Chapter 21

The last ship had blasted off and the rocket trails had faded into overwhelming darkness. The Sun, which had been trying to lose itself among the other stars, finally succeeded. The asteroid¹ was no longer the junkpile. It was a small world that had become a swift ship.

"We can survive," said Docchi. "Power and oxygen, we have, and we can grow or synthesize our food."

He sat beside Anti's tank, which had been returned to the usual place. A small tree nodded overhead in the artificial breeze. It was peaceful enough. But Nona wasn't there.

"We'll get you out of the tank," promised Jordan. "When she comes back, we'll rig up a place where there's no gravity. And we'll continue cold treatment."

"I can wait," said Anti. "On this world I'm normal."

Docchi stared forlornly about. The one thing he wanted to see wasn't there.

"If you're worrying about Nona," advised Anti, "don't. The guards were pretty rough with the women, but plastissue doesn't feel pain. They didn't find her."

"How do you know?"

"Listen," said Anti. The ground shivered with the power of the gravital units. "As long as they're running, how can you doubt?"

"If I could be sure—"

"You can start now," Jordan said. "First, though, you'd better get up and turn around."

Docchi scrambled² to his feet. She was coming toward him.

She showed no sign of strain. Except for a slight smudge on her wonderfully smooth and scar-less cheek, she might just have stepped out of a beauty cubicle³. Without question, she was the most beautiful woman in the world. This world, of course, though she could have done well on any world—if she could have communicated with people as well as with machines.

"Where were you hiding?" Docchi asked, expecting no answer.

She smiled. He wondered, with a feeling of helplessness, if machines could sense and appreciate her lovely smile, or whether they could somehow smile themselves.

"I wish I could take you in my arms," he said bitterly.

"It's not as silly as you think," said Anti, watching from the surface of the tank. "You don't have any arms, but she has two. You can talk and hear, but she can't. Between you, you're a complete couple."

"Except that she would never get the idea," he answered unhappily.

Jordan, rocking on his hands, looked up quizzically. "I must be something like her. They used to call me a born mechanic; just put a wrench⁴ in my hand and I can do anything with a piece of machinery⁵. It's as if I sense what the machine wants done to it. Not to the extent that Nona can understand, naturally. You might say it's reversed, that she's the one who can hear while I have to lip-read."

"You never just gabble," Docchi prompted. "You have something in mind."

Jordan hesitated. "I don't know if it's stupid or what. I was thinking of a kind of sign language with machines. You know, start with the simple ones, like clocks and such, and see what they mean to her. Since they'd be basic machines, she'd probably have pretty basic reactions. Then it's just a matter of—"

"You don't have to blueprint⁶ it," Docchi cut in excitedly. "That would be fine for determining elementary reactions, but I can't carry around a machine shop; it wouldn't be practical. There ought to be one variable machine that would be portable and yet convey all meanings to her."

"An electronic oscillator?"

Acid waves washed at the sides of the tank as Anti stirred impatiently. "Will you two great brains work it out in the lab, please? And when you get through with that problem, you'll have plenty more to keep you occupied until we get to the stars. Jordan and me, for instance. What future is there for a girl unless she can get married?"

"That's right," Docchi said. "I've got an idea we can do better than normal doctors. Being accidentals ourselves, we won't stop experimenting till we succeed. And we have hundreds of years to do it in."

Glowing, literally⁷, with pleasure, he bent⁸ over for Jordan to climb on his back. Then he kissed Nona and headed for the laboratory.

Nona smiled and followed.

"There are some things you don't need words or machines to express," Anti called out. "Keep that in mind, will you?"

She submerged contentedly⁹ in the acid bath. Above the dome¹⁰, the stars gleamed a bright welcome to the little world that flashed through interstellar space.

—F. L. WALLACE

The End

1 asteroid   

n.小行星；海盘车(动物)

参考例句：

• Astronomers have yet to witness an asteroid impact with another planet.天文学家还没有目击过小行星撞击其它行星。
• It's very unlikely that an asteroid will crash into Earth but the danger exists.小行星撞地球的可能性很小，但这样的危险还是存在的。

2 scrambled   

v.快速爬行( scramble的过去式和过去分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞

参考例句：

• Each scrambled for the football at the football ground. 足球场上你争我夺。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• He scrambled awkwardly to his feet. 他笨拙地爬起身来。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 cubicle   

n.大房间中隔出的小室

参考例句：

• She studies in a cubicle in the school library.她在学校图书馆的小自习室里学习。
• A technical sergeant hunches in a cubicle.一位技术军士在一间小屋里弯腰坐着。

4 wrench   

v.猛拧；挣脱；使扭伤；n.扳手；痛苦，难受

参考例句：

• He gave a wrench to his ankle when he jumped down.他跳下去的时候扭伤了足踝。
• It was a wrench to leave the old home.离开这个老家非常痛苦。

5 machinery   

n.(总称)机械，机器；机构

参考例句：

• Has the machinery been put up ready for the broadcast?广播器材安装完毕了吗？
• Machinery ought to be well maintained all the time.机器应该随时注意维护。

6 blueprint   

n.蓝图，设计图，计划；vt.制成蓝图，计划

参考例句：

• All the machine parts on a blueprint must answer each other.设计图上所有的机器部件都应互相配合。
• The documents contain a blueprint for a nuclear device.文件内附有一张核装置的设计蓝图。

7 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

8 bent   

n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的

参考例句：

• He was fully bent upon the project.他一心扑在这项计划上。
• We bent over backward to help them.我们尽了最大努力帮助他们。

9 contentedly   

adv.心满意足地

参考例句：

• My father sat puffing contentedly on his pipe.父亲坐着心满意足地抽着烟斗。
• "This is brother John's writing,"said Sally,contentedly,as she opened the letter.

10 dome   

n.圆屋顶，拱顶

参考例句：

• The dome was supported by white marble columns.圆顶由白色大理石柱支撑着。
• They formed the dome with the tree's branches.他们用树枝搭成圆屋顶。