Multilingual Science Fiction
To Be Taught, If Fortunate: A Novella
Becky Chambers
Original text in English
This was not my first step off Earth. I’d spent a summative year and a half at the New Millennium Lunar Base. I felt transcendent the moment my first spacecraft touched down there, and had an echoing thrill every morning I woke up in my bunk and remembered oh my God, I’m on the Moon. But in some ways, the experience was not so removed from travelling on Earth. The Moon was not a mystery, but a place visited by many others before me. It’s difficult for me to explain this feeling, because I’m afraid of coming off as yep, went to the Moon, no big deal. The Moon is incredible, I assure you. I felt my daily share of reverence. But I felt a similar reverence, a related reverence, when I stood at the rim of the Grand Canyon for the first time, or stood breathless and shivering atop Mount Fuji. Places I had learned of and longed for, suddenly manifest around me. I felt the same on the Moon, in what I thought was the end-all-be-all. I thought I had reached the summit of wonder, that all natural spectacles would enchant me in much the same way.
Not so.
I descended the ramp. My thoughts were dizzy, dreamlike. I was so overwhelmed that I was afraid I wouldn’t remember the moment later. But I did. I do. I’ll never forget it.
Impossible quiet waited beyond the airlock, as if this moon were holding its breath with me. My boots clunked lightly on the ramp, each foot headed a little further down. The sound changed – not the clap of machine-made metal, but the soft crunch of ice. I could feel it give ever so slightly beneath my weight, then hold fast. Endless ice surrounded me, untouched and undisturbed. A flawless canvas. A smooth block of clay. And it looked more like clay or mud than the water I knew it to be comprised of. Thanks to the red-light spectrum bestowed by the sun above, the ice did not appear white or blue, but rather shiny black. It reminded me more of a lava field than anything.
I stood there, without thought or words. Despite the inviting bounce of low gravity, I remained stock-still. On Luna, I visited the Apollo sites, as all astronauts do. It’s our pilgrimage, our rite. I viewed Neil Armstrong’s footsteps, preserved behind their protective glass domes, and as I stood in that same lunar dust, I felt the way I had on Earth when I visited the Cave of Altamira and raised my palm so that it nearly touched the painted print left by someone thirty-six-thousand years prior: a tiny link in a mighty chain.
Aecor was different. My footprints would not stay there, I knew. I was standing on ice, not rock, and the same geysers that had polished the frozen ocean smooth would do so again, given time. But I was forging a new chain, and the immensity of that is a feeling I doubt can be matched.
Jack broke my reverie. ‘One small step, hey, Ari?’ he said, reading my mind. I turned and looked. All three of my crew were waiting in the airlock, and I suppose I’d been standing there for a while, because they were laughing at me. Well, not Elena. She let out a bit of a chuckle, but it came with a knowing smile. She’d been the first to stand on an asteroid, after all. She understood.
Becky Chambers, To Be Taught, If Fortunate: A Novella, p. 30,, Hodder & Stoughton, 2019.
Um zu lernen, wenn wir Glück haben: Eine Novelle
Becky Chambers
German translation from English by Isabel Kestler
Das war nicht mein erster Schritt weg von der Erde. Ich hatte insgesamt eineinhalb Jahre an der New Millennium Lunar Base verbracht. Ich fühlte mich überweltlich in dem Moment als mein erstes Raumschiff dort landete und hatte jeden Morgen einen anhaltenden Kick wenn ich in meinem Stockbett aufwachte und mich erinnerte ‘oh mein Gott, ich bin auf dem Mond’. Aber in mancher Hinsicht war die Erfahrung nicht ganz so losgelöst vom Reisen auf der Erde. Der Mond war kein Mysterium, sondern ein Ort der schon vor mir von vielen anderen besucht worden war. Es fällt mir schwer, dieses Gefühl zu beschreiben, weil ich Angst davor habe so rüber zu kommen, als wäre ich auf dem Mond gewesen, ja, keine große Sache. Der Mond ist unglaublich, das versichere ich euch. Ich spürte meinen täglichen Anteil an Ehrfurcht. Aber ich spürte eine ähnliche Ehrfurcht, eine damit verwandte Ehrfurcht, als ich zum ersten Mal am Rande des Grand Canyons stand oder atemlos und zitternd auf dem Gipfel des Mount Fuji. Orte von denen ich gelernt und nach denen ich mich gesehnt hatte, tauchten plötzlich um mich herum auf. Ich fühlte das gleiche auf dem Mond, wo ich dachte, das sei das Nonplusultra. Ich dachte, ich hätte den Gipfel des Staunens erreicht, dass alle Naturspektakel mich in der gleichen Weise verzaubern würden.
Dem war nicht so.
Ich stieg die Rampe hinunter. Meine Gedanken waren wirr, wie im Traum. Ich war so überwältigt, dass ich Angst hatte, ich würde mich später nicht mehr an diesen Moment erinnern. Aber das tat ich. Ich erinnere mich. Ich werde es nie vergessen.
Unfassbare Stille herrschte hinter der Luftschleuse, als würde der Mond mit mir die Luft anhalten. Meine Stiefel klackerten leicht auf der Rampe, jeder Fuß ging ein Stückchen weiter hinunter. Das Geräusch änderte sich - nicht das Klacken von maschinell hergestelltem Metall, sondern das sanfte Knirschen von Eis. Ich konnte es ganz leicht unter meinem Gewicht nachgeben und dann fest bleiben fühlen. Endloses Eis umgab mich, unberührt und ungestört. Eine makellose Leinwand. Ein glatter Block aus Lehm. Und es sah mehr aus wie Lehm oder Schlamm als das Wasser, aus dem ich wusste dass es bestand. Dank des roten Lichtspektrums, das die Sonne von oben spendete, wirkte das Eis nicht weiß oder blau, sondern eher glänzend schwarz. Es erinnerte mich mehr an ein Lavafeld als an irgendetwas anderes.
Ich stand dort, ohne Gedanken oder Worte. Trotz der einladenden Sprengkraft der geringen Schwerkraft blieb ich regungslos. Auf Luna besuchte ich die Apollo Stätten, so wie alle Astronauten. Es ist unsere Wallfahrt, unser Ritual. Ich betrachtete Neil Armstrongs Fußabdrücke, erhalten hinter ihren schützenden Glaskuppeln, und als ich in dem selben Mondstaub stand, fühle ich mich so wie auf der Erde, als ich die Höhle von Altamira besucht und meine Handfläche so gehoben hatte, dass sie fast den gemalten Abdruck berührte, den jemand sechsunddreißigtausend Jahre zuvor hinterlassen hatte: ein winziges Glied in einer riesigen Kette.
Aecor war anders. Meine Fußabdrücke würden dort nicht bleiben, das wusste ich. Ich stand auf Eis, nicht Gestein, und die selben Geysire, die den gefrorenen Ozean glatt geschliffen hatten, würden dies mit der Zeit wieder tun. Aber ich schmiedete eine neue Kette, und ich bezweifle, dass die Unermesslichkeit dieses Gefühls mit irgendetwas zu vergleichen ist. Jack unterbrach meine Träumerei. “Ein kleiner Schritt, hey, Ari?”, sagte er, meine Gedanken lesend. Ich drehte mich um und blickte auf. Alle drei Mitglieder meiner Crew warteten an der Luftschleuse, und ich nehme an, dass ich schon eine Weile dort gestanden war, da sie über mich lachten. Naja, nicht Elena. Sie ließ ein leises Kichern hören, aber mit einem wissenden Lächeln. Sie war schließlich die erste gewesen, die auf einem Asteroiden gestanden hatte. Sie verstand.
Becky Chambers, Um zu lernen, wenn wir Glück haben: Eine Novelle, s. 30, Hodder & Stoughton, 2019.
To be Taught, If Fortunate: A Novella
Becky Chambers
Original text in English
It’s impossible to predict, as progeny of Earth, how shocking a thing it is to walk into a tableau of vertebrates sporting different skeletal templates. We think we know what biological diversity is. Imagine standing in a wild place – let’s say a riparian meadow in a North American forest. Let’s also say that it’s late spring, and that you’re particularly lucky with the animals who have chosen to cross your path that day. It’d be only natural to marvel at the assortment before you – elk, bears, squirrels, hawks, salmon, salamanders, raccoons, turkeys, maybe even a bobcat. No two alike. Animals with physical differences so stark and overt, they’re one of the first things we teach to young children.
And yet, all of those creatures possess two eyes, one mouth, limbs with digits, and so on. They are, at the core, the same.
Jack won the dice roll on Mirabilis. It’s fortuitous that we lacked the live video coverage of the Apollo and Eridania missions, because the immortal words that flowed forth from mission specialist Jack Vo’s mouth as he became the first human to set foot on this new planet were: ‘What the fuck is that?’
We left that portion of audio out of our official report.
The worst part is, I can’t tell you what the fuck that was, in Jack’s eyes, because everything before us conjured the same question. I’m struggling to explain to you what we saw as we descended the ladder a few hours after we landed (we had to give the local residents some time to calm down and perhaps forget about the loud fiery thing that had landed in their midst). Every word in my vocabulary uses something from Earth as a reference point, and Mirabilis posed challenges for all of them.
Take, for starters, the ground cover. If I am to be a good scientist, I shouldn’t say we landed in grassland, because the stuff around our feet was not made of blade-like leaves peeling away from stems, but rather flexible spiralling stalks, each rising up to knee-height in a tight corkscrew (Spirasurculus oneillae). We learned later that these autotrophs (organisms that don’t need to consume a living source of energy, as animals do) do not photosynthesise at all. They chemosynthesise, like the creatures you find clinging to ocean vents back home. Spirasurculus suck the energy and nutrients they need from the groundwater below them. They grow upward not to reach for the sun, but to provide a landing place for a tiny flying creature we dubbed Murmurus voii, with which they are symbiotic. But, again, if I were to say we landed in ‘a field of curly plants’, this would lead you astray, because Spirasurculus are not plants. Yet ‘plant’ is the best word I have if I want to paint you a mental picture. Spiracurculus would mean nothing to you if I had not explained it, nor would the inaccessibly academic descriptor monocotoloid chemoautotroph. If I have to pause at every word to explain what it actually means, most of you would understandably wander off before I’d finished setting the scene.
So, for the moment, let’s sacrifice accuracy for the sake of impressionism: we landed in an alien ‘grassland’, surrounded by spindly ‘trees’ frocked with black ‘leaves’ – black, like all plant-approximates on Mirabilis, so as to absorb more of the subtle light. The hills undulated, pillow-like, so rounded they almost looked liquid. The sky was pale orange, an aesthetic I can only describe as ‘bright dusk’, despite it being midday. Due to the closeness of Mirabilis’ orbit, the sun was huge in the sky, yet not blinding. There was an ornamentation of other orbital bodies up there as well: a selection of Mirabilis’ seventeen moons, plus its sibling planets Opera and Votum, patiently waiting for us. We had landed in summer, mild and carefree. There were clouds, as an afterthought. There was a breeze, but barely. It was, to our human sensibilities, a perfect day.
The creatures before us seemed to agree.
Becky Chambers, To Be Taught, If Fortunate: A Novella, p. 57, Hodder & Stoughton, Kindle Edition, 2019.
Becky Chambers is an American sci-fi author. She was born 1985 in Southern California in a family of an astrobiology educator and a satellite engineer. Her writing style has been described as ‘hopepunk’, because her stories focus more on the feelings rather than the plot. Such kind writing and heartwarming stories make her stand out from the traditional sci-fi genre.
(Source: WIRED, https://www.wired.com/story/is-becky-chambers-ultimate-hope-science-fiction/)
Untuk Belajar, Jika Bernasib Baik: Sebuah Novella
Becky Chambers
Malay translation from English by Qayyum Bin Mohamed Fazil
Sebagai penghuni Bumi, memang mustahil untuk kita jangkakan kejutan yang dirasai tatkala kita bertemu vertebrat yang mempunyai bentuk rangka yang sangat berbeza. Kita anggap yang kita tahu kepelbagaian biologi. Gambarkan anda berdiri di sebuah tempat liar - contohnya sebuah padang berdekatan sungai di Amerika Utara. Mungkin semasa musim bunga, dan anda bernasib baik dapat melihat pelbagai ekor haiwan melintasi perjalanan anda. Memang lumrah manusia untuk rasa terpesona apabila berhadapan dengan makhluk beraneka jenis - rusa, beruang, tupai, helang, ikan salmon, salamander, rakun, ayam belanda, mahupun kucing hutan. Tiada dua yang sama. Haiwan-haiwan mempunyai perbezaan fizikal yang sangat ketara, sehinggakan ia merupakan antara perkara yang paling awal diajarkan kepada anak kita.
Namun, setiap ekor binatang tersebut mempunyai dua biji mata, sebuah mulut, beberapa kaki, dan seterusnya. Terasnya, mereka sama.
Jack telah menang permainan dadu di Mirabilis. Secara kebetulan, kami kekurangan video siaran langsung misi Apollo dan Eridania. Nasiblah, kerana pepatah abadi yang diucapkan Jack Vo, seorang pakar misi, ketika dia menjadi manusia pertama menjejak kakinya atas planet baru ini ialah: ’Tu apa sial?’
Audio tersebut telahpun disunting daripada laporan rasmi kami.
Paling teruknya, saya pun tidak boleh menjawab soalan itu, kerana semua yang ditatapi kami menimbulkan soalan yang sama. Saya rasa susah nak terangkan apa yang kami lihat tatkala menuruni tangga beberapa jam selepas pendaratan kami (kami perlu memberi masa kepada para penduduk tempatan untuk bertenang dan mungkin lupakan benda yang membara dan bising yang baru mendarat di kawasan mereka). Tiap patah perkataan dari kosa kata saya berpaksikan alam semesta Bumi, dan Mirabilis pula menguji ketepatan mereka.
Misalnya, penutup buminya. Kalaulah saya ahli sains yang arif, saya tidak sepatutnya kata yang kami mendarat di atas padang rumput, kerana rumput yang mengelilingi kaki kami bukan semacam daun yang bertumbuh tajam seperti pisau. Sebaliknya, ia merupakan tangkai yang berlingkar-lingkar, mencecah ketinggian lutut bagai skru pencungkil gabus (Spirasurculus oneillae). Kemudian kami dapat tahu yang autotrof ini (organisma yang tidak perlu memakan sumber tenaga yang berhidup, seperti binatang) rupanya tidak menjalani proses fotosintesis. Mereka menggunakan kimosintesis, seperti makhluk yang berpaut pada lubang hidroterma bawah laut. Spiraculus menyerap tenaga dan zat yang diperlukan daripada air tanah di bawah. Mereka tumbuh ke atas bukan demi mencapai sinar mentari, namun untuk menjadi tempat pendaratan seekor makhluk berterbang yang kami namakan Murmurus Voii, dan kedua-dua mempunyai perikatan simbiotik. Pokoknya, jika saya katakan yang kami mendarat di atas “padang yang dipenuhi pohon yang keriting”, anda akan salah faham, kerana Spiraculus bukan sejenis pohon. Walhal demikian, “pohon” merupakan perkataan yang tersesuai jika saya mahu menggambarkannya. Pada anda, perkataan “Spiraculus” tidak punyai makna sebelum penerangan saya, dan lagi mengelirukan jika kami menggunakan istilah saintifik “monocotoloid chemoautotorph”. Kalau saya terangkan setiap perkataan, kebanyakan daripada kamu mungkin terbosan sebelum penerangan tersebut bertamat.
Jadi, buat sementara, cuba kita korbankan ketepatan saintifik demi beberapa metafora: kami mendarat di “padang rumput” asing, dikelilingi “pohon” keriting dipenuhi “dedaun” hitam. Kehitamannya untuk menyerap cahaya sebanyak mungkin, seperti semua makhluk Mirabilis yang mirip pohon. Bukit-bakau beralun, seperti bantal, bulat sampai seperti cair dilihatnya. Langitnya berwarna jingga, sebuah suasana yang saya hanya dapat ungkapkan dalam frasa ‘senja terang’, walaupun waktunya tengahari. Disebabkan orbit Mirabilis yang sangat dekat dengan mataharinya, ia kelihatan besar di angkasa, namun kilaunya tidak terlalu terang. Terdapat perhiasan pelbagai jasad yang mengelilingi langit Mirabalis, dan ia merangkumi tujuh belas bulannya serta planet bersaudaraan, Opera dan Votum, yang menanti penjajahan kami. Kami mendarat pada musim panas, suhunya sederhana. Awan pun melayang. Terasa hembusan bayu, namun lembut sahaja. Mengikut kepekaan insan, suasananya bagaikan hari nan syahdu.
Makhluk-makhluk tempatan seakan-akan bersetuju.
Becky Chambers, Untuk Belajar, Jika Bernasib Baik: Sebuah Novella, muka surat 57, Hodder & Stoughton, 2019.
Да бъдем обучавани, ако имаме късмет: Новела
Беки Чеймбърс
Bulgarian translation from English by Polina Foteva
За родените на Земята е невъзможно да предвидим колко необикновено е да се разхождаш из необятните живи картини на заобикалящата ни природа. Мислим си, че знаем какво е биоразнообразие. Представете си, че сте някъде в дивото – да кажем крайречна ливада в северноамериканска гора. Да кажем, че е и късна пролет и че имате изключителен късмет с животните, които са избрали да пресекат пътя ви. Естествено е да останете удивени пред разнообразието пред вас – уапити1, мечки, катерици, соколи, сьомга, еноти, пуйки, може би дори рис. Няма две еднакви (No two alike). Животни с физически различия, толкова остри и очевидни, че те са едно от първите неща, на които учим децата.
И все пак всички тези създания притежават две очи, една уста, крайници с пръсти и т.н. Те са в основата си едни и същи.
Джак извади късмет на Мирабилис2. Щастлива случайност е, че нямаше живо отразяване на мисиите Аполо и Еридиана, защото безсмъртните думи, които специалистът на мисията Джак Во произнесе когато стана първият човек, стъпил на новата планета, бяха:
-
Какво, мамка му, е това?
Изрязахме тази част от официалния запис.
Най-лошата част е, че не мога да ви кажа какво, мамка му беше това в очите на Джак, защото всичко пред нас пораждаше същия въпрос. Трудно ми е да ви обясня какво видяхме, докато слизахме по стълбата няколко часа след като се приземихме (трябваше да дадем известно време на местните жители да се успокоят и може би да забравят за шумното пламтящо нещо, което се беше приземило сред тяхната среда). Всяка моя дума се базира на нещо от Земята като основа за сравнение и Мирабилис представляваше предизвикателство за целия ми речников запас.
Като за начало – земната покривка. Ако трябваше да съм добър учен не би било правилно да кажа, че сме се приземили в тревиста местност, защото нещото около краката ни не се състоеше от листа с формата на остриета, отлепящи се от стъбла, а по-скоро гъвкави спираловидни дръжчици, всяка издигаща се до коленете като стегнат турбушон (Spirasurculus oneillae). По-късно научихме, че тези автотрофи (организми, които не се нуждаят от жив източник на енергия, обратно на животните) изобщо не фотосинтезират. Те хемосинтезерат подобно на създанията, които отривате прикрепени за хидротермални комини3 в океана. Spirasurculus си набавят енергията и нутриентите, от които се нуждаят от подпочвената вода. Те израстват на височина не за да достигнат слънцето, а за да осигурят място за приземяване за едно малко летящо създание, което нарекохме Murmurus voii, с което те са симбионти. Въпреки това, ако бях казал, че сме се приземили насред поле от къдрави растения, това щеше да ви подведе, защото Spirasurculus не са растения. И все пак „растение“ е най-подходящата дума, която мога да използвам, за да си го представите. ‘Spirasurculus’ не би означавало нищо за теб, ако не бях го обяснила, нито пък неразбираемият научен термин монокотолоиден хемоаутотроф. Ако трябваше да направя пауза след всяка дума, за да обясня какво всъщност означава, повечето от вас напълно разбираемо бихте си отишли преди да съм свършила с описанието на сцената.
Затова, нека за момента пожертваме точността в името на имресионизма: приземихме се в извънземна „тревиста местност“, заобиколена от вретеновидни „дървета“ облечени в черни „листа“ – черни, както всички растение-подобни на Мирабилис, така че да привличат повече от малкото светлина. Хълмовете бяха нагънати като възглавници, токова закръглени, че почти изглеждаха течни. Небето беше бледо оранжево, картина която мога да опиша само като „светъл здрач“, макар и да беше по средата на деня. Заради близостта на орбитата на Мирабилис, слънцето изглеждаше огромно в небето, но не и заслепяващо. Там горе имаше също и орнаменти от други орбитални тела: селекция от седемнайсетте луни на Мирабилис, плюс неговите братски планети Опера и Вотум, търпеливо чакащи нас. Бяхме се приземили през лятото, меко и безгрижно. Имаше облаци, почти незабележими. Усещаше се бриз, но едва. Беше, според човешките ни чувства, перфектен ден.
Създанията пред нас изглеждаха съгласни.
1 – вид едър бозайник от семейство еленови
2 – планетата, на която са се приземили
Беки Чеймбърс, Да бъдем обучавани, ако имаме късмет: Новела, стр. 57, Hodder & Stoughton, 2019.
S pokorou a nádejou
Becky Chambers
Slovak translation from English by Katarina Karasekova
Pre nás, potomkov Zeme, je veľmi ťažké predpokladať, akým veľkým šokom je vkročiť medzi stavovce s inou stavbou kostry. Myslíme si, že vieme, čo je biologická diverzita. Predstavte si, že stojíte niekde vo voľnej prírode – povedzme napríklad na lúke v lesoch Severnej Ameriky. Tiež povedzme, že je neskorá jar a že máte šťastie na zvieratá, ktoré vám dnes skrížili cestu. Prirodzene, žasli by ste nad rozmanitosťou, ktorá by sa pred vami naskytla – losy, medvede, veveričky, jastraby, lososy, salamandre, mývaly, morky a možno aj nejaký ten rys. Všetky rozličné. Zvieratá s tak odlišným zovňajškom, že sú medzi prvými, o ktorých rozprávame malým deťom.
No aj tak majú všetky tieto tvory dve oči, jedny ústa, končatiny s prstami a tak ďalej. V podstate sú rovnaké.
Jack vyhral hod kockami o Mirabilis. Je príhodné, že nemáme video záznamy z misii Apollo a Eridania, lebo tie nesmrteľné slová, ktoré vypadli z nášho špecialistu Jacka Voa, keď ako prvý človek vkročil na túto novú planétu, boli: „Čo do pekla je toto?“
Túto časť audia sme vynechali z našej oficiálnej správy.
Najhoršie na tom je, že vám neviem povedať, čo do pekla to Jack zbadal, lebo túto otázku v nás vyvolávalo úplne všetko okolo nás. Je pre mňa nesmierne ťažké opísať, čo sme videli, keď sme kráčali dole rebríkom pár hodín po našom pristátí (museli sme dať miestnym obyvateľom čas na to, aby sa upokojili a zabudli na tú ohnivú mašinu, ktorá pristála medzi nimi). Celá moja slovná zásoba sa vzťahuje na veci zo Zeme, a Mirabilis medzi ne nezapadal.
Zoberme si na začiatok pokrývku zeme. Ak mám byť dobrým vedcom, nemal by som povedať, že sme pristáli na trávnatom poraste, pretože to pod našimi nohami nemalo čepeľovité listy vyrastajúce zo stonky, ale malo to špirálovito stočené stonky vysoké po kolená (Spirasurculus oneillae). Neskôr sme zistili, že tieto autotrofy (organizmy, ktoré narozdiel od zvierat nepotrebujú prijímať energiu zo živých zdrojov) vôbec nefotosyntetizujú. Miesto toho využívajú chemosyntézu, ako mikroorganizmy priľnuté k hlbokomorským hydrotermálnym otvorom u nás doma. Spirasurculusy sajú energiu a živiny z podzemnej vody pod nimi. Dohora rastú nie za slnkom, ale preto, aby na nich mohli pristáť maličké lietajúce tvory zvané Murmurus voii, s ktorými žijú v symbióze. Ale znova, keby poviem, že sme pristáli v „poli zatočených rastlín“, bolo by to zavádzajúce, pretože Spirasurculusy nie sú rastliny. Napriek tomu je „rastlina“ najlepšie slovo, ktoré môžem použiť, aby ste si ich vedeli predstaviť. Spirasurculus by pre vás bez predchádzajúceho vysvetlenia nič neznamenalo, rovnako ani prehnane odborný prívlastok jednoklíčnolistový chemoautotrof. Keby sme sa mali takto zastaviť pri každom slove a vysvetliť jeho význam, väčšina z vás by, pochopiteľne, prestala čítať ešte predtým, ako by sme stihli dokončiť opis scény.
Takže nateraz obetujme vedeckú presnosť a venujme sa dojmom: pristáli sme na mimozemskej „lúke“ obklopenej štíhlymi „stromami“ pokrytými čiernymi „listami“ – čiernymi, ako všetky „rastliny“ na Mirabilise, čo im umožňovalo absorbovať viac svetla. Vankúšovité kopce navôkol sa vlnili, také zaoblené, že takmer vyzerali ako tekuté. Obloha bola slabo-oranžová, výhľad, ktorý viem opísať len ako „jasný súmrak“, napriek tomu, že bolo poludnie. Slnko, ku ktorému bola obežná dráha Mirabilisu veľmi blízko, bolo na oblohe obrovské, no nebolo oslepujúce. Oblohu zdobili aj ďalšie vesmírne telesá: hŕstka z Mirabilisových sedemnástich mesiacov, plus jeho súrodenecké planéty Opera a Votum, trpezlivo čakajúce na nás. Pristáli sme v lete, príjemnom a bezstarostnom. Až teraz si spomínam, že na oblohe bolo aj zopár oblakov. Vial vetrík, ale veľmi slabý. Bol to perfektný deň, aspoň podľa našich ľudských zmyslov.
Zdalo sa, že tvory pred nami s tým súhlasili.
Becky Chambers, S pokorou a nádejou, str. 57, Hodder & Stoughton, 2019.