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译/朱九渊 外星人的飞船降落在曾经的麦克拉夫林天文馆前面。隔壁就是我去上班的安大略皇家博物馆。我说“曾经”，是因为安大略省的小气省长迈克·哈里斯，切断了天文馆的财政津贴。他指出：加拿大的儿童不必追求虚无缥缈的太空。哈里斯真是个作风务实而眼光颇具前瞻的人啊。天文馆关闭后，场地租给了电视剧《星际旅行》作宣传，曾经的星展台，搭建起经典的舰桥模型。对《星际旅行》我有多么喜欢；对加拿大的教育现状，我就有多么悲观。那之后，各式各样的私人企业刮分租用了场地。但现在，它里面是空的。 也许外星人访问天文馆合情合理，但实际上，他真正的目标却是博物馆。也是好事呐：设想一下，初次接触发生在加拿大这片沃土上，外星大使敲门的时候，却发现空无一人，岂不令加拿大人大丢脸面。戴着巨大圆穹的天文馆远离街区，前面空出一大块水泥地，显然是小型飞船降落的上佳选择。 即使那时我就在隔壁，我也并没看见它的处女降落。不过有四个人—三名游客一个当地人，把它拍摄了下来。日后，你就可以在世界各地、日复一日在电视中看到这段录像。飞船极其狭窄，如同假装节食的人吃的那种蛋糕薄片。它通体漆黑，看不见尾气，从天而降，悄无声息。 船体看起来有三十英尺长。（是的，我明白，我明白—加拿大是一个使用“公制”的国家。但我生于1946年，我可不认为我那一代，同我一般的科学家，对“米制”感冒，我尽可能地适应吧！）自从《星球大战》问世以来，每一部电影出现的太空飞船，都披着状如机器人的呕吐物一般的东西，不过眼前的这艘飞船的登录舱却光滑无伦。矩形的门，宽度远超高度，门采用滑开设计，直接的迹像表明，飞船的主人们并非人类。人类很少将门设计成那样，因为我们要保护易受攻击的脑袋。
The alien’s shuttle landed out front of what used to be the McLaughlin Planetarium, which is right next door to the Royal Ontario Museum, where I work. I say it used to be the planetarium because Mike Harris, Ontario’s tightfisted premier, cut the funding to the planetarium. He figured Canadian kids didn’t have to know about space—a real forward-thinking type, Harris. After he closed the planetarium, the building was rented out for a commercial Star Trek exhibit, with a mockup of the classic bridge set inside what had been the c. As much as I like Star Trek, I can’t think of a sadder comment on Canadian educational priorities. A variety of other private-sector concerns had subsequently rented the space, but it was currently empty.
Actually, although it was perhaps reasonable for an alien to visit a planetarium, it turned out he really wanted to go to the museum. A good thing, too: imagine how silly Canada would have looked if first contact were made on our soil, but when the extraterrestrial ambassador knocked on the door, no one was home. The planetarium, with its white dome like a giant igloo, is set well back from the street, so there’s a big concrete area in front of it—perfect, apparently, for landing a small shuttle. Now, I didn’t see the landing firsthand, even though I was right next door. But four people—three tourists and a local—did get it on video, and you could catch it endlessly on TV around the world for days afterward. The ship was a narrow wedge, like the slice of cake someone takes when they’re pretending to be on a diet. It was solid black, had no visible exhaust, and had dropped silently from the sky. The vessel was maybe thirty feet long. (Yeah, I know, I know—Canada’s a metric country, but I was born in 1946. I don’t think anyone of my generation—even a scientist, like me—ever became comfortable with the metric system; I’ll try to do better, though.) Rather than being covered with robot puke, like just about every spaceship in every movie since Star Wars, the landing craft’s hull was completely smooth. No sooner had the ship set down than a door opened in its side. The door was rectangular, but wider than it was tall. And it opened by sliding up—an immediate clue that the occupant probably wasn’t human; humans rarely make doors like that because of our vulnerable heads.
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