Science or Fiction?

I překladatel krásné literatury musí mít jisté odborné znalosti z oblastí, kterých se děj dotýká - přinejmenším takové, aby svévolně nekomolil sdělení autora a nevytvářel překladatelské perličky.
Typickým příkladem jsou některá díla z oblasti science fiction, zejména "technologického proudu" osmdesátých a devadesátých let dvacátého století. Za všechny připomeňme trojici králů sci-fi: Clark, Asimov, Bradbury. Vždyť A.C.Clark byl vzděláním matematik a fyzik, a mezi jeho "scifistické" vynálezy patří například satelitní navigační síť (tj. základ dnešního telekomunikčního systému), solární plachta nebo iontový pohon meziplanetárních sond.

Dokážete rozluštit kvalifikovaně přeložit následující úryvek z Pohlovy série o Heechee?

F.Pohl, Beyond the Blue Event Horizon

"I'm sorry, Henrietta, dear. If you want me to learn some astrophysics I will."

            "Damn right you will!" Pause. "It's terribly important, Tom!" Pause. And then: "We go back to the Big Bang. Are you listening, Tom?"

            "Of course I am, dear," said the program in its humblest and most endearing way.

            "All right! It goes back to how the universe got started, and we know that pretty well-with one little hazy transition point that's a little obscure. Call it Point X."

            "Are you going to tell me what `Point X' is, dear?"

            "Shut up, Tom! Listen! Before Point X, essentially the whole universe was packed into a tiny glob, no more than a matter of kilometers through, super-dense, super hot, so squeezed it had no structure. Then it exploded. It began to expand-up to Point X, and that part is pretty clear. Do you follow me so far, Tom?"

            "Yes, dear. That's basically simple cosmology, isn't it?"

            Pause. "Just pay attention," Henrietta's voice said at last. "Then, after Point X, it continued to expand. As it expanded, little bits of `matter' began to condense out of it. First came nuclear particles, hadrons and pious, electrons and protons, neutrons and quarks. Then `real' matter. Real hydrogen atoms, then even helium atoms. The exploding volume of gas began to slow. Turbulence broke it into immense clouds. Gravity pulled the clouds into clumps. As they shrank the heat of contraction set nuclear reactions going. They glowed. The first stars were born. The rest," she finished, "is what we can see going on now."

            The program picked up its cue. "I see that, Henrietta, yes. How long are we talking about, now?"

            "Ah, good question," she said, in a voice not at all complimentary. "From the beginning of the Big Bang to Point X, three seconds. From Point X to right now, about eighteen billion years. And there we have it."

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