战争已经进行了很久，很多东西都供应短缺。尽管战争……某件关于战争、关于实验的事情搅动了他的思绪。但他没工夫分心。他转向同事。“就算这样，也完成了三分之二的目标。这次的剂量比之前管用。实验对象保持充分清醒长达54小时，同时也拥有足以持续行走的精力。”
“清醒、行走，以及幻觉，”他的同事说。他在写字板上做了个标记。“军队要求我们的实验对象能牢牢掌控我们赋予他们的现实。这你应该知道。让士兵幻视到老虎和巨鸟——军队不是付钱让我们去开发这种药的。”
第一名研究员不喜欢被人批评。除此之外，他也持有这家医药公司的小部分股票，他希望这药能研制成功。战争引起的恶性通货膨胀让所有东西都贵得吓人。有几个月他连还贷都困难。他说，“可你得承认，那幻觉跟我们赋予他的场景还是挺符合的。”
“直到老虎和巨鸟出现。”
“以及，”第一名研究员无视他的插嘴，继续说，“幻觉相当完整，比我们之前那些对象产生的要好多了。细节丰富。”
“不。他那套天文学根本说不通。潮汐锁定的行星不可能自转。要是它在自转，就不会有能让人走近的晨昏线。”
“他又不是受过培训的宇航员。现实生活里使用这种药的人也不会被赋予超出他们知识的环境设定。”
“还有，不可能有那种鸟——翼展十尺宽，还能在那颗他虚构的行星的稀薄空气里飞起来。”
两名研究员大眼瞪小眼，同时开口讲起来。第一名研究员指出军队自始至终需要的是受控的、理性的幻象——理性！他们必须理性！——以此确保他们的士兵能夜以继日地在持久战中保持专注。第二名研究员则言辞激烈地描述道，如果士兵——尤其是始终清醒的、精力增强的士兵——朝着不存在的东西开火，那简直就是灾难。
#
一面单向玻璃后面，首席科学家站在光线调暗的门厅内，看着那两个人影在空房间里争辩。“他们的清醒状态维持多久了？”
他的助手说，“54小时，先生。”
“很好。这幻象很完整，不是么？我想我们终于得到了正确的剂量。他们还真以为自己是观察某个幻觉实验的研究员呢。”
“是的，”他的助手说。“他们确实相信了。”
远处的某个地方，爆炸声响起。更多的炮击。
首席科学家从单向玻璃前离开。他带着点孤注一掷的意思说：“我们从未如此成功。共享幻觉没有过间断，而且既自洽又详尽。”
“是的，”助手说。
“他们似乎根本就没想过要怀疑，而之前的24个实验对象中有16个产生过疑问。”
“嗯。他们没提到任何怀疑。”
“写好报告，我来签字。”
“好的，先生，”助手说。
空房间内，穿着短裤和毛衣的两人仍在争论。外面响起更多的爆炸声，比之前近了些。助手不安地瞥了眼首席科学家身后，走廊尽头的空白墙壁上嵌着一面巨大的镜子。
By Nancy Kress 南希·克雷斯
Translated by Noc
201408
彗星科幻
(译文见后)
He walked as fast as he could without running. Running would use too much energy, cost him too much air. He walked, trying not to swing his arms too much, toward the night. He’d been walking for over two days and had one more day’s supply of air and water. If he didn’t reach Alpha Base by then, he would die. And the planet kept turning under him, carrying him backwards. He had to walk faster than CJ-10a’s rotation to reach the base, which was set just beyond the planet’s terminator in the blessed narrow edge between perpetual day and perpetual night.
“Jenny, darling, I don’t know if I can make it,” he said to the recorder built into his helmet. The radio had been destroyed during the skimmer crash, and his tracker was too damaged to beam his location, but the recorder still worked. If he died, someone from the base would eventually find his body. He wanted his wife to know his last thoughts.
“I’m slowing down a little, Jenny. Only my body, not my mind. And never my heart. I love you.”
How often had he said that to her? A hundred times, a thousand times. He could never say it enough.
“Why this planet, Jenny? Why me?”
Questions without answers. Like the entire planet.
CJ-10a was the closest planet to its orange dwarf star. Small and surprisingly dense, its gravity was nearly one gee. Tidally locked, the planet kept one scorched and barren face toward its sun, the other frozen and barren face toward the stars. Only at the terminator was there alien life: lichen, primitive plants, prokaryotes, and worms. Nothing interesting, nothing a man could believe was important. Everything important was light-years away.
“Jenny, the light is so hard. So bright. It’s not like our light, it’s orange-y, and it makes the rocks look just a little orange. There’s a place on the horizon where the orange light is darker, I think that might be the terminator. But it doesn’t get any closer! The damn planet is fighting me. If I don’t reach night, where Alpha is—”
No. Unthinkable. He would reach the base, with its warmth and artificial Earth atmosphere and food and rest. A bed—he would lie in a bed with clean sheets, after he took a hot shower, scalding hot. Every part of him stank. Then he would eat a big plateful of food. Two platefuls, three.
Except…he didn’t feel hungry. Why didn’t he feel hungry? He hadn’t eaten for two days. Something gnawed at his mind: a painful thought, a doubt. He pushed it away. The important thing was not to think but to keep going, keep walking toward Alpha, with its safety and its interstellar transmitter. At Alpha he could not only talk to Jenny but also hear her sweet voice answer. Meanwhile, he must keep moving. He began yet again to explain to Jenny how he must walk toward the base faster than the rotation of the planet carried him in the opposite direction. He felt compelled to tell her, just as he felt compelled to say how much he loved her. Words were his lifeline to everything he fought to keep.
But he was so tired.
“Next month is our anniversary, Jenny. Three years married. Remember when I proposed? You were so surprised. We were having dinner at that Italian place on Fourth Street, the one destroyed last year in the shelling. You had veal scaloppini and I had the pasta. You wore that blue dress with the lace collar. When I asked you to marry me, you were so happy that you cried. You know why I’m doing this, don’t you? Why I’m on this cursed planet? For us. I want to buy us a house someplace away from the war, someplace where no missiles can hit us and no soldiers invade house-to-house, somewhere we can—what’s that?”
A movement to his left caught his eye. There couldn’t be anything out here! Unless a rover from base… For a moment he felt a wild surge of hope. Rescue…
But it wasn’t a rover.
“Jenny, I thought I saw an animal. Big, as big as a wolf. No, more like a tiger. But with glowing skin, like those house-cats with jellyfish genes.”
#
“A tiger?” the researcher said. “Why a tiger?”
His colleague shrugged.
#
“Jenny, darling, I know I couldn’t have seen a—oh my god, there it is again! It’s gorgeous, it glows gold with black stripes and it moves like…like flowing water! Muscles rippling under the skin. It… no, it’s gone now, leaping over an outcropping of rock. I don’t have the strength to follow, which probably wouldn’t be a good idea anyway, but I—here comes something else.”
A dot of silver on the horizon. It moved toward him, not fast. He waited, still walking, while its path angled toward his. When it drew near, he blinked in disbelief.
“Jenny, it’s a huge bird, tall as a man. It’s walking on stilt legs, you know, like a heron, and its feathers are all silver and red…. Now it’s spreading its wings, they must be ten feet across, you never saw such a gorgeous wings. It’s flying! Just soaring off into the orange sky, all silver and crimson and—”
#
“Stop the experiment,” the researcher said. “Tigers, birds—a little hallucination is one thing, we expected that, but soldiers won’t be any use if they fire at non-existent animals.” The researcher pressed a button.
The treadmill stopped. The man on it, dressed in shorts and a tee-shirt, looked bewildered. The clamps that held him in place released. He swayed but remained upright, saying, “Jenny, the planet has stopped rotating. I don’t understand…”
“Take him away,” the researcher said, and a robot picked up the man and carried him out of the room. He didn’t resist. The researcher felt in the pocket of his lab coat for his cigarettes; they weren’t there. The war had been going on a long time and many items were in short supply. Although the war…something about the war, about the experiment, tugged at his mind. But he had no time for distractions. He turned to his colleague. “Still, that’s two-thirds of the objectives met. This dosage worked much better. The subject stayed fully awake for fifty-four hours, with enough energy to keep walking.”
“Awake and walking and hallucinating,” his colleague said. He made a note on his tablet. “The Army needs our subjects to keep a firm grip on the reality we hand them. You should know that. The Army isn’t paying us to develop a drug that causes soldiers to see tigers and giant birds.”
The first researcher didn’t like being reprimanded. Also, he owned a small amount of stock in the drug company and he hoped that this drug would succeed. Runaway inflation caused by the war had made everything so expensive. Some months he had trouble paying his mortgage. He said, “But you have to admit that the hallucination followed the scenario we gave him.”
“Until the tiger and the giant bird.”
“And,” the first researcher said, ignoring the interruption, “it was a really complete hallucination, much better than we got with previous subjects. Very detailed.”
“No. His astronomy doesn’t even make sense. You can’t have a tidally locked planet that rotates. And if it did, there wouldn’t be a terminator to walk toward.”
“He’s not a trained astronomer. Real-life users of the drug wouldn’t be given scenarios outside their areas of expertise.”
“Also, no bird with a ten-foot wingspan could fly in the thin air of that planet he dreamed up.”
The two researchers glared at each other. Then both began talking at the same time. The first pointed out all the ways that the Army needed more controlled and rational hallucinations—rational! They must be rational!—to keep their soldiers focused throughout days and nights of sustained battle. The second researcher hotly described the disaster if soldiers, especially constantly awake soldiers with augmented energy, fired at things that did not exist.
#
Behind a one-way mirror, the chief scientist stood in a darkened hallway and watched the two figures arguing in an empty room. “How long have they been awake?”
His assistant said, “Fifty-four hours, sir.”
“Good. It’s a very complete hallucination, don’t you agree? I think we finally have the right dosage. They actually believe they are scientific researchers observing a hallucinatory subject.”
“Yes,” his assistant said. “They do.”
Somewhere in the distance, explosions sounded. More shelling.
The chief scientist moved away from the one-way mirror. He said, a little desperately, “We haven’t succeeded so well before. No break in the shared hallucination, and it’s both self-consistent and detailed.”
“Yes,” the assistant said.
“They don’t seem to have even the suspicion of doubt that subjects sixteen through twenty-four expressed.”
“No. They didn’t mention any doubt.”
“Write up the report and I’ll sign it.”
“Yes, sir,” the assistant said.
In the empty room, the two men dressed in shorts and sweaters were still arguing. More explosions sounded, a little closer. The assistant glanced uneasily behind the chief scientist, down the hallway, where a large mirror was set into the blank wall.
他竭力快走，但没让自己跑起来。奔跑会用掉太多能量，耗费太多空气。他朝着黑夜前进，努力不让手臂摇摆得太厉害。他已经走了两天多，剩下水和空气还够用一天。要是到那时他还没有抵达阿尔法基地，他就会死。行星在他脚下旋转，把他拖向后方。他必须走得比CJ-10a的自转速度更快才能到达基地——它就建在晨昏线另一侧，永昼与永夜之间那块受到福佑的狭窄地带。
“简妮，亲爱的，我不知道自己能不能成功，”他对着头盔里的内置录音器说。无线电在滑翔机坠毁的时候弄坏了，追踪系统也损毁严重，没法发射他的位置信息，不过录音器还能用。如果他死了，基地的人终会找到他的尸体。他想让妻子知道他最后的想法。
“我放慢了点速度，简妮。只是身体，不是思想。更不会是我的心。我爱你。”
这话他对她说过多少次？一百次，一千次。他永远都觉得不够。
“为什么是这颗行星，简妮？为什么是我？”
无解之谜。正如同这整颗行星。
CJ-10a绕着一颗橙矮星旋转，是离它最近的行星。体积小，而密度大得惊人，其重力约为1个g。这是一颗潮汐锁定的行星，焦灼而贫瘠的一面始终朝向恒星，冰冷而同样贫瘠的一面朝向群星。只有在晨昏线处才存在外星生命：地衣，原始植物，原核生物，还有蠕虫。没什么有趣的东西，没有人类会觉得重要的东西。重要的东西都在数光年之外。
“简妮，这儿的光线真强。那么亮。不像我们那里的光线，它是橘色的，在它的照射下，石头也有点变成橘黄色了。地平线上有块地方的橘色光线比较暗，我觉得那里可能就是晨昏线。可它总是那么远！如果我走不到那儿，阿尔法基地所在的黑夜——”
不。别多想。他会抵达基地的，那里有温暖的人工地球大气，能获得食物和休憩。一张床——他会躺在干净的床单上，在那之前他要洗个热水澡，滚烫的那种。他浑身上下都臭烘烘的。然后他要吃一大盘子食物。两盘，三盘。
除非……他没感到饿。怎么会这样？他已经两天没吃东西了。什么东西正啮咬着他的大脑：某个棘手的念头，某种疑问。他把它撇在一边。重要的是继续前进，别想其他的，朝着安全的、配有星际通信机的阿尔法基地不断前行。在基地，他不仅能对简妮说话，还能听到她甜美的回答。与此同时，他必须继续向前。他又开始对简妮解释他必须如何如何地走快些，朝着基地，用超过行星自转的速度——这颗行星正在拖他的后腿。他感觉自己不得不这么说下去，就像他身不由己地说有多爱她一样。说话就是他的救命稻草，使他勉力维系的一切不至于分崩离析。
可他太累了。
“下个月就是我们的周年纪念日了，简妮。结婚三年。还记得我求婚的那一刻吗？你是多么惊讶。我们在第四街的那家意大利餐馆吃晚饭，那餐馆去年在炮击中被毁了。你点了小牛仔扒，我点了意大利面。你穿着那条蕾丝领子的蓝裙子。我问你是否愿意嫁给我时，你喜极而泣。你知道我这么做的原因，对吧？我跑到这颗该死的行星上的原因？是为了我们。我想给我们俩买套房子，离战争远远的，在那里不会有导弹击中我们，不会有士兵挨家挨户的侵袭，在那里我们能——那是什么东西？”
左边有动静吸引了他的注意。这里不可能有其他东西！除非是从基地来的越野车……有那么一瞬间他被强烈的希望淹没。得救了……
可那不是越野车。
“简妮，我觉得我看到了只动物。很大，和狼一样大。不，更像老虎。不过它的皮肤会发光，就像那种带着水母基因的家猫。”
#
“老虎？”研究员说。“为什么是老虎？”
他的同事耸耸肩。
#
“简妮，亲爱的，我明知我不可能看到——哦天啊，它又出现了！它非常漂亮，身上黑色的条纹泛着金光，它移动起来就像……就像流动的水！肌肉在皮肤下如波浪般起伏。它……不，它跃过一块露出地表石头，消失了。我没力气跟着它，反正那也不是个好主意，不过我——有其他东西过来了。”
地平线上的一个银色小点。它朝着他移动，速度并不快。他等待着，但并没有停下脚步，而那东西根据他的行进方向不断调整着自己的运动角度。当它靠近之后，他不敢置信地直眨眼睛。
“简妮，那是只大鸟，和人差不多高。它用高跷般的腿行走，呃……就像苍鹭，它的羽毛满是银色和红色……现在它展开了翅膀，它们一定有十尺宽，你绝对没见过这么美丽的翅膀。它飞起来了！向着橘色的天空翱翔，闪耀着银色和深红色的光辉——”
#
“停止实验，”研究员说。“老虎，鸟——一点点小幻觉是一回事，还在我们的预料之内，可朝着虚无缥缈的动物开火的士兵派不上任何用场。”研究员按下按钮。
跑步机停了下来。那个站在跑步机上面、穿着短裤和T恤的人似乎陷入了迷惑。固定住他的夹臂松开了。他摇摇晃晃，不过仍然维持站着的姿势，他说，“简妮，行星不转了。我不明白……”
“把他带走，”研究员说，一个机器人抬起他，将他带出房间。他没抵抗。研究员在白大褂的口袋里摸索香烟，可没找到。战争已经进行了很久，很多东西都供应短缺。尽管战争……某件关于战争、关于实验的事情搅动了他的思绪。但他没工夫分心。他转向同事。“就算这样，也完成了三分之二的目标。这次的剂量比之前管用。实验对象保持充分清醒长达54小时，同时也拥有足以持续行走的精力。”
“清醒、行走，以及幻觉，”他的同事说。他在写字板上做了个标记。“军队要求我们的实验对象能牢牢掌控我们赋予他们的现实。这你应该知道。让士兵幻视到老虎和巨鸟——军队不是付钱让我们去开发这种药的。”
第一名研究员不喜欢被人批评。除此之外，他也持有这家医药公司的小部分股票，他希望这药能研制成功。战争引起的恶性通货膨胀让所有东西都贵得吓人。有几个月他连还贷都困难。他说，“可你得承认，那幻觉跟我们赋予他的场景还是挺符合的。”
“直到老虎和巨鸟出现。”
“以及，”第一名研究员无视他的插嘴，继续说，“幻觉相当完整，比我们之前那些对象产生的要好多了。细节丰富。”
“不。他那套天文学根本说不通。潮汐锁定的行星不可能自转。要是它在自转，就不会有能让人走近的晨昏线。”
“他又不是受过培训的宇航员。现实生活里使用这种药的人也不会被赋予超出他们知识的环境设定。”
“还有，不可能有那种鸟——翼展十尺宽，还能在那颗他虚构的行星的稀薄空气里飞起来。”
两名研究员大眼瞪小眼，同时开口讲起来。第一名研究员指出军队自始至终需要的是受控的、理性的幻象——理性！他们必须理性！——以此确保他们的士兵能夜以继日地在持久战中保持专注。第二名研究员则言辞激烈地描述道，如果士兵——尤其是始终清醒的、精力增强的士兵——朝着不存在的东西开火，那简直就是灾难。
#
一面单向玻璃后面，首席科学家站在光线调暗的门厅内，看着那两个人影在空房间里争辩。“他们的清醒状态维持多久了？”
他的助手说，“54小时，先生。”
“很好。这幻象很完整，不是么？我想我们终于得到了正确的剂量。他们还真以为自己是观察某个幻觉实验的研究员呢。”
“是的，”他的助手说。“他们确实相信了。”
远处的某个地方，爆炸声响起。更多的炮击。
首席科学家从单向玻璃前离开。他带着点孤注一掷的意思说：“我们从未如此成功。共享幻觉没有过间断，而且既自洽又详尽。”
“是的，”助手说。
“他们似乎根本就没想过要怀疑，而之前的24个实验对象中有16个产生过疑问。”
“嗯。他们没提到任何怀疑。”
“写好报告，我来签字。”
“好的，先生，”助手说。
空房间内，穿着短裤和毛衣的两人仍在争论。外面响起更多的爆炸声，比之前近了些。助手不安地瞥了眼首席科学家身后，走廊尽头的空白墙壁上嵌着一面巨大的镜子。
