The Gold at the Starbow's End
- Автор: Пол Фредерик
- Год: 101
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «The Gold at the Starbow's End». Краткое содержание книги:
Although available data do not prove beyond doubt that this transmission originated with the starship, no contra-indications were found.
On examination, the text proved to be a phonetic transcription of what appears to be a dialect of Middle Kingdom Mandarin. Only a partial translation has been completed. (See note appended to text.) The translation presented unusual difficulties for two reasons: One, the difficulty of finding a translator of sufficient skill who could be granted appropriate security status; two, because (conjecturally) the language used may not correspond exactly to any dialect but may be an artifact of the Constitution's personnel. (See PARA EIGHT, Lines 43-51 below, in this connection.)
This text is PROVISIONAL AND NOT AUTHENTICATED and is furnished only as a first attempt to translate the contents of the message into English. Efforts are being continued to translate the full message, and to produce a less corrupt text for the section herewith. Later versions and emendations will be forwarded when available.
TEXT FOLLOWS:
PARA ONE. The one who speaks for all [Lt-Col Sheffield H Jackman?] rests. With righteous action comes surcease from care. I [identity not certain, but probably Mrs Annette Mann Becklund, less probably one of the other three female personnel aboard, or one of their descendants] come in his place, moved by charity and love.
PARA TWO. It is not enough to study or to do deeds which make the people frown and bow their heads. It is not enough to comprehend the nature of the sky or the sea. Only through the understanding of all can one approach wisdom, and only through wisdom can one act rightly.
PARA THREE. These are the precepts as it is given us to see them.
PARA FOUR. The one who imposes his will by force lacks justice. Let him be thrust from a cliff.
PARA FIVE. The one who causes another to lust for a trifle of carved wood or a sweetmeat lacks courtesy. Let him be restrained from the carrying out of wrong practices.
PARA six. The one who ties a knot and says, "I do not care who must untie it," lacks foresight. Let him wash the ulcers of the poor and carry nightsoil for all until he learns to see the day to come as brother to the day that is.
PARA SEVEN. We who are in this here should not impose our wills on you who are in that here by force. Understanding comes late. We regret the incident of next week, for it was done in haste and in error. The one who speaks for all acted without thinking. We who are in this here were sorry for it afterward.
PARA EIGHT. You may wonder [literally: ask thoughtless questions of the hexagrams] why we are communicating in this language. The reason is in part recreational, in part heuristic [literally: because on the staff hand one becomes able to strike a blow more ably when blows are struck repeatedly], but the nature of the process is such that you must go through it before you can be told what it is. Our steps have trodden this path. In order to reconstruct the Chinese of the I Ching it was first necessary to reconstruct the German of the translation from which the English was made. Error lurks at every turn. [Literally: false apparitions shout at one each time the path winds.] Many flaws mark our carving. Observe it in silence for hours and days until the flaws become part of the work.
PARA NINE. It is said that you have eight days before the heavier particles arrive. The dead and broken will be few. It will be better if all airborne nuclear reactors are grounded until the incident is over.
PARA TEN. When you have completed rebuilding send us a message, directed to the planet Alpha-Aleph. Our home should be prepared by then. We will send a ferry to help colonists cross the stream when we are ready.
The above text comprises the first 852 groups of the transmission. The remainder of the text, comprising approximately 7500 groups, has not been satisfactorily translated. In the opinion of a consultant from the Oriental Languages Department at Johns Hopkins it may be a poem.
/s/ Durward S RICHTER
Durward S RICHTER
Maj Gen USMC
Chief Cryptographer
Commanding
Distribution: X X X BY HAND ONLY
WASHINGTON SIX
The President of the United States—Washington—opened the storm window of his study and leaned out to yell at his Chief Science Advisor. "Harry, get the lead out! We're waiting for you!"
Harry looked up and waved, then continued doggedly plowing through the dripping jungle that was the North Lawn. Between the overgrown weeds and the rain and the mud it was slow going, but the President had little sympathy. He slammed down the window and said, "Damn that man, he just goes out of his way to aggravate me. How long am I supposed to wait for him so I can decide if we're gonna have to move the capital or not?"
The Vice President looked up from her knitting. "Jimbo, honey, why do you fuss yourself like that? Why don't we just move and get it over with?"
"Well, it looks so lousy." He threw himself into a chair despondently. "I was really looking forward to the Tenth Anniversary parade," he complained. "Ten years, that's really worth bragging about! I don't want to hold it the hell out in the sticks, I want it right down Constitution Avenue, just like the old days, with the people cheering and the reporters and the cameras all over and everything. Then let that son of a bitch in Omaha say I'm not the real President."
His wife said placidly, "Don't fuss yourself about him, honey. You know what I've been thinking, though? The parade might look a little skimpy on Constitution Avenue anyway. It would be real nice on a kind of littler street."
"Oh, what do you know? Anyway, where would we go? If Washington's under water, what makes you think Bethesda would be any better?"
His Secretary of State put down his solitaire cards and looked interested. "Doesn't have to be Bethesda," he said. "I got some real nice land up near Dulles we could use. It's high there."
"Why, sure. Lots of nice land over to Virginia," the Vice President confirmed. "Remember when we went out on that picnic after your Second Inaugural? That was at Fairfax Station. There was hills there all around. Just beautiful."
The President slammed his fist on the coffee table and yelled, "I'm not the President of Fairfax Station, I'm the President of the U. S. of A.! What's the capital of the U. S. of A.? Washington! My God, don't you see how those jokers in Houston and Omaha and Salt Lake and all would laugh if they heard I had to move out of my own capital?"
He broke off, because his Chief Science Advisor was coming in the door, shaking himself, dripping mud as he got out of his oilskin slicker. "Well?" demanded the President. "What did they say?"
Harry sat down. "It's terrible out there. Anybody got a dry cigarette?"
The President threw him a pack. Harry dried his fingers on his shirt front before he drew one out. "Well," he said, "I went to every boat captain I could find. They all said the same. Ships they talked to, places they'd been. All the same. Tides rising all up and down the coast."
He looked around for a match. The President's wife handed him a gold cigarette lighter with the Great Seal of the United States on it, which, after some effort, he managed to ignite. "It don't look good, Jimmy. Right now it's low tide and that's all right, but it's coming in. And tomorrow it'll come in a little higher. And there's going to be storms, not just rain like this, I mean, but you got to figure on a tropical depression coming up from the Bahamas now and then."
"We're not in the tropics," said the Secretary of State suspiciously.
"It doesn't mean that," said the Science Advisor, who had once given the weather reports over the local ABC television station, when there was such a thing as a television network. "It means storms. Hurricanes. But they're not the worst things; it's the tides. If the ice is melting then they're going to keep getting higher regardless."