The land turned gray and silver and white under the chill light of the rising moon. The buildings of Gila Lake Base IV were sharp and distinct, glowing faintly in the moonlight as if lit somehow inside the concrete walls.
On the landing pad, Phoenix1 I squatted2 darkly, clumsily. The moon washed its bulbous flanks with cascading3 light that flowed down the long surfaces of the hull4 and disappeared into the absorbent blackness without trace. Tiny prickling reflections of stars glinted from the once-polished metal.
At the edges of the Base, where wire meshes5 stretched up out of the desert dividing the things of the desert from the things of men, nervous patrols paced forlornly in the night.
One of the blockhouses at the inner edge of the landing area presented two yellow rectangles of windows to the night. Inside the blockhouse were two men, talking.
One of the men was in uniform, and his collar held the discreet6 star-and-comet of a staff officer, SpaServ. He was young for his rank, perhaps in his early forties, with gray eyes that now were harried7. He sat on the edge of his desk regarding the other man.
The second of the two was a civilian8. He was slumped9 in an oddly incongruous overstuffed chair, with his legs stretched out straight before him. He held the bowl of an unlit pipe in both hands and sucked morosely10 on the stem as the SpaServ brigadier talked. He was slightly younger than the other, but his hair was beginning to thin at the temples. He had sharp blue eyes that regarded the tips of his shoes without apparent interest. Colin Meany was his name, and he was a psychiatrist11.
Finally General Banning finished his account of the afternoon, raised his hands in a shrug12, and said, "That's it. That's all we have."
Colin Meany took his pipe out of his mouth and regarded the tooth-marked bit curiously13. He shoved it in his coat pocket and walked over to the window, looking out across the moon-flooded flat to the looming14, ominous15 shape of Phoenix I. He stood with his hands clasped behind him, rocking gently back and forth16 on his toes.
Banning shrugged18. The psychiatrist turned away from the window and sat down again. He began to fill his pipe.
"Where is he now?" he asked.
"In the ship," the general told him.
"What's he doing?"
"Voice?"
"Does it matter?" the general asked.
"I don't know."
Colin considered this for a moment. "And he didn't say anything."
"Absolutely nothing," said General Banning. "He got out of the ship, walked over to the reception committee, slapped a few people and ran back to the ship and locked himself in."
"It doesn't make any sense."
"You're telling me?" After a second the general added almost wistfully, "He knocked Senator Gilroy down."
Colin laughed. "Good for him."
"Yeah," the general agreed. "That bastard21 fought us tooth and nail all the way down the line, cutting appropriations22, taking our best men.... Then when we get a ship back, he's the first in line for the newsreels."
Colin looked up. "You have newsreels?"
"Sure, but I don't think they're processed yet."
"Why didn't you tell me that in the first place? Check them, will you?"
The general made a short phone call. When he hung up he looked embarrassed. "You want to see them?"
"Very much."
"There's a viewing room in Building Three," Banning said. "We can walk."
When the lights had come on again, Colin sat staring at the blank screen for a long time. Finally he sighed, stood and stretched.
"Well," Banning said. "What do you think?"
"I'll want to see it again. But it's pretty clear, I think."
The general looked up in surprise. "Clear? It's just the same thing I told you."
"Oh, no," Colin said. "You left out the most important part."
"What was that?"
"Your boy is blind and deaf."
"Blind and deaf! You're crazy. The ship, he looked at the ship, and the microphone, and...."
"Oh, it's pretty selective blindness," Colin said. He filled his pipe with maddening slowness and lit it before he spoke23 again.
"People," he said finally. "He doesn't see people. At all."
Harkins fell asleep leaning forward in the control chair with his head on his arms. When he wakened, the sky outside the viewport was turning dark. With a sense of sudden danger, he clamped down the metal shutters25 over the port. Methodically he climbed down catwalks the length of the ship, making certain all ports were secured both from entry and from sight. He didn't want to see outside.
When he had done this, he felt easier. Walking to the galley26, he put a can of soup in the heater, and took it back up to the control room with him.
He sat there, absently eating his soup and staring ahead at the console. He noted27 he was beginning to get used to the harsh outlines it presented in this space. Suddenly he realized there was a red light on the board. He put the bowl of soup carefully on the deck and went over to the transmitter where a loop of tape was endlessly repeating itself, apparently28 broadcasting. He could not remember having inserted it. The empty spool29 lying beside the transmitter read AUTOMATIC DISTRESS CODE.
He understood all the words, all right, but put together they didn't seem to make any sense. AUTOMATIC DISTRESS CODE. What would it be for? Why would such a thing be broadcast? If you were in distress, you surely knew it without transmitting it.
He shook his head. Things were very bad with him. He was profoundly disturbed by his loss of control. Performing all sorts of meaningless actions without volition30.... And now, with this tape, he had not even been conscious of the act, could not remember it.
He went back to the control chair and finished his bowl of soup.
Thinking about it, his meaningless activities had all been centered around one thing, this odd transmit-receive apparatus31, this radio. He had looked at it before, and he realized it was very carefully constructed, and complicated. The wiring itself confused him. And more than that, he could not determine any possible use such a thing might have.
Thinking about it gave him the same prickly sensation at the back of his neck as when he thought about the nonsense words in the songs he knew. "Wife." Things like that.
He rubbed the back of his neck hard, until it hurt. He realized his headache had almost gone away when he secured the ports, but now it was coming back again.
Another light flashed on the console, and a melodic32 "beep—beep" began to sound from somewhere behind the panel.
Automatically he reached forward and flipped33 a switch, and the "beep—beep" stopped. Without surprise, he noticed it was the switch marked Receive.
So. When the light flashed and the "beep—beep" sounded he was supposed to throw that Receive switch. Presumably, then, he should receive something. Was that right?
He looked around the control room, but nothing happened.
Just on the edge of his consciousness there was a faint sussuration, but when he turned his attention to it, it disappeared. There was no sound. But when he thought of something else, it came back again.
It was like an image caught in the corner of his eye. There was nothing there, but sometimes you thought you caught just a flash of something out of the corner of your eye. Like this afternoon....
In all his life, he could not remember anything that had driven him into such pure panic as the loathsome35 invisible touches he had felt. What kind of creatures were these?
This was Earth. This was his home, it was where he belonged, and he couldn't remember anything about invisible....
Yes! Yes, he did remember! But there was still something wrong because—he couldn't think why.
He remembered walking on a grassy36 meadow on a spring day. The grass was rich and luxuriant and the sun was hot copper37 in the sky. He was walking toward the top of a hill. Right at the top there was a single small, green tree. He was going to go up and lie down under that tree and look down in the valley at the meadow. And beside him there was—a presence. He remembered turning to look, and—nothing. There was nothing there.
But the feeling of the presence next to him made him pleased, somehow. It was right. It was not menacing, like this afternoon, it was more—comforting. As the sound the Skipdrive made was comforting. It made him feel fine. But when he turned to look, there was nothing.
He could not remember.
What kind of presence? Like the ship? No, much smaller. Smaller even than himself. Compared to the ship, he was small, quite small. He was infinitely38 smaller than even planetary mass. And there were things on the ship that were smaller than he.
But he couldn't quite place himself with assurance on the scale of size. He was larger than some things, like the bowl of soup, and he was smaller than other things, like planets. He must be of a sort of medium size. But closer to the bowl of soup than the planet.
A wife is a Martha.
He remembered thinking that just as the rockets had fired. It was in the song.... He whistled a few bars. I had a good wife but I left her, oh, oh, oh, oh.
And it had something to do with the remembered—presence, when he was walking in the meadow.
But what was a Martha? You can't define a nonsense word in terms of another nonsense word. Or perhaps, he thought ruefully, you can't define it any other way.
A wife is a Martha. A wife is a Martha. A Martha is a wife.
Nothing.
But he felt the headache coming on again.
He went down to the galley again, and took the soup bowl with him. He put it in the washer, and rummaged39 around in the cabinets until he found the little white pills that helped his headaches. He took three of them before he went back up to the control room.
He had to make some kind of plans for—for what? Escape? He didn't want to escape. He was home. He wanted to stay here. But he had to deal with the—things, somehow. He wondered if they could be killed. There was no way to tell. If you killed one you couldn't see its body.
And he didn't have any weapons, at any rate. He would simply have to outsmart them. He wondered how smart they were. And how large. That would make a good deal of difference, how large they were.
He went to the viewport and cracked the shutter24, just a little. It was dark. He didn't want to go out in the dark, that was too much. It would be too much risk. He would wait until morning.
In spite of the pills, the headache was getting worse, almost to the insane level it had been in the afternoon. He decided40 he'd better try to sleep.
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收听单词发音
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1
phoenix
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| n.凤凰，长生(不死)鸟；引申为重生 | |
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squatted
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| v.像动物一样蹲下( squat的过去式和过去分词 )；非法擅自占用（土地或房屋）；为获得其所有权；而占用某片公共用地。 | |
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3
cascading
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| 流注( cascade的现在分词 )； 大量落下； 大量垂悬； 梯流 | |
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4
hull
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| n.船身；(果、实等的)外壳；vt.去(谷物等)壳 | |
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meshes
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| 网孔( mesh的名词复数 )； 网状物； 陷阱； 困境 | |
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6
discreet
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| adj.(言行)谨慎的；慎重的；有判断力的 | |
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7
harried
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| v.使苦恼( harry的过去式和过去分词 )；不断烦扰；一再袭击；侵扰 | |
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8
civilian
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| adj.平民的，民用的，民众的 | |
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slumped
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| 大幅度下降，暴跌( slump的过去式和过去分词 )； 沉重或突然地落下[倒下] | |
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morosely
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| adv.愁眉苦脸地，忧郁地 | |
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psychiatrist
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| n.精神病专家；精神病医师 | |
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12
shrug
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| v.耸肩(表示怀疑、冷漠、不知等) | |
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curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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14
looming
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| n.上现蜃景（光通过低层大气发生异常折射形成的一种海市蜃楼）v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的现在分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
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ominous
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| adj.不祥的，不吉的，预兆的，预示的 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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casually
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| adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地 | |
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18
shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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vessels
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| n.血管( vessel的名词复数 )；船；容器；（具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的）人 | |
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21
bastard
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| n.坏蛋，混蛋；私生子 | |
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22
appropriations
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| n.挪用（appropriation的复数形式） | |
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23
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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24
shutter
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| n.百叶窗；(照相机)快门；关闭装置 | |
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25
shutters
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| 百叶窗( shutter的名词复数 )； （照相机的）快门 | |
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26
galley
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| n.（飞机或船上的）厨房单层甲板大帆船；军舰舰长用的大划艇； | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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29
spool
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| n.（缠录音带等的）卷盘（轴）；v.把…绕在卷轴上 | |
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30
volition
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| n.意志；决意 | |
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apparatus
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| n.装置，器械；器具，设备 | |
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32
melodic
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| adj.有旋律的，调子美妙的 | |
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33
flipped
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| 轻弹( flip的过去式和过去分词 )； 按（开关）； 快速翻转； 急挥 | |
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34
shuddered
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| v.战栗( shudder的过去式和过去分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
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35
loathsome
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| adj.讨厌的，令人厌恶的 | |
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36
grassy
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| adj.盖满草的；长满草的 | |
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37
copper
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| n.铜；铜币；铜器；adj.铜(制)的；(紫)铜色的 | |
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38
infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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39
rummaged
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| 翻找，搜寻( rummage的过去式和过去分词 )； 已经海关检查 | |
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40
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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