It looked again. All It got was an error message. It tried to look up the error message in its error message look-up table and couldn’t find that either. It allowed a couple of nanoseconds to go by while it went through all this again. Then it woke up its sector function supervisor.The sector function supervisor hit immediate problems. It called its supervising agent which hit problems too. Within a few millionths of a second virtual circuits that had lain dormant, some for years, some for centuries, were flaring into life throughout the ship. Something, somewhere, had gone terribly wrong, but none of the supervising programs could tell what it was. At every level, vital instructions were missing, and the instructions about what to do in the event of discovering that vital instructions were missing, were also missing.

它又找。结果只有一个出错提示。它试着在它的《出错信息手册》里查找那个出错提示，结果同样找不到。它花了两个十亿分之一秒把这些情况又过了一遍。然后它唤醒了它的部门事务主管。部门事务主管是直接处理问题的。它叫来了它自己的主管干事，它也是处理问题的。几个百万分之一秒不到，全船的虚拟电路都齐刷刷地恢复了生气，它们有的已经睡了几年，有的已经睡着好几个世纪了。在什么地方有什么东西出了大问题，可没有一个监管程序知道问题究竟在哪儿。每个级别上都不见了各种关键指令，而关于在发现关键指令丢失时该如何处理的指令也没了踪影。

Small modules of software – agents – surged through the logical pathways, grouping, consulting, re-grouping. They quickly established that the ship’s memory, all the way back to its central mission module, was in tatters. No amount of interrogation could determine what it was that had happened. Even the central mission module itself seemed to be damaged.

小型的软件模块——执事们——在逻辑路径里跑来跑去，组合、商议、重新组合。它们很快得出结论，飞船的记忆体已经一塌糊涂，故障一路延伸到了中央任务模块。再多的问询也无法确定究竟出了什么问题。就连中央任务模块本身似乎也已经损坏。

This made the whole problem very simple to deal with. Replace the central mission module. There was another one, a backup, an exact duplicate of the original. It had to be physically replaced because, for safety reasons, there was no link whatsoever between the original and its backup. Once the central mission module was replaced it could itself supervise the reconstruction of the rest of the system in every detail, and all would be well.

这么一来，问题倒变得很容易解决：换掉中央任务模块就行。飞船上还有一个，一个备份，跟原件完全相同、半点不差。现在要做的就是手动完成替换，因为考虑到安全原因，原件和备份之间向来不存在任何一点联系。一旦替换了中央任务模块，它就可以独当一面，监督系统其他部分完成重建。一切都会好的。

Robots were instructed to bring the backup central mission module from the shielded strong room, where they guarded it, to the ship’s logic chamber for installation.

于是，守护备份的机器人收到指令，把备份的中央任务模块从保险库带到飞船的控制室，准备安装。

This involved the lengthy exchange of emergency codes and protocols as the robots interrogated the agents as to the authenticity of the instructions. At last the robots were satisfied that all procedures were correct. They unpacked the backup central mission module from its storage housing, carried it out of the storage chamber, fell out of the ship and went spinning off into the void.

接下来自然牵扯到漫长的紧急密码和协议交换，因为机器人先得在执事那里确认指令的真实性。最后机器人终于满意了，所有程序都按部就班、正确无误，于是，它们从存储箱取出备份的中央任务模块，把它带出了保险库，然后掉出飞船，打着旋儿消失在虚空里。

This provided the first major clue as to what it was that was wrong.

关于飞船究竟出了什么毛病，这算是第一个重大提示。

Further investigation quickly established what it was that had happened. A meteorite had knocked a large hole in the ship. The ship had not previously detected this because the meteorite had neatly knocked out that part of the ship’s processing equipment which was supposed to detect if the ship had been hit by a meteorite.

进一步的调查很快确认了事情的真相。一块陨石在飞船上砸出了个大洞。之所以一开始没有发现这个问题，是因为陨石刚好砸掉了负责侦察飞船有没有被陨石击中的处理装置。

The first thing to do was to try to seal up the hole. This turned out to be impossible, because the ship’s sensors couldn’t see that there was a hole, and the supervisors which should have said that the sensors weren’t working properly weren’t working properly and kept saying that the sensors were fine. The ship could only deduce the existence of the hole from the fact that the robots had clearly fallen out of it, taking its spare brain, which would have enabled it to see the hole, with them.

现在首先要做的就是试着把这个洞补起来。结果，这竟是一项不可能完成的任务，因为飞船的传感器看不见那个洞，而应该指出传感器出了毛病的监管程序也出了毛病，不停地说传感器好得很。飞船只能推测出洞的存在，因为显然已经有机器人从那儿掉出去了，还捎带弄丢了飞船的备用大脑，也就是那个能让它看见大洞的东西。

The ship tried to think intelligently about this, failed, and then blanked out completely for a bit. It didn’t realise it had blanked out, of course, because it had blanked out. It was merely surprised to see the stars jump. After the third time the stars jumped the ship finally realised that it must be blanking out, and that it was time to take some serious decisions.

飞船试图理性地思考这个问题，可惜没有成功，然后它就彻底昏过去了一小会儿。当然它自己并没有意识到自己昏过去了，因为它已经昏过去了。它只是看到星星在跳，觉得有些吃惊。等第三次看见星星跳的时候，它终于意识到自己肯定是昏过去了，于是认定必须立刻对某些重大问题做出决定。

It relaxed.

它放松下来。

Then it realised it hadn’t actually taken the serious decisions yet and panicked. It blanked out again for a bit. When it awoke again it sealed all the bulkheads around where it knew the unseen hole must be.

然后它意识到那些重大决定还没做呢，于是就惊慌失措起来。它又昏过去了一小会儿。这回醒来的时候，它用所有的防水材料堵起了那个它知道存在、却看不见的洞所在的位置。

It clearly hadn’t got to its destination yet, it thought, fitfully, but since it no longer had the faintest idea where its destination was or how to reach it, there seemed to be little point in continuing. It consulted what tiny scraps of instructions it could reconstruct from the tatters of its central mission module.

自己显然还没有抵达目的地，它断断续续地想，不过既然它已经完全不晓得目的地在哪儿或者应该怎么过去，继续走仿佛也没什么意思了。它努力在自己的中央任务模块里搜集起剩下的那点渣子，重建出几句零零碎碎的指令。

‘Your !!!!! !!!!! !!!!! year mission is to !!!!! !!!!! !!!!!, !!!!!, !!!!! !!!!! !!!!! !!!!!, land !!!!! !!!!! !!!!! a safe distance !!!!! !!!!! monitor it !!!!! !!!!! !!!!!…’

“你们的！！！！！ ！！！！！ ！！！！！年任务是！！！！！ ！！！！！ ！！！！！，！！！！！，！！！！！ ！！！！！ ！！！！！！ ！！！！！， 地！！！！！！ ！！！！！！ ！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！！一段安全距离！！！！！ ！！！！！ ！！！！！对它进行监控！！！！！ ！！！！！ ！！！！！……”

All of the rest was complete garbage.

其余的部分就完全是垃圾了。

Before it blanked out for good the ship would have to pass on those instructions, such as they were, to its more primitive subsidiary systems.

在它彻底昏迷之前，飞船必须把这些个可怜巴巴的指示传递给自己那些比较原始的辅助系统。

It must also revive all of its crew.

它还必须唤醒所有船员。

There was another problem. While the crew was in hibernation, the minds of all of its members, their memories, their identities and their understanding of what they had come to do, had all been transferred into the ship’s central mission module for safe keeping. The crew would not have the faintest idea of who they were or what they were doing there. Oh well.

还有一个问题。船员冬眠的时候，所有成员的大脑——他们的记忆、他们的身份以及他们对自己任务的理解——全都转移到了飞船的中央任务模块，由它保管。醒过来以后他们压根儿不会知道自己是谁或者他们在这儿干吗。

Just before it blanked out for the final time, the ship realised that its engines were beginning to give out too.

最后一次昏迷之前，飞船意识到自己的引擎也开始不行了。

The ship and its revived and confused crew coasted on under the control of its subsidiary automatic systems, which simply looked to land wherever they could find to land and monitor whatever they could find to monitor.

船员苏醒，跟飞船一道滑行，辅助自动控制系统开始操作，搜寻着陆地点，能找到哪儿算哪儿，能监控什么就监控什么。

As far as finding something to land on was concerned, they didn’t do very well. The planet they found was desolately cold and lonely, so achingly far from the sun that should warm it, that it took all of the Envir-O-Form machinery and LifeSupport-O-Systems they carried with them to render it, or at least enough parts of it, habitable. There were better planets nearer in, but the ship’s Strateej-O-Mat was obviously locked into Lurk mode and chose the most distant and unobtrusive planet and, furthermore, would not be gainsaid by anybody other than the ship’s Chief Strategic Officer. Since everybody on the ship had lost their minds no one knew who the Chief Strategic Officer was or, even if he could have been identified, how he was supposed to go about gainsaying the ship’s Strateej-O-Mat.

找地方降落这部分进行得不大顺利。他们找到的那个行星冷飕飕的，一片荒凉，跟应该温暖它的太阳隔了十万八千里。他们用尽了携带的环境塑形机和生命维持系统才把它，或者至少是它上头足够大的一部分，搞成能住人的模样。靠恒星近些的地方倒有更好的行星，可飞船的战略监管系统显然锁定在了潜伏模式，所以才选了最远最不打眼的地方，而且任何人反对都无效，除非飞船的战略总指挥亲自说话。可既然大家都失了忆，谁还知道战略总指挥到底是哪一个？再说就算能把他找出来，也没人晓得他该怎么去反对飞船的战略监管系统。

As far as finding something to monitor was concerned, though, they hit solid gold.

至于寻找监控对象这部分，他们可算是挖到了宝。