Chapter 6

 That night I had another bad dream. Only it didn't really seem so bad as it should have been. A blind man was talking to me. Then I dreamed that a blind girl with a seeing-eye dog was looking at me. She was about fifteen, maybe younger, dressed in a plain flowered dress tied in back with a ribbon. She had a soft round face and her eyes were wide and opaque¹. The girl and dog seemed to come out of a mist and they whispered to me. It was frightening, but important, and I didn't remember what it was.

I woke up shivering. I seemed to smell wet hair, and the window was open. I couldn't remember whether I had shut the window before I went to sleep or not.

Mesner called me early the next morning.

He looked the same in his wrinkled suit with the food stains on the lapels, and peeling an apple.

"Fred, have you ever heard a phrase sounding like '... and the blind shall lead them?'"

I appeared to be trying to think about it, then said I had never heard anything like that.

"You're positive about that?"

"I don't remember it."

"You mean you might have, but you just can't remember it."

"I didn't say that. I doubt if I ever heard such a phrase."

"What about this one, '... and the blind shall see again.'"

"No, I said.

"You're sure?"

I looked directly at him and he stopped peeling the apple. "If I'm supposed to have such a damn high quiescent² IQ, why not let me in on a few things?"

"What few things?"

"These references to the blind. The Dirksons. Some blind girl named Elsa. What are you trying to find out?"

"I thought maybe you remembered something, that's all. I'm pretty much in the dark myself. All I have are a few clues and theories."

"Clues, theories, about what?"

"Eggheads. Sabotage³. What the crackpots could build, they can best destroy. They're blowing up factories, manufacturing and power plants, machines, production."

"That's sabotage? I thought the whole idea in bringing about the Era of Normalcy was to do away with all mechanization. Do everything with the hands, like in the good old days."

"That's an ultimate goal, Fred. Drudges⁴ don't think. They're happier. But the transition has to be more gradual. The Eggheads want to take away all mechanization at once, create chaos⁵ and anarchy⁶. They figure that will cause the bottleheads to revolt against the Government. We can't catch the saboteurs. The saboteurs inside a blown-up factory, for example, we never know who they are. We bip every worker, not a sign of a saboteur. So whoever does the dirty work is a mindless tool of the Egghead underground, having no memory of having committed sabotage. Who are the couriers, the ones who make vital contact between the Egghead underground and the saboteurs? The dumb saboteur has to get his highly complex directives from the Eggheads. Who are the couriers?"

"Why ask me?"

"I know this much, Fred. Blind people are used as couriers."

My knees felt weak. I couldn't say anything. All I could think about was my dreams.

"I want to show you something, Fred." Mesner led me through the other door. A bleak⁷ concrete cubicle⁸, no windows, a damp walled gray cell. Two naked men lay on slabs⁹. Stroboscopes on their heads. Behind them, styluses recorded brain-wave patterns on moving white strips. One of the men, the one on the left, was blind. His eyes staring up into the flicker¹⁰ were opaque.

"Look at those brain-wave recordings¹¹, Fred. They're getting the same stimulus¹². We can give a thousand bottleheads this stimulus with the flicker, and get identical responses. But not the blind boys. We can't successfully bip a blind boy. The brain-waves are radically¹³ different and we've never figured out a way of codifying¹⁴ them. A blind bastard's never seen anything. The seeing eyes are trackers, like radar¹⁵. But a blind boy takes in reality and records it and keeps it in a different way. We can't get at the code easily. But I'm getting it. I've bipped plenty of blind boys and I'm getting it, Fred. The blind are used for couriers. I know that much. For the simple reason that we can't bip meaningful info out of their scrambled¹⁶ think-tanks."

The naked men on the slabs moaned. One of them opened his mouth and a bloody¹⁷ foam¹⁸ spread over his chin.

"What I'm looking for now is a known courier who is also blind. Then I can bip him, and check the info with the code I've worked out."

He unbuttoned his coat and took a black hand-gun out of a holster strapped¹⁹ beneath his arm. "Meanwhile, Fred, these bottleheads have had it. They're burned out."

1 opaque   

adj.不透光的；不反光的，不传导的；晦涩的

参考例句：

• The windows are of opaque glass.这些窗户装着不透明玻璃。
• Their intentions remained opaque.他们的意图仍然令人费解。

2 quiescent   

adj.静止的，不活动的，寂静的

参考例句：

• It is unlikely that such an extremist organization will remain quiescent for long.这种过激的组织是不太可能长期沉默的。
• Great distance in either time or space has wonderful power to lull and render quiescent the human mind.时间和空间上的远距离有一种奇妙的力量，可以使人的心灵平静。

3 sabotage   

n.怠工，破坏活动，破坏；v.从事破坏活动，妨害，破坏

参考例句：

• They tried to sabotage my birthday party.他们企图破坏我的生日晚会。
• The fire at the factory was caused by sabotage.那家工厂的火灾是有人蓄意破坏引起的。

4 drudges   

n.做苦工的人，劳碌的人( drudge的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• He drudges daily with no hope of bettering himself. 他每日做苦工，而毫无改善自己境遇的希望。 来自互联网
• I said that professional writers are solitary drudges who seldom see other writers. 我说职业作家是很少能见到其他作家的孤家寡人。 来自互联网

5 chaos   

n.混乱，无秩序

参考例句：

• After the failure of electricity supply the city was in chaos.停电后，城市一片混乱。
• The typhoon left chaos behind it.台风后一片混乱。

6 anarchy   

n.无政府状态；社会秩序混乱，无秩序

参考例句：

• There would be anarchy if we had no police.要是没有警察，社会就会无法无天。
• The country was thrown into a state of anarchy.这国家那时一下子陷入无政府状态。

7 bleak   

adj.(天气)阴冷的；凄凉的；暗淡的

参考例句：

• They showed me into a bleak waiting room.他们引我来到一间阴冷的会客室。
• The company's prospects look pretty bleak.这家公司的前景异常暗淡。

8 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。

9 slabs   

n.厚板，平板，厚片( slab的名词复数 )；厚胶片

参考例句：

• The patio was made of stone slabs. 这天井是用石板铺砌而成的。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The slabs of standing stone point roughly toward the invisible notch. 这些矗立的石块，大致指向那个看不见的缺口。 来自辞典例句

10 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。

11 recordings   

n.记录( recording的名词复数 )；录音；录像；唱片

参考例句：

• a boxed set of original recordings 一套盒装原声录音带
• old jazz recordings reissued on CD 以激光唱片重新发行的老爵士乐

12 stimulus   

n.刺激，刺激物，促进因素，引起兴奋的事物

参考例句：

• Regard each failure as a stimulus to further efforts.把每次失利看成对进一步努力的激励。
• Light is a stimulus to growth in plants.光是促进植物生长的一个因素。

13 radically   

ad.根本地，本质地

参考例句：

• I think we may have to rethink our policies fairly radically. 我认为我们可能要对我们的政策进行根本的反思。
• The health service must be radically reformed. 公共医疗卫生服务必须进行彻底改革。

14 codifying   

v.把（法律）编成法典( codify的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• For this reason, the disputations of codifying administrative procedures in domain are becoming more and more. 因此，有关行政程序法典化的各种争论在理论界也愈来愈多。 来自互联网

15 radar   

n.雷达，无线电探测器

参考例句：

• They are following the flight of an aircraft by radar.他们正在用雷达追踪一架飞机的飞行。
• Enemy ships were detected on the radar.敌舰的影像已显现在雷达上。

16 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》

17 bloody   

adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染

参考例句：

• He got a bloody nose in the fight.他在打斗中被打得鼻子流血。
• He is a bloody fool.他是一个十足的笨蛋。

18 foam   

v./n.泡沫，起泡沫

参考例句：

• The glass of beer was mostly foam.这杯啤酒大部分是泡沫。
• The surface of the water is full of foam.水面都是泡沫。

19 strapped   

adj.用皮带捆住的，用皮带装饰的；身无分文的；缺钱；手头紧v.用皮带捆扎(strap的过去式和过去分词)；用皮带抽打；包扎；给…打绷带

参考例句：

• Make sure that the child is strapped tightly into the buggy. 一定要把孩子牢牢地拴在婴儿车上。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The soldiers' great coats were strapped on their packs. 战士们的厚大衣扎捆在背包上。 来自《简明英汉词典》