I would dream about it at night. How there was a Hyperman living in the Prog Building, only he breathed chlorine and they kept him in tanks. Or that they had the mummies of all the great men of the past which they reanimated every afternoon to ask questions. Or it would be a cow in some dreams that was full of brains and they'd taught it to "moo" in code. There were times when I thought that if I didn't get upstairs into the Prog Building I'd burst from frustration1.
So I said: "You think they're going to fill up the Mediterranean2 again?"
The Ledger3 laughed. He said: "I hear tell they're going to switch poles. North to south and vice4 versa."
The Record said: "You don't think they could?"
The Ledger said: "I wish they would—if it'd improve my bridge."
I said: "Can it, lads, and let's have the dope."
The Journal said: "Well, all the regulars are in—controller, vice con5 and deputy vice con. But there also happens to be among those present—the chief stabilizer."
"No!"
He nodded and the others nodded. "Fact. The C-S himself. Came up by pneumatic from Washington."
I said: "Oh, mamma! Five'll get you ten they're digging up Atlantis this time."
The Record shook his head. "The C-S didn't wear a digging look."
Just then the door to the main office shoved open and the C-S came thundering out. I'm not exaggerating. Old Groating had a face like Moses, beard and all, and when he frowned, which was now, you expected lightning to crackle from his eyes. He breezed past the table with just one glance from the blue quartz6 he's got for eyes, and all our legs came down with a crash. Then he shot out of the room so fast I could hear his rep tunic7 swish with quick whistling sounds.
After him came the controller, the vice con and the deputy vice con, all in single file. They were frowning, too, and moving so rapidly we had to jump to catch the deputy. We got him at the door and swung him around. He was short and fat and trouble didn't sit well on his pudgy face. It made him look slightly lop-sided.
He said: "Not now, gentlemen."
"Just a minute, Mr. Klang," I said, "I don't think you're being fair to the press."
"I know it," the deputy said, "and I'm sorry, but I really cannot spare the time."
I said: "So we report to fifteen million readers that time can't be spared these days—"
He stared at me, only I'd been doing some staring myself and I knew I had to get him to agree to give us a release.
I said: "Have a heart. If anything's big enough to upset the stability of the chief stabilizer, we ought to get a look-in."
That worried him, and I knew it would. Fifteen million people would be more than slightly unnerved to read that the C-S had been in a dither.
"Listen," I said. "What goes on? What were you talking about upstairs?"
He said: "All right. Come down to my office with me. We'll prepare a release."
Only I didn't go out with the rest of them. Because, you see, while I'd been nudging the deputy I'd noticed that all of them had rushed out so fast they'd forgotten to close the office door. It was the first time I'd seen it unlocked and I knew I was going to go through it this time. That was why I'd wheedled8 that release out of the deputy. I was going to get upstairs into the Prog Building because everything played into my hands. First, the door being left open. Second, the man from the Trib not being there.
Why? Well, don't you see? The opposition9 papers always paired off. The Ledger and the Record walked together and the Journal and the News and so on. This way I was alone with no one to look for me and wonder what I was up to. I pushed around in the crowd a little as they followed the deputy out, and managed to be the last one in the room. I slipped back behind the door jamb, waited a second and then streaked11 across to the office door. I went through it like a shot and shut it behind me. When I had my back against it I took a breath and whispered: "Hyperman, here I come!"
I was standing12 in a small hall that had synthetic13 walls with those fluorescent14 paintings on them. It was pretty short, had no doors anywhere, and led toward the foot of a white staircase. The only way I could go was forward, so I went. With that door locked behind me I knew I would be slightly above suspicion—but only slightly, my friends, only slightly. Sooner or later someone was going to ask who I was.
The stairs were very pretty. I remember them because they were the first set I'd ever seen outside the Housing Museum. They had white even steps and they curved upward like a conic section. I ran my fingers along the smooth stone balustrade and trudged15 up expecting anything from a cobra to one of Tex Richard's Fighting Robots to jump out at me. I was scared to death.
I came to a square railed landing and it was then I first sensed the vibrations16. I'd thought it was my heart whopping against my ribs18 with that peculiar19 bam-bam-bam that takes your breath away and sets a solid lump of cold under your stomach. Then I realised this pulse came from the Prog Building itself. I trotted20 up the rest of the stairs on the double and came to the top. There was a sliding door there. I took hold of the knob and thought: "Oh, well, they can only stuff me and put me under glass"—so I shoved the door open.
Boys, this was it—that nucleus21 I told you about. I'll try to give you an idea of what it looked like because it was the most sensational22 thing I've ever seen—and I've seen plenty in my time. The room took up the entire width of the building and it was two stories high. I felt as though I'd walked into the middle of a clock. Space was literally23 filled with the shimmer24 and spin of cogs and cams that gleamed with the peculiar highlights you see on a droplet25 of water about to fall. All of those thousands of wheels spun26 in sockets27 of precious stone—just like a watch only bigger—and those dots of red and yellow and green and blue fire burned until they looked like a painting by that Frenchman from way back. Seurat was his name.
The walls were lined with banks of Computation Integraphs—you could see the end-total curves where they were plotted on photoelectric28 plates. The setting dials for the Integraphs were all at eye level and ran around the entire circumference29 of the room like a chain of enormous white-faced periods. That was about all of the stuff I could recognize. The rest just looked complicated and bewildering.
That bam-bam-bam I told you about came from the very center of the room. There was a crystal octahedron maybe ten feet high, nipped between vertical30 axes above and below. It was spinning slowly so that it looked jerky, and the vibration17 was the sound of the motors that turned it. From way high up there were shafts31 of light projected at it. The slow turning facets32 caught those beams and shattered them and sent them dancing through the room. Boys—it was really sensational.
I took a couple of steps in and then a little old coot in a white jacket bustled33 across the room, saw me, nodded, and went about his business. He hadn't taken more than another three steps when he stopped and came back to me. It was a real slow take.
He said: "I don't quite—" and then he broke off doubtfully. He had a withered34, faraway look, as though he'd spent all his life trying to remember he was alive.
I said: "I'm Carmichael."
"Oh yes!" he began, brightening a little. Then his face got dubious35 again.
I played it real smart. I said: "I'm with Stabilizer Groating."
"Secretary?"
"Yeah."
"You know, Mr. Mitchel," he said, "I can't help feeling that despite the gloomier aspects there are some very encouraging features. The Ultimate Datum36 System that we have devised should bring us down to surveys of the near future in a short time—" He gave me a quizzical glance like a dog begging for admiration37 on his hind10 legs.
I said: "Really?"
"It stands to reason. After all, once a technique has been devised for pushing analysis into the absolute future, a comparatively simple reversal should bring it as close as tomorrow."
I said: "It should at that"—and wondered what he was talking about. Now that some of the fright had worn off I was feeling slightly disappointed. Here I expected to find the Hyperman who was handing down Sinai Decrees to our bosses and I walk into a multiplied clock.
He was rather pleased. He said: "You think so?"
"I think so."
"Will you mention that to Mr. Groating? I feel it might encourage him—"
I got even smarter. I said: "To tell you the truth, sir, the Stabilizer sent me up for a short review. I'm new to the staff and unfortunately I was delayed in Washington."
He said; "Tut-tut, forgive me. Step this way, Mr. ... Mr. Ahh—"
So I stepped his way and we went weaving through the clock-works to a desk at one side of the room. There were half a dozen chairs behind it and he seated me alongside himself. The flat top of the desk was banked with small tabs and push buttons so that it looked like a stenotype. He pressed one stud and the room darkened. He pressed another and the bam-bam quickened until it was a steady hum. The octahedron crystal whirled so quickly that it became a shadowy mist of light under the projectors38.
"I suppose you know," the old coot said in rather self-conscious tones, "that this is the first time we've been able to push our definitive39 analysis to the ultimate future. We'd never have done it if Wiggons hadn't developed his self-checking data system."
I said: "Good for Wiggons," and I was more confused than ever. I tell you, boys, it felt like waking up from a dream you couldn't quite remember. You know that peculiar sensation of having everything at the edge of your mind so to speak and not being able to get hold of it—I had a thousand clues and inferences jangling around in my head and none of them would interlock. But I knew this was big stuff.
Shadows began to play across the crystal. Off-focus images and flashes of color. The little old guy murmured to himself and his fingers plucked at the keyboard in a quick fugue of motion. Finally he said: "Ah!" and sat back to watch the crystal. So did I.
I was looking through a window in space, and beyond that window I saw a single bright star in the blackness. It was sharp and cold and so brilliant it hurt your eyes. Just beyond the window, in the foreground, I saw a spaceship. No, none of your cigar things or ovate spheroids or any of that. It was a spaceship that seemed to have been built mostly in after-thoughts. A great rambling40 affair with added wings and towers and helter-skelter ports. It looked like it'd been built just to hang there in one place.
The old coot said: "Watch close now, Mr. Muggins, things happen rather quickly at this tempo41."
Quickly? They practically sprinted42. There was a spurt43 of activity around the spaceship. Towers went up and came down; the buglike figures of people in space armor bustled about; a little cruiser, shaped like a fat needle, sped up to it, hung around a while and then sped away. There was a tense second of waiting and then the star blotted44 out. In another moment the spaceship was blotted out, too. The crystal was black.
My friend, the goofy professor, touched a couple of studs and we had a long view. There were clusters of stars spread before me, sharply, brilliantly in focus. As I watched, the upper side of the crystal began to blacken. In a few swift moments the stars were blacked out. Just like that. Blooey! It reminded me of school when we added carbon ink to a drop under the mike just to see how the amoebae would take it.
He punched the buttons like crazy and we had more and more views of the Universe, and always that black cloud crept along, blotting45 everything out. After a while he couldn't find any more stars. There was nothing but blackness. It seemed to me that it wasn't more than an extra-special Stereo Show, but it chilled me nevertheless. I started thinking about those amoebae and feeling sorry for them.
The lights went on and I was back inside the clock again. He turned to me and said: "Well, what do you think?"
I said: "I think it's swell46."
That seemed to disappoint him. He said: "No, no—I mean, what do you make of it? Do you agree with the others?"
"With Stabilizer Groating, you mean?"
He nodded.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
frustration
|
|
| n.挫折，失败，失效，落空 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
Mediterranean
|
|
| adj.地中海的；地中海沿岸的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
ledger
|
|
| n.总帐，分类帐；帐簿 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
vice
|
|
| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
con
|
|
| n.反对的观点，反对者，反对票，肺病；vt.精读，学习，默记；adv.反对地，从反面；adj.欺诈的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
quartz
|
|
| n.石英 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
tunic
|
|
| n.束腰外衣 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
wheedled
|
|
| v.骗取（某物），哄骗（某人干某事）( wheedle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
opposition
|
|
| n.反对，敌对 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
hind
|
|
| adj.后面的，后部的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
streaked
|
|
| adj.有条斑纹的，不安的v.快速移动( streak的过去式和过去分词 )；使布满条纹 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
standing
|
|
| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
synthetic
|
|
| adj.合成的，人工的；综合的；n.人工制品 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
fluorescent
|
|
| adj.荧光的，发出荧光的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
trudged
|
|
| vt.& vi.跋涉，吃力地走（trudge的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
vibrations
|
|
| n.摆动( vibration的名词复数 )；震动；感受；（偏离平衡位置的）一次性往复振动 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
vibration
|
|
| n.颤动，振动；摆动 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
ribs
|
|
| n.肋骨( rib的名词复数 )；（船或屋顶等的）肋拱；肋骨状的东西；（织物的）凸条花纹 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
peculiar
|
|
| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
trotted
|
|
| 小跑，急走( trot的过去分词 )； 匆匆忙忙地走 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
nucleus
|
|
| n.核，核心，原子核 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
sensational
|
|
| adj.使人感动的，非常好的，轰动的，耸人听闻的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
literally
|
|
| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
shimmer
|
|
| v./n.发微光，发闪光；微光 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
droplet
|
|
| n.小滴，飞沫 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
spun
|
|
| v.纺，杜撰，急转身 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
sockets
|
|
| n.套接字，使应用程序能够读写与收发通讯协定(protocol)与资料的程序( Socket的名词复数 )；孔( socket的名词复数 )；（电器上的）插口；托座；凹穴 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
photoelectric
|
|
| adj.光电的，光电效应的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
circumference
|
|
| n.圆周，周长，圆周线 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
vertical
|
|
| adj.垂直的，顶点的，纵向的；n.垂直物，垂直的位置 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
shafts
|
|
| n.轴( shaft的名词复数 )；（箭、高尔夫球棒等的）杆；通风井；一阵（疼痛、害怕等） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
facets
|
|
| n.（宝石或首饰的）小平面( facet的名词复数 )；（事物的）面；方面 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
bustled
|
|
| 闹哄哄地忙乱，奔忙( bustle的过去式和过去分词 )； 催促 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
withered
|
|
| adj. 枯萎的，干瘪的，（人身体的部分器官）因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
dubious
|
|
| adj.怀疑的，无把握的；有问题的，靠不住的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
datum
|
|
| n.资料；数据；已知数 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
admiration
|
|
| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
projectors
|
|
| 电影放映机，幻灯机( projector的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
definitive
|
|
| adj.确切的，权威性的；最后的，决定性的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
rambling
|
|
| adj.[建]凌乱的，杂乱的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
tempo
|
|
| n.(音乐的)速度；节奏，行进速度 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
sprinted
|
|
| v.短距离疾跑( sprint的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
spurt
|
|
| v.喷出；突然进发；突然兴隆 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
blotted
|
|
| 涂污( blot的过去式和过去分词 )； （用吸墨纸）吸干 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
blotting
|
|
| 吸墨水纸 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
swell
|
|
| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |