VALENTINE MICHAEL SMITH SWAM through the murky1 water to thedeepest part of the pool, under the diving board, and settled himself on thebottom. He did not know why his water brother Jubal had told him to hidethere; indeed he did not know that he was hiding. His water brother Jubal hadtold him to do this and to remain there until his water brother Jill came forhim; that was sufficient.
As soon as he was sure that he was at the deepest part, he curled himselfinto the foetal position, let most of the air out of his lungs, swallowed histongue, rolled his eyes up, slowed his heart down to almost nothing, andbecame effectively .dead“ save that he was not actually discorporate andcould start his engines again at will. He also elected to stretch his time senseuntil seconds flowed past like hours, as he had much to contemplate2 and didnot know how quickly Jill would come to get him.
He knew that he had failed again in an attempt to achieve the perfectunderstanding, the mutually merging4 rapport-the grokking-that should existbetween water brothers. He knew that the failure was his, caused by hisusing wrongly the oddly variable human language, because Jubal hadbecome upset as soon as he had spoken to him.
He now knew that his human brothers could suffer intense emotion withoutany permanent damage, nevertheless Smith was wistfully sorry that he hadbeen the cause of such upset in Jubal. At the time, it had seemed to him thathe had at last grokked perfectly6 a most difficult human word. He should haveknown better because, early in his learnings under his brother Mahmoud, hehad discovered that long human words (the longer the better) were easy,unmistakable, and rarely changed their meanings . . but short words wereslippery, unpredictable, changing their meanings without any pattern. Or sohe seemed to grok. Short human words were never like a short Martian wordsuchas .grok“ which forever meant exactly the same thing. Short humanwords were like trying to lift water with a knife.
And this had been a very short word.
Smith still felt that he had grokked rightly the human word .God“- theconfusion had come from his own failure in selecting other human words.
The concept was truly so simple, so basic, so necessary that any nestlingcould have explained it perfectly-in Martian. The problem, then, was to findhuman words that would let him speak rightly, make sure that he patternedthem rightly to match in fullness how it would be said in his own people’slanguage.
He puzzled briefly7 over the curious fact that there should be any difficulty insaying it, even in English, since it was a thing everyone knew else they couldnot grok alive. Possibly he should ask the human Old Ones how to say it,rather than struggle with the shifting meanings of human words. If so, hemust wait until Jubal arranged it, for here he was only an egg and could notarrange it himself.
He felt brief regret that he would not be privileged to be present at the comingdiscorporation of brother Art and brother Dottie.
Then he settled down to reread in his mind Webster’s New InternationalDictionary of the English Language, Third Edition, published in Springfield,Massachusetts.
From a long way off Smith was interrupted by an uneasy awareness8 that hiswater brothers were in trouble. He paused between .sherbacha“ and.sherbet“ to ponder this knowledge. Should he start himself up, leave theenfolding water of life, and join them to grok and share their trouble? At homethere could have been no question about it; trouble is shared, in joyfulcloseness.
But this place was strange in every way . . and Jubal had told him to waituntil Jill came.
He reviewed Jubal’s words, trying them Out in long contemplation againstother human words, making sure that he grokked. No, Jubal had spokenrightly and he had grokked rightly; he must wait until Jill came.
Nevertheless he was made so uneasy by the certain knowledge of hisbrothers’ trouble that he could not go back to his word hunt. At last an ideacame to him that was filled with such gay daring that he would have trembledhad his body not been unready for trembling.
Jubal had told him to place his body under water and leave it there until Jillcame . . . but had Jubal said that he himself must wait with the body?
Smith took a careful long time to consider this, knowing that the slipperyEnglish words that Jubal had used could easily lead him (and often had ledhim) into mistakes. He concluded that Jubal had not specifically ordered himto stay with his body . . . and that left a way Out of the wrongness of notsharing his brothers’ trouble.
So Smith decided9 to take a walk.
He was a bit dazed at his own audacity10, for, while he had done it before,twice, he had never .soloed.“ Each time an Old One had been with him,watching over him, making sure that his body was safe, keeping him frombecoming disoriented at the new experience, staying with him until hereturned to his body and started it up again.
There was no Old One to help him now. But Smith had always been quick tolearn; he knew how to do it and was confident that he could do it alone in afashion that would fill his teacher with pride. So first he checked over everypart of his body, made certain that it would not be damaged while he wasgone, then got cautiously Out of it, leaving behind only that trifle of himselfneeded as watchman and caretaker.
Then he rose up and stood on the edge of the pool, remembering to behaveas if his body were still with him, as a guard against disorienting- againstlosing track of the pool, the body, everything, and wandering off into unknownplaces where he could not find his way back.
Smith looked around.
An air car was just landing in the garden by the pool and beings under it werecomplaining of injuries and indignities11 done them. Perhaps this was thetrouble he could feel? Grasses were for walking on, flowers and bushes werenot-this was a wrongness.
No, there was more wrongness. A man was just stepping out of the air car,one foot about to touch the ground, and Jubal was running toward him. Smithcould see the blast of icy anger that Jubal was hurling12 toward the man, ablast so furious that, had one Martian hurled13 it toward another, both wouldhave discorporated at once.
Smith noted14 it down as something he must ponder and, if it was a cusp ofnecessity as it seemed to be, decide what he must do to help his brother.
Then he looked over the others.
Dorcas was climbing out of the pool; she was puzzled and rather troubled butnot too much so; Smith could feel her confidence in Jubal. Larry was at theedge of the pool and had just gotten out; drops of water falling from him werein the air. Larry was not troubled but excited and pleased; his confidence inJubal was absolute. Miriam was near him and her mood was midwaybetween those of Dorcas and Larry. Anne was standing3 where she had beenseated and was dressed in the long white garment she had had with her allday. Smith could not fully5 grok her mood; he felt in her some of the coldunyielding discipline of mind of an Old One. It startled him, as Anne wasalways soft and gentle and warmly friendly.
He saw that she was watching Jubal closely and was ready to help him. Andso was Larry! . . . and Dorcas! . . . and Miriam! With a sudden burst ofempathic catharsis Smith learned that all these friends were water brothers ofJubal-and therefore of him. This unexpected release from blindness shookhim so that he almost lost anchorage on this place. Calming himself as hehad been taught, he stopped to praise and cherish them all, one by one andtogether.
Jill had one arm over the edge of the pooi and Smith knew that she had beendown under, checking on his safety. He had been aware of her when she haddone it . . . but now he knew that she had not alone been worried about hissafety; Jill felt other and greater trouble, trouble that was not relieved byknowing that her charge was safe under the water of life. This troubled himvery much and he considered going to her, making her know that he was withher and sharing her trouble.
He would have done so had it not been for a faint, uneasy feeling of guilt15: hewas not absolutely certain that Jubal had intended to permit him to walkaround while his body was hidden in the pool. He compromised by tellinghimself that he would share their trouble-and let them know that he waspresent if it became needful.
Smith then looked over the man who was stepping out of the air car, felt hisemotions and recoiled16 from them, forced himself nevertheless to examinehim carefully, inside and out.
In a shaped pocket strapped17 around his waist by a belt the man wascarrying a gun.
Smith was almost certain it was a gun. He examined it in great detail,comparing it with two guns that he had seen briefly, checking what itappeared to be against the definition in Webster’s New InternationalDictionary of the English Language, Third Edition, published in Springfield,Massachusetts.
Yes, it was a gun-not alone in shape but also in wrongness that surroundedand penetrated18 it. Smith looked down the barrel, saw how it must function,and wrongness stared back at him.
Should he turn it and let it go elsewhere, taking its wrongness with it? Do it atonce before the man was fully out of the car? Smith felt that he should . . .
and yet Jubal had told him, at another time, not to do this to a gun until Jubaltold him that it was time to do it.
He knew now that this was indeed a cusp of necessity . . . but he resolved tobalance on the point of the cusp until he grokked all of it- since it waspossible that Jubal, knowing that a cusp was approaching, had sent himunder water to keep him from acting19 wrongly at the cusp.
He would wait . . . but in the meantime he would hold this gun and itswrongness carefully under his eye. Not at the moment being limited to twoeyes facing always one way, being able to see all around him if needful, hecontinued to watch the gun and the man stepping out of the car while hewent inside the car.
More wrongness than he would have believed possible! Other men were inthere, all but one of them crowding toward the door. Their minds smelled likea pack of Khaugha who had scented20 an unwary nymph and each one held inhis hands a something having wrongness.
As he had told Jubal, Smith knew that shape alone was never a primedeterminant; it was necessary to go beyond shape to essence in order togrok. His own people passed through five major shapes: egg, nymph,nestling, adult-and Old One which had no shape. Yet the essence of an OldOne was already patterned in the egg.
These somethings that these men carried seemed like guns. But Smith didnot assume that they were guns; he examined one most carefully first. It wasmuch larger than any gun he had ever seen, its shape was very different, andits details were quite different.
It was a gun.
He examined each of the others, separately and just as carefully. Theywere guns.
The one man who was still seated had strapped to him a small gun.
The car itself had built into it two enormous guns-plus other things whichSmith could not grok but which he felt had wrongness also.
He stopped and seriously considered twisting the car, its contents, and alllettingit topple away. But, in addition to his lifelong inhibition against wastingfood, he knew that he did not fully grok what was happening. Better to moveslowly, watch carefully, and help and share at the cusp by following Jubal’slead * . . and if right action for him was to remain passive, then go back to hisbody when the cusp had passed and discuss it all with Jubal later.
He went back outside the car and watched and listened and waited.
The first man to get out talked with Jubal concerning many things whichSmith could only file without grokking; they were beyond his experience. Theother men got out and spread out; Smith spread his attention to watch all ofthem. The car raised, moved backwards21, stopped again, which relieved thebeings it had sat on; Smith grokked with them to the extent that he couldspare attention, trying to soothe22 their hurtings.
The first man handed papers to Jubal; in turn they were passed to Anne.
Smith read them along with her. He recognized their word shapings as beingconcerned with certain human rituals of healing and balance, but, since hehad encountered these rituals only in Jubal’s law library, he did not try to grokthe papers then, especially as Jubal seemed quite untroubled by them-thewrongness was elsewhere. He was delighted to recognize his own humanname on two of the papers; he always got an odd thrill out of reading it, as ifhe were two places at once-impossible as that was for any but an Old One.
Jubal and the first man turned and walked toward the pool, with Anne closebehind them. Smith relaxed his time sense a little to let them move faster,keeping it stretched just enough so that he could comfortably watch all themen at once. Two of the men closed in and flanked the little group.
The first man stopped near the group of his friends by the pool, looked atthem, then took a picture from his pocket, looked at it, and looked at Jill.
Smith felt her fear and trouble mount and he became very alert. Jubal hadtold him, .Protect Jill. Don’t worry about wasting food. Don’t worry aboutanything else. Protect Jill.“Of course, he would protect Jill in any case, even at the risk of acting wronglyin some other fashion. But it was good to have Jubal’s blanket reassurance23; itleft his mind undivided and untroubled.
When the first man pointed24 at Jill and the two men flanking him hurriedtoward her with their guns of great wrongness. Smith reached out through hisDoppelganger and gave them each that tiny twist which causes to toppleaway.
The first man stared at where they had been and reached for his gun -andhe was gone, too.
The other four started to close in. Smith did not want to twist them. He feltthat Jubal would be more pleased with him if he simply stopped them. Butstopping a thing, even an ash tray, is work-and Smith did not have his bodyat hand. An Old One could have managed it, all four together, but Smith didwhat he could do, what he had to do.
Four feather touches-they were gone.
He felt more intense wrongness from the direction of the car on the groundand went at once to it-grokked to a quick decision, and car and pilot weregone.
He almost overlooked the car riding cover patrol in the air. Smith started torelax when he had disposed of the car on the ground-when suddenly he feltwrongness and trouble increase, and he looked up.
The second car was coming in for a landing right where he was.
Smith stretched his time sense to his personal limit and went to the car in theair, inspected it carefully, grokked that it was as choked with utter wrongnessas the first had been . . . tilted25 it into nevemess. Then he returned to thegroup by the pool.
All his friends seemed quite excited; Dorcas was sobbing26 and Jill was holdingher and soothing27 her. Anne alone seemed untouched by the emotions Smithfelt seething28 around him. But wrongness was gone, all of it, and with it thetrouble that had disturbed his meditations29 earlier. Dorcas, he knew, would behealed faster and better by Jill than by anyone-Jill always grokked a hurtingfully and at once. Disturbed by emotions around him, slightly apprehensivethat he might not have acted in all ways rightly at the point of cusp-or thatJubal might to grok him-Smith decided that he was now free to leave. Heslipped back into the pool, found his body, grokked that it was still as he hadleft it, unharmed-slipped it back on.
He considered contemplating30 the events at the cusp, But they were too new,too recent; he was not ready to enfold them, not ready to praise and cherishthe men he had been forced to move. Instead he returned happily to the taskhe had been on. .Sherbet“ Sherbetlee“ .Sherbetzide“- He had reached.Tinwork“ and was about to consider .Tiny“ when he felt Jill’s touchapproaching him. He unswallowed his tongue and made himself ready,knowing that his brother Jill could not remain very long under water withoutdistress.
As she touched him, he reached out, took her face in his hands and kissedher. It was a thing he had learned to do quite lately and he did not feel that hegrokked it perfectly. It had the growing-closer of the water ceremony. But ithad something else, too . . . something he wanted very much to grok inperfect fullness.
收听单词发音 |
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murky
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| adj.黑暗的，朦胧的；adv.阴暗地，混浊地；n.阴暗；昏暗 | |
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contemplate
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| vt.盘算，计议；周密考虑；注视，凝视 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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merging
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| 合并（分类） | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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awareness
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| n.意识，觉悟，懂事，明智 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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audacity
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| n.大胆，卤莽，无礼 | |
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indignities
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| n.侮辱，轻蔑( indignity的名词复数 ) | |
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hurling
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| n.爱尔兰式曲棍球v.猛投，用力掷( hurl的现在分词 )；大声叫骂 | |
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hurled
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| v.猛投，用力掷( hurl的过去式和过去分词 )；大声叫骂 | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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guilt
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| n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责 | |
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recoiled
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| v.畏缩( recoil的过去式和过去分词 )；退缩；报应；返回 | |
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strapped
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| 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 | |
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penetrated
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| adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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scented
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| adj.有香味的；洒香水的；有气味的v.嗅到(scent的过去分词) | |
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backwards
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| adv.往回地，向原处，倒，相反，前后倒置地 | |
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soothe
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| v.安慰；使平静；使减轻；缓和；奉承 | |
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reassurance
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| n.使放心，使消除疑虑 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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tilted
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| v. 倾斜的 | |
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sobbing
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| <主方>Ⅰ adj.湿透的 | |
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soothing
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| adj.慰藉的；使人宽心的；镇静的 | |
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seething
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| 沸腾的，火热的 | |
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meditations
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| 默想( meditation的名词复数 )； 默念； 沉思； 冥想 | |
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contemplating
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| 深思，细想，仔细考虑( contemplate的现在分词 )； 注视，凝视； 考虑接受（发生某事的可能性）； 深思熟虑，沉思，苦思冥想 | |
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