That was it. She was exhausted and she had had a nervous breakdown and had started hallucinating some time after she got home. She had dreamt the whole story. An alien race of people dispossessed of their own lives and histories, stuck on a remote outpost of our solar system and filling their cultural vacuum with our cultural junk. Ha! It was nature’s way of telling her to check into an expensive medical establishment very quickly.

就是这个。她精疲力尽时精神崩溃，回家之后不久就开始幻想。整个故事都是黄粱一梦。一个失去了自己生活和历史的外星种族，困在我们太阳系的边远哨所，用我们的文化垃圾来填补他们的文化空缺。哈！这是大自然在告诉她，她该赶紧往一家高收费的医疗机构报到了。

She was very, very sick. She looked at how many large coffees she’d got through as well, and realised how heavily she was breathing and how fast.

她病得非常严重。她又看了眼被自己干掉的大杯咖啡，发现数量相当可观，同时还意识到自己的呼吸是多么沉重，多么缓慢。

Part of solving any problem, she told herself, was realising that you had it. She started to bring her breathing under control. She had caught herself in time. She had seen where she was. She was on the way back from whatever psychological precipice she had been on the brink of. She started to calm down, to calm down, to calm down. She sat back in the chair and closed her eyes.

对于任何问题，她告诉自己，意识到它的存在都是解决它的一部分。她开始控制呼吸。她已经阻止了自己。她看出了自己的问题。现在她正从那不论什么精神悬崖上往后退。她开始冷静下来，冷静，冷静。她靠在椅背上，闭上眼睛。

After a while, now that she was breathing normally again, she opened them again.

过了一会，她觉得自己的呼吸已经平稳下来，于是再次睁开眼睛。

So where had she got this tape from then?

那这盘带子又是从哪儿来的？

It was still running.

它还在放着。

All right. It was a fake.

好吧，这是伪造的。

She had faked it herself, that was it.

她自己伪造的，就这么回事。

It must have been her who had faked it because her voice was all over the soundtrack, asking questions. Every now and then the camera would swing down at the end of a shot and she would see her own feet in her own shoes. She had faked it and she had no recollection of faking it or any idea of why she had done it.

伪造这盘带子的人肯定是她，因为音轨上到处都是她的声音，不停地提问题。时不时的，在一段拍摄结束后她会把摄像机放下，然后带子上就会出现自己的脚，脚上穿着她自己的鞋子。她伪造了这盘带子，可她不记得自己这么干过，也想不起来自己为什么要这么干。

Her breathing was getting hectic again as she watched the snowy, flickering screen.

看着晃来晃去，满是雪花的屏幕，崔西卡的呼吸又乱了。

She must still be hallucinating.

她肯定还在幻想。

She shook her head, trying to make it go away. She had no memory of faking any of this very obviously fake stuff. On the other hand she did seem to have memories that were very like the faked stuff. She continued to watch in a bewildered trance.

她甩甩头，想摆脱这感觉。她不记得伪造了这盘显然是伪造的带子。另一方面，她似乎又的确有一些跟伪造的内容非常相似的记忆。她困惑，迷茫，恍恍惚惚地继续往下看。

The person she imagined to be called the Leader was questioning her about astrology and she was answering smoothly and calmly. Only she could detect the well-disguised rising panic in her own voice.

在她的臆想中，名叫首领的那个人向她询问了许多关于占星术的问题。她的回答得体又镇定。只有她自己才能察觉，其实在心底，她正越来越慌张。

The Leader pushed a button, and a maroon velvet wall slid aside, revealing a large bank of flat TV monitors.

首领按了一个钮，一堵暗紫色天鹅绒墙壁划开，露出一大片平板电视监视器。