《Nature》一直有发有科幻小说的惯例。通常都是些篇幅短小精悍，文学意味颇为浓重的作品，反倒不一定有着很硬的所谓“硬科幻”内核。

　　在中国当代科幻作家“江山代有才人出”的情况下，美女精灵夏笳以一篇经典的“夏笳式”科幻小说进军《Nature》，发表在今天出版的这一期的Future栏目中，成为中国籍的中国人在《Nature》发表科幻小说的第二人（之前有一位Tian Li在5月7日那一期上成为了第一人）。这既是意料之外，也是意料之中。意料之外的是，我没有想到夏笳的英语功力如此了得，可以应付小说创作的需要（我自己用英语写论文还感到吃力呢）。意料之中的是，就文学性来讲，夏笳的作品的确是国内科幻小说当中最对《Nature》口味的，甚至或许没有“之一”。

　　更为神奇的是，这篇文章中出现了汉字，大概也是《Nature》印刷史上开天辟地的头一回吧？考古的文章中纵使有中文，应该也是出现在图片上的吧。不过夏笳自己也承认，她是有意为之的。说不定从此《Nature》上出现的汉字会越来越多呢！

　　作为偶尔写写科幻的人，我为夏笳感到由衷的高兴（更何况她还是我进入科幻写作的引路人），我更为中国科幻小说的这一步感到自豪和振奋。不久之前，还听说刘慈欣的《三体》经刘宇昆译成英语在美国上市后，入选了今年的“星云奖”提名（不是我侥幸拿到的那个“华语科幻星云奖”，是美国那家老资格的）。中国的科研论文已经逐渐摆脱了在自己圈子里自己玩的窘境，逐步与国际接轨。中国的科幻小说终于也走在了这条路上。

　　话说回来，一直对CNS苦苦求索的我，以及我的同行们，大家说不定也可以考虑考虑在《Nature》上发科幻小说呀！不过，这个好像比发论文还要困难的说……

　　废话到此为止，附上夏笳的小说《Let's Have a Talk》，以及她应《Nature》之邀写的创作心得。

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Let’s Have a Talk

By Xia Jia

Edited by Ken Liu

There are few reasons to call a linguist after midnight.

It was three in the morning when the phone woke me. A gloomy voice said they needed me right now. My first response was: Uh-oh, they’re finally here. Aliens.

I met with some odd people in an odd dark room, where we watched odd video clips: a flock of white seal pups huddled together, clamoring continuously, sounding vaguely like a zoo mixed with a parkinggarage and a kindergarten.

“What the hell is that?” someone beat me to the question.

We listened to the explanation. A lab designed these intelligent toys, which could imitate and learn human languages from scratch, as newborn babies do. The design summary claimed that the seal pups could ultimately master the equivalent of a five-years-old’s language skills.

The lab staff had packed a hundred prototypes in a container to be shipped to beta users; however, the container was mislabeled. When the container was finally tracked down, retrieved, and opened, the staff found the seals, which ought to have been powered down and lyingon their bellies silently, were instead making an astonishing ruckus.  

“It looks like they are talking with each other in some alien language we can’t understand,” an incredulous voice penetrated the darkness.

“That is the very thing we must figure out.”A man in black, who conducted this midnight meeting, nodded at us, poker－faced. “Is that possible? Who taught them? Remember, the container was sealed the entire time.”  

“Sealed seals,” I murmured. Luckily no one heard me.

“There was a similar case. ISN, Idioma de Señas de Nicaragua,” the voice in the darkness replied. “It’s a sign language developed by deaf children in a number of schools in western Nicaragua in the 1970s and 1980s.”

“Tell me more.” Evidently the man in black found this interesting.

“Well, before the 1970s, there was no deaf community in Nicaragua. Then a couple of vocational schools were established there and hundreds of deaf students enrolled. The language program, which tried to teach students to lipread Spanish words, initially achieved little success. Meanwhile, however, the schoolyard, the street, and the school bus proved to be fertile testing grounds for students figuring out how to communicate with each other on their own. By combining gestures and elements of their individual, idiosyncratic, homegrown sign systems, a new type of sign language rapidly emerged, which is now known as Idioma de Señasde Nicaragua. It is the only time that we've actually seen a language being created out of thin air.”

“Not exactly,” another voice interrupted. “Actually, someone later created robots with an ability to develop their own language. These so-called Lingodroids were designed to navigate their way through a labyrinthand to create words for mapped locations using a database of syllables. They communicated their findings to each other with microphones and speakers, thereby spawning new words for direction and distance as well.”

“How do we know what the Lingodroids were talking about?” said a third voice. “Isn’t it possible that a word that sounds innocuous could mean, for example, ‘armed revolt’?”

The idea of those simple robots conspiring should have been funny, but none of us laughed.

“Any more ideas?” The man in black looked around.

“Why seal pups?” I asked loudly.

“What?”

“They look weird. Why couldn’t you have chosen puppies or kittens?”

“I don’t think that’s important.” He shrugged.

“Maybe the designer wanted them to appearas timid and inoffensive as possible,” I mused. “Doesn’t this imply that we fear talking creatures unconsciously?”

“What’s your point?”

“I mean, why don’t we turn off this videoscreen, walk out of this dark room, and talk with these...things directly, since we believe they’ve already developed their own language? All linguists know that the only way to learn an unknown language is to communicate with a native speaker, to point at objects and ask questions, and to answer their questions as well. We certainly will never understand what they are talking about if we don’t knock on the door of that sealed container and say hello first.”

#

I stepped through the door, and all the seal pups fell silent and watched me with their big crystal eyes. Thank God. Seal pups seem much better than creatures with teeth and claws. I extended both of my hands to show there was no hidden weapon, just as I was trained to do in my first field practice, knowing full well that this gesture was probably meaningless in their linguistic system.

A ROBOT MAY NOT INJURE A HUMAN BEING, WHILE IT MUST PROTECT ITS OWN EXISTENCE.

So high, so low, so many things to know.

“你好。” I said hello in my mother tongue, and waited patiently.

The nearest seal pup put a fluffy paw in my flat palm, and spoke—it sounded like a great big yawn.

I tried my best to imitate it. I could be saying hello, or else just yawning. Anyway it was not a bad start.    

“让我们说说话？” I asked gently. Let’s have a talk, shall we?

《Nature》上的原文链接：

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v522/n7554/full/522122a.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The story behind the story: Let’s Have aTalk

By Xia Jia

Since the first fairy tale scrawled in a notebook, I have been writing fictional stories in Chinese for more than twenty years. In 2004, I published my first science fiction story “The Demon-Enslaving Flask,” in Science Fiction World, China’s biggest SF magazine. In recent years, some of my stories have been translated into English and published in Clarkesworld and other venues. All of these go beyond my expectation twenty years ago.

“Let’s Have a Talk” is my first story written in English. It came from a simple idea: If I’m lucky enough, I could be the first Chinese writer who publishes a science fiction story in Nature. That sounded so cool! Then I sat down at my computer and tried to make this dream come true.

When I pursued my Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and World Literature at Peking University, I was fascinated with these questions: How can we explore the frontier between worlds? How can we achieve any knowledge of the unknown, as well as the understanding and empathy of the Other? If our languages are created by different social and cultural constructs, how can we possibly have a real talk with strangers? So far we have not figured out any easy answers to these questions.  

I embodied this idea in a dramatic situation: Some unknown creatures are speaking an unknown language in a sealed black box: would you dare to knock at the door and say hello?

Since I am not a highly skilled English speaker, writing a story in English seemed like jumping into an unfamiliar territory without any survival kit, which also requires imagination and courage. I’m so pleased that my adventure succeeded.

Several months ago I complained to my friend Fernando Ran Wei that some dreams can never be realized because of my limited capacity. “Like what?” He asked.

“For example, I can never write science fiction in English!”

“That’s weird. You told me that you believe in your life you would probably have an opportunity to travel to Mars, but you don’t believe you can write in English?”  

I was stunned by his words. After a while, I finally answered: “You got me. Why not?”

Thanks for Wei, who made me believe in something I used to not. My odds of getting to Mars is rising now.

Also thanks for my friend Ken Liu, a talented author and translator of speculative fiction. He helped me to modify my story and also gave me many valuable suggestions.    

Btw. I drew a picture of the seal pup in my story. It looks harmless and huggable. So don’t panic if one day in the future it shows up in the real world. Try to shake its paw in a friendly manner and have a talk with it.

《Nature》博客上的原文链接：

http://blogs.nature.com/futureconditional/2015/06/03/the-story-behind-the-story-lets-have-a-talk