英语中短篇科幻｜双语字幕

By now Zima was hugely famous, even to people who had no particular interest in art. He was the weird cyborg celebrity who made huge blue structures; the man who never gave interviews or hinted at the private significance of his art. 

But that was a hundred years ago. Zima wasn't even remotely done. 

Eventually the structures became too unwieldy to be hosted on planets. Blithely Zima moved into interplanetary space, forging vast free-floating sheets of blue ten thousand kilometres across. Now he worked not with brushes and paint, but with fleets of mining robots, tearing apart asteroids to make the raw material for his creations. Now it was entire stellar economies that competed with each other to host Zima's work. 

That was about the time that I renewed my interest in Zima. I attended one of his "moonwrappings": the enclosure of an entire celestial body in a lidded blue container, like a hat going into a box. Two months later he stained the entire equatorial belt of a gas giant blue, and I had a ringside seat for that as well. Six months later he altered the surface chemistry of a sun-grazing comet so that it daubed a Zima Blue tail across an entire solar system. But I was no closer to a story. I kept asking for an interview and kept being turned down. All I knew was that there had to be more to Zima's obsession with blue than a mere artistic whim. Without an understanding of that obsession, there was no story: just anecdote. 

I didn't do anecdote. 

齐玛实在是太出名了，就连对艺术毫无兴趣的人都知道他的名字。他是那个创造巨型蓝色建筑物的古怪半机械人，那个从来不声明或者暗示自己艺术作品内涵的画家。  

但那已经是几百年前的事了，齐玛越来越能折腾，后来连行星都无法容纳这么笨重的巨型画作了。齐玛干脆搬到星际空间里，锻造出了方圆几万公里的蓝色画卷。这些画卷可以在太空中自由漂浮。而且他不再用画笔和颜料了，而是雇佣了采矿机器人舰队，把小行星炸碎，把碎片作为原料来作画。赞助商的财力已经远远不够了，而是各个恒星系经济体来争夺齐玛作品的展览权。

也就是这个时候，我重新对齐玛有了兴趣。我出席了他的一个“月亮包裹”项目的新闻发布会，项目计划在整个星球周围建造外壳，形成一个有盖子的蓝色容器，就像是一顶帽子放进盒子里。两个月之后，他在行星的整个赤道带释放了大量的蓝色气体，当时我也在场。六个月后，他在一颗掠日彗星的表面增加了某种蓝色的化学物质，如此一来这颗彗星就能拖着齐玛蓝的尾巴跨越整个太阳系。但我觉得这些新闻并不值得做文章。我一次次地邀请他接受采访，但是一次次地被回绝。我所知道的就是齐玛对蓝色的痴迷已经超过了艺术创作本身。但是如果不能彻底地理解他的这种痴迷，就不能写出真正有意义的报道，顶多是奇闻异事。

我从来不写奇闻异事。 

I followed him, feeling awkward and tongue-tied. Zima led me into the chalet, through an old-fashioned kitchen and an old-fashioned lounge, full of thousand-year-old furniture and ornaments. 

"How was the flight?" 

"Fine." 

He stopped suddenly and turned to face me. "I forgot to check... did the robot insist that you leave behind your Aide Memoire?" 

"Yes." 

"Good. It was you I wanted to talk to, Carrie, not some surrogate recording device." 

"Me?" 

The pewter mask of his face formed a quizzical expression. "Do you do multisyllables, or are you still working up to that?"

'Er...“

"Relax," he said. "I'm not here to test you, or humiliate you, or anything like that. This isn't a trap, and you're not in any danger. You'll be back in Venice by midnight." 

"I'm okay," I managed. "Just a bit starstruck." 

"Well, you shouldn't be. I'm hardly the first celebrity you've met, am I?" 

"Well, no, but... " 

"People find me intimidating," he said. "They get over it eventually, and then wonder what all the fuss was about." 

"Why me?" 

"Because you kept asking nicely," Zima said. 

"Be serious." 

"All right. There's a bit more to it than that, although you did ask nicely. I've enjoyed much of your work over the years. People have often trusted you to set the record straight: especially near the ends of their lives." 

"You talked about retiring, not dying." 

"Either way, it would still be a withdrawal from public life. Your work has always seemed truthful to me, Carrie. I'm not aware of anyone claiming misrepresentation through your writing." 

"It happens now and then," I said. "That's why I always make sure there's an AM on hand so no one can dispute what was said." 

"That won't matter with my story," Zima said. 

I looked at him shrewdly. "There's something else, isn't there? Some other reason you pulled my name out of the hat." 

"I'd like to help you," he said. 

When most people speak about his Blue Period they mean the era of the truly huge murals. By huge I do mean huge. Soon they had become large enough to dwarf buildings and civic spaces; large enough to be visible from orbit. Across the Galaxy twenty-kilometre-high sheets of blue towered over private islands or rose from storm-wracked seas. Expense was never a problem, since Zima had many rival sponsors who competed to host his latest and biggest creation. The panels kept on growing, until they required complex, Sloth-tech machinery to hold them aloft against gravity and weather. They pierced the tops of planetary atmospheres, jutting into space. They glowed with their own soft light. They curved around in arcs and fans, so that the viewer's entire visual field was saturated with blue. 

我跟着他，感觉自己很笨拙，甚至有点口吃。齐玛领着我走进了小屋，映入眼帘的是一个老式的厨房和一个老式的休闲室，屋子里放满了古老的家具和摆设，大概都有上千年的历史了。  

“一路飞来感觉怎么样？”  

“好。”  

他突然停住了，转过头看着我。“我都忘了检查了……我的机器佣人有没有强调不能携带备忘录助手？”  

“有。”  

“很好。我只想跟你这个人谈，凯莉，而不是什么录音设备。”  

“我？”  

他脸上戴的银灰色面具形成了一个搞笑的表情。“呵呵，你就不能说句长一点儿的话吗，怎么回答都是一个字？”  

“呃……”  

“放松。”他说，“我让你到这儿来，不是考验你、羞辱你，或者对你做其他事。不是什么圈套，你在这儿不会有任何危险。你半夜就会回到威尼斯。”  

“我很好。”我说，“就是有点儿激动，就像是追星族终于见到了自己的偶像。”  

“呵呵，你没必要这样。我不可能是你见到的第一位社会名流吧，是吗？”  

“当然不是了，只是……”  

“人们觉得我很吓人。”他说，“他们最终还是习惯了，然后想要知道我这么小题大作究竟为了什么。”  

“为什么选我？”  

“因为你一直都是很友好地邀请我采访。”齐玛回答。  

“别开玩笑了。”  

“好吧，除了你很友好之外，也有其他一些原因。这些年我一直很喜欢你的大部分报道。很多人都很信任你，特别是那些即将离开人世的人们。因为你如实地记录了采访的内容，不带任何虚假的成分。”  

“你找我是来谈退休的事，不是谈临终的事吧。”  

“其实都一样，反正要从公众的视野里消失了。凯莉，我觉得你写的文章都很真实。我从来没注意到有人声称你写的文章歪曲事实。”  

“我一直都是这样。”我说，“这就是为什么我总是带着备忘录助手的原因，这样就没人否认自己说过的话。”  

“带不带备忘录助手不会影响你对我的报道。”齐玛说。  

我警觉地看着他。“肯定有其他原因，要不然你怎么会只选我一个了？”  

“我只想帮帮你。”他说。  

人们常常谈起齐玛的蓝色时代，就是指他创作巨幅画作的时代。说巨幅可真不是吹的。他创作的画作尺寸特别大，大得足以覆盖大大小小的建筑物和市民广场，甚至从外太空轨道上都能看到。放眼整个银河系，居然还有 20 公里高的蓝色画卷。这些画一般建在私人的海岛上，像塔一样直插云霄；有的甚至直接放在暴风雨肆掠的大海上。创作这些画作的经费从来都不是问题，因为齐玛身边有一大堆赞助商，争先恐后地抢夺他最新最大的作品的赞助权。齐玛创作的巨幅画作越来越大，后来居然需要很复杂的高科技机械设备固定，防止画作因为重力或者天气的影响而损坏。这些巨型机械设备穿过了所在行星的整个大气层，一直延伸到外太空，自身还发出微弱的光。画作被弯曲成一定的角度，让那些狂热的艺术爱好者在行星上就能看到，他们会发现整个视野都被蓝色占据。 

They couldn't have been more wrong. 

I felt the conveyor slowing as we neared a small island, the only feature in any direction. 

"You're the first to see this," the robot said. "There's a distortion screen blocking the view from space." 

The island was about a kilometre across: low and turtle-shaped, ringed by a narrow collar of pale sand. Near the middle it rose to a shallow plateau, on which vegetation had been cleared in a roughly rectangular area. I made out a small panel of reflective blue set flat against the ground, surrounded by what appeared to be a set of tiered viewing stands. 

The conveyor shed altitude and speed, bobbing down until it stopped just outside the area enclosed by the viewing stands. It came to rest next to a low white pebble-dash chalet I hadn't noticed during our approach. 

The robot stepped out and helped me from the conveyor. 

"Zima will be here in a moment," it said, before returning to the conveyor and vanishing back into the sky. 

Suddenly I felt very alone and very vulnerable. A breeze came in from the sea, blowing sand into my eyes. The sun was creeping down toward the horizon and soon it would be getting chilly. Just when I was beginning to feel the itch of panic, a man emerged from the chalet, rubbing his hands briskly. He walked toward me, following a path of paved stones. 

"Glad you could make it, Carrie."

It was Zima, of course, and in a flash I felt foolish for doubting that he would show his face.

"Hi," I said lamely.

Zima offered his hand. I shook it, feeling the slightly plastic texture of his artificial skin. Today it was a dull pewter-grey.

"Let's go and sit on the balcony. It's nice to watch the sunset, isn't it?" 

"Nice," I agreed. 

He turned his back to me and set off in the direction of the chalet. As he walked, his muscles flexed and bulged beneath the pewter flesh. There were scale-like glints in the skin on his back, as if it had been set with a mosaic of reflective chips. He was beautiful like a statue, muscular like a panther. He was a handsome man, even after all his transformations, but I had never heard of him taking a lover, or having any kind of a private life at all. His art was everything. 

他们实在是错得离谱。  

“你是第一个看到这个小岛的人。”机器佣人说，“岛的上空被一片扭曲的屏幕遮住了，从太空根本看不到这座岛。”  

这座小岛方圆一公里，海拔很低，整个外形有点像乌龟，周围被一道狭窄的白色沙滩环绕。岛的中心附近有一块高地，这块高地上所有的草木都被清理掉了，留下了一块近似矩形的空地。我辨认出这片空地上有一小块区域很平坦，而且反射出蓝光，周围似乎被一排分层布置的看台包围着。  

运输机降低了高度，也减慢了速度，不断地上下起伏，直到慢慢地停在那片被看台包围的区域外面。紧挨着停机坪的是一座由白色鹅卵石砌成的低矮小屋，在来的路上我还真没注意到。  

机器佣人先走下台阶，然后帮助我下了运输机。  

“齐玛马上就到。”它说完又回到了运输机。运输机载着它迅速地消失在天边。  

突然间，我觉得自己很孤独、很脆弱。一阵海风吹了过来，把沙子吹进了我的眼睛里。太阳逐渐西沉，直奔地平线而去。天气很快就会变冷。就在我开始有点恐慌的时候，一个男人钻出了小屋，轻快地搓了搓手。他沿着一条铺着石子的小路向我走来。  

“很高兴你能来这里，凯莉。”  

这位当然就是齐玛了。我刚刚还怀疑他不会露面了，真是个愚蠢的想法。  

“嗨。”我结结巴巴地说。  

齐玛很有风度地伸出了他的手。我握着他的手，能够轻微地感觉到他身上人造皮肤的纹理。今天他皮肤的呈银灰色。  

“让我们到阳台上坐坐。看夕阳的感觉真好，不是吗？”  

“好。”我答应道。  

他转过身去，领着我走向小屋。跟着他走的时候，我能清晰地看到在他银灰色的皮肤下面肌肉不断地隆起。他背部的皮肤上似乎有鳞片在闪光，估计是马赛克或者反射芯片。 他强壮地像头黑豹，而且身材好得像雕像。他其实长得挺帅，更不用说他能变出这么多花样，然而我却从来没听说他跟谁谈过恋爱，连这方面的绯闻都没有。艺术是他生命的全部。

That was how things stood when I first paid attention to Zima. I filed him away as interesting but kitschy: maybe worth a story if something else happened to either him or his art.

Something did, but it took a while for anyone—including me—to notice.

One day—after a longer than usual gestation period—Zima unveiled a mural that had something different.

about it. It was a picture of a swirling, star-pocked nebula, from the vantage point of an airless rock. Perched on the rim of a crater in the middle distance, blocking off part of the nebula, was a tiny blue square. At first glance it looked as if the canvas had been washed blue and Zima had simply left a small area unpainted. There was no solidity to the square; no detail or suggestion of how it related to the landscape or the backdrop. It cast no shadow and had no tonal influence on the surrounding colours. But the square was deliberate: close examination showed that it had indeed been overpainted over the rocky lip of the crater. It meant something. 

The square was just the beginning. Thereafter, every mural that Zima released to the outside world contained a simlar geometric shape: a square, triangle, oblong or some similar forms  embedded somewhere in the composition. It was a long time before anyone noticed that the shade of blue was the same from picture to picture. 

It was Zima Blue: the same shade of blue as on the gold-lettered card. 

Over the next decade or so, the abstract shapes became more dominant, squeezing out the other elements of each composition. The cosmic vistas ended up as narrow borders, framing blank circles, triangles, rectangles. Where his earlier work had been characterised by exuberant brushwork and thick layers of paint, the blue forms were rendered with mirror-smoothness. 

Intimidated by the intrusion of the abstract blue form， casual buyers turned away from Zima. Before very long Zima unveiled the first of his entirely blue murals. Large enough to cover the side of a thousand-storey building, the mural was considered by many to be as far as Zima could take things. 

当我第一次注意到齐玛，我就有了这样的疑问。我觉得他是矫揉造作，对他并不感兴趣:如果他或者他的画作发生了其他事情，我倒觉得值得写篇报道。  

这样的事情居然发生了，但是其他人——包括我在内——却是过了一段时间才注意到这件事。  

有一次，齐玛花了比平时更长的时间创作了一幅画。当他展示这幅画作的时候，人们发现这幅画作出现了不同寻常的东西。这是一幅漩涡星云的作品，以一颗无空气的小行星作为观察点。在这颗小行星上某座火山口的边缘，有一个小小的蓝色正方形遮盖住了星云的一部分。乍一看，就像是齐玛先把整个画布用蓝色刷了一遍，然后在上面画星云的时候，故意留下这么一块正方形没有画。这个正方形是空心的，没有任何细节表明它和整个景观或者背景有什么联系。它没有投射阴影，而且跟周围的颜色之间没有任何渐变。但是这个正方形肯定是经过深思熟虑才画上去的:因为通过近距离检查可以发现它确实是用颜料在火山口的上方画出来的。这肯定带有某种深意。  

而这个正方形只是个开始。在这之后，齐玛向外界展示的所有画作上，都带有一个类似的几何图形。每幅画作的构图中都嵌入了一个正方形、三角形、椭圆形或者其他的图形。过了很长一段时间，人们才发现每幅画上的几何图形所涂的蓝色都是完全一样的。  

这就是齐玛蓝，就和我收到的那张镶有金字的卡片所带的蓝色完全一样。  

又过了几十年，这种抽象的图形逐渐变成了他的主流作品，把构图的其他元素全部挤了出去。宇宙远景的尽头变成了一个狭窄的边框，再用几个空白的圆圈、三角形、长方形与之配合起来。他的早期作品都是以丰富的笔触、浓墨重彩的多层铺垫作为典型的特征，如今却变成用光滑的镜面打底的蓝色图形。  

很多买家被齐玛这种抽象的蓝色图形吓到了，逐渐远离了他。很快齐玛又推出了他的第一幅完全由单一蓝色构成的画作。这幅画作非常巨大，大得足够覆盖一座千层大楼的侧面。人们普遍认为齐玛已经江郎才尽，再也画不出精美的作品了。  

With his body thus armoured against environmental extremes, Zima was free to seek inspiration where he wanted. He could drift free in space, staring into the face of a star, or wander the searing canyons of a planet where metals ran like lava. His eyes had been replaced by cameras sensitive to a huge swathe of the electromagnetic spectrum, wired into his brain via complex processing modules. A synaes-thesic bridge allowed him to hear visual data as a kind of music; to see sounds as a symphony of startling colours. His skin functioned as a kind of antenna, giving him sensitivity to electrical field changes. When that wasn't sufficient, he could tap into the data feeds of any number of accompanying machines. 

Given all this, Zima's art couldn't help but be original and attention-grabbing. His landscapes and starfields had a heightened, ecstatic quality about them, awash in luminous, jarring colours and eye-wrenching tricks of perspective. Painted in traditional materials but on a huge scale, they quickly attracted a core of serious buyers. Some found their way into private collections, but Zima murals also started popping up in public spaces all over the Galaxy. Tens of metres across, the murals were nonetheless detailed down to the limits of vision. Most had been painted in one session. Zima had no need for sleep, so he worked uninterrupted until a piece was complete. 

The murals were undeniably impressive. From a standpoint of composition and technique they were unquestionably brilliant. But there was also something bleak and chilling about them. They were landscapes without a human presence, save for the implied viewpoint of the artist himself. 

Put it this way: they were nice to look at, but I wouldn't have hung one in my home. 

Not everyone agreed, obviously, or else Zima wouldn't have sold as many works as he had. But I couldn't help wondering how many people were buying the pictures because of what they knew about the artist, rather than because of any intrinsic merit in the works themselves. 

有了这身足以经受任何极端环境的无敌盔甲，齐玛能够到他想要去的任何地方吸取灵感，不管那里的环境有多么恶劣。他能在星际空间自由翱翔，能钻进恒星的表面探索，或者到完全由灼热岩浆覆盖的行星游荡。他的眼睛被高性能的摄像头所取代。这种摄像头能够获取跨度极大的电磁频谱，远远超过了可见光的范围。这两个摄像头通过非常复杂的处理模块连接到他的大脑中。  

他的大脑中还安装了一个神经突触混合桥接器，他可以把视频数据当成音乐来听，把交响乐当成某种奇妙的色彩来看。他的皮肤还具备天线的功能，能让他感知电场的变化。如果他觉得这样还不够，他可以把一定数量的机器互联起来，变成一个超级云计算系统，然后从中获取数据。  

正因为浑身上下都被如此强大的技术武装起来，齐玛的画作极具创造性，深深地吸引了人们的眼球，让所有人欲罢不能。他画的风景地貌和星系的作品，品质都超乎想象，令人叹为观止。这些画作充满了光彩夺目的颜色，并且运用了高超的空间扭曲透视技巧。更让人惊叹的是，他的作品从来不用传统的绘画材料，都是那种面积极大的作品。这种画作很快吸引了一大群严谨的收藏家。齐玛的一小部分画作被他们买下变成私人藏品，而大部分作品都存在于公共的星际空间中，这些画作闪耀了整个银河系。这些画作横跨几十米。尽管篇幅很大，但是所有的细节都清晰到视觉的极限。大部分的画作都是在极短的时间内完成的。齐玛不需要睡觉，所以他可以不间断地工作，直到整幅画作彻底完成。  

不可否认，这些画作给人们留下了不可磨灭的印象。无论是从构图的角度还是技法的角度来看，他们都是无可非议的杰作。但是这些作品总让人感到一丝寒意，有时甚至让人不寒而栗。因为这些画作所画的风景地貌根本没有人见过，完全是从画家自己的视角描绘出来的。  

除了这一丝寒意，总体来说这些画还是相当棒的，但我家里从来都没有悬挂他的画作。  

很显然，并不是每个人都喜欢他的作品，而且齐玛也不可能把自己所有的画作都卖出去。但我还是忍不住想知道：究竟有多少人只是因为齐玛很有名才买了这些作品？又有多少人是真正懂得这些作品的内在价值而去收藏它们？ 

"And if I'd declined? Were you supposed to ask someone else?" 

"No," the robot said. "But let's face it, Miss Clay. You weren't very likely to turn him down." 

As we flew on, the conveyor's shock wave gouged a foaming channel in the sea behind it. I thought of a brush drawn through wet paint on marble, exposing the white surface beneath. I took out Zima's invitation and held it against the horizon ahead of us, trying to decide whether the blue was a closer match to the sky or the sea. Against these two possibilities the card seemed to flicker indeterminately. 

Zima Blue. It was an exact thing, specified scientifically in terms of angstroms and intensities. If you were an artist, you could have a batch of it maked up according to that specification. But no one ever used Zima Blue unless they were making a calculated statement about Zima himself. 

Zima was already unique by the time he emerged into the public eye. He had undergone radical procedures to enable him to tolerate extreme environments without the burden of a protective suit. Zima had the appearance of a well-built man wearing a tight body stocking, until you were close and you realised that this was actually his skin. Covering his entire form, it was a synthetic material that could be tuned to different colours and textures depending on his mood and surroundings. It could approximate clothing if the social circumstances demanded it. The skin could contain pressure when he wished to experience vacuum, and stiffen to protect him against the crush of a gas giant planet. Despite these refinements the skin conveyed a full range of sensory impressions to his mind. He had no need to breathe, since his entire cardiovascular system had been replaced by closed-cycle life-support mechanisms. He had no need to eat or drink; no need to dispose of bodily waste. Tiny repair machines swarmed through his body, allowing him to tolerate radiation doses that would have killed an ordinary man in minutes. 

“如果我拒绝了呢？你是不是应该再找一个人？”  

“不，”机器佣人回答，“不要再瞎猜了，让我们一起面对，克莱小姐。你肯定不会拒绝他的。”  

在飞行途中，输送机在海面上激起阵阵波涛，留下了一道泡沫形成的路线。这就像是有人用一把刷子，在涂了颜料但是还没干的汉白玉上画了一道杠，把颜料下面的白低给露了出来。我接受了齐玛的邀请，直奔前方的地平线。我心里一直在思考，齐玛的标志性蓝色究竟是接近天空的颜色，还是更接近大海的颜色。对比这两种颜色，我觉得邀请卡上的颜色让我眼前一亮。  

齐玛蓝！这种颜色非常精确，从科学的角度分析，必须要测量它的光谱带宽和强度，才能把它分辨出来。  

如果你是一个画家，你肯定会根据光谱带宽和强度混合出一系列的颜色。但是没有人能混合出齐玛蓝，除非他们计算出了齐玛的颜色参数。  

齐玛刚刚进入公众视野的时候，他已经是独一无二的了。他的身体接受了最彻底的改造，即使不穿防护服他，也能应付极端严酷的环境。从远处看，齐玛就是一个身材极好的男人，穿着紧身连体衣裤。只有走近看才会意识到，他根本没穿衣服，表面的那一层其实是他的皮肤。  

他的整个身体被一种合成材料覆盖，这种合成材料会根据他的心情和周围的环境变换颜色和纹理。如果在社交场合，他的皮肤就会变成礼服。而且这种皮肤能够抵御巨大的压力。如果他想体验一下真空状态，这层皮肤会控制住他的自身压力，不会发生爆炸；如果他要到巨型气态行星上去游览一番，这层皮肤又能抵御住外部极强的挤压。他的皮肤不但刀枪不入，而且能将全方位的感知准确地传递给大脑。更厉害的是，他根本无需呼吸，因为他的整个心血管循环系统已经被封闭的自循环生命维持系统替代。他无需吃喝，无需处理体内垃圾。纳米级的微型修复机器人遍布身体，使他能够忍受在几分钟内足以杀死一个普通人的辐射。   

The robot escorted me to a flight of stairs that led to the waterside. My AM followed us, fluttering at my shoulder. A conveyor hovered in wating, floating a metre above the water. The robot helped me into the rear compartment. The AM was about to follow me inside when the robot raised a warning hand. 

"You'll have to leave that behind, I'm afraid: no recording materials, remember?" 

I looked at the metallic green hummingbird, trying to remember the last time I had been out of its 

ever-watchful presence. 

"Leave it behind?" 

"It'll be quite safe here, and you can collect it again when you return after nightfall." 

"If l say no?" 

"Then I'm afraid there'll be no meeting with Zima." 

I sensed that the robot wasn't going to hang around all afternoon waiting for my answer. The thought of being away from the AM made my blood run cold. But I wanted that interview so badly I was prepared to consider anything. 

I told the AM to stay here until I returned. 

The obedient machine reversed away from me in a flash of metallic green. It was like watching a part of myself drift away. The glass hull wrapped itself around me and I felt a surge of un-nulled acceleration. 

Venice tilted below us, then streaked away to the horizon. 

I formed a test query, asking the AM to name the planet where I'd celebrated my seven hundredth birthday. Nothing came: I was out of query range, with only my own age-saturated memory to rely on. 

I leaned forward. "Are you authorised to tell me what this is about?" 

"I'm afraid he didn't tell me," the robot said, making a face appear in the back of his head. "But if at any moment you feel uncomfortable, we can return to Venice." 

"I'm fine for now. Who else got the blue card treatment?" 

"Only you, to the best of my knowledge."

机器佣人护送我上了停在水边的舷梯，我的备忘录助手紧紧跟着我，扒在我的肩上。舷梯的另一头连着一架等候多时的气垫运输机。这架运输机悬浮在水面上，离水面将近 1 米。机器佣人带着我走进后面的包间。我的备忘录助手也想跟着进来，却被机器佣人抬手制止。　

“恐怕你不能带着它，不允许带记录工具，记得吗？”  

我看着这个带着金属光泽的绿色蜂鸟——我的备忘录机器人，努力回忆上次我离开它的监护是什么时候。  

“把它留下？”  

“它待在这里很安全，等到傍晚你回到这里的时候，还能找到它。”  

“如果我说不呢？”  

“如果你坚持，你恐怕就不能和齐玛先生见面了。”　

这个机器佣人肯定不会在这儿闲逛一下午等我做出回应。一想到要离开备忘录助手，我就感觉浑身拔凉拔凉的。但是我实在太想要采访齐玛了，就管不了那么许多了。  

我让备忘录机器人待在这里，直到我回来。  

I'd come to this white marble version of Venice to witness the unveiling of Zima's final work of art. I'd had an interest in the artist for years, and I'd hoped I might be able to arrange an interview. Unfortunately several thousand other members of the in-crowd had come up with exactly the same idea. Not that it mattered what kind of competition I had anyway; Zima wasn't talking. 

The waiter placed a folded piece of card on my table. 

All we'd been told was to malce our way to Murjek, a waterlogged world most of us had never heard of before. Murjek's only claim to fame was that it hosted the one hundred and seventy-first known duplicate of Venice, and one of only three Venices rendered entirely in white marble. Zima had chosen Murjek to host his final work of art, and to be the place where he would malce his retirement from public life. 

With a heavy heart I lifted the bill to inspect the damage. Instead of the expected bill there was a small blue card, printed in fine gold italic lettering. The shade of blue was that precise, powdery, aquamarine that Zima had made his own. The card was addressed to me, Carrie Clay, and it said that Zima wanted to talk to me about the unveiling. If I was interested, I should report to the Rialto Bridge in exactly two hours. 

/fI was interested. 

The note stipulated that no recording materials were to be brought, not even a pen and paper. As an afterthought, the card mentioned that the bill had been taken care of. I almost had the nerve to order another coffee and put it on the same tab. Almost, but not quite. 

Zima's servant was there when I arrived early at the bridge. Intricate neon mechanisms pulsed behind the flexing glass of the robot's mannequin body. It bowed at the waist and spoke very softly. "Miss Clay? Since you're here, we might as well depart." 

我来到这样一个汉白玉砌成的威尼斯，主要为了目睹齐玛最后一幅作品的揭幕式。多年来我一直对这位艺术家很感兴趣，希望能争取到一次采访他的机会。不巧的是，几千个同行都和我有着相同的想法。其实同行竞争是次要的问题，最主要的问题是，齐玛过去从来不接受采访。齐玛通知我们所有记者都到穆尔耶克星球来。我们的大多数人都是第一次听说这个几乎完全被海水浸泡的世界。穆尔耶克星球唯一出名的就是它拥有第 171 个已知的水城威尼斯的复制品，而且它是仅有的三个完全用汉白玉砌成的复制品之一。齐玛选择穆尔耶克星球来放置他的最后一幅作品，而且他准备在这里退休养老，永久地离开公众的视野。  

咖啡店侍者突然放了一张折叠的卡片在我的桌上。  

怀着沉重的心情，我举起了那张卡片，想看看总共花了多少钱。我以为它是账单，可我仔细一看，却发现这是一张小小的印有烫金斜体字的蓝色卡片。卡片上的蓝色非常精细，而且呈粉末状，很明显这种是齐玛自己创造的标志性宝石蓝。这张卡片的收信人是我——凯莉•克莱，上面写着齐玛要和我谈谈揭幕式。 卡片上还说如果感兴趣的话，我必须在两个小时之内到里亚托桥报到。  

如果感兴趣?我当然感兴趣了。  

卡片上规定，不允许带任何记录材料，甚至包括笔和纸。卡片的末尾还提到，我点的咖啡已经有人买单了。我差点厚着脸皮再点一杯咖啡，不过想想还是算了。  

我到达里亚托桥底时候，齐玛的机器佣人已经在那儿等候。机器佣人的外表是人形的玻璃罩，玻璃罩里面是复杂的机械构造，不时发出氖光。它向我深深地鞠了一躬，然后温柔地问：“你是克莱小姐吧？既然你来了，我们就赶紧出发吧。”  

After the first week people started drifting away from the island. The viewing stands around the pool became emptier by the day. The big tourist ships hauled back toward interstellar space. Art fiends, commentators and critics packed their bags in Venice. Their disappointment hung over the lagoon like a miasma 

I was one of the few who stayed on Murjek, returning to the stands each day. I'd watch for hours, squinting against the trembling blue light reflected from the surface of the water. Face down, Zima's pale shape moved so languidly from one end of the pool to the other that it could have been mistaken for a floating corpse. As he swam I wondered how I was going to tell his story, and who was going to buy it. I tried to remember the name of my fast newspaper, back on Mars. They wouldn't pay as much as some of the bigger titles, but some part of me liked the idea of going back to the old place. It had been a long time... I queried the AM, wanting it to jog my memory about the name of the paper. There'd been so many since... hundreds, by my reckoning. But nothing came. It took me another yawning moment to remember that I'd dismissed the AM the day before. 

"You're on your own, Carrie," I said. "Start getting used to it." 

In the pool, the swimming figure ended a length and began to swim back toward me. 

Two weeks earlier I'd been sitting in the Piazza San Marco at noon, watching white figurines glide against the white marble of the clock tower. The sky over Venice was jammed with ships parked hull-to-hull. Their bellies were quilted in vast glowing panels, tuned to match the real sky. The view reminded me of the work of a pre-Expansion artist who had specialised in eye-wrenching tricks of perspective and composition: endless waterfalls, interlocking lizards. I formed a mental image and queried the fluttering presence of the AM, but it couldn't retrieve the name. 

I finished my coffee and steeled myself for the bill. 

第一周刚过，人们就开始陆陆续续离开小岛。游泳池周围的看台渐渐空荡起来。巨型观光飞船启程返回星际空间，那些艺术迷、评论员和批评家都在威尼斯收拾行李。他们心中的失望之情像沼气一样弥漫了整个游泳池。  

我是留在穆尔耶克 星球的少数几个人之一。此时，我已经站在看台上看了几个小时，眯着眼斜视着水面反射的光芒。那是一种令人胆寒的蓝色光芒。在我的下方，齐玛拖着苍白而疲惫的身躯，从游泳池的一头游到另一头。乍一看，你还真会把他错当成一具漂浮的尸体。当他游泳时，我一直在考虑如何将他的故事讲给其他人听。我努力回忆我在火星工作的那家报社名字，那是我第一次在报社工作。这家报社付给我的工资没有大报社高，但是我隐隐觉得自己喜欢回到曾经工作的地方。我在那家报社工作已经是很久以前的事了。我查询了我的备忘录助手 ，想查到报社的名字。我大概已经查询了几百次，但是备忘录助手一点反应都没有。过了一会儿，我才想起自己前天已经彻底放弃了备忘录助手。  

“现在得靠你自己了，凯莉。”我对自己说道，“赶紧习惯吧。”  

游泳池里，齐玛已经游到了另一端，开始折返向我这边游过来……  

两周前的一个中午，我正坐在圣马可广场品尝咖啡，观赏着广场上白色的雕像与汉白玉钟塔。  

威尼斯的上空密集地停泊着一艘艘星际飞船。飞船的船舷装满了巨大的全反射发光面板，把飞船的颜色跟天空的真实颜色统一起来。  

这样的景象让我想起了一幅画作。这幅画的作者是一位前卫的画家，专攻空间扭曲透视立体图，比如永无止境的瀑布、相互连结的蜥蜴。我在头脑里回忆出这幅画大致的样子，然后发送给备忘录助手，让它查一查这幅画的名字。可是，它怎么也回忆不起来。  

我喝完了咖啡准备结账。