CHAPTER XXII

 It was autumn again, the second autumn since he had landed from the City of Asgard at Storisende and taken the Countess Dorothy home to Litchfield. Again the fields were bare and brown; all up and down the Gordon Valley the melons were harvested, and the wine-pressing was ready to start.

 

The house was crowded today. All top-level Litchfield seemed to have turned out, and there were guests from Storisende, and even a few who had made the trip from Koshchei to be there, Simon Macquarte, the president of Koshchei Tech; Conn would always remember him in the screen threatening a whole planet with devastation¹. Luther Chen-Wong, the chief executive of Koshchei Colony. Clyde Nichols, the president of Koshchei Airlines.

 

He almost bumped into Yves Jacquemont, coming in from the hall. Jacquemont's beard had been trimmed down to a small imperial, and he was wearing the uniform of Trisystem & Interstellar Spacelines, nothing at all like a Federation[Pg 188] Space Navy uniform. He was laughing about something; he threw an arm over Conn's shoulder, and they went into the front parlor² together.

 

"Oh, Gehenna of a big crop!" he heard Klem Zareff's voice, chuckling³ happily, above the babble⁴ in the room. "You wouldn't believe it. Why, we had to build six new vats⁵...."

 

The thin-faced, white-haired man in the chair beside him said something. Mike Shanlee and Klem Zareff, old enemies, were now fast friends. Shanlee had come in from Force Command with Conn that morning. He had stayed on Poictesme as nominal⁶ head of Project Merlin, and intended to remain there for the rest of his life.

 

"Oh, there aren't any more farm-tramps," Zareff replied. "Everybody's getting factory jobs off-planet. I have an awful time getting help, and what I can get won't work for less than ten sols a day. Why, they're even organizing a union...."

 

There were feminine shrieks⁷ from across the room, and a stampede. The housecleaning-robot had come in, running its vacuum-cleaning hose around and brandishing⁸ its mops. He saw his mother break away from a group of older ladies and shout:

 

"Oscar!"

 

The robot stopped dead. "Yash'm?" a voice came out of it, Sheshan-accented.

 

"Go out!" his mother commanded. "Go to kitchen. Stay there."

 

"Yash'm." The robot floated out the door to the hall.

 

His mother rejoined her friends. Probably telling them, for the thousandth time, that her boy Conn fixed⁹ up the sound receptors and voice for Oscar. Or harping¹⁰ on how Conn had been telling everybody the truth, all along, and people wouldn't believe him.

 

Sylvie came up to him and caught his arm. "Come on, Conn; they're going to start the rehearsal¹¹," she said.

 

"They've been going to start it for an hour," her father told her.

 

"Well, they're really going to start it now."[Pg 189]

 

"All right. You two run along," Yves Jacquemont said. "And you'd better start rehearsing for your own wedding before long. The Genji will be ready to hyper out in another month, and I don't want to be at space when my only daughter gets married."

 

They pushed through the crowd, dragging Conn's mother with them toward the big living room beyond. On the way, Mrs. Maxwell stopped to try to drag Judge Ledue out of a chair.

 

"Judge, the rehearsal is starting; they can't do it without you."

 

Ledue clung to his chair. "They daren't do it with me, Mrs. Maxwell. If I get into it, it won't be a rehearsal; they'll be really married, and then there won't be any point in having a wedding tomorrow."

 

"Oh, Morgan!" Conn called across the room to Gatworth. "You've just been appointed temporary judge for the wedding rehearsal!"

 

There was a big crowd around Wade¹² Lucas, in the next room; he was telling them about the voyage to Baldur, from which he had returned, and the one to Irminsul, with a cargo¹³ of arms, machine tools and contragravity vehicles, on which he and his bride would go for their honeymoon¹⁴. There was another crowd around Flora¹⁵; she was telling them about the new fashions on Baldur, which had been brought back on the Ouroboros II.

 

"Where's your father?" his mother was asking him. "He has to rehearse giving the bride away."

 

"Probably in his office. I'll go get him."

 

"You'll get into an argument with somebody and forget to come back," his mother said. "Sylvie, you go with him, and bring both of them back."

 

"When'll we have our wedding, Sylvie?" he asked as they went off together.

 

"Well, before Dad goes to Aditya with the Genji. That'll have to be in a month."

 

"Two weeks? That ought to be plenty of time to get ready, and let people recover from this one."[Pg 190]

 

"Everybody's here now. Let's make it a double wedding tomorrow," she suggested.

 

He hadn't been prepared for that. "Well, I hadn't expected.... Sure! Good idea!" he agreed.

 

There was a crowd in Rodney Maxwell's little office—Fawzi and some others, and some Storisende people. One of the latter was vociferating:

 

"Jake Vyckhoven's no good, and he never was any good!"

 

"Well, you have to admit, if he hadn't ordered the banks and the Stock Exchange closed that time, we'd have had a horrible panic—"

 

"Admit nothing of the kind! Jethro, you were there, you'll bear me out. About a dozen of us were at Executive Palace for hours, bullying¹⁶ him into that. Why, we almost had to twist one of his arms while he was signing the order with the other. And now he has the gall¹⁷ to run for re-election on the strength of his heroic actions at the time of the Travis Hoax¹⁸!"

 

"I know who we want for President!" another Storisende man exclaimed. "He's right here in this room!"

 

"Yes!" Rodney Maxwell almost bellowed¹⁹, before the other man could say anything else. "Here he is!" He grabbed Kurt Fawzi by the arm and yanked him to his feet. "Here's the man most responsible for finding Merlin; the man who first suggested sending my son Conn to Terra to school, the man who, more than anyone else, devoted²⁰ his life to the search for Merlin, the man whose inextinguishable faith and indomitable courage kept that search alive through its darkest hours. Everybody, get a drink; a toast to our next President, Kurt Fawzi!"

 

Conn was sure he heard his father add: "Ghu, what a narrow escape!"

 

Then he and Sylvie began chanting, in unison²¹, "We want Fawzi! We want Fawzi!"[Pg 191]

 

1 devastation   

n.毁坏；荒废；极度震惊或悲伤

参考例句：

• The bomb caused widespread devastation. 炸弹造成大面积破坏。
• There was devastation on every side. 到处都是破坏的创伤。 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 parlor   

n.店铺，营业室；会客室，客厅

参考例句：

• She was lying on a small settee in the parlor.她躺在客厅的一张小长椅上。
• Is there a pizza parlor in the neighborhood?附近有没有比萨店？

3 chuckling   

轻声地笑( chuckle的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• I could hear him chuckling to himself as he read his book. 他看书时，我能听见他的轻声发笑。
• He couldn't help chuckling aloud. 他忍不住的笑了出来。 来自汉英文学 - 骆驼祥子

4 babble   

v.含糊不清地说，胡言乱语地说，儿语

参考例句：

• No one could understand the little baby's babble. 没人能听懂这个小婴孩的话。
• The babble of voices in the next compartment annoyed all of us.隔壁的车厢隔间里不间歇的嘈杂谈话声让我们都很气恼。

5 vats   

varieties 变化，多样性，种类

参考例句：

• Fixed rare issue with getting stuck in VATS mode. 修正了极少出现的VATS模式卡住的问题。
• Objective To summarize the experience of VATS clinic application. 目的总结电视胸腔镜手术(vats)胸外科疾病治疗中的临床应用经验。

6 nominal   

adj.名义上的；(金额、租金)微不足道的

参考例句：

• The king was only the nominal head of the state. 国王只是这个国家名义上的元首。
• The charge of the box lunch was nominal.午餐盒饭收费很少。

7 shrieks   

n.尖叫声( shriek的名词复数 )v.尖叫( shriek的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• shrieks of fiendish laughter 恶魔般的尖笑声
• For years, from newspapers, broadcasts, the stages and at meetings, we had heard nothing but grandiloquent rhetoric delivered with shouts and shrieks that deafened the ears. 多少年来， 报纸上， 广播里， 舞台上， 会场上的声嘶力竭，装腔做态的高调搞得我们震耳欲聋。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

8 brandishing   

v.挥舞( brandish的现在分词 )；炫耀

参考例句：

• The horseman came up to Robin Hood, brandishing his sword. 那个骑士挥舞着剑，来到罗宾汉面前。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He appeared in the lounge brandishing a knife. 他挥舞着一把小刀，出现在休息室里。 来自辞典例句

9 fixed   

adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的

参考例句：

• Have you two fixed on a date for the wedding yet?你们俩选定婚期了吗？
• Once the aim is fixed,we should not change it arbitrarily.目标一旦确定，我们就不应该随意改变。

10 harping   

n.反复述说

参考例句：

• Don't keep harping on like that. 别那样唠叨个没完。
• You're always harping on the samestring. 你总是老调重弹。

11 rehearsal   

n.排练，排演；练习

参考例句：

• I want to play you a recording of the rehearsal.我想给你放一下彩排的录像。
• You can sharpen your skills with rehearsal.排练可以让技巧更加纯熟。

12 wade   

v.跋涉，涉水；n.跋涉

参考例句：

• We had to wade through the river to the opposite bank.我们只好涉水过河到对岸。
• We cannot but wade across the river.我们只好趟水过去。

13 cargo   

n.(一只船或一架飞机运载的)货物

参考例句：

• The ship has a cargo of about 200 ton.这条船大约有200吨的货物。
• A lot of people discharged the cargo from a ship.许多人从船上卸下货物。

14 honeymoon   

n.蜜月（假期）；vi.度蜜月

参考例句：

• While on honeymoon in Bali,she learned to scuba dive.她在巴厘岛度蜜月时学会了带水肺潜水。
• The happy pair are leaving for their honeymoon.这幸福的一对就要去度蜜月了。

15 flora   

n.(某一地区的)植物群

参考例句：

• The subtropical island has a remarkably rich native flora.这个亚热带岛屿有相当丰富的乡土植物种类。
• All flora need water and light.一切草木都需要水和阳光。

16 bullying   

v.恐吓，威逼( bully的现在分词 )；豪；跋扈

参考例句：

• Many cases of bullying go unreported . 很多恐吓案件都没有人告发。
• All cases of bullying will be severely dealt with. 所有以大欺小的情况都将受到严肃处理。 来自《简明英汉词典》

17 gall   

v.使烦恼，使焦躁，难堪；n.磨难

参考例句：

• It galled him to have to ask for a loan.必须向人借钱使他感到难堪。
• No gall,no glory.没有磨难，何来荣耀。

18 hoax   

v.欺骗，哄骗，愚弄；n.愚弄人，恶作剧

参考例句：

• They were the victims of a cruel hoax.他们是一个残忍恶作剧的受害者。
• They hoax him out of his money.他们骗去他的钱。

19 bellowed   

v.发出吼叫声，咆哮（尤指因痛苦）( bellow的过去式和过去分词 )；（愤怒地）说出（某事），大叫

参考例句：

• They bellowed at her to stop. 他们吼叫着让她停下。
• He bellowed with pain when the tooth was pulled out. 当牙齿被拔掉时，他痛得大叫。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

20 devoted   

adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的

参考例句：

• He devoted his life to the educational cause of the motherland.他为祖国的教育事业贡献了一生。
• We devoted a lengthy and full discussion to this topic.我们对这个题目进行了长时间的充分讨论。

21 unison   

n.步调一致，行动一致

参考例句：

• The governments acted in unison to combat terrorism.这些国家的政府一致行动对付恐怖主义。
• My feelings are in unison with yours.我的感情与你的感情是一致的。