刘慈欣《带上她的眼睛》英文版讲解 第三集

大家好，感谢大家再次光临我的科幻英语实验室。

在上一集中我们讲到最后女主那非要男主带着她的眼睛出去看半夜的月亮，还给他唱歌，唱《月光》，可是男主实在是太困了，他就把女主的眼睛，挂在了一棵大树的树枝上，就睡觉去了。第二天早上醒来，他想起这眼睛还挂在树枝上，就赶紧起床，去把眼睛找回来。他想，这女主看了一夜的月亮这下肯定睡着了，可谁知道女主居然还醒着，而且那还在眼睛的那一边哭泣，原因是晚上下起了雨，她就看不到草原的日出了。这让男主感觉到有一点愧意，他开始不停地安慰她，直到女主停止了哭泣，然后她说出了她实时通讯的最后一句话。

她说This is the first bird in the morning, there are birds, even in the rain. 她说这是今天早上的第一声鸟鸣，原来雨中也会有鸟啊。大刘说，女主讲这句话的语调非常的庄严，这个庄严可不是罗辑的夫人庄颜，这里的庄严指的是庄重和严肃，英文我们叫做solemn，最后一个n是不发音的，我想大刘之所以安排女主用庄严的口吻说了这句话，原因是在于这句话有深刻的含义，女主想要表达的真实含义应该是即使是在严酷的环境之中，人的精神力量还是可以支持生命和信念的延续。这里有一个唯一这一期当中唯一要讲的语言点，我们来看看原文当中，女主庄严的语气 as if she were listening peal of the bells marking the end of an era，好像她听到的是世纪钟声一样，这里细心的朋友应该看到，出现了she were，这里she后面跟的be动词不应该是第三人称单数形式吗？因为这里用到的那是过去进行时，所以be动词不单单要改变成过去式，还要考虑到前面的人称，这里的she说第三人称单数，为什么这里用的是were？是不是写错了，当然不是。这里有个语言点一个语法点叫做虚拟语态，实际上大家都知道这个女孩不是真的听到了世纪钟声，并没有这件事情的发生，这是一种假设和比喻，那么在这种情况之下，我们要把这个句子写成是虚拟语态。大家记住所有的人称，在用到虚拟语态的时候，表示一件没有发生过的事情，表达假如某事真的发生的话，be动词都用were而不用was，这就是一种规则，一种约定俗成的语言使用习惯。我给大家举几个例子，比如说如果是我是你的话，我就不会去读那本书，太难读了。If I were you, I would not read that book, because it's too difficult。如果我是你的话，这句话我们平常是经常用到的，包括很多流行歌曲里的歌词，有一首碧昂丝的歌，邓紫棋也唱过，叫做If I were a boy，那么这些女生她们真的有没有可能变成一个boy？是不可能的，所以在这里用到虚拟语态，如果我是一个男生的话，我将会做一些什么事情，这是一种想像，是never gonna happen的。当然也有人说如果有可能发生呢，这种情况下，给大家点到为止，用的是was. 这就是本期节目当中唯一一个要讲的语法点，将来遇到同样的情况会很多，可以不断给大家加固，今天这一期当中，大家只要知道这个地方没有语法的错误，确实应该用were，表示一种虚拟语态，表示这件事情是没有发生，将来也是不可能发生的就可以了。

我们转到接下来的内容当中，女主说完了他最后这一句很庄严的台词之后，男主就带着她的眼睛回去工作的空间站了。他回到了工作和生活之中，很快就把之前的经历给忘记了。一直到很久以后，他才意识到这个女孩子其实在他的内心深处埋下了一颗小小的种子，使得他能够感觉到周围这个平凡的世界也存在着许多自己以前没有看到过的美好。有一件东西经常出现在他的思想之中，就是那支旋转的铅笔。这支铅笔之所以会旋转，表明女孩所处的环境是失重的。突然有一天，男主就像是醍醐灌顶般想起来，太空并不是唯一零重力的地方，space is not the only place with zero gravity。这里有一个重量级的词汇要推荐给大家，确实很重，因为它就是gravity，重力，就是我们常常说的地心引力。它是指具有质量的物体之间相互吸引的作用，它也是在地球上的物体重量的来源。在宇宙中引力让物质聚集而形成天体，同时也让天体之间互相吸引，这跟天体之间的距离有多远没有关系，即使是离得很远的两个天体之间都会存在着微弱的引力。这种太空中存在的引力形成了按照轨道运转的天体系统。此外月球以及太阳对地球上的海水也会产生引力，这样就引起了地球上的潮汐，tide。

那么说到了Gravity重力，就不得不说一说重力的发现过程。有一则著名的故事，就是说我们那位著名的艾塞克.牛顿先生，那位被苹果砸到了头之后发现了万有引力定律的人。关于这一点，实际上大家也都知道这只是一个传说，很多自古以来的文学作品也好，或者是其他的民间口述也好，都认为掉下来的苹果正好砸中了牛顿的脑门，使他不知道何故突然就明白了引力这回事。但是有一位写牛顿传记的作家，1726年4月15号在他于牛顿本人的一次谈话的过程中，听到牛顿自己回忆了这一段故事。

牛顿自己说：“从前引力的概念进入了我的脑海，在我沉思的时候，苹果的下落引起了我的思考，为什么苹果总是会垂直落到地上呢，我心里想为什么就不能走到侧面或者向上升呢，而是永远的朝向地球的中心？” 这就是苹果砸中牛顿头的真实版本，而许多棵树，都被称作是牛顿所描述的“那棵苹果树”，牛顿的母校国王学院认为他们校园中的那棵树就是牛顿所说的“那棵苹果树”，而牛顿故居的现任所有者则认为在他们的花园中的那棵树才是牛顿所描述的那棵树。

另外还有两个地方也都号称当年牛顿是坐在他们的树底下发现了万有引力的，一棵在剑桥大学的三一学院的大门外，一棵在该校的植物园里。所以究竟牛顿当年坐在哪一棵树下，突然之间灵光一闪，想到了万有引力这件事，真的是世纪之谜了。特别有趣的一点是，南京大学，天津大学，汕头大，美国的麻省理工学院，加拿大约克大学，以及日本东京大学都曾经将牛顿老家的苹果树的后裔的枝条栽种到了自家的校园，来沾一点仙气。还有一个轶闻，美国的苹果公司，最早的logo就是一幅牛顿坐在苹果树下看书的钢笔绘画，现在的已经不是原来的样子，而成了一个被咬了一口的智慧果。

另外有一点需要给大家澄清一下，很多人把地球引力称为地心引力，英文上来讲都是gravity，但是在学术上这是不正确的，因为严格的来说，地球的引力并非仅仅来自于地心，而来自于整个地球，既岩石圈，水文圈，大气圈所共同组成的星体。恰恰在地核内反而是没有重力的，大刘在文中也没有解释为什么在地核的中心是没有重力的，我做一些检索工作，从理论上来讲，如果地球是一个密度均匀的完美的球体，球体之前的节目里面我提到过，叫做Sphere，如果地球是一个密度均匀的完美球体，并且如果有一个人可以完全处于静止状态，那么从理论上来讲，在地核内部的时候是不会感觉到重力的，这是因为整个地球的质量会在所有的方向上对你的身体产生同等的牵引力，从而使得总重力为零，那么这个时候你就感觉不到重力。但是这只是一个理论状态，因为我们的地球并不是一个完美的球形，实际上她是两极向中间互相挤压的一个扁球体，所以它的密度也是不均匀的，在这种情况下如果你真的身处地核，在某些位置的时候是可以感觉到一点点的牵引力。这是我找到的一个答案，如果有误的话，那也请大家帮我勘误。关于gravity的一些花边小故事和科普小知识就讲到这里。

直到这个时候男主角才终于恍然大悟，原来女主根本就不在太空，她是在地心！

女主就是落日六号地航飞船的领航员，大刘在最后的一章节中跟我们揭示了谜底。人类踏上了月球之后，又经过了一个半世纪，才开始进行相反方向的探索，也就是向地心的深处发展，就诞生了落日计划。落日计划预计要发射十艘地航飞船，前面的五艘都非常安全顺利地完成了任务回到了地表之上，一直到落日6号发生事故，从此这一计划也就被抛弃了。

很不幸，我们的女主正是最后出事故的落日六号当中唯一的幸存者，她是一位领航员navigator，这个词是我们今天要学的第二个生词，看起来有点长，但其实大家应该在平常的生活当中也有遇到过，比如大家的车上都有一个导航系统，就是navigation system，导航系统，大家知道or这个后缀表示的是人，也就是领航员。

我们不多深入下去，再来讲一讲落日计划地航飞船的任务，任务是什么，mission，大家对这个词一定不陌生，因为大家都喜欢看电影，一定看过阿汤哥的《不可能的任务》，mission impossible，这个系列已经到了多少集，我也记不清楚了，想来大家应该都有看过，最近听到一个新闻，我们不老的阿汤哥已经确定要去太空真正的空间站拍摄他的下一部电影，非常期待，mission impossible X，永远都不会停止的一个系列，只要我们的阿汤哥不老。

落日6号的mission，并不是到达地核，因为人类在小说当中，当时的科技水平并不支持地航飞船直接驶入地核。这里我给大家说一下我们整个地球内部的结构，会遇到几个新词，并不难记，跟大家罗列一遍，大家如果可能的话可以看一下，我在文本当中贴了一张示意图，就会比较的清晰，从上到下从地表一直往下深入，我们首先看到的是地壳，crust，这个词表示的本意就是脆脆的外壳，在地质学上那表示地壳。再往下走，地壳下就是地幔，mantle，大家记住地幔其实是mantle的一个半音译版本。地壳跟地幔之间的这一个交界面叫做莫霍界面，也就是原文当中给出的“Moho discontinuity”。大家没有必要把它背下来，先记住中文就可以了。

地壳是位于莫霍界面以上的，界面以下就是地幔。再往下走，我们就要进入到古腾堡界面，也就是古腾堡不连续面，这在书中也提到，叫做“Gutenberg discontinuity”，也是一个音译。古腾堡界面是地幔和地核的交界面，该界面之下我们就进入了真正的地核，地核部分又分为外核与内核，地核的单词不难记，core，大家如果健身的话应该对这个词也不陌生，Core strength就是我们中段的力量，就是这个核心，外核叫outer core，内核是inner core。

在故事中，我们的女主角的落日六号发生事故之后，最后下沉到了地球的内核之中，事故发生的原因，其实是运气不好，落日6号不小心进入了一个裂隙，地核中的液态的铁镍物质渗入到了这条裂缝之中，也就是说在理论上把地核的高度向上延伸了好几千米，导致了落日六号不慎误入了地核。因为6号是用中子材料制成，它的比重远远大于液态铁镍物质，所以它就向地核深处沉了下去。这里我们就接触到了密度这个词，密度叫做density ，是指物质单位体积下的质量，也就是物质的质量 mass与体积的比值，我们说一个女生她是胖是瘦，不能看的女生体重究竟是多大，不能看质量，还是要看密度，密度越大，体积越小，体重相同的两个女生，密度大一点的女生看上去一定会紧致瘦一些，密度小的看起来就会大个一些了。虽然地核内的密度很惊人，但是由于构成落日六号飞船的中子材料的密度更大，液态的铁镍对飞船产生的浮力要小于它的自重，所以6号还是向下沉去。并且由于飞船前端的融合发动机fusion engine，也就是核聚变发动机，这在三体当中，以及大刘其他作品当中也是经常出现的，6号配备的聚变发动机被破坏了，所以六号就失去了动力，无论如何都没有办法再像上升了，因为他本身的密度比液态铁镍还要大，所以没有办法利用浮力上浮。我们在这里遇到了今天要学的最后一个新词，叫做浮力Buoyancy，这个词的拼写不是太符合拼读规则，所以相对来说会不是太容易记，那么我把它拆开，可能会比较容易记一点。Buoy 跟 boy的发音相同，多一个字母u，加上后半部分ancy。说到浮力，我们可以非常快的来讲一讲，大家可能已经耳熟能详了的一个关于发现浮力的故事，相传古希腊的国王让一个工匠做了一顶金皇冠，做好之后国王就猜疑这个工匠所做的可能不是纯金的，所以他就把大臣著名的阿基米德叫来了，让他想个办法给自己做检验，但是阿基米德又不可能把这个皇冠切开了或者烧熔了来检验是否真的纯金。阿基米德尔就百思不得其计，最后有一天他在家里洗澡，当他坐进盆里面，看到水往外溢出来了，同时他还感觉到自己的身体被轻轻地托起，他突然就顿悟到，可以用测定物体在水中排水量的方法来确定金冠的比重，然后他就非常兴奋地跳出澡盆，著名的桥段出现了，连衣服都顾不上穿就跑出去了，大声喊着Eureka，Eureka！这个地方有一个有趣的词叫做Eureka，这个词在英文当中就表示“我发现了”，经过了进一步的实验之后，他便来到了皇宫，把皇冠和同等质量的纯金，放在了盛满水的两个盆子当中来比较两个盆中溢出来的水，至此阿基米德成功地发现了浮力定律，也就是阿基米德原理，物体在液体中所获的浮力等于物体所排出的液体的重量。好了，初中物理知识复习到此。

那么今天的节目，也到此为止了，希望今天不算是太难，总结一下，今天给大家的新词真的不多。

Solemn 庄严的

Gravity 重力

Navigator 导航员

Mission 任务

Crust 地壳

Mantle 地幔

Core 地核

Density 密度

Fusion engine 聚变发动机

Buoyancy 浮力

As though she were … / If I were … 彷佛她是在.../ 假如我是...

今天的内容比较轻松，到此为本书就已经给大家全部都做完了，这个故事最后的结局，是一个略带悲剧色彩，比较悲情的结局。我们的女主角一直都沉在地心中，并将在那里度过她的余生，再也不可能回到地面上。大刘在文章的尾声当中，还是给了大家一个Happy ending，他说男主非常乐观地想，无论他躺在地球哪一个角落的地表上，都不会离女主更远了，因为地球表面每一个地方到达地核的半径都是差不多。这个故事其实还有一个姊妹篇叫做地球大炮，大家有兴趣也可以找来阅读一番。至于最后一部分小说的中英故事原文，我还是照样做了另外一个音频，如果大家希望听到原文的话也可以点开另外一个专辑。

When I returned to bed an hour later, she was still humming. I had no idea if it was still Debussy, but it made no difference. That delicate music fluttered through my dreams. 

Some time later – I’m not sure how long – her humming turned into shouting. Her cries stirred me from sleep. She wanted to go outside again. 

‘Weren’t you just looking at the Moon?’ I was angry. 

‘But it’s different now. Remember the clouds in the west? They might have floated over by now. The Moon will be darting in and out of the clouds; I want to see the light and shadows dance on the plains outside. How beautiful that must look. It’s a different kind of music. Please, take my eyes outside!’ 

My head throbbed with anger, but I went out. The clouds had floated on, and the Moon was shining through them. Its light filtered hazily over the grassland. It was as though the Earth were pondering deep and ancient memories. 

‘You’re like a sentimental eighteenth-century poet. Tragically unfit for these times. Even more so for an astronaut,’ I said, peering into the night sky. I took off her eyes and hung them from a branch of a nearby salt cedar. ‘If you want to look at the Moon, you can do it by yourself. I really need to sleep. Tomorrow I have to get back to the space center and continue my woefully prosaic life.’ 

That soft voice whispered from her eyes, but I could no longer hear what she was saying. I went back to the cabin without another word. 

It was daytime when I awoke. Dark clouds covered the sky, shrouding the Taklamakan in a light drizzle. The eyes were still hanging from the tree, mist covering the lenses. I carefully wiped them clean and put them on. I assumed that after watching the Moon for an entire night she would be fast asleep by now. However, I heard her sobbing quietly. A wave of pity overwhelmed me. 

‘I’m really sorry. I was just too tired last night.’

‘No, it isn’t you,’ she said between sobs. ‘The sky grew overcast at half past three. And after five o’clock, it started to rain...’ 

‘You didn’t sleep at all?’ I nearly shouted. 

‘It started raining, and I... I couldn’t see the sun when it rose,’ she choked out. ‘I really wanted to see the sun rise over the plains. I wanted to see it more than anything...’ 

Something had melted my heart. Her tears flowed through my thoughts, and I pictured her small nose twitching as she sniveled. My eyes actually felt moist. I had to admit: she had taught me something over the past twenty-four hours, though I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what. It was hazy, like the light and shadows moving over the grasslands. My eyes now saw a different world because of it. 

‘There’ll always be another sunrise. I’ll definitely take your eyes out again to see it. Or maybe I’ll see it with you in person. How does that sound?’ 

Her sobbing stopped. Suddenly she whispered to me. ‘Listen...’ 

I didn’t hear anything, but I tensed. 

‘It’s the first bird of the morning. There are birds out, even in the rain.’ Her voice was solemn, as though she were listening to the peal of bells marking the end of an era.

Chapter 2  Sunset 6

My memories of this experience quickly faded once I had returned to my drab existence and busy job. When I remembered to wash the clothes I had worn during my trip – which was some time afterwards – I discovered a few grass seeds in the cuffs of my trousers. At the same time, a tiny seed also remained buried within the depths of my subconscious. In the lonely desert of my soul, that seed had already sprouted, though its shoots were so tiny they were barely perceptible. This may have happened unconsciously, but at the end of each grueling work day I could feel the natural poetry of the evening breeze stir against my face. Birdsong could catch my attention. I would even stand on the overpass at twilight and watch as night enveloped the city... The world was still dreary to my eyes, but it was now sprinkled with specks of verdant green – specks that grew steadily in number. Once I began to perceive this change, I thought of her again. She began to drift into my idle mind and even into my dreams. Over and over again, I would see that cramped cockpit, that strangely insulated spacesuit... Later on, these things retreated from my consciousness. Only one thing protruded from the void: that pencil, drifting in zero gravity around her head. For some reason, I would see that pencil floating in front of me whenever I shut my eyes. 

One day I was walking into the vast lobby of the space center when a giant mural, one that I had passed countless times before, suddenly caught my eye. The mural depicted Earth viewed from space; a gem of deepest blue. That pencil again floated before my mind’s eye, but now it was superimposed over the mural. I heard her voice again. 

I don’t want to be closed in. 

Realization flashed through my brain like lightning. Space wasn’t the only place with zero gravity! 

I ran upstairs like a madman and banged on the Director’s door. He wasn’t in. Guided by what felt like a premonition, I flew down to the small room where the eyes were stored. The director was there, gazing at the girl on the large monitor. She was still inside that sealed-off cockpit, still wearing that ‘spacesuit’. The image was frozen; almost certainly a recording. 

‘You’re here for her, I suppose,’ he said, still looking at the monitor. 

‘Where is she?’ My voice boomed inside the small room. 

‘You may have already guessed the truth. She’s the navigator of Sunset 6.’ 

The strength drained from my muscles and I collapsed onto the carpet. It all made sense now. 

The Sunset Project had originally planned to launch ten ships, from Sunset 1 to Sunset 10. After the Sunset 6 disaster, however, the project had been abandoned. The project was an exploratory flight mission like many before it. It followed the same basic procedures as each of the space center’s other flight missions. There was just one difference – the Sunset vessels were not headed to outer space. These ships were built to dive into the depths of the Earth. One-and-a-half centuries after the first space flight, humanity began to probe in the opposite direction. The Sunset-series terracraft were its first attempt at this form of exploration. 

Four years ago, I had watched the Sunset 1 launch on television. It was late at night. A blinding fireball lit up the heart of the Turpan Depression so bright it caused the clouds in Xinjiang’s night sky to glow with the gorgeous colors of dawn. By the time the fireball faded, Sunset 1 was already underground. At the center of this circle of red-hot, scorched earth now churned a lake of molten magma. White-hot lava seethed and boiled, hurling bright molten columns into the air... The tremors could be felt as far away as Urumqi as the terracraft burrowed through the planet’s inner layers. 

Each of the Sunset Project’s first five missions successfully completed their subterranean voyages and returned safely to the Earth’s surface. Sunset 5 set a record for the furthest any human had traveled beneath the planet’s surface: 3,100 kilometers. It was a record that Sunset 6 did not intend to break, and with good reason. Modern geophysics had concluded that the boundary between the Earth’s mantle and core lay between 3,400 and 3,500 kilometers underground; this convergence is referred to academically as the ‘Gutenberg Discontinuity’. Breaching this boundary meant entering the planet’s iron-nickel core. Upon entering the core, the density of the surrounding matter would abruptly and exponentially increase to levels that went beyond the Sunset 6’s design specifications to navigate. Sunset 6’s voyage began smoothly. It took the terracraft all of two hours to pass through the boundary between the Earth’s surface and mantle, also known as the ‘Moho’. 

After resting upon the sliding surface of the Eurasian plate for five hours, the ship began its slow three-thousand-plus kilometer journey through the mantle. Space travel may be lonely, but at least astronauts can gaze at the infinity of the universe and the majesty of the stars. The terranauts voyaging through the planet, however, had nothing but the sensation of endlessly increasing density to guide them. All they could glean from peering into the terracraft’s holographic rearview monitors was the blinding glare of the seething magma following in their ship’s wake. As the craft plunged deeper, the magma would merge behind the aft section, instantly sealing the path that the ship had just forged. 

A terranaut once described the experience. Whenever she and her fellow crew members shut their eyes, they would see the onrushing magma gather behind them, pressing down and sealing them in all over again. The image followed them like a phantom, and it made the voyagers aware of the massive and ever-increasing immensity of matter pressing against their ship. This sense of claustrophobia was difficult for those on the surface to comprehend, but it tortured each and every terranaut. 

Sunset 6 completed each of its research tasks with flying colors. The craft traveled at approximately fifteen kilometers per hour; at this rate, it would require twenty hours to reach its target depth. Fifteen hours and forty minutes into their voyage, however, the crew received an alert. Subsurface radar had picked up a sudden increase of density in their vicinity, leaping from 6.3 grams per cubic centimeter to 9.5 grams. The surrounding matter was no longer silicate-based but primarily an iron-nickel alloy; it was also no longer solid but liquid. Despite having only achieved a depth of 2,500 kilometers, all signs currently indicated that Sunset 6 and its crew had entered the planet’s core. 

The crew would later learn that they had chanced upon a fissure in the Earth’s mantle – one that led directly to its core. The fissure was filled with a high-pressure liquid alloy of iron and nickel from the Earth’s core. Thanks to this crack, the Gutenberg discontinuity had reached up one thousand kilometers closer to the Sunset 6’s flight path. The ship immediately took emergency measures to change course. It was during this attempt to escape that disaster truly struck. The ship’s neutron-laced hull was strong enough to withstand the massive and sudden pressure increase to 1,600 tons per cubic centimeter, but the terracraft itself was comprised of three parts: a fusion engine at the bow, a central cabin, and a rear-mounted drive engine. When it attempted to change direction, the section linking the fusion engine to the main cabin fractured due to the density and pressure of liquid iron-nickel alloy that far exceeded the ship’s operating parameters. 

The images broadcast from Sunset 6’s neutrino communicator showed the forward engine splitting from the hull only to be instantly engulfed by the crimson glow of the liquid metal. A Sunset ship’s fusion engine fired a super-heated jet that cut through the material in front of the vessel. Without it, the drive engine could barely push the Sunset 6 an inch through the planet’s solid inner layers. The density of the Earth’s core is startling, but the neutrons in the ship’s hull were even denser. As the buoyancy created by the liquid iron-nickel alloy did not exceed the ship’s deadweight, Sunset 6 began to sink towards the Earth’s core. 

One-and-a-half centuries after landing on the Moon, humanity was finally capable of venturing to Mercury. It had been anticipated that we would travel from mantle to core in a similar time frame. Now a terracraft had accidentally entered the core, and, just like an Apollo-era vessel spinning off course and into the depths of space, the chance of a successful rescue was simply nonexistent. 

Fortunately, the hull of the ship’s main cabin was sturdy, and Sunset 6’s neutrino communications system maintained a solid connection with the control center on the surface. In the year that followed, the crew of the Sunset 6 persisted in their work, sending streams of valuable data gleaned from the core to the surface. Encased as they were in thousands of kilometers of rock, air and survival were the least of their worries – what they lacked more than anything else was space. 

They were pummeled by temperatures of over five thousand degrees Celsius and surrounded by pressures that could crush carbon into diamonds within seconds. Only neutrinos could escape the incredible density of the material in which the Sunset 6 was entombed. The ship was completely trapped in a giant furnace of molten metal. To the ship’s crew, Dante’s Inferno would depict a paradise. What could life mean in a world like this? Is there any word beyond ‘fragile’ that can describe it? 

Immense psychological pressure shredded the nerves of the Sunset 6’s crew. One day, the ship’s geological engineer woke, leapt from his cot and threw open the heat-insulation door protecting his cabin. Even though this was only the first of four such doors, the wave of incandescent heat that washed in through the remaining three layers instantly reduced him to charcoal. To prevent the ship’s imminent destruction, the commander rushed to seal the open door. Although he was successful, he suffered severe burns in the process. The man died after making one last entry into the ship’s log. With one crew member remaining, Sunset 6 continued its voyage through the planet’s darkest depths. 

By now, the interior of the vessel was entirely weightless. The ship had sunk to a depth of 6,800 kilometers – the planet’s deepest point. The last remaining terranaut aboard the Sunset 6 had become the first person to reach the Earth’s core. Her entire world had shrunk to the size of a cramped, stuffy cockpit. She had less than ten square meters to move around in. 

The ship’s onboard pair of neutrino glasses allowed her a small measure of sensory contact with the planet’s surface. However, this lifeline was doomed to be short-lived, as the craft’s neutrino communications system was nearly out of power. By now, the power levels were already too low to support the super-high-speed data relay that these sensory glasses relied on. In fact, the system had lost contact three months ago, just as I was taking the plane back from my vacation in the plains. By that time, her eyes were already stored inside my travel bag. 

That misty, sunless morning on the plains had been her final glimpse of the surface world. 

From then on, Sunset 6 could only maintain audio and data links with the surface. But late one night this connection had also ceased, sealing her permanently into the planet’s lonely core. Sunset 6’s neutron shell was strong enough to withstand the core’s massive pressure, and the craft’s cyclical life support systems were fully capable of an additional fifty to eighty years of operation. So she would remain alive, at the center of the Earth, in a room so small she could traverse its area in less than a minute. I hardly dared imagine her final farewell to the surface world. However, when the Director played the recording, I was shocked. 

The neutrino beam to the surface was already weak when the message was sent, and her voice occasionally cut out, but she sounded calm. 

‘...have received your final advisement. I’ll do all I can to follow the entire research plan in the days to come. Someday, maybe generations from now, another ship might find the Sunset 6 and dock with it. If someone does enter here, I can only hope that the data I leave behind will be of use. Please rest assured; I have made a life for myself down here and adapted to these surroundings; I don’t feel constrained or closed-in anymore. The entire world surrounds me. When I close my eyes, I see the great plains up there on the surface. I can still see every one of the flowers that I named. ‘Goodbye.’

Epilogue   A Transparent World 

Many years have passed, and I have visited many places. Everywhere I go, I stretch out upon the Earth. I have lain on the beaches of Hainan Island, on Alaskan snow, among Russia’s white birches and on the scalding sands of the Sahara. And every time the world became transparent to my mind’s eye. I saw the terracraft, anchored more than six thousand kilometers below me at the center of that translucent sphere, whose hull once bore the name Sunset 6; I felt her heartbeat echo up to me through thousands of kilometers. As I imagined the golden light of the sun and the silvery glow of the Moon shining down to the planet’s core, I could hear her humming ‘Clair de Lune’, and her soft voice: 

‘...How beautiful that must look. It’s a different kind of music...’ 

One thought comforted me: even if I traveled to the most distant corner of the Earth, I would never be any farther from her.

The End