Now he was constrained1 to wonder whether the action had been as random2 as it seemed. Was it possible that subconsciously3 he had no need of the calendar—that he had kept track, all these years, and had known when his birthday came? If so, why had he felt it necessary to remind himself in this oblique4 way?
A return to the womb? A hunger for the comforts of the family circle, the birthday cake, candles, the solace5 of yearly repetition?
Cudyk was fifty-six. When he had been fifty-five, he had thought of himself as a man in his middle years, still strong, still able. Now he was old. The same thing had happened to Seu: he had recovered from his first shock when the news had come about Rack, and for more than three weeks now he had moved about the Quarter, as quiet and as competent as before; but there was a difference. His swift, furtive6 humor was gone except for rare flashes; his voice and his step were heavy.
It was the same with all of them, all the old settlers. Cudyk had met Burgess on the street the day before, for the first time in several weeks, and had been genuinely shocked. The man's hair was white, his skin papery, his gait stumbling.
Even Exarkos showed the change. More and more of his grey, woolly hair was vanishing. The umber crescents under his eyes were a deeper shade, almost black.
The Quarter's graveyard7 was five acres of ground, surrounded by trees, on the outskirts8 of the City; there the dead reclined in a more ample space than the living enjoyed. The Niori had allotted9 the ground, though the outline of the City was thereby10 disfigured, and had contributed slabs11 of a synthetic12 stone which carved easily when it was fresh, later hardening until it would resist any edged tool. The plot was ill tended, but the standing13 stones, translucent14 pearl or rose, had a certain beauty. To the Niori, the purpose of the graveyard was only that; they were not equipped to understand mankind's morbid15 clinging to its own carrion16.
Cudyk had gone to Chong's funeral, presided over by Lee Yuk, the asthmatic little Buddhist17 priest; and the image of those ranked headstones, neatly18 separated into the Orthodox, the Protestants, the Buddhists19, the Taoists and the unbelievers, had returned to him many times since. It was another sign of the change that was taking place in him: the images which formerly20 had dominated his mind had been pictographs of abstractions—the great globe of infinity21, the tiny spark that was creative intellect. Now they were the pale headstone and the dark curtain of death.
He had felt nothing, standing over Chong's grave and watching the sod fall. What is there to say about a man when he is dead? The priest's words were false, as all such words are false; they had no relevance22; the man was dead. Nothing was left of him now but the dissolving molecules23 of his flesh, and the fragmentary, ego-distorted memories he had planted in the minds of others. He was a name written in water.
It was not Chong who obsessed24 Cudyk, nor the many other half-remembered men and women whose names were clumsily carved on those stones. It was the cemetery25 as a symbol: the fascination26 of the yawning void.
Cudyk had one other preoccupation: he thought often of Earth, a dark globe turning, black continents dim against the grey ocean, pricked27 by a few faint gleams that were cities. Or, if he thought of the cities, he saw them too drowned in shadow: the shapes of tower and arch melting into night-patterns; moonlight falling faintly, dissolving what it touched, so that shadows became as solid stone, stone as insubstantial mist.
For Earth, also, was a symbol of death.
There had been no more suicides since Chong had died, and no riots. It seemed to Cudyk that the whole Quarter moved, like himself, through a fluid heavier than air. All motion had slowed, and sounds came muted and without resonance28. People spoke29 to him, and he answered, but without attention, as if they were not really there.
Even the recent news about Rack's defeat had stirred him only momentarily, and he had seen in Seu's face that the Chinese felt himself somehow inadequate30 to the tale even as he told it. The Galactic fleet, vastly expanded, had met Rack's activist31 forces with a new weapon—one, indeed, which did not kill, but which was shameful32 enough to a citizen of the Galaxy33. The weapon projected a field which scrambled34 the synapse35 patterns in the brain, leaving its victim incapable36 of any of the processes of coherent thought: incapable of adding two figures, of lighting37 a cigarette, or of aiming a torpedo38. Eleven New Earth ships had been captured, and it was thought that these were all the activists39' armed vessels40; there had been no further attacks since then.
Cudyk sat with his teacup raised halfway41 between the table and his lips. After a long moment, he saw that his hand was trembling violently. He set the cup down. He said, "Where?"
"The Little Bear. Half the town has gone there already. Do you want to go?"
Cudyk stood up slowly. "Yes," he said, "I suppose so." But he felt the tension that pulled his body together, the tautened muscles in back and shoulders and arms.
As they reached the corner of Ceskoslovensko and Washington, they saw scattered43 groups of men moving ahead of them, all hurrying, some frankly44 running. The crowd was thick around the doorway45 of The Little Bear when they reached it, and they had difficulty forcing a passage. Men moved aside for Seu willingly enough, but there was little space to move.
Inside, it was worse. The stairway was solidly packed; it was obviously impossible to get through.
"There is a back stair," Seu said. He worked his way toward the rear of the room, Cudyk following, until he caught sight of the bartender. The press was not so thick here, and he was able to reach the man and lead him into a corner away from the others. "Can you get us up the back way?"
The Russian nodded, scowled46, and put his finger to his lips. Following him, they went through the swinging doors at the back of the room, through the dark kitchen and up the narrow service stairs at the rear. The bartender unlocked the door and helped them force it open against the pressure of the packed bodies inside.
The long room was heavy with the odors of sweat, tobacco smoke and stale air. Faces shone greasily47 under the glare of the ceiling lights. The only clear space was the table-top against the wall to Cudyk's right, where Rack stood.
Cudyk could see him clearly over the heads of those in front of him. He stood with legs planted firmly, hands at his sides. As always, the leather jacket was draped over his shoulders like a cloak.
Rack was talking in a low, clear voice. Cudyk listened to the end of a sentence which conveyed nothing to him, and then heard: "After that, we got it. They gave it to us." Rack's hands clenched49 once, and then opened again.
"They intercepted50 us three minutes after we came out of overdrive in the orbit of New Earth. Twelve fighting ships, the whole fleet. We were in a line, just closing in after we broke C on the way down—the Thermopolae, the Tours, the Waterloo, the Chateau51 Thierry, the Dunkirk, the Leningrad, the Acre, the Valley Forge, the Hiroshima, the San Francisco, the Seoul, and the flagship last, the Armageddon.
"We didn't know they were there—they were out of our detector52 range. They had us like sitting ducks. The first thing we knew about it was when a teletype report from the leading ship, the Thermopolae, broke off in the middle of a word. Five seconds later the same thing happened to a report coming in from the next ship. Three seconds more, and the Waterloo was gone.
"I gave the order to reverse acceleration53 and scatter42. But the field—whatever it was—came after us. It would have taken us at least two minutes to build up the overdrive potential again, and we all knew we wouldn't make it. They were getting us one ship every six or eight seconds.
"The men were looking to me for orders. I didn't have any to give them. Suddenly De Grasse turned around and looked at Monk and Spider, and they all nodded. They jumped me. I don't know what happened. I struck my head against the deck when I went down, or one of them hit me with a gun-butt."
His fists clenched and opened once more. "When I came to, I was strapped54 into a one-man lifeboat, on overdrive, doing ten C's. They must have emptied the ship's accumulators into that lifeboat, charged it up to C potential and got me off just before the field hit them.
"I took my bearings, reversed, and went back. Eventually I found the fleet again. The Galactics had matched course and velocity55 with them and they were just beginning to tow them off, one ship to one with plenty of theirs left over, in the general direction of Altair.
"They hadn't got into overdrive yet. I slipped in—there were a hundred of their little scouts56 nosing around, about the same mass as my lifeboat—and berthed57 in the same port I'd come out of. I got out and walked into the control room.
"The crew was still there, still alive. But not men. They were lying on the deck, looking at nothing. Their mouths were open, and they were drooling."
Rack's head moved stiffly, and his sharp profile turned from one side of the crowd to the other. "Mindless idiots," he said. "They couldn't feed themselves, or stand up, or sit. But they had saved me.
"I built up the charge and took my time about it. When the Galactics went into overdrive, I took off in another direction. I was a good seventy light years away before they knew I was gone.
"I had a ship, an undamaged ship. But I had no crew to man her. I can astrogate, and when I have to, I can man the engines on top of that. But I can't fight her as well.
"I came here, put the Armageddon into a one-day orbit and came down in a lifeboat. I want to go back and find out what those slime-eaters did to us, and give them a taste of the same. I want twenty men."
There was a silence.
Rack said, in the same even, low voice, "Will you fight for the human race?"
Someone called, "What did you do with your other crew?"
Rack said, "I gave them military burial, in space."
For the first time, the crowd as a whole broke its silence. A low murmur58 rose. Rack said sharply, "I would have given my life for those men, as they did for me, gladly. But they were already dead. If there's a way to restore a man's mind after that has been done to it, only the vermin know how. I would rather be buried in space, and so would they."
A deep voice called, "Are you God, Rack?"
He did not believe that anything which could now possibly happen could rouse him from his apathy60. But he had forgotten one possibility. Seu came to him in Chong Yin's, where Yin's eldest61 son Fu now moved in his father's place, and said, "Rack wasn't taken. He's here."
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
constrained
|
|
| adj.束缚的,节制的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
random
|
|
| adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
subconsciously
|
|
| ad.下意识地，潜意识地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
oblique
|
|
| adj.斜的，倾斜的，无诚意的，不坦率的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
solace
|
|
| n.安慰；v.使快乐；vt.安慰(物)，缓和 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
furtive
|
|
| adj.鬼鬼崇崇的，偷偷摸摸的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
graveyard
|
|
| n.坟场 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
outskirts
|
|
| n.郊外，郊区 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
allotted
|
|
| 分配，拨给，摊派( allot的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
thereby
|
|
| adv.因此，从而 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
slabs
|
|
| n.厚板，平板，厚片( slab的名词复数 )；厚胶片 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
synthetic
|
|
| adj.合成的，人工的；综合的；n.人工制品 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
standing
|
|
| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
translucent
|
|
| adj.半透明的；透明的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
morbid
|
|
| adj.病的；致病的；病态的；可怕的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
carrion
|
|
| n.腐肉 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
Buddhist
|
|
| adj./n.佛教的，佛教徒 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
neatly
|
|
| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
Buddhists
|
|
| n.佛教徒( Buddhist的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
formerly
|
|
| adv.从前，以前 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
infinity
|
|
| n.无限，无穷，大量 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
relevance
|
|
| n.中肯，适当，关联，相关性 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
molecules
|
|
| 分子( molecule的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
obsessed
|
|
| adj.心神不宁的,鬼迷心窍的,沉迷的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
cemetery
|
|
| n.坟墓，墓地，坟场 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
fascination
|
|
| n.令人着迷的事物，魅力，迷恋 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
pricked
|
|
| 刺，扎，戳( prick的过去式和过去分词 )； 刺伤； 刺痛； 使剧痛 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
resonance
|
|
| n.洪亮；共鸣；共振 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
spoke
|
|
| 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 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
inadequate
|
|
| adj.(for,to)不充足的，不适当的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
activist
|
|
| n.活动分子，积极分子 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
shameful
|
|
| adj.可耻的，不道德的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
galaxy
|
|
| n.星系；银河系；一群(杰出或著名的人物) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
scrambled
|
|
| v.快速爬行( scramble的过去式和过去分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
synapse
|
|
| n.突触 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
incapable
|
|
| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
lighting
|
|
| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
torpedo
|
|
| n.水雷，地雷；v.用鱼雷破坏 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
activists
|
|
| n.（政治活动的）积极分子，活动家( activist的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
vessels
|
|
| 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 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
halfway
|
|
| adj.中途的，不彻底的，部分的；adv.半路地，在中途，在半途 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
scatter
|
|
| vt.撒，驱散，散开；散布/播；vi.分散，消散 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
scattered
|
|
| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
frankly
|
|
| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
doorway
|
|
| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
scowled
|
|
| 怒视，生气地皱眉( scowl的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
greasily
|
|
| adv.多脂，油腻，滑溜地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
monk
|
|
| n.和尚，僧侣，修道士 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
clenched
|
|
| v.紧握，抓紧，咬紧( clench的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
intercepted
|
|
| 拦截( intercept的过去式和过去分词 )； 截住； 截击； 拦阻 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
chateau
|
|
| n.城堡，别墅 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
detector
|
|
| n.发觉者，探测器 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
acceleration
|
|
| n.加速，加速度 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
strapped
|
|
| 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 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
velocity
|
|
| n.速度，速率 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
scouts
|
|
| 侦察员[机，舰]( scout的名词复数 )； 童子军； 搜索； 童子军成员 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
57
berthed
|
|
| v.停泊( berth的过去式和过去分词 )；占铺位 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
58
murmur
|
|
| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
59
promptly
|
|
| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
60
apathy
|
|
| n.漠不关心，无动于衷；冷淡 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
61
eldest
|
|
| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |