19 HERE’S ANOTHER INTERESTING QUESTION IS THE UNIVERSE A GOOD EGG OR A BAD EGG

19. HERE'S ANOTHER INTERESTING QUESTION. IS THE UNIVERSE A GOOD EGG OR A BAD EGG? The Exterminators paused mid-dive, as the sea, and the sky, and the islands themselves, rocked crazily round them. This eruption was different from the first. This time, what had happened was that the heat of the Volcano had HATCHED the Fire-Stone. For one of the many secrets of the Fire-Stone, that Hiccup had worked out from Old Wrinkly's riddle (and I am sure that you clever readers and listeners have guessed this too) is that it is not, in fact, a Stone at all. It is an Egg. The Egg of the exceptionally rare Fire-Dragon.

19. 这是另一个有趣的问题。 宇宙是好蛋还是坏蛋？ 当海水、天空和岛屿在他们周围疯狂地摇晃时，灭绝者们在俯冲中停了下来。 这次喷发与第一次不同。 这一次，发生的事情是火山的热量孵出了火石。 小嗝嗝从老皱纹的谜语中发现了火石的众多秘密之一（我相信你们这些聪明的读者和听众也猜到了），那就是它实际上根本不是一块石头。 它是一个鸡蛋。罕见的火龙之蛋。

And one of the reasons that Fire-Dragons are so exceptionally rare is that the conditions required for them to hatch are so unlikely as to be virtually impossible. For the Fire-Egg can only hatch in the heat and turbulence of a Volcano that is exploding. But the Fire-Egg also gives out chemicals that PREVENT the Volcano from doing just that. First, you have to imagine the extraordinary, impossible hugeness of a Fire-Dragon. Then you have to imagine that hugeness all coiled up and packed inside an Egg no larger than a human head. That is the Fire-Egg. The walls of this Fire-Egg are made of a material so terribly, terribly strong that only a temperature of seven hundred and fifty degrees Celsius can melt them or crack them. Normally, the Fire-Egg is laid on a nook on the upper levels of a volcano crater, where the temperature never reaches levels high enough to hatch it. But if it topples down (or in this case, is thrown) into the heart of the Volcano itself and sinks down deep into the molten lava, then that kind of heat is sufficient to crack the unbelievably hard shell. It takes about six or seven minutes, the same sort of time that it might take you to hard-boil a chicken's

火龙如此罕见的原因之一是它们孵化所需的条件不太可能，几乎是不可能的。 因为火蛋只能在火山爆发的高温和湍流中孵化。 但火蛋也会释放化学物质，阻止火山这样做。 首先，你必须想象一下火龙的非凡，不可思议的巨大。 然后你必须想象一下，所有这些巨大的东西都被盘绕起来，装在一个比人头还小的鸡蛋里。 那是火蛋。这火蛋的壁是用一种非常非常坚固的材料做成的，只有在七百五十摄氏度的温度下才能把它熔化或打碎。 通常，火蛋被放在火山口上层的一个角落里，那里的温度永远不会高到足以孵化它。 但如果它倒下来（或者在这种情况下，被扔进）火山的中心，沉入熔岩的深处，那么这种热量就足以打破令人难以置信的坚硬外壳。 大约需要六到七分钟，和你煮一只鸡的时间差不多

egg. Then, when the shell is cracked, all that energy and hugeness packed down to such a pinprick smallness are suddenly released in an instant and the Fire-Dragon EXPLODES outward with an energy and a force impossible to describe, like a sort of mini Big Bang. So what the Exterminators, and the Vikings, and Hiccup and Toothless saw was SOMETHING erupting out of the Volcano crater, SOMETHING that shot up so high it seemed as if it could touch the very stars. Down on the deck of The Blue Whale, Stoick flung up an arm to shield himself from the brightness, for to look at it was a bit like looking at the sun itself, and pained the eyes. "What is that?" breathed Stoick in awe. Humungous and Camicazi and Fishlegs, who had landed safely on the deck of The Peregrine Falcon, forgot their fear as they gazed up in wonder at the extraordinary, terrible beauty of this sight. The SOMETHING that erupted out of the Volcano was a DRAGON that seemed to be made entirely out of fire. Of course, that is impossible, but this is what it looked like. Gleaming muscles and scales of flame. Burning

鸡蛋。然后，当外壳破裂时，所有的能量和巨大压缩到如此微小的瞬间突然释放出来，火龙以一种无法描述的能量和力量向外爆炸，就像一种迷你的大爆炸。 所以，灭绝者、维京人、小嗝嗝和无牙看到的是从火山口里喷出的东西，那东西飞得那么高，好像能碰到星星似的。 在“蓝鲸号”的甲板上，斯托伊克举起一只手臂挡住那亮光，因为看那亮光有点像看太阳，眼睛很难受。 “那是什么？”斯托伊克敬畏地喘着气说。 Humungous、Camicazi和Fishlegs已经安全降落在游隼号的甲板上，当他们惊奇地仰望着这非凡的、可怕的美景时，忘记了他们的恐惧。 从火山中喷出的东西是一条龙，似乎完全是用火做的。 当然，这是不可能的，但这就是它的样子。 闪闪发光的肌肉和火焰的鳞片。 燃烧

talons and scorching fangs. It threw back its great fiery head and let out a great ROAR that echoed across the islands, and even reached the trembling ears of the fleeing Viking Tribes miles and miles to the south, watching all this unfold on the horizon, standing silent on the decks of their rocking ships, soaked to the skin by the wildness of the storm. The Fire-Dragon turned its great flaming red- gold eyes down toward the earth and they focused on the Exterminators, hanging below it in great black trembling clouds. And when the Fire-Dragon looked at the Exterminators, what it saw was PREY. The Exterminators knew it too. One minute they were the predators, leaping down toward Hiccup with greedy talons outstretched. The next, the world was shaking and vibrating around them, as if the gods had suddenly re-shaken the dice. And now that the world had stopped shaking again, they had suddenly become the victims. The Vikings were now in the extraordinarily privileged position of being the audience to a scene played out in the blue skies above that had not taken place for hundreds and hundreds of years. A scene that dramatically demonstrated the exquisite balance of nature that Hiccup had placed such trust in.

爪子和灼热的毒牙。 它把它那火红的大脑袋向后一仰，发出一声巨大的吼声，回荡在整个岛屿上，甚至传到了南方几英里外逃跑的维京部落颤抖的耳朵里。他们静静地站在摇摇晃晃的船的甲板上，看着这一切在地平线上展开，被风暴的狂野浸透了皮肤。 火龙把火红的大眼睛朝下望着地面，目光集中在它下面悬着的大黑云里的灭星人身上。 当火龙看着灭绝者时，它看到的是猎物。 灭虫人也知道。 前一分钟，他们还是捕食者，伸出贪婪的爪子，向嗝嗝扑来。 下一秒，世界在他们周围震动震动，仿佛众神突然重新摇了摇骰子。 现在世界又停止了震动，他们突然成了受害者。 维京人现在处于一种特殊的地位，可以作为观众观看在蓝天上上演的数百年来从未发生过的一幕。 这一幕戏剧性地展示了Hiccup所信任的大自然的精妙平衡。

The fight was played out against the background of the tempest at its peak, Thor's thunder rolling out magnificently from the blue-black clouds, great flashes of white sheet-lightning lighting up the drama in intermittent bursts, and then dying away to darkness. Hiccup watched the combat lying floating on his back, in the grave coldness of the sea below, and the battle raging in the sky above him reminded Hiccup of a shoal of fish trapped in a tide-locked bay by a mighty shark. The Exterminators shot shrieking across the surface of the stormy sky in their panic. They scattered hither and thither, in great fleeing groups that sped across the firmament, splitting and re-forming as they dodged through the jaggedy lightning, right to the very edges and corners of the horizon. But however fast or far they flew, they couldn't escape the Fire-Dragon. The Fire-Dragon never moved from its position on top of the Volcano. It reached out with its great arms, flaming gloriously upward like tall watery trees of fire, and scooped up the Exterminators in huge handfuls, thrusting them down its glowing gullet with noisy relish.

这场战斗是在暴风雨最猛烈的背景下进行的，雷神的雷声从蓝黑色的云层中轰轰烈烈地发出，白色的闪电在断断续续的爆发中照亮了整个戏剧，然后消失在黑暗中。 希卡普躺在他的背上，在冰冷的海面上看着战斗，而在他头顶上的天空中，激烈的战斗使他想起了一群鱼被一条强大的鲨鱼困在一个被潮水锁住的海湾里。 灭绝者们惊慌失措地朝暴风骤雨的天空开枪尖叫。 它们四散奔逃，成群结队地在天空中飞驰，在锯齿状的闪电中闪避，一直逃到地平线的边缘和角落，时而分裂，时而重新组合。 但是不管他们飞得多快多远，他们都逃不过火龙的魔爪。 火龙从来没有离开过它在火山顶上的位置。 它伸出巨大的手臂，像高大的水汪汪的火焰树一样，光辉灿烂地向上燃烧着，把灭绝者一大把一大把地抓起来，津津有味地把它们塞进它那发光的食道里。

It played with them like a cat does a mouse, letting them think they had gotten away, and then catching them up with its burning tongue. The Fire-Dragon swallowed the whole lot of them, tossing them into his blazing mouth in their struggling thousands, plucking them out of their hiding-places in the smoke, sucking them in in satisfied, crackling bursts... until there was only one left, zigzagging across the sky like a demented bluebottle. This was the one with Alvin on its back. "You haven't seen the last of me, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Thi-I-I-I-ird!" yelled Alvin the Treacherous (but he was far too far away for Hiccup to hear him properly). And then the Fire-Dragon picked up the Exterminator Alvin was riding by the spear in its breast, between two delicate flaming fingers, for all the world as if it were a wriggling worm on a cocktail stick... and down it went too. The Vikings held their breath. Were they to be the next to go? But no, the Fire-Dragon has particularly evolved to only feed on Exterminators. The Fire-Dragon let out one final ROAR of triumph, the contented song of a meal caught and ready for digestion.

它像猫捉老鼠一样玩弄他们，让他们以为自己已经逃走了，然后用滚烫的舌头追上他们。 火龙把它们全部吞了下去，把成千上万只挣扎着的虫子扔进它炽热的嘴里，又把它们从烟雾中的藏身之处揪出来，噼啪作响地心满意足地吸了进去…… 直到最后只剩下一只，像一只疯了的蓝瓶子一样，在天空中蜿蜒而行。 这只背上有阿尔文。 “你还没看到我的最后一面，嗝嗝，可怕的黑线鳕，这——我——我——我——鸟！”背信邪的阿尔文喊道（但他离得太远了，嗝嗝听不清他在说什么）。 然后火龙拿起了灭虫手，阿尔文骑在火龙的胸前，用两只火红的手指夹住长矛，简直就像一只在鸡尾酒棒上蠕动的虫子…… 它也掉下去了。维京人屏住了呼吸。 他们会是下一个离开的人吗？ 但不，火龙已经进化到只吃灭虫了。 火龙发出了最后一声胜利的怒吼，这是一顿捕获并准备消化的食物的满足之歌。