Misty grey buildings loomed and flickered. They bounced up and down in a highly embarrassing way.

雾蒙蒙的灰色大楼若隐若现地闪烁着。它们上上下下地蹦，样子非常让人难堪。

What sort of buildings were they?

它们是什么大楼？

What were they for? What did they remind her of?

它们干嘛用的？它们让她想到了什么？

It’s so difficult to know what things are supposed to be when you suddenly turn up unexpectedly on a different world which has a different culture, a different set of the most basic assumptions about life, and also incredibly dull and meaningless architecture.

你突然毫无准备地出现在一个不同的世界，这里有不同的文化，对生命有不同的基本假设，而且还有无聊到不可思议，毫无意义的建筑物。在这种情况下，你真的很难闹明白自己看见的究竟是什么东西。

The sky above the buildings was a cold and hostile black. The stars, which should have been blindingly brilliant points of light this far from the sun were blurred and dulled by the thickness of the huge shielding bubble. Perspex or something like it. Something dull and heavy anyway.

大楼上的天空是一种冰冷而充满敌意的黑色。离太阳这么远，星星本该是些亮的炫目的光点，但事实上它们却被厚厚的大防护泡搞的模糊不清，暗淡无光。

Tricia wound the tape back again to the beginning.

崔茜卡把带子倒回到开头。

She knew there was something slightly odd about it.

她知道里头肯定有些什么古怪。

Well, in fact, there were about a million things that were slightly odd about it, but there was one that was nagging at her and she hadn’t quite got it.

好吧，其实大概一百万样东西都有些古怪，但有一样在不停地困扰她，可她就是拿不准那究竟是什么。

She sighed and yawned.

她一面打了个哈欠。

As she waited for the tape to rewind she cleared away some of the dirty polystyrene coffee cups that had accumulated on the editing desk and tipped them into the bin.

趁倒带的时间她把编辑台上积累的聚苯乙烯咖啡杯收拢，丢进了垃圾桶里。