Chapter 5

 In the main office building they donned the close-fitting psionic monitors required of all personnel at the Farm. They were of a hard grey plastic material, with a network of wiring buried in the substance, connected to a simple pocket-sized power source.

"The major problem," Lessing said, "has been to shield the children from any external psionic stimuli¹, except those we wished to expose them to. Our goal is a perfectly² controlled psi environment. The monitors are quite effective—a simple Renwick scrambler screen."

"It blocks off all types of psi activity?" asked Melrose.

"As far as we can measure, yes."

"Which may not be very far."

Jack³ Dorffman burst in: "What Dr. Lessing is saying is that they seem effective for our purposes."

"But you don't know why," added Melrose.

"All right, we don't know why. Nobody knows why a Renwick screen works—why blame us?" They were walking down the main corridor and out through an open areaway. Behind the buildings was a broad playground. A baseball game was in progress in one corner; across the field a group of swings, slides, ring bars and other playground paraphernalia⁴ was in heavy use. The place was teeming⁵ with youngsters, all shouting in a fury of busy activity. Occasionally a helmeted supervisor⁶ hurried by; one waved to them as she rescued a four-year-old from the parallel bars.

They crossed into the next building, where classes were in progress. "Some of our children are here only briefly," Lessing explained as they walked along, "and some have been here for years. We maintain a top-ranking curriculum—your idea of a 'country day school' wasn't so far afield at that—with scholarships supported by Hoffman Center funds. Other children come to us—foundlings, desertees, children from broken homes, children of all ages from infancy⁷ on. Sometimes they stay until they have reached college age, or go on to jobs. As far as psionics research is concerned, we are not trying to be teachers. We are strictly⁸ observers. We try to place the youngsters in positions where they can develope what potential they have—without the presence of external psionic influences they would normally be subject to. The results have been remarkable⁹."

He led them into a long, narrow room with chairs and ash trays, facing a wide grey glass wall. The room fell into darkness, and through the grey glass they could see three children, about four years old, playing in a large room.

"They're perfectly insulated from us," said Lessing. "A variety of recording¹⁰ instruments are working. And before you ask, Dr. Melrose, they are all empirical instruments, and they would all defy any engineer's attempts to determine what makes them go. We don't know what makes them go, and we don't care—they go. That's all we need. Like that one, for instance—"

In the corner a flat screen was flickering¹², emitting a pale green fluorescent¹³ light. It hung from the wall by two plastic rods which penetrated¹⁴ into the children's room. There was no sign of a switch, nor a power source. As the children moved about, the screen flickered¹⁵. Below it, a recording-tape clicked along in little spurts¹⁶ and starts of activity.

"What are they doing?" Melrose asked after watching the children a few moments.

"Those three seem to work as a team, somehow. Each one, individually, had a fairly constant recordable psi potential of about seventeen on the arbitrary scale we find useful here. Any two of them scale in at thirty-four to thirty-six. Put the three together and they operate somewhere in the neighborhood of six hundred on the same scale." Lessing smiled. "This is an isolated¹⁷ phenomenon—it doesn't hold for any other three children on the Farm. Nor did we make any effort to place them together—they drew each other like magnets. One of our workers spent two weeks trying to find out why the instruments weren't right. It wasn't the instruments, of course."

Lessing nodded to an attendant, and peered around at Melrose. "Now, I want you to watch this very closely."

He opened a door and walked into the room with the children. The fluorescent screen continued to flicker¹¹ as the children ran to Lessing. He inspected the block tower they were building, and stooped down to talk to them, his lips moving soundlessly behind the observation wall. The children laughed and jabbered¹⁸, apparently¹⁹ intrigued²⁰ by the game he was proposing. He walked to the table and tapped the bottom block in the tower with his thumb.

The tower quivered, and the screen blazed out with green light, but the tower stood. Carefully Lessing jogged all the foundation blocks out of place until the tower hung in midair, clearly unsupported. The children watched it closely, and the foundation blocks inched still further out of place....

1 stimuli   

n.刺激（物）

参考例句：

• It is necessary to curtail or alter normally coexisting stimuli.必需消除或改变正常时并存的刺激。
• My sweat glands also respond to emotional stimuli.我的汗腺对情绪刺激也能产生反应。

2 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

3 jack   

n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克

参考例句：

• I am looking for the headphone jack.我正在找寻头戴式耳机插孔。
• He lifted the car with a jack to change the flat tyre.他用千斤顶把车顶起来换下瘪轮胎。

4 paraphernalia   

n.装备；随身用品

参考例句：

• Can you move all your paraphernalia out of the way?你可以把所有的随身物品移开吗？
• All my fishing paraphernalia is in the car.我的鱼具都在汽车里。

5 teeming   

adj.丰富的v.充满( teem的现在分词 )；到处都是；（指水、雨等）暴降；倾注

参考例句：

• The rain was teeming down. 大雨倾盆而下。
• the teeming streets of the city 熙熙攘攘的城市街道

6 supervisor   

n.监督人，管理人，检查员，督学，主管，导师

参考例句：

• Between you and me I think that new supervisor is a twit.我们私下说，我认为新来的主管人是一个傻瓜。
• He said I was too flighty to be a good supervisor.他说我太轻浮不能成为一名好的管理员。

7 infancy   

n.婴儿期；幼年期；初期

参考例句：

• He came to England in his infancy.他幼年时期来到英国。
• Their research is only in its infancy.他们的研究处于初级阶段。

8 strictly   

adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地

参考例句：

• His doctor is dieting him strictly.他的医生严格规定他的饮食。
• The guests were seated strictly in order of precedence.客人严格按照地位高低就座。

9 remarkable   

adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的

参考例句：

• She has made remarkable headway in her writing skills.她在写作技巧方面有了长足进步。
• These cars are remarkable for the quietness of their engines.这些汽车因发动机没有噪音而不同凡响。

10 recording   

n.录音，记录

参考例句：

• How long will the recording of the song take?录下这首歌得花多少时间？
• I want to play you a recording of the rehearsal.我想给你放一下彩排的录像。

11 flicker   

vi./n.闪烁，摇曳，闪现

参考例句：

• There was a flicker of lights coming from the abandoned house.这所废弃的房屋中有灯光闪烁。
• At first,the flame may be a small flicker,barely shining.开始时，光辉可能是微弱地忽隐忽现，几乎并不灿烂。

12 flickering   

adj.闪烁的，摇曳的，一闪一闪的

参考例句：

• The crisp autumn wind is flickering away. 清爽的秋风正在吹拂。
• The lights keep flickering. 灯光忽明忽暗。

13 fluorescent   

adj.荧光的，发出荧光的

参考例句：

• They observed the deflections of the particles by allowing them to fall on a fluorescent screen.他们让粒子落在荧光屏上以观察他们的偏移。
• This fluorescent lighting certainly gives the food a peculiar color.这萤光灯当然增添了食物特别的色彩。

14 penetrated   

adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式

参考例句：

• The knife had penetrated his chest. 刀子刺入了他的胸膛。
• They penetrated into territory where no man had ever gone before. 他们已进入先前没人去过的地区。

15 flickered   

（通常指灯光）闪烁，摇曳( flicker的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The lights flickered and went out. 灯光闪了闪就熄了。
• These lights flickered continuously like traffic lights which have gone mad. 这些灯象发狂的交通灯一样不停地闪动着。

16 spurts   

短暂而突然的活动或努力( spurt的名词复数 )； 突然奋起

参考例句：

• Great spurts of gas shoot out of the sun. 太阳气体射出形成大爆发。
• Spurts of warm rain blew fitfully against their faces. 阵阵温热的雨点拍打在他们脸上。

17 isolated   

adj.与世隔绝的

参考例句：

• His bad behaviour was just an isolated incident. 他的不良行为只是个别事件。
• Patients with the disease should be isolated. 这种病的患者应予以隔离。

18 jabbered   

v.急切而含混不清地说( jabber的过去式和过去分词 )；急促兴奋地说话

参考例句：

• She jabbered away, trying to distract his attention. 她喋喋不休，想分散他的注意力。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The politician jabbered away about matters of which he has no knowledge. 那个政客不知所云地侈谈自己一无所知的事情。 来自辞典例句

19 apparently   

adv.显然地；表面上，似乎

参考例句：

• An apparently blind alley leads suddenly into an open space.山穷水尽，豁然开朗。
• He was apparently much surprised at the news.他对那个消息显然感到十分惊异。

20 intrigued   

adj.好奇的，被迷住了的v.搞阴谋诡计(intrigue的过去式)；激起…的兴趣或好奇心；“intrigue”的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• You've really intrigued me—tell me more! 你说的真有意思—再给我讲一些吧！
• He was intrigued by her story. 他被她的故事迷住了。