CHAPTER XIII.

 He got it out and balanced it gingerly in his hand. Now he had something else to work on! It was the weapon, of course. It had been used on him and then hidden behind the screen.

 

It was a good place to hide it. The screens never wore out or needed adjustment, and the cleaning robots that came out of the wall never cleaned there. The police should have found it, but they hadn't looked. He smiled bitterly. They weren't interested in solving crimes—merely in ameliorating the consequences.

 

Though the police had failed, he hadn't. It could be traced¹ back to the man who owned it, and that person would have information. He turned the retro gun over slowly; it was just a gun; there were countless² others like it.

 

He finished dressing³ and dropped the gun in his pocket. He went outside and looked across the court. He hesitated and then walked over and knocked.

 

"Occupied," said the door. "But the occupant is out. No definite time of return stated, but she will be back this evening. Is there any message?"

 

"No message," he said. "I'll call back when she's home."

 

He hoped she wouldn't refuse to speak to him. She'd been away from retro-therapy longer than he and possibly had developed her own leads—very likely she was investigating some of them now. Whatever she found would help him, and vice⁴ versa. The man who'd retroed her had done the same to him. They were approaching the problem from different angles⁵. Between the two of them, they should come up with the correct solution.

 

He walked away from the Shelters and caught the belt to the center of town; the journey didn't take long. He stepped off, and wandered in the bright sunshine, not quite aimlessly. At length he found an Electronic Arms store, and went inside.

1 traced   

描绘( trace的过去式和过去分词 )； 追溯； 发现； 跟踪

参考例句：

• We finally traced him to an address in Chicago. 我们终于追查到他在芝加哥的一个地址。
• The names were traced out in stark black print. 这些名字是用醒目的黑体字印出的。

2 countless   

adj.无数的，多得不计其数的

参考例句：

• In the war countless innocent people lost their lives.在这场战争中无数无辜的人丧失了性命。
• I've told you countless times.我已经告诉你无数遍了。

3 dressing   

n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料

参考例句：

• Don't spend such a lot of time in dressing yourself.别花那么多时间来打扮自己。
• The children enjoy dressing up in mother's old clothes.孩子们喜欢穿上妈妈旧时的衣服玩。

4 vice   

n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的

参考例句：

• He guarded himself against vice.他避免染上坏习惯。
• They are sunk in the depth of vice.他们堕入了罪恶的深渊。

5 angles   

n.角( angle的名词复数 )；[比喻]（考虑、问题的）角度；观点；轮廓鲜明的突出体

参考例句：

• She angles her reports to suit the people she is speaking to. 她带着一定的倾向性作报告以迎合她的听众。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Angles of less than 90 degrees are called acute angles. 小于90度的角叫锐角。 来自《简明英汉词典》