Facts, Fiction and Description: A Fall of Moondust

 Výběr slov je pro překlad stěžejní - nicméně především vzájemný vztah zvolených výrazů rozhoduje o věrnosti překladu, o jeho čtivosti, sdělnosti...

Vyhledejte v následujícím textu zajímavé dvojice přídavného a podstatného jména (e.g. a jagged line)  a pokuste se je - izolované - přeložit několika různými způsoby. Hledejte zajímavé kombinace, přirozené i méně vhodné. Sdílejte své návrhy v komentáři.

Arthur C. Clarke

A Fall of Moondust

Chapter 2

Ahead of “Selene”, the horizon was no longer a perfect, unbroken arc; a jagged line of mountains had risen above the edge of the Moon. As the cruiser raced toward them, they seemed to climb slowly up the sky, as if lifted upon some gigantic elevator.

"The Mountains of Inaccessibility," announced Miss Wilkins. "So called because they're entirely surrounded by the Sea. You'll notice, too, that they're much steeper than most lunar mountains."

She did not labor this, since it was an unfortunate fact that the majority of lunar peaks were a severe disappointment. The huge craters which looked so impressive on photographs taken from Earth turned out upon close inspection to be gently rolling hills, their relief grossly exaggerated by the shadows they cast at dawn and sunset. There was not a single lunar crater whose ramparts soared as abruptly as the streets of San Francisco, and there were very few that could provide a serious ohstacle to a determined cyclist. No one would have guessed this, however, from the publications of the Tourist Commission, which featured only the most spectacular cliffs and canyons, photographed from carefully chosen vantage points.

"They've never been thoroughly explored, even now," Miss Wilkins continued. "Last year we took a party of geologists there, and landed them on that promontory but they were only able to go a few kilometers into the interior. So there may be “anything” up in those hills; we simply don't know."

Good for Sue, Pat told himself; she was a first-rate guide, and knew what to leave to the imagination and what to explain in detail. She had an easy relaxed tone, with no trace of that fatal singsong that was the occupational disease of so many professional guides. And she had mastered her subject thoroughly; it was very rare for her to be asked a question that she could not answer. Altogether, she was a formidable young lady, and though she often figured in Pat's erotic reveries, he was secretly a little afraid of her.

The passengers stared with fascinated wonder at the approaching peaks. On the still-mysterious Moon, here was a deeper mystery. Rising like an island out of the strange sea that guarded them, the Mountains of Inaccessibility remained a challenge for the next generation of explorers. Despite their name, it was now easy enough to reach them--but with millions of square kilometers of less difficult territory still unexamined, they would have to wait their turn.

“Selene” was swinging into their shadows; before anyone had realized what was happening, the low-hanging Earth had been eclipsed. Its brilliant light still played upon the peaks far overhead, but down here all was utter darkness.

"I'll turn off the cabin lights," said the stewardess, "so you can get a better view."

As the dim red background illumination vanished, each traveler felt he was alone in the lunar night. Even the reflected radiance of Earth on those high peaks was disappearing as the cruiser raced farther into shadow. Within minutes, only the stars were left--cold, steady points of light in a blackness so complete that the mind rebelled against it.

It was hard to recognize the familiar constellations among this multitude of stars. The eye became entangled in patterns never seen from Earth, and lost itself in a glittering maze of clusters and nebulae. In all that resplendent panorama, there was only one unmistakable landmark--the dazzling beacon of Venus, far outshining all other heavenly bodies, heralding the approach of dawn.

It was several minutes before the travelers realized that not all the wonder lay in the sky. Behind the speeding cruiser stretched a long, phosphorescent wake, as if a magic finger had traced a line of light across the Moon's dark and dusty face. “Selene” was drawing a comet tail behind her, as surely as any ship plowing its way through the tropical oceans of Earth.

Yet there were no microorganisms here, lighting this dead sea with their tiny lamps. Only countless grains of dust, sparking one against the other as the static discharges caused by “Selene's” swift passage neutralized themselves. Even when one knew the explanation, it was still beautiful to watch--to look back into the night and to see this luminous, electric ribbon continually renewed, continually dying away, as if the Milky Way itself were reflected in the lunar surface.

The shining wake was lost in the glare as Pat switched on the seaichlight. Ominously close at hand, a great wall of rock was sliding past. At this point the face of the mountain rose almost sheer from the surrounding sea of dust; it towered overhead to unknown heights, for only where the racing oval of light fell upon it did it appear to flash suddenly into real existence.

Here were mountains against which the Himalayas, the Rockies, the Alps were newborn babies. On Earth, the forces of erosion began to tear at all mountains as soon as they were formed, so that after a few million years they were mere ghosts of their former selves. But the Moon knew neither wind nor rain; there was nothing here to wear away the rocks except the immeasurably slow flaking of the dust as their surface layers contracted in the chill of night. These mountains were as old as the world that had given them birth.