“This’ll be a good one,” he told himself aloud, in the manner of men who have long been their own and only company. “I want to see this one go up.”
He always did. He could remember at least a thousand blast-shots he had fired back along the years and on more planets than he could name at the moment, including a few thermonuclears, but they were all different and they were always something to watch, even a little one like this. Flipping8 the switch, his thumb found the discharger button and sent out a radio impulse; the red rag vanished in an upsurge of smoke and dust that mounted out of the gorge and turned to copper10 when the sunlight touched it. The big manipulator, weightless on contragravity, rocked gently; falling debris11 pelted12 the trees and splashed in the little stream.
He waited till the machine stabilized13, then glided14 it down to where he had ripped a gash15 in the cliff with the charge of cataclysmite. Good shot: brought down a lot of sandstone, cracked the vein16 of flint and hadn’t thrown it around too much. A lot of big slabs17 were loose. Extending the forward claw-arms, he pulled and tugged18, and then used the underside grapples to pick up a chunk19 and drop it on the flat ground between the cliff and the stream. He dropped another chunk on it, breaking both of them, and then another and another, until he had all he could work over the rest of the day. Then he set down, got the toolbox and the long-handled contragravity lifter, and climbed to the ground where he opened the box, put on gloves and an eyescreen and got out a microray scanner and a vibrohammer.
The first chunk he cracked off had nothing in it; the scanner gave the uninterrupted pattern of homogenous20 structure. Picking it up with the lifter, he swung it and threw it into the stream. On the fifteenth chunk, he got an interruption pattern that told him that a sunstone—or something, probably something—was inside.
Some fifty million years ago, when the planet that had been called Zarathustra (for the last twenty-five million) was young, there had existed a marine21 life form, something like a jellyfish. As these died, they had sunk into the sea-bottom ooze22; sand had covered the ooze and pressed it tighter and tighter, until it had become glassy flint, and the entombed jellyfish little beans of dense23 stone. Some of them, by some ancient biochemical quirk24, were intensely thermofluorescent; worn as gems26, they glowed from the wearer’s body heat.
On Terra or Baldur or Freya or Ishtar, a single cut of polished sunstone was worth a small fortune. Even here, they brought respectable prices from the Zarathustra Company’s gem25 buyers. Keeping his point of expectation safely low, he got a smaller vibrohammer from the toolbox and began chipping cautiously around the foreign object, until the flint split open and revealed a smooth yellow ellipsoid, half an inch long.
“Worth a thousand sols—if it’s worth anything,” he commented. A deft28 tap here, another there, and the yellow bean came loose from the flint. Picking it up, he rubbed it between gloved palms. “I don’t think it is.” He rubbed harder, then held it against the hot bowl of his pipe. It still didn’t respond. He dropped it. “Another jellyfish that didn’t live right.”
Behind him, something moved in the brush with a dry rustling29. He dropped the loose glove from his right hand and turned, reaching toward his hip27. Then he saw what had made the noise—a hard-shelled thing a foot in length, with twelve legs, long antennae30 and two pairs of clawed mandibles. He stopped and picked up a shard31 of flint, throwing it with an oath. Another damned infernal land-prawn32.
He detested33 land-prawns34. They were horrible things, which, of course, wasn’t their fault. More to the point, they were destructive. They got into things at camp; they would try to eat anything. They crawled into machinery35, possibly finding the lubrication tasty, and caused jams. They cut into electric insulation36. And they got into his bedding, and bit, or rather pinched, painfully. Nobody loved a land-prawn, not even another land-prawn.
This one dodged37 the thrown flint, scuttled38 off a few feet and turned, waving its antennae in what looked like derision. Jack reached for his hip again, then checked the motion. Pistol cartridges39 cost like crazy; they weren’t to be wasted in fits of childish pique41. Then he reflected that no cartridge40 fired at a target is really wasted, and that he hadn’t done any shooting recently. Stooping again, he picked up another stone and tossed it a foot short and to the left of the prawn. As soon as it was out of his fingers, his hand went for the butt9 of the long automatic. It was out and the safety off before the flint landed; as the prawn fled, he fired from the hip. The quasi-crustacean disintegrated42. He nodded pleasantly.
“Ol’ man Holloway’s still hitting things he shoots at.”
Was a time, not so long ago, when he took his abilities for granted. Now he was getting old enough to have to verify them. He thumbed on the safety and holstered the pistol, then picked up the glove and put it on again.
Never saw so blasted many land-prawns as this summer. They’d been bad last year, but nothing like this. Even the oldtimers who’d been on Zarathustra since the first colonization43 said so. There’d be some simple explanation, of course; something that would amaze him at his own obtuseness44 for not having seen it at once. Maybe the abnormally dry weather had something to do with it. Or increase of something they ate, or decrease of natural enemies.
He’d heard that land-prawns had no natural enemies; he questioned that. Something killed them. He’d seen crushed prawn shells, some of them close to his camp. Maybe stamped on by something with hoofs45, and then picked clean by insects. He’d ask Ben Rainsford; Ben ought to know.
Half an hour later, the scanner gave him another interruption pattern. He laid it aside and took up the small vibrohammer. This time it was a large bean, light pink in color, He separated it from its matrix of flint and rubbed it, and instantly it began glowing.
“Ahhh! This is something like it, now!”
He rubbed harder; warmed further on his pipe bowl, it fairly blazed. Better than a thousand sols, he told himself. Good color, too. Getting his gloves off, he drew out the little leather bag from under his shirt, loosening the drawstrings by which it hung around his neck. There were a dozen and a half stones inside, all bright as live coals. He looked at them for a moment, and dropped the new sunstone in among them, chuckling46 happily.
Victor Grego, listening to his own recorded voice, rubbed the sunstone on his left finger with the heel of his right palm and watched it brighten. There was, he noticed, a boastful ring to his voice—not the suave47, unemphatic tone considered proper on a message-tape. Well, if anybody wondered why, when they played that tape off six months from now in Johannesburg on Terra, they could look in the cargo48 holds of the ship that had brought it across five hundred light-years of space. Ingots of gold and platinum49 and gadolinium. Furs and biochemicals and brandy. Perfumes that defied synthetic50 imitation; hardwoods no plastic could copy. Spices. And the steel coffer full of sunstones. Almost all luxury goods, the only really dependable commodities in interstellar trade.
And he had spoken of other things. Veldbeest meat, up seven per cent from last month, twenty per cent from last year, still in demand on a dozen planets unable to produce Terran-type foodstuffs52. Grain, leather, lumber53. And he had added a dozen more items to the lengthening54 list of what Zarathustra could now produce in adequate quantities and no longer needed to import. Not fishhooks and boot buckles55, either—blasting explosives and propellants, contragravity-field generator3 parts, power tools, pharmaceuticals56, synthetic textiles. The Company didn’t need to carry Zarathustra any more; Zarathustra could carry the Company, and itself.
Fifteen years ago, when the Zarathustra Company had sent him here, there had been a cluster of log and prefab huts beside an improvised57 landing field, almost exactly where this skyscraper58 now stood. Today, Mallorysport was a city of seventy thousand; in all, the planet had a population of nearly a million, and it was still growing. There were steel mills and chemical plants and reaction plants and machine works. They produced all their own fissionables, and had recently begun to export a little refined plutonium; they had even started producing collapsium shielding.
The recorded voice stopped. He ran back the spool59, set for sixty-speed, and transmitted it to the radio office. In twenty minutes, a copy would be aboard the ship that would hyper out for Terra that night. While he was finishing, his communication screen buzzed.
“Dr. Kellogg’s screening you, Mr. Grego,” the girl in the outside office told him.
He nodded. Her hands moved, and she vanished in a polychromatic explosion; when it cleared, the chief of the Division of Scientific Study and Research was looking out of the screen instead. Looking slightly upward at the showback over his own screen, Victor was getting his warm, sympathetic, sincere and slightly too toothy smile on straight.
“Hello, Leonard. Everything going all right?”
It either was and Leonard Kellogg wanted more credit than he deserved or it wasn’t and he was trying to get somebody else blamed for it before anybody could blame him.
“Good afternoon, Victor.” Just the right shade of deference60 about using the first name—big wheel to bigger wheel. “Has Nick Emmert been talking to you about the Big Blackwater project today?”
Nick was the Federation61’s resident-general; on Zarathustra he was, to all intents and purposes, the Terran Federation Government. He was also a large stockholder in the chartered Zarathustra Company.
“No. Is he likely to?”
“Well, I wondered, Victor. He was on my screen just now. He says there’s some adverse62 talk about the effect on the rainfall in the Piedmont area of Beta Continent. He was worried about it.”
“Well, it would affect the rainfall. After all, we drained half a million square miles of swamp, and the prevailing63 winds are from the west. There’d be less atmospheric64 moisture to the east of it. Who’s talking adversely65 about it, and what worries Nick?”
“Well, Nick’s afraid of the effect on public opinion on Terra. You know how strong conservation sentiment is; everybody’s very much opposed to any sort of destructive exploitation.”
“Good Lord! The man doesn’t call the creation of five hundred thousand square miles of new farmland destructive exploitation, does he?”
“Well, no, Nick doesn’t call it that; of course not. But he’s concerned about some garbled66 story getting to Terra about our upsetting the ecological67 balance and causing droughts. Fact is, I’m rather concerned myself.”
He knew what was worrying both of them. Emmert was afraid the Federation Colonial Office would blame him for drawing fire on them from the conservationists. Kellogg was afraid he’d be blamed for not predicting the effects before his division endorsed68 the project. As a division chief, he had advanced as far as he would in the Company hierarchy69; now he was on a Red Queen’s racetrack, running like hell to stay in the same place.
“The rainfall’s dropped ten per cent from last year, and fifteen per cent from the year before that,” Kellogg was saying. “And some non-Company people have gotten hold of it, and so had Interworld News. Why, even some of my people are talking about ecological side-effects. You know what will happen when a story like that gets back to Terra. The conservation fanatics70 will get hold of it, and the Company’ll be criticized.”
That would hurt Leonard. He identified himself with the Company. It was something bigger and more powerful than he was, like God.
Victor Grego identified the Company with himself. It was something big and powerful, like a vehicle, and he was at the controls.
“Leonard, a little criticism won’t hurt the Company,” he said. “Not where it matters, on the dividends71. I’m afraid you’re too sensitive to criticism. Where did Emmert get this story anyhow? From your people?”
“No, absolutely not, Victor. That’s what worries him. It was this man Rainsford who started it.”
“Rainsford?”
“Dr. Bennett Rainsford, the naturalist72. Institute of Zeno-Sciences. I never trusted any of those people; they always poke51 their noses into things, and the Institute always reports their findings to the Colonial Office.”
“I know who you mean now; little fellow with red whiskers, always looks as though he’d been sleeping in his clothes. Why, of course the Zeno-Sciences people poke their noses into things, and of course they report their findings to the government.” He was beginning to lose patience. “I don’t see what all this is about, Leonard. This man Rainsford just made a routine observation of meteorological effects. I suggest you have your meteorologists check it, and if it’s correct pass it on to the news services along with your other scientific findings.”
“Nick Emmert thinks Rainsford is a Federation undercover agent.”
That made him laugh. Of course there were undercover agents on Zarathustra, hundreds of them. The Company had people here checking on him; he knew and accepted that. So did the big stockholders, like Interstellar Explorations and the Banking73 Cartel and Terra Baldur-Marduk Spacelines. Nick Emmert had his corps74 of spies and stool pigeons, and the Terran Federation had people here watching both him and Emmert. Rainsford could be a Federation agent—a roving naturalist would have a wonderful cover occupation. But this Big Blackwater business was so utterly75 silly. Nick Emmert had too much graft76 on his conscience; it was too bad that overloaded77 consciences couldn’t blow fuses.
“Suppose he is, Leonard. What could he report on us? We are a chartered company, and we have an excellent legal department, which keeps us safely inside our charter. It is a very liberal charter, too. This is a Class-III uninhabited planet; the Company owns the whole thing outright78. We can do anything we want as long as we don’t violate colonial law or the Federation Constitution. As long as we don’t do that, Nick Emmert hasn’t anything to worry about. Now forget this whole damned business, Leonard!” He was beginning to speak sharply, and Kellogg was looking hurt. “I know you were concerned about injurious reports getting back to Terra, and that was quite commendable79, but….”
By the time he got through, Kellogg was happy again. Victor blanked the screen, leaned back in his chair and began laughing. In a moment, the screen buzzed again. When he snapped it on, his screen-girl said:
“Mr. Henry Stenson’s on, Mr. Grego.”
“Well, put him on.” He caught himself just before adding that it would be a welcome change to talk to somebody with sense.
The face that appeared was elderly and thin; the mouth was tight, and there were squint-wrinkles at the corners of the eyes.
“Well, Mr. Stenson. Good of you to call. How are you?”
“Very well, thank you. And you?” When he also admitted to good health, the caller continued: “How is the globe running? Still in synchronization80?”
Victor looked across the office at his most prized possession, the big globe of Zarathustra that Henry Stenson had built for him, supported six feet from the floor on its own contragravity unit, spotlighted81 in orange to represent the KO sun, its two satellites circling about it as it revolved82 slowly.
“The globe itself is keeping perfect time, and Darius is all right, Xerxes is a few seconds of longitude83 ahead of true position.”
“That’s dreadful, Mr. Grego!” Stenson was deeply shocked. “I must adjust that the first thing tomorrow. I should have called to check on it long ago, but you know how it is. So many things to do, and so little time.”
“I find the same trouble myself, Mr. Stenson.” They chatted for a while, and then Stenson apologized for taking up so much of Mr. Grego’s valuable time. What he meant was that his own time, just as valuable to him, was wasting. After the screen blanked, Grego sat looking at it for a moment, wishing he had a hundred men like Henry Stenson in his own organization. Just men with Stenson’s brains and character; wishing for a hundred instrument makers84 with Stenson’s skills would have been unreasonable85, even for wishing. There was only one Henry Stenson, just as there had been only one Antonio Stradivari. Why a man like that worked in a little shop on a frontier planet like Zarathustra….
Then he looked, pridefully, at the globe. Alpha Continent had moved slowly to the right, with the little speck86 that represented Mallorysport twinkling in the orange light. Darius, the inner moon, where the Terra-Baldur-Marduk Spacelines had their leased terminal, was almost directly over it, and the other moon, Xerxes, was edging into sight. Xerxes was the one thing about Zarathustra that the Company didn’t own; the Terran Federation had retained that as a naval87 base. It was the one reminder88 that there was something bigger and more powerful than the Company.
Gerd van Riebeek saw Ruth Ortheris leave the escalator, step aside and stand looking around the cocktail89 lounge. He set his glass, with its inch of tepid90 highball, on the bar; when her eyes shifted in his direction, he waved to her, saw her brighten and wave back and then went to meet her. She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, dodged when he reached for her and took his arm.
“Drink before we eat?” he asked.
“Oh, Lord, yes! I’ve just about had it for today.”
He guided her toward one of the bartending machines, inserted his credit key, and put a four-portion jug91 under the spout92, dialing the cocktail they always had when they drank together. As he did, he noticed what she was wearing: short black jacket, lavender neckerchief, light gray skirt. Not her usual vacation get-up.
“School department drag you back?” he asked as the jug filled.
“Juvenile court.” She got a couple of glasses from the shelf under the machine as he picked up the jug. “A fifteen-year-old burglar.”
They found a table at the rear of the room, out of the worst of the cocktail-hour uproar93. As soon as he filled her glass, she drank half of it, then lit a cigarette.
“Junktown?” he asked.
She nodded. “Only twenty-five years since this planet was discovered, and we have slums already. I was over there most of the afternoon, with a pair of city police.” She didn’t seem to want to talk about it. “What were you doing today?”
“Ruth, you ought to ask Doc Mallin to drop in on Leonard Kellogg sometime, and give him an unobstusive going over.”
“You haven’t been having trouble with him again?” she asked anxiously.
He made a face, and then tasted his drink. “It’s trouble just being around that character. Ruth, to use one of those expressions your profession deplores94, Len Kellogg is just plain nuts!” He drank some more of his cocktail and helped himself to one of her cigarettes. “Here,” he continued, after lighting95 it. “A couple of days ago, he told me he’d been getting inquiries96 about this plague of land-prawns they’re having over on Beta. He wanted me to set up a research project to find out why and what to do about it.”
“Well?”
“I did. I made two screen calls, and then I wrote a report and sent it up to him. That was where I jerked my trigger; I ought to have taken a couple of weeks and made a real production out of it.”
“What did you tell him?”
“The facts. The limiting factor on land-prawn increase is the weather. The eggs hatch underground and the immature97 prawns dig their way out in the spring. If there’s been a lot of rain, most of them drown in their holes or as soon as they emerge. According to growth rings on trees, last spring was the driest in the Beta Piedmont in centuries, so most of them survived, and as they’re parthenogenetic females, they all laid eggs. This spring, it was even drier, so now they have land prawns all over central Beta. And I don’t know that anything can be done about them.”
“Well, did he think you were just guessing?”
He shook his head in exasperation98. “I don’t know what he thinks. You’re the psychologist, you try to figure it. I sent him that report yesterday morning. He seemed quite satisfied with it at the time. Today, just after noon, he sent for me and told me it wouldn’t do at all. Tried to insist that the rainfall on Beta had been normal. That was silly; I referred him to his meteorologists and climatologists, where I’d gotten my information. He complained that the news services were after him for an explanation. I told him I’d given him the only explanation there was. He said he simply couldn’t use it. There had to be some other explanation.”
“If you don’t like the facts, you ignore them, and if you need facts, dream up some you do like,” she said. “That’s typical rejection99 of reality. Not psychotic, not even psychoneurotic. But certainly not sane100.” She had finished her first drink and was sipping101 slowly at her second. “You know, this is interesting. Does he have some theory that would disqualify yours?”
“Not that I know of. I got the impression that he just didn’t want the subject of rainfall on Beta discussed at all.”
“No. Not that I know of,” he repeated. “Of course, that swamp-drainage project over there was what caused the dry weather, last year and this year, but I don’t see….” His own glass was empty, and when he tilted103 the jug over it, a few drops trickled104 out. He looked at his watch. “Think we could have another cocktail before dinner?” he asked.
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收听单词发音
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1
jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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2
squinting
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| 斜视( squint的现在分词 )； 眯着眼睛； 瞟； 从小孔或缝隙里看 | |
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generator
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| n.发电机，发生器 | |
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generators
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| n.发电机，发生器( generator的名词复数 )；电力公司 | |
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5
puffing
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| v.使喷出( puff的现在分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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gorge
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| n.咽喉，胃，暴食，山峡；v.塞饱，狼吞虎咽地吃 | |
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anticipation
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| n.预期，预料，期望 | |
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flipping
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| 讨厌之极的 | |
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butt
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| n.笑柄；烟蒂；枪托；臀部；v.用头撞或顶 | |
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copper
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| n.铜；铜币；铜器；adj.铜(制)的；(紫)铜色的 | |
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debris
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| n.瓦砾堆，废墟，碎片 | |
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pelted
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| （连续地）投掷( pelt的过去式和过去分词 )； 连续抨击； 攻击； 剥去…的皮 | |
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stabilized
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| v.（使）稳定， （使）稳固( stabilize的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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glided
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| v.滑动( glide的过去式和过去分词 )；掠过；（鸟或飞机 ） 滑翔 | |
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gash
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| v.深切，划开；n.(深长的)切(伤)口；裂缝 | |
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vein
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| n.血管，静脉；叶脉，纹理；情绪；vt.使成脉络 | |
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slabs
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| n.厚板，平板，厚片( slab的名词复数 )；厚胶片 | |
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tugged
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| v.用力拉，使劲拉，猛扯( tug的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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chunk
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| n.厚片，大块，相当大的部分（数量） | |
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homogenous
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| adj.同类的，同质的，纯系的 | |
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marine
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| adj.海的；海生的；航海的；海事的；n.水兵 | |
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ooze
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| n.软泥，渗出物；vi.渗出，泄漏；vt.慢慢渗出，流露 | |
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dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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quirk
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| n.奇事，巧合；古怪的举动 | |
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gem
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| n.宝石，珠宝；受爱戴的人 [同]jewel | |
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gems
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| growth； economy； management； and customer satisfaction 增长 | |
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hip
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| n.臀部，髋；屋脊 | |
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deft
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| adj.灵巧的，熟练的（a deft hand 能手） | |
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rustling
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| n. 瑟瑟声，沙沙声 adj. 发沙沙声的 | |
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antennae
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| n.天线；触角 | |
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shard
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| n.（陶瓷器、瓦等的）破片，碎片 | |
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prawn
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| n.对虾，明虾 | |
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detested
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| v.憎恶，嫌恶，痛恨( detest的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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prawns
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| n.对虾，明虾( prawn的名词复数 ) | |
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machinery
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| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
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insulation
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| n.隔离；绝缘；隔热 | |
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dodged
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| v.闪躲( dodge的过去式和过去分词 )；回避 | |
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scuttled
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| v.使船沉没( scuttle的过去式和过去分词 )；快跑，急走 | |
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39
cartridges
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| 子弹( cartridge的名词复数 )； （打印机的）墨盒； 录音带盒； （唱机的）唱头 | |
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40
cartridge
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| n.弹壳，弹药筒；(装磁带等的)盒子 | |
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41
pique
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| v.伤害…的自尊心，使生气 n.不满，生气 | |
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42
disintegrated
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| v.（使）破裂[分裂，粉碎]，（使）崩溃( disintegrate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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colonization
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| 殖民地的开拓，殖民，殖民地化； 移殖 | |
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obtuseness
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| 感觉迟钝 | |
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hoofs
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| n.（兽的）蹄，马蹄( hoof的名词复数 )v.（兽的）蹄，马蹄( hoof的第三人称单数 ) | |
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46
chuckling
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的现在分词 ) | |
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suave
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| adj.温和的；柔和的；文雅的 | |
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cargo
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| n.(一只船或一架飞机运载的)货物 | |
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49
platinum
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| n.白金 | |
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synthetic
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| adj.合成的，人工的；综合的；n.人工制品 | |
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51
poke
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| n.刺，戳，袋；vt.拨开，刺，戳；vi.戳，刺，捅，搜索，伸出，行动散慢 | |
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52
foodstuffs
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| 食物，食品( foodstuff的名词复数 ) | |
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lumber
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| n.木材，木料；v.以破旧东西堆满；伐木；笨重移动 | |
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54
lengthening
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| （时间或空间）延长，伸长( lengthen的现在分词 )； 加长 | |
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buckles
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| 搭扣，扣环( buckle的名词复数 ) | |
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56
pharmaceuticals
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| n.医药品；药物( pharmaceutical的名词复数 ) | |
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57
improvised
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| a.即席而作的,即兴的 | |
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58
skyscraper
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| n.摩天大楼 | |
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59
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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deference
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| n.尊重，顺从；敬意 | |
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federation
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| n.同盟，联邦，联合，联盟，联合会 | |
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adverse
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| adj.不利的；有害的；敌对的，不友好的 | |
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prevailing
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| adj.盛行的；占优势的；主要的 | |
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atmospheric
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| adj.大气的，空气的；大气层的；大气所引起的 | |
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adversely
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| ad.有害地 | |
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garbled
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| adj.（指信息）混乱的，引起误解的v.对（事实）歪曲，对（文章等）断章取义，窜改( garble的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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ecological
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| adj.生态的，生态学的 | |
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endorsed
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| vt.& vi.endorse的过去式或过去分词形式v.赞同( endorse的过去式和过去分词 )；在（尤指支票的）背面签字；在（文件的）背面写评论；在广告上说本人使用并赞同某产品 | |
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hierarchy
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| n.等级制度；统治集团，领导层 | |
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fanatics
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| 狂热者，入迷者( fanatic的名词复数 ) | |
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dividends
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| 红利( dividend的名词复数 )； 股息； 被除数； （足球彩票的）彩金 | |
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naturalist
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| n.博物学家(尤指直接观察动植物者) | |
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banking
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| n.银行业，银行学，金融业 | |
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corps
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| n.(通信等兵种的)部队；(同类作的)一组 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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graft
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| n.移植，嫁接，艰苦工作，贪污；v.移植，嫁接 | |
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overloaded
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| a.超载的，超负荷的 | |
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outright
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| adv.坦率地；彻底地；立即；adj.无疑的；彻底的 | |
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commendable
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| adj.值得称赞的 | |
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synchronization
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| n.同一时刻；同步；使时间互相一致；同时性 | |
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spotlighted
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| v.聚光照明( spotlight的过去式和过去分词 )；使公众注意，使突出醒目 | |
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82
revolved
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| v.（使）旋转( revolve的过去式和过去分词 )；细想 | |
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longitude
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| n.经线，经度 | |
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84
makers
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| n.制造者，制造商（maker的复数形式） | |
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85
unreasonable
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| adj.不讲道理的，不合情理的，过度的 | |
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86
speck
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| n.微粒，小污点，小斑点 | |
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naval
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| adj.海军的，军舰的，船的 | |
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reminder
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| n.提醒物，纪念品；暗示，提示 | |
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89
cocktail
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| n.鸡尾酒；餐前开胃小吃；混合物 | |
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tepid
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| adj.微温的，温热的，不太热心的 | |
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jug
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| n.(有柄，小口，可盛水等的)大壶，罐，盂 | |
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92
spout
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| v.喷出，涌出；滔滔不绝地讲；n.喷管；水柱 | |
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uproar
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| n.骚动，喧嚣，鼎沸 | |
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deplores
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| v.悲叹，痛惜，强烈反对( deplore的第三人称单数 ) | |
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95
lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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96
inquiries
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| n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 )；疑问；探究；打听 | |
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immature
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| adj.未成熟的，发育未全的，未充分发展的 | |
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98
exasperation
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| n.愤慨 | |
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99
rejection
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| n.拒绝，被拒，抛弃，被弃 | |
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100
sane
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| adj.心智健全的，神志清醒的，明智的，稳健的 | |
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101
sipping
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| v.小口喝，呷，抿( sip的现在分词 ) | |
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102
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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103
tilted
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| v. 倾斜的 | |
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104
trickled
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| v.滴( trickle的过去式和过去分词 )；淌；使)慢慢走；缓慢移动 | |
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