DAY 6 10:12 P.M.
Charley went back to bed right after dinner. He was still asleep at ten that night, when Mae and I were preparing to go out again. We were wearing down vests and jackets, because it was going to be cold. We needed a third person to go with us. Ricky said he had to wait for Julia, who was flying in any minute now; that was fine with me, I didn’t want him anyway. Vince was off somewhere watching TV and drinking beer. That left Bobby. Bobby didn’t want to go, but Mae shamed him into coming. There was a question about how the three of us would get around, since it was possible the swarm2 hiding place might be some distance away, perhaps even several miles. We still had David’s dirt bike, but that could only sit two. It turned out Vince had an ATV in the shed. I went to see him in the power unit to ask him for the key.
“Don’t need a key,” he said. He was sitting on a couch, watching Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. I heard Regis say, “Final answer?”
“I said, What do you mean?”
“Key’s in it,” Vince said. “Always there.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “You mean there was a vehicle in the shed with keys in it all the time?”
“Sure.” On the TV, I heard, “For four thousand dollars, what is the name of the smallest state in Europe?”
“Why didn’t anybody tell me?” I said, starting to get mad.
Vince shrugged3. “Couldn’t say. Nobody asked me.”
I stalked back to the main unit. “Where the hell is Ricky?”
“He’s on the phone,” Bobby said. “Talking to the brass4 back in the Valley.”
Mae said, “Take it easy.”
“I’m taking it easy,” I said. “Which phone? In the main unit?”
“Jack1.” She put her hands on my shoulders, stopped me. “It’s after ten o’clock. Forget it.”
“Forget it? He could have gotten us killed.”
“And right now we have work to do.”
I looked at her calm face, her steady expression. I thought of the swift way she had eviscerated5 the rabbit.
“You’re right,” I said.
“Good,” she said, turning away. “Now I think as soon as we get some backpacks, we’ll be ready to go.”
There was a reason, I thought, why Mae never lost an argument. I went to the storage cupboard and got out three packs. I threw one to Bobby.
“Let’s hit the road,” I said.
It was a clear night, filled with stars. We walked in darkness toward the storage shed, a dark outline against the dark sky. I pushed the dirt bike along. None of us talked for a while. Finally, Bobby said, “We’re going to need lights.”
“We’re going to need a lot of things,” Mae said. “I made a list.” We came to the storage shed, and pushed open the door. I saw Bobby hang back in the darkness. I went in, and fumbled6 for the lights. I flicked7 them on. The interior of the storage shed appeared just as we had left it. Mae unzipped her backpack and began walking down the row of shelves. “We need portable lights ... ignition fuses ... flares9 ... oxygen ...”
Bobby said, “Oxygen? Really?”
“If this site is underground, yes, we may ... and we need thermite.”
I said, “Rosie had it. Maybe she set it down when she ... I’ll look.” I went into the next room. The box of thermite tubes lay overturned on the floor, the tubes nearby. Rosie must have dropped it when she ran. I wondered if she had had any in her hand. I looked over at her body by the door.
Rosie’s body was gone.
“Jesus.”
Bobby came running in. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
I pointed10 to the door. “Rosie’s gone.”
“What do you mean, gone?”
I looked at him. “Gone, Bobby. The body was here before and now it’s gone.”
“How can that be? An animal?”
“I don’t know.” I went over and crouched11 down at the spot where her body had been. When I had last seen her, five or six hours ago, her body had been covered with a milky12 secretion13. Some of that secretion covered the floor, too. It looked exactly like thick, dried milk. Up where her head had been, the secretion was smooth and undisturbed. But closer to the door, it appeared to have been scraped. There were streaks14 in the coating. “It looks like she was dragged out,” Bobby said.
“Yes.”
I peered closely at the secretion, looking for footprints. A coyote alone couldn’t have dragged her; a pack of animals would be needed to pull her out the door. They would surely leave marks. I saw none.
I got up and walked to the door. Bobby stood beside me, looking out into the darkness.
“You see anything?” he said.
“No.”
I returned to Mae. She had found everything. She had coiled magnesium15 fuse. She had flare8 guns. She had portable halogen flashlights. She had head-mounted lamps with big elastic16 bands. She had small binoculars17 and night-vision goggles18. She had a field radio. And she had oxygen bottles and clear-plastic gas masks. I was uneasy when I recognized that these were the same plastic masks I had seen on the men in the SSVT van back in California last night, except they weren’t silvered.
And then I thought, Was it only last night? It was. Hardly twenty-four hours had passed.
It felt to me like a month.
Mae was dividing everything into the three backpacks. Watching her, I realized that she was the only one of us with actual field experience. In comparison, we were all stay-at-homes, theoreticians. I was surprised how dependent on her I felt tonight. Bobby hefted the nearest pack and grunted19. “You really think we need all this stuff, Mae?”
“It’s not like you have to carry it; we’re driving. And yes, better safe than sorry.”
“Okay, fine, but I mean—a field radio?”
“You never know.”
“Who you gonna call?”
“The thing is, Bobby,” she said, “if it turns out you need any of this stuff, you really need it.”
“Yeah, but it’s—”
Mae picked up the second backpack, and slung20 it over her shoulder. She handled the weight easily. She looked at Bobby. “You were saying?”
“Never mind.”
I picked up the third backpack. It wasn’t bad. Bobby was complaining because he was scared. It was true that the oxygen bottle was a little larger and heavier than I would have liked, and it fitted awkwardly into the backpack. But Mae insisted we have extra oxygen. Bobby said nervously21, “Extra oxygen? How big do you guys think this hiding place is?”
“I have no idea,” Mae said. “But the most recent swarms22 are much larger.” She went to the sink, and picked up the radiation counter. But when she unplugged it from the wall, she saw the battery was dead. We had to hunt for a new battery, unscrew the case, replace the battery. I was worried the replacement23 would be dead, too. If it was, we were finished.
Mae said, “We better be careful with the night-vision goggles, too. I don’t know how good any of the batteries are for the stuff we have.”
But the counter clicked loudly. The battery indicator24 glowed. “Full power,” she said. “It’ll last four hours.”
“Let’s get started,” I said.
It was 10:43 P.M.
The radiation counter went crazy when we came to the Toyota, clicking so rapidly the sound was continuous. Holding the wand in front of her, Mae left the car, walked into the desert. She turned west and the clicks diminished. She went east and they picked up again. But as she continued east, the clicks slowed. She turned north, and they increased. “North,” she said.
I got on the bike, gunned the engine.
Bobby rumbled25 out of the shed on the All-Terrain26 Vehicle, with its fat rear tires and bicycle handlebars. The ATV looked ungainly but I knew it was probably better suited to night travel in the desert.
Mae got on the back of my bike, leaned over to hold the wand near the ground, and said, “Okay. Let’s go.”
We started off into the desert, under a cloudless night sky.
The headlight on the bike bounced up and down, jerking the shadows on the terrain ahead, making it difficult to see what was coming. The desert that had looked so flat and featureless in daylight was now revealed to have sandy dips, rock-filled beds, and deep arroyos27 that came up without warning. It took all my attention to keep the bike upright—particularly since Mae was continuously calling to me, “Go left ... now right ... now right ... okay, too much, left ...” Sometimes we had to make a full circle until she could be certain of the right path. If anybody followed our track in daylight, they’d think the driver must be drunk, it twisted and turned so much. The bike jumped and swerved28 on rough ground. We were now several miles from the lab, and I was starting to worry. I could hear the counter clicks, and they were becoming less frequent. It was getting hard to distinguish the swarm trail from the background radiation. I didn’t understand why that should happen but there was no question it was. If we didn’t locate the swarm hiding place soon, we’d lose the trail entirely29. Mae was worried, too. She kept bending over closer and closer to the ground, with one hand on the wand and one hand around my waist. And I had to go slower, because the trail was becoming so faint. We lost the trail, found it, went off it again. Under the black canopy30 of stars, we backtracked, turned in circles. I caught myself holding my breath. And at last I was going around and around in the same spot, trying not to feel desperate. I made the circle three times, then four, but to no avail: the counter in Mae’s hand just clicked randomly31. And suddenly it was clear to us that the trail was truly lost. We were out here in the middle of nowhere, driving in circles.
We had lost the trail.
Exhaustion32 hit me suddenly, and hard. I had been running on adrenaline all day and now that I was finally defeated a deep weariness came over my body. My eyes drooped33. I felt as if I could go to sleep standing34 on the bike.
Behind me, Mae sat up and said, “Don’t worry, okay?”
“What do you mean?” I said wearily. “My plan has totally failed, Mae.”
“Maybe not yet,” she said.
Bobby pulled up close to us. “You guys look behind you?” he said.
“Why?”
“Look back,” he said. “Look how far we’ve come.”
I turned and looked over my shoulder. To the south, I saw the bright lights of the fabrication building, surprisingly close. We couldn’t be more than a mile or two away. We must have traveled in a big semicircle, eventually turning back toward our starting point. “That’s weird35.”
Mae had got off the bike, and stepped in front of the headlamp. She was looking at the LCD readout on the counter. She said, “Hmmm.”
Bobby said hopefully, “So, what do you say, Mae? Time to go back?”
“No,” Mae said. “It’s not time to go back. Take a look at this.” Bobby leaned over, and we both looked at the LCD readout. It showed a graph of radiation intensity36, stepping progressively downward, and finally dropping quickly. Bobby frowned. “And this is?”
“Time course of tonight’s readings,” she said. “The machine’s showing us that ever since we started, the intensity of the radiation has declined arithmetically—it’s a straight-line decrease, a staircase, see there? And it’s stayed arithmetic until the last minute or so, when the decrease suddenly became exponential. It just fell to zero.”
“So?” Bobby looked puzzled. “That means what? I don’t get it.”
“I do.” She turned to me, climbed back on the bike. “I think I know what happened. Go forward—slowly.”
I let out the clutch, and rumbled forward. My bouncing headlight showed a slight rise in the desert, scrubby cactus37 ahead ...
“No. Slower, Jack.”
I slowed. Now we were practically going at a walk. I yawned. There was no point in questioning her; she was intense, focused. I was just tired and defeated. We continued up the desert rise until it flattened38, and then the bike began to tilt39 downward—
“Stop.”
I stopped.
Directly ahead, the desert floor abruptly40 ended. I saw blackness beyond.
“Is that a cliff?”
“No. Just a high ridge41.”
I edged the bike forward. The land definitely fell away. Soon we were at the edge and I could get my bearings. We were at the crest42 of a ridge fifteen feet high, which formed one side of a very wide streambed. Directly beneath me I saw smooth river rocks, with occasional boulders43 and clumps44 of scraggly brush that stretched about fifty yards away, to the far side of the riverbed. Beyond the distant bank, the desert was flat again. “I understand now,” I said. “The swarm jumped.”
“Yes,” she said, “it became airborne. And we lost the trail.”
“But then it must have landed somewhere down there,” Bobby said, pointing to the streambed.
“Maybe,” I said. “And maybe not.”
I was thinking it would take us many minutes to find a safe route down. Then we would spend a long time searching among the bushes and rocks of the streambed, before picking up the trail again. It might take hours. We might not find it at all. From our position up here on top of the ridge, we saw the daunting45 expanse of desert stretching out before us. I said, “The swarm could have touched down in the streambed. Or it could have come down just beyond the bed. Or it could have gone quarter mile beyond.” Mae was not discouraged. “Bobby, you stay here,” she said. “You’ll mark the position where it jumped. Jack and I will find a path down, go out into that plain, and run in a straight line east-west until we pick up the trail again. Sooner or later, we’ll find it.”
“Okay,” Bobby said. “Got you.”
“Okay,” I said. We might as well do it. We had nothing to lose. But I had very little confidence we would succeed.
Bobby leaned forward over his ATV. “What’s that?”
“What?”
“An animal. I saw glowing eyes.”
“Where?”
“In that brush over there.” He pointed to the center of the streambed. I frowned. We both had our headlights trained down the ridge. We were lighting46 a fairly large arc of desert. I didn’t see any animals.
“There!” Mae said.
“I don’t see anything.”
She pointed. “It just went behind that juniper bush. See the bush that looks like a pyramid? That has the dead branches on one side?”
“I see it,” I said. “But ...” I didn’t see an animal.
“It’s moving left to right. Wait a minute and it’ll come out again.” We waited, and then I saw a pair of bright green, glowing spots. Close to the ground, moving right. I saw a flash of pale white. And almost immediately I knew that something was wrong. So did Bobby. He twisted his handlebars, moving his headlamp to point directly to the spot. He reached for binoculars.
“That’s not an animal ...” he said.
Moving among the low bushes, we saw more white—flesh white. But we saw only glimpses. And then I saw a flat white surface that I realized with a shock was a human hand, dragging along the ground. A hand with outstretched fingers.
“Jesus,” Bobby said, staring through the binoculars.
“What? What is it?”
“It’s a body being dragged,” he said. And then, in a funny voice, he said, “It’s Rosie.”
收听单词发音 |
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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swarm
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| n.(昆虫)等一大群；vi.成群飞舞；蜂拥而入 | |
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shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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eviscerated
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| v.切除…的内脏( eviscerate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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fumbled
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| （笨拙地）摸索或处理（某事物）( fumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 乱摸，笨拙地弄； 使落下 | |
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7
flicked
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| （尤指用手指或手快速地）轻击( flick的过去式和过去分词 )； （用…）轻挥； （快速地）按开关； 向…笑了一下（或瞥了一眼等） | |
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flare
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| v.闪耀，闪烁；n.潮红；突发 | |
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flares
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| n.喇叭裤v.（使）闪耀( flare的第三人称单数 )；（使）（船舷）外倾；（使）鼻孔张大；（使）（衣裙、酒杯等）呈喇叭形展开 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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crouched
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| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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milky
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| adj.牛奶的，多奶的；乳白色的 | |
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secretion
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| n.分泌 | |
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streaks
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| n.（与周围有所不同的）条纹( streak的名词复数 )；（通常指不好的）特征（倾向）；（不断经历成功或失败的）一段时期v.快速移动( streak的第三人称单数 )；使布满条纹 | |
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magnesium
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| n.镁 | |
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elastic
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| n.橡皮圈，松紧带；adj.有弹性的；灵活的 | |
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binoculars
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| n.双筒望远镜 | |
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goggles
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| n.护目镜 | |
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grunted
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| （猪等）作呼噜声( grunt的过去式和过去分词 )； （指人）发出类似的哼声； 咕哝着说 | |
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slung
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| 抛( sling的过去式和过去分词 )； 吊挂； 遣送； 押往 | |
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nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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swarms
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| 蜂群，一大群( swarm的名词复数 ) | |
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replacement
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| n.取代，替换，交换；替代品，代用品 | |
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24
indicator
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| n.指标；指示物，指示者；指示器 | |
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25
rumbled
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| 发出隆隆声，发出辘辘声( rumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 轰鸣着缓慢行进； 发现…的真相； 看穿（阴谋） | |
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terrain
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| n.地面，地形，地图 | |
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arroyos
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| n.（美洲沙漠中的）旱谷，干涸沟壑( arroyo的名词复数 )；干谷 | |
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swerved
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| v.（使）改变方向，改变目的( swerve的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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29
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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canopy
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| n.天篷，遮篷 | |
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randomly
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| adv.随便地，未加计划地 | |
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32
exhaustion
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| n.耗尽枯竭，疲惫，筋疲力尽，竭尽，详尽无遗的论述 | |
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33
drooped
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| 弯曲或下垂，发蔫( droop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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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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weird
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| adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的 | |
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intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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cactus
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| n.仙人掌 | |
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38
flattened
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| [医]（水）平扁的，弄平的 | |
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tilt
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| v.(使)倾侧；(使)倾斜；n.倾侧；倾斜 | |
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abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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ridge
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| n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭 | |
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crest
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| n.顶点；饰章；羽冠；vt.达到顶点；vi.形成浪尖 | |
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43
boulders
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| n.卵石( boulder的名词复数 )；巨砾；（受水或天气侵蚀而成的）巨石；漂砾 | |
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44
clumps
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| n.（树、灌木、植物等的）丛、簇( clump的名词复数 )；（土、泥等）团；块；笨重的脚步声v.（树、灌木、植物等的）丛、簇( clump的第三人称单数 )；（土、泥等）团；块；笨重的脚步声 | |
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45
daunting
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| adj.使人畏缩的 | |
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46
lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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