Chapter 8

The  foundry was  large,  and bore  the odor  of decay  which no  amount ofsuperficial repairs  could quite  erase¹. It was  empty now and  in quite anunnatural state of quiet, as it played unaccustomed host to the Commdor andhis court.
Mallow  had swung  the steel sheet  onto the  two supports with  a carelessheave. He had taken the instrument held out to him by Twer and was grippingthe leather handle inside its leaden sheath.
"The instrument,"  he said, "is dangerous,  but so is a  buzz saw. You justhave to keep your fingers away."And as  he spoke,  he drew the  muzzle-slit² swiftly down the  length of thesteel sheet, which quietly and instantly fell in two.
There was  a unanimous  jump, and Mallow  laughed. He picked up  one of thehalves and propped³ it  against his knee, "You can adjust the cutting-lengthaccurately to  a hundredth of an inch, and a  two-inch sheet will slit downthe middle as easily as this thing did. If you've got the thickness exactlyjudged, you can place  steel on a wooden table, and split the metal withoutscratching the wood."And at  each phrase,  the nuclear shear⁴  moved and a gouged  chunk⁵ of steelflew across the room.
"That," he said, "is whittling⁶ ?with steel."He  passed back  the shear.  "Or else you  have the  plane. Do you  want todecrease  the thickness  of  a sheet,  smooth out  an  irregularity, removecorrosion? Watch!"Thin, transparent  foil flew  off the other  half of the  original sheet insix-inch swarths, then eight-inch, then twelve.
"Or drills? It's all the same principle."They were crowded around  now. It might have been a sleight-of-hand show, acomer  magician, a  vaudeville  act made  into high-pressure  salesmanship.
Commdor Asper  fingered scraps  of steel. High officials  of the governmenttiptoed over  each other's  shoulders, and whispered,  while Mallow punchedclean, beautiful  round holes through an inch of  hard steel at every touchof his nuclear drill.
"Just one  more demonstration⁷. Bring two  short lengths of pipe, somebody."An Honorable  Chamberlain of something-or-other sprang  to obedience⁸ in thegeneral excitement  and thought-absorption, and stained  his hands like anylaborer.
Mallow stood  them upright and shaved the ends off  with a single stroke ofthe  shear,   and  then  joined   the  pipes,  fresh  cut   to  fresh  cut.
And there was a  single pipe! The new ends, with even atomic irregularitiesmissing, formed one piece upon joining.
Then  Mallow looked  up at  his audience,  stumbled at  his first  word andstopped. There  was the keen stirring  of excitement in his  chest, and thebase of his stomach went tingly and cold.
The Commdor's  own bodyguard⁹, in the confusion,  had struggled to the frontline,  and  Mallow, for  the  first  time, was  near  enough  to see  theirunfamiliar hand-weapons in detail.
They  were nuclear!  There  was no  mistaking it;  an  explosive projectileweapon  with a  barrel like that  was impossible.  But that wasn't  the bigpoint. That wasn't the point at all.
The  butts¹⁰ of  those weapons  had, deeply  etched upon  them, in  worn goldplating, the Spaceship-and-Sun!
The  same Spaceship-and-Sun  that was  stamped on  every. one of  the greatvolumes of the original  Encyclopedia¹¹ that the Foundation had begun and notyet finished.  The same  Spaceship-and-Sun that had blazoned  the banner ofthe Galactic Empire through millennia¹².
Mallow talked  through and around  his thoughts, "Test that  pipe! It's onepiece.  Not perfect;  naturally, the  joining shouldn't  be done  by hand."There  was no  need of further  legerdemain¹³. It  had gone over.  Mallow wasthrough. He  had what he wanted. There was only one  thing in his mind. Thegolden globe  with its  conventionalized rays, and the  oblique¹⁴ cigar shapethat was a space vessel¹⁵.
The Spaceship-and-Sun of the Empire!
The Empire!  The words drilled! A  century and a half  had passed but therewas still  the-Empire, somewhere deeper in the  Galaxy¹⁶. And it was emergingagain, out into the Periphery¹⁷.
Mallow smiled!

1 erase   

v.擦掉；消除某事物的痕迹

参考例句：

• He tried to erase the idea from his mind.他试图从头脑中抹掉这个想法。
• Please erase my name from the list.请把我的名字从名单上擦去。

2 slit   

n.狭长的切口；裂缝；vt.切开，撕裂

参考例句：

• The coat has been slit in two places.这件外衣有两处裂开了。
• He began to slit open each envelope.他开始裁开每个信封。

3 propped   

支撑，支持，维持( prop的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He sat propped up in the bed by pillows. 他靠着枕头坐在床上。
• This fence should be propped up. 这栅栏该用东西支一支。

4 shear   

n.修剪，剪下的东西，羊的一岁；vt.剪掉，割，剥夺；vi.修剪，切割，剥夺，穿越

参考例句：

• Every spring they shear off the sheep's wool and sell it.每年春天他们都要剪下羊毛去卖。
• In the Hebrides they shear their sheep later than anywhere else.在赫伯里兹，剪羊毛的时间比其他任何地方都要晚。

5 chunk   

n.厚片，大块，相当大的部分（数量）

参考例句：

• They had to be careful of floating chunks of ice.他们必须当心大块浮冰。
• The company owns a chunk of farmland near Gatwick Airport.该公司拥有盖特威克机场周边的大片农田。

6 whittling   

v.切，削（木头），使逐渐变小( whittle的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Inflation has been whittling away their savings. 通货膨胀使他们的积蓄不断减少。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He is whittling down the branch with a knife to make a handle for his hoe. 他在用刀削树枝做一把锄头柄。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 demonstration   

n.表明，示范，论证，示威

参考例句：

• His new book is a demonstration of his patriotism.他写的新书是他的爱国精神的证明。
• He gave a demonstration of the new technique then and there.他当场表演了这种新的操作方法。

8 obedience   

n.服从，顺从

参考例句：

• Society has a right to expect obedience of the law.社会有权要求人人遵守法律。
• Soldiers act in obedience to the orders of their superior officers.士兵们遵照上级军官的命令行动。

9 bodyguard   

n.护卫，保镖

参考例句：

• She has to have an armed bodyguard wherever she goes.她不管到哪儿都得有带武器的保镖跟从。
• The big guy standing at his side may be his bodyguard.站在他身旁的那个大个子可能是他的保镖。

10 butts   

笑柄( butt的名词复数 )； （武器或工具的）粗大的一端； 屁股； 烟蒂

参考例句：

• The Nazis worked them over with gun butts. 纳粹分子用枪托毒打他们。
• The house butts to a cemetery. 这所房子和墓地相连。

11 encyclopedia   

n.百科全书

参考例句：

• The encyclopedia fell to the floor with a thud.那本百科全书砰的一声掉到地上。
• Geoff is a walking encyclopedia.He knows about everything.杰夫是个活百科全书，他什么都懂。

12 millennia   

n.一千年，千禧年

参考例句：

• For two millennia, exogamy was a major transgression for Jews. 两千年来，异族通婚一直是犹太人的一大禁忌。
• In the course of millennia, the dinosaurs died out. 在几千年的时间里，恐龙逐渐死绝了。

13 legerdemain   

n.戏法，诈术

参考例句：

• The lawyer confused the jury with his legal legerdemain.那律师以他合法的把戏把陪审团搞糊涂了。
• Some accused the White House of legerdemain.有人谴责白宫在玩花招。

14 oblique   

adj.斜的，倾斜的，无诚意的，不坦率的

参考例句：

• He made oblique references to her lack of experience.他拐弯抹角地说她缺乏经验。
• She gave an oblique look to one side.她向旁边斜看了一眼。

15 vessel   

n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管

参考例句：

• The vessel is fully loaded with cargo for Shanghai.这艘船满载货物驶往上海。
• You should put the water into a vessel.你应该把水装入容器中。

16 galaxy   

n.星系；银河系；一群(杰出或著名的人物)

参考例句：

• The earth is one of the planets in the Galaxy.地球是银河系中的星球之一。
• The company has a galaxy of talent.该公司拥有一批优秀的人才。

17 periphery   

n.(圆体的)外面；周围

参考例句：

• Geographically, the UK is on the periphery of Europe.从地理位置上讲，英国处于欧洲边缘。
• The periphery of the retina is very sensitive to motion.视网膜的外围对运动非常敏感。