The One Month Prologue

There was this . . . disease that the clacksmen got. It was like the illness known as ‘calenture’ that sailors experienced when, having been becalmed for weeks under a pitiless sun, they suddenly believed that the ship was surrounded by green fields and stepped overboard.

Sometimes, the clacksmen thought they could fly.

There was about eight miles between the big semaphore towers and when you were at the top you were maybe a hundred and fifty feet above the plains. Work up there too long without a hat on, they said, and the tower you were on got taller and the nearest tower got closer and maybe you thought you could jump from one to the other, or ride on the invisible messages sleeting¹ between them, or perhaps you thought that you were a message. Perhaps, as some said, all this was nothing more than a disturbance² in the brain caused by the wind in the rigging. No one knew for sure. People who step on to the air one hundred and fifty feet above the ground seldom have much to discuss afterwards.

The tower shifted gently in the wind, but that was okay. There were lots of new designs in this tower. It stored the wind to power its mechanisms³, it bent⁴ rather than broke, it acted more like a tree than a fortress⁵. You could build most of it on the ground and raise it into place in an hour. It was a thing of grace and beauty. And it could send messages up to four times faster than the old towers, thanks to the new shutter⁶ system and the coloured lights.

At least, it would once they had sorted out a few lingering problems . . .

The young man climbed swiftly to the very top of the tower. For most of the way he was in clinging, grey morning mist, and then he was rising through glorious sunlight, the mist spreading below him, all the way to the horizon, like a sea.

He paid the view no attention. He’d never dreamed of flying. He dreamed of mechanisms, of making things work better than they’d ever done before.

Right now, he wanted to find out what was making the new shutter array stick again. He oiled the sliders, checked the tension on the wires, and then swung himself out over fresh air to check the shutters⁷ themselves. It wasn’t what you were supposed to do, but every linesman knew it was the only way to get things done. Anyway, it was perfectly⁸ safe if you—

There was a clink. He looked back and saw the snaphook of his safety rope lying on the walkway, saw the shadow, felt the terrible pain in his fingers, heard the scream and dropped . . .

 . . . like an anchor.

1 sleeting   

下雨夹雪，下冻雨( sleet的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• It was sleeting hard. 雨雪霏霏。
• It is sleeting, ie Sleet is falling. 下着雨夹雪。

2 disturbance   

n.动乱，骚动；打扰，干扰；(身心)失调

参考例句：

• He is suffering an emotional disturbance.他的情绪受到了困扰。
• You can work in here without any disturbance.在这儿你可不受任何干扰地工作。

3 mechanisms   

n.机械( mechanism的名词复数 )；机械装置；[生物学] 机制；机械作用

参考例句：

• The research will provide direct insight into molecular mechanisms. 这项研究将使人能够直接地了解分子的机理。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He explained how the two mechanisms worked. 他解释这两台机械装置是如何工作的。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 bent   

n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的

参考例句：

• He was fully bent upon the project.他一心扑在这项计划上。
• We bent over backward to help them.我们尽了最大努力帮助他们。

5 fortress   

n.堡垒，防御工事

参考例句：

• They made an attempt on a fortress.他们试图夺取这一要塞。
• The soldier scaled the wall of the fortress by turret.士兵通过塔车攀登上了要塞的城墙。

6 shutter   

n.百叶窗；(照相机)快门；关闭装置

参考例句：

• The camera has a shutter speed of one-sixtieth of a second.这架照像机的快门速度达六十分之一秒。
• The shutter rattled in the wind.百叶窗在风中发出嘎嘎声。

7 shutters   

百叶窗( shutter的名词复数 )； （照相机的）快门

参考例句：

• The shop-front is fitted with rolling shutters. 那商店的店门装有卷门。
• The shutters thumped the wall in the wind. 在风中百叶窗砰砰地碰在墙上。

8 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。