Adam Roberts - Stone(2002)
Page 30
Fatality rate travelling with Zhip-box; 0.8 deaths per ten thousand light years travelled. Rates of fatalities in sublight craft are comparable. [Compressed t'T statistics.]
Acknowledgments
This book was written in London and France. I would like to thank Simon Spanton, for editorial brilliance and friendship; Rachel Cummings, Julie Roberts, Catherine Preece, Roger Levy, Brian Green, Tony Atkins, Katharine Scarfe-Beckett, Brian and Sophie Coughlan, Oisin Murphy-Lawless and Nicola Sinclair. I'd particularly like to thank my parents, Ian and Merryl Roberts.
This book is for Rachel and Lily.
* * *
[1] Axa(b) - 8682
[2] Ae spent a little over five standard years in prison prior to his escape.
[3] The text has been translated out of its original language, Glice, the common tongue of the worlds of t'T. The Glice word used here is torcver, 'spinwise', a general indicator of circular direction based on the direction in which the galaxy spins. 'Clockwise' is of course an anachronism for the cultures of the t'T, but has been introduced into this translation as the nearest useful equivalent.
[4] Most computing machines in the t'T are simple linear processors, advanced non-sentient versions of binary processing machines. AIs, or Artificial Intelligences, are parallel quantum processing machines with the capacity and the quirks to mimic human intelligence. Ae's surprise here suggests that they were less usual in the spaces of the t'T at this time than they have subsequently become.
[5] As a general principle, the translator has tried to avoid drawing undue attention to the gap between languages except where unavoidable. Here the narrator alludes to the Glice alphabet ('alepheta'), which lists vowels (in order A E I O Ÿ [OU] U), then plosive/fricative consonants and then all other consonamts.
[6] NX-17aOH
[7] In Glice, plo and ploend mean rain. This is a mixed translation; the original text has 'ploseet' which perhaps should be translated as 'Raintown'. Most settlements on the planet are called this, generic name; Rainers are not particular about the names of their settlements. It is not clear if Ae knew this at the time of composing this memoir.
[8] Literally 'took to wearing my smart-cloth long over my legs'.
[9] The phrase 'wearing your illness' translates a Ghee idiom which more strictly means 'you inhabit or perform fashion' (in this case 'you are performing the fashion for illness to a lesser degree than before'
[10] Difficult to translate effectively: Glice has a verb, coplan which means 'to look forward to expectantly', 'to want to find out what happens next', which has a wide range of cognates - for instance in the prose or poetic genre of Anacoplan, in which literature is determined chiefly by an aesthetic of narrative expectancy. Ae's phrase is much briefer, or 'purer' (blaca) in the original: Aho, yes coplanar.
[11] Glice has a number of synonyms translated here variously as 'crevasse', 'canyon', 'gully' or 'shaft': the Narcissian word for such features is Ru, which means more precisely 'road' or 'passageway'; Ae's narrative usually describes the features in general Glice terms (craver, caver, vrale and so on).
[12] Dorfrezh; a commonly used t'T intoxicant.
[13] A bright orange alcoholic drink.
[14] The text uses the ancient word; there is no modern-day Glice equivalent.
[15] A very popular t'T opiate, a clear fluid drunk typically out of small thimble-glasses.
[16] The Glice word wadal has no precise equivalent in our tongue; it refers to that part of the face that is the underside of the chin, although not so far down as to become 'neck'.
[17] The literal transliteration of the Glice units of measurement - which comes out at 17.35 centimetres - gives an unwarranted impression of precision.
[18] Glice: mant is 'mountain' or 'peak'; aspiir means both 'height' and 'breath, spirit'.
[19] The Glice prydor is sometimes translated as 'superiority', but means something literal, an actual being-above, rather than simply feeling of metaphorical elevation.
[20] Hwat, a traditional Glice term with which a story begins. In this context, the word might also be translated 'when his story began . . .'
[21] The translator regrets to say that she is uncertain as to what, exactly, this term refers.
[22] A t'T gesture indicative of solidarity.
[23] Ae uses yo-all, the Glice pronoun for 'you [plural]' to reinforce his point. At some places in this translation I use the Amglish 'you-all' to convey this distinction.
[24] Glice: 'heerer'.
[25] 'F, Faelor [='Valour']
[26] A common t'T stimulant, drunk as fluid or sometimes taken orally as a heated gel.
[27] In the original this is not a Glice word, but a strange neologism, probably concocted by Ae himself to express this (to his culture) very bizarre concept.
[28] In Glice, the words 'weis' and 'wiese' refer to sense of humour, comic timing and comic inventiveness.
[29] In the original text, this mispronunciation is exactly opposite to its translation here: the Gtice for 'paper' is papper or papperia (its usage its very rare); Ae inadvertently pronounces the unfamiliar word 'paper', in the antique fashion.
[30] Expletives and obscenities are rare in Glice. Translating them is always a tricky business; the translator has, in this case, aimed for a certain archaism to replicate the effect of their oddity.
[31] So, for example, in Glice the question 'where is the nearest star to this system?' would utilise the word 'wheah' – or in the modern Glice 'wa'ah' –'??wa'ah estal di proc di matt-atend'. The question 'where are my trousers?' (when we can assume that the trousers are in the house somewhere) would use 'hiah' - '??hya me panz'.
Table of Contents
The Prison
1st
2nd
3rd
4th
5th
6th
7th
8th
Prison-breaking
1st
2nd
3rd
The Trench
1st
Rain
1st
2nd
3rd
4th
5th
To Narcissus
1st
2nd
3rd
4th
5th
6th
7th
Nu Hirsch
1st
2nd
3rd
4th
5th
6th
7th
8th
9th
Interlude
Childhood
1st
2nd
Agifo3acca
1st
2nd
3rd
4th
5th
Colar
1st
2nd
In the Library
1st
2nd
3rd
Coda
1st
Glossary
Acknowledgments