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‘No obviously not,’ said the bird after a few seconds. ‘Good, well your hearing range is obviously between 20 and 16 KHz. So. Is this comfortable for you?’ it said in a pleasant light tenor. ‘No uncomfortable harmonics screeching away in the upper register? Obviously not. Good. I can use those as data channels. Now. How many of me can you see?’
“不，显然不行。”几秒钟后那只鸟说，“好吧，那，你的听力范围显然在20赫兹到16000赫兹之间。这种声音听着舒服吗？”它发出一种好听的男声，“上音域里没有什么刺耳的泛音让你不快吗？显然没有。很好，我可以把这些作为数据通道。好了，你能看见几个我？”
Suddenly the air was full of nothing but interlocking birds.
突然之间，空气里塞满了互相连接的鸟。
Random was well used to spending time in virtual realities, but this was something far weirder than anything she had previously encountered. It was as if the whole geometry of space was redefined in seamless bird shapes.
兰登早习惯了在虚拟世界里消磨时间，但这比她过去遇见的任何东西都要诡异的多。就好像整个空间的几何体系都被无缝连接的鸟重新定义了一遍似的。
Random gasped and flung her arms round her face, her arms moving through bird-shaped space.
兰登倒抽了一口气，赶紧拿胳膊捂住自己的脸，她的胳膊穿过了鸟的空间。
‘Hmmm, obviously way too many,’ said the bird. ‘How about now?’
“唔，显然太多了些。”鸟说，“现在怎么样？”
It concertina-ed into a tunnel of birds, as if it was a bird caught between parallel mirrors, reflecting infinitely into the distance.
它折叠成一条无数只鸟垒成的隧道，就好像一只鸟映在平行的镜子里，把身影无限地传向远方。
‘What are you?’ shouted Random.
“你是个什么东西？”兰登喊道。
‘We’ll come to that in a minute,’ said the bird. ‘Just how many, please?’
“这个我们马上就要讲到了。”鸟说，“告诉我多少个，请？”
‘Well, you’re sort of…’ Random gestured helplessly off into the distance.
“唔，你就好像……”兰登无助地朝远处做个手势。
‘I see, still infinite in extent, but at least we’re homing in on the right dimensional matrix. Good. No, the answer is an orange and two lemons.’
“明白了，长度上仍然是无限的，但至少我们已经达到了正确的空间矩阵。好，不，答案是一个橙子和两个柠檬。”
‘Lemons?’
“柠檬？”
‘If I have three lemons and three oranges and I lose two oranges and a lemon what do I have left?’
“如果我有三个柠檬和三个橙子，然后我丢了两个橙子和一个柠檬，那么我还剩下些什么？”
‘Huh?’
“什么？”
