4 The Submarine

4 The Submarine Once the hissing noise had stopped, Dad opened the round hatch and ushered everyone through. This room was quite different to the others— longer and narrower, with a retro feel to it, like the interior of a spaceship on a 1960s TV show. Most of the room was nickel- plated and festooned with visible rivets, gleaming pipework and round gauges with needles that turned very slowly. The children looked around with shiny, curious eyes. "How cool," said Little-Bit as she surveyed the tube-shaped interior. "It reminds me of being on the London Underground, except that the windows are smaller and there aren't as many copies of the Evening Standard strewn across the floor." "Hang on, is that water?" said Peanut, looking out through

4 潜水艇 嘶嘶声停下后，爸爸打开圆形舱门，领着所有人走了进去。 这间房和其他房间大不一样——更长更窄，带着复古感，就像上世纪60年代电视剧里的宇宙飞船内部。 房间大部分区域都镀了镍，布满清晰可见的铆钉、亮晶晶的管道，还有指针缓缓转动的圆形仪表。 孩子们睁着亮晶晶的好奇眼睛，四处张望。 “好酷啊！”小不点打量着筒状船舱内部说道。 “这让我想起坐伦敦地铁，只是这儿窗户更小，地上也没散落那么多《伦敦晚报》。” “等等，那是水吗？”佩纳特边说，一边透过

one of the portholes that lined each side of the room. "Are we in a submarine?" "We certainly are, lassie," replied Woodhouse. "Us rats usually prefer to flee sinking ships, so it always feels strange to be getting into one voluntarily." "Are we in the Rainbow Lake?" asked Rockwell. "Look at all the different colours!" Sure enough, the vessel's interior was bathed in the kaleidoscope of undulating light that was coming in through the windows. Every porthole provided a different-coloured view. The Rainbow Lake was the magical body of water that surrounded the Spire in the very centre of Chroma. Everybody who swam in it was imbued with an amazing sense of creativity. It was said that all of the great artists throughout history had, at some point, swum in the lake before going on to produce their wonderful works of art. It was widely regarded as the hub of all the world's creativity.

船舱两侧其中一个舷窗向外看去。 “我们现在在潜水艇里吗？” “我们当然在啦，小姑娘，”伍德豪斯回答道。 “我们老鼠一般都爱从沉船逃走，所以主动钻进一艘船，总觉得怪怪的。” “我们现在在彩虹湖里吗？”罗克韦尔问道。 “快看这各式各样的颜色！” 果然，窗户透进来的光线像万花筒般起伏变幻，把整个船舱浸在斑斓之中。 每个舷窗外都能看到不一样的色彩。 彩虹湖是一片充满魔力的水域，环绕着克罗玛正中心的尖塔。 每个在这儿游过泳的人，都会充满惊人的创造力。 据说古往今来所有伟大的艺术家，在创作出杰作前，都曾来过这个湖里游泳。 它被公认为全世界创造力的中心。

"Not exactly," said Dad, replying to Rockwell. "But you're very close. We are in the Rainbow Lake's cleaning channel. He pointed out several large propellor-shaped devices attached to the outside of the submarine. "You see those filter wheels? They clean the water and help with colour correction." "I think I remember someone mentioning colour correction at some point," said Peanut. "But why does the water need to be cleaned? I thought it was magical. "It does have many magical properties, yes, but in order to remain potent, the water needs to be in tip-top condition, Dad explained. "That's why it's regularly circulated through

“不算完全对，”爸爸回答罗克韦尔说。 “不过你猜得已经很接近了。 我们现在在彩虹湖的清洁水道里。 他指了指潜水艇外侧安装的好几个螺旋桨形状的大装置。 “看见那些过滤轮了吗？ 它们清洁水质，还帮忙校正颜色。” “我好像记得之前有人提过颜色校正，”佩纳特说。 “可是为什么水需要清洁呢？ 我以为它本来就有魔法呀。 “它确实有很多魔法属性没错，但要一直保持魔力，水质就得维持在最佳状态，”爸爸解释说。 “所以它才会定期流经

these channels and carefully treated so that it's always perfect. At least, that's what should happen. The truth is that the cleaning programme hasn't been operating for a long time. As you can see, most of the equipment is pretty neglected and much of the water is now stagnant. The children looked through the window and, sure enough, some of the filter wheels on the side of the sub were rusty. A few even had blades missing. Peanut noticed another submarine resting on its side on the channel bed, dented and dirty. "Despite its current condition, I'm always surprised at how beautiful the rainbow water is," said Dad as he gazed at the slowly moving, constantly shape-shifting pockets of colour outside the vessel. "It's like being inside the most beautiful lava lamp ever. And I can't tell you how wonderful it is to be sharing a bit of this beauty with you all, even if the circumstances aren't ideal. I've been looking at this on my own for so long. The bright colours always reminded me of you, Peanut."

这些水道，接受仔细处理，这样才能一直保持完美状态。 至少，原本应该是这么运作的。 实际上，这套清洁计划已经停摆很久了。 你看，大部分设备都没人维护，很多水都已经不流动变浑浊了。 孩子们往窗外看，果然，潜水艇侧面的不少过滤轮都生锈了。 还有几个甚至都缺了桨叶。 佩纳特注意到水道底侧卧着另一艘潜水艇，满是凹痕，脏乎乎的。 “尽管现在是这幅样子，我还是一直惊叹彩虹水居然这么美，”爸爸一边说，一边凝视着船外缓缓流动、不停变幻形状的色块。 “这就像待在全世界最漂亮的熔岩灯里一样。 能和你们分享这份美景，我实在太开心了，哪怕现在情况不算理想。 我已经一个人看了太久了。 这些明亮的颜色总能让我想起你，佩纳特。”

She smiled. Dad smiled back, then looked up towards the surface of the water. All that being said, the levels are getting really low now. It's worrying. On the plus side, the fact that nobody's monitoring the channels means that we can use them to travel around the city without being seen. "Is the water from the Rainbow Lake taken all around Chroma?" asked Peanut. "Not all around Chroma, just the south-western part of it. The dirty water is diverted from the Rainbow Lake and funnelled south, down a long, straight underground waterway, to the outskirts of the city. That's where we are now— the cleaning station just outside of Modernia. It's then pumped clockwise around the perimeter of Chroma until it reaches the station on the outskirts of the Green Valleys, at which point it turns and heads east along another channel until, eventually, it re-joins the lake. By then, it's usually all sparkly and fully colour-corrected.

她笑了。 爸爸也笑着回应她，接着抬头看向水面。 话说回来，现在水位已经变得很低了。 这真让人担心。 不过好在没人看管这些水道，我们可以顺着它们在城里穿行，不会被发现。 “彩虹湖的水流遍整个克罗玛吗？”佩纳特问道。 “没有流遍整个克罗玛，只到它的西南部区域。 脏水从彩虹湖分流出来，顺着一条又长又直的地下河道向南流，一直流到城市郊外。 我们现在就在这儿——摩登尼亚城外的清洁站。 之后水会沿着克罗玛的外围顺时针泵送，一直流到绿谷郊外的站点，接着转弯顺着另一条水道向东流，最终重新汇入湖中。 到那个时候，水通常已经变得亮晶晶，完全完成颜色校正了。

"Ingenious," said Little-Bit. "So the water is cleaned by the various filtering systems, one of which is a fleet of submarines just like this one?" "Yes," replied Dad. And because it's a constant process, all of the water in the lake is perfect all of the time. At least it would be if the system was operating properly." "How did it get to be in such a terrible state?" asked Rockwell. "It has been totally neglected since Mr White became mayor," said Dad. "Let's just say maintaining the colour quality of the Rainbow Lake so that it remains a creative resource has not been high on his priority list. Fortunately, I was able to get this submarine working again— 67 was a big help in that regard, of course. Rockwell glanced over at the robot, who didn't return his gaze. "Anyway, we'd better get a shift on," said Dad. He walked to the opposite end of the submarine and took a seat behind two large joysticks, a busy-looking control panel and an enormous periscope. He pressed a few buttons, flicked a couple of switches and then turned a silver ignition key. The engines immediately fired, creating an explosion of tiny bubbles in the water surrounding the vessel. Peanut gazed at them through the window. They echoed the nervous bubbles of energy she could feel in her tummy.

“真聪明。”小不点说。 “所以湖水是靠各种过滤系统净化的，其中就有一支和这艘一样的潜艇舰队对吗？” “没错。”爸爸回答道。 正是因为净化一刻不停，整片湖的水才能一直保持绝佳的状态。 至少这套系统正常运转的时候会是这样。” “它怎么会变成这么糟糕的样子？”罗克韦尔问道。 “自从怀特先生当上市长，这里就彻底没人管了。”爸爸说。 这么说吧，维持彩虹湖的水质、让它一直能作为创意资源，这件事根本不在他的优先级清单里。 幸好我把这艘潜艇修好了——当然，这件事上67帮了大忙。 罗克韦尔瞥了一眼机器人，可机器人没有看向他。 “不管怎样，我们得抓紧出发了。”爸爸说。 他走到潜艇的另一端，在两根大操纵杆、一块布满控件的控制面板和一个巨型潜望镜后面坐了下来。 他按了几个按钮，拨了几个开关，接着转动了一把银色的点火钥匙。 引擎立刻启动，在潜艇周围的水里炸出了一大团细小的气泡。 花生透过窗户盯着这些气泡看。 这些气泡和她肚子里紧张得冒泡的不安感一模一样。