Once the mulefa began to build the platform for Mary, they worked quickly and well. She enjoyed watching them, because they could discuss without quarreling and cooperate without getting in each other's way, and because their techniques of splitting and cutting and joining wood were so elegant and effective.
Within two days the observation platform was designed and built and lifted into place. It was firm and spacious1 and comfortable, and when she had climbed up to it, she was as happy, in one way, as she had ever been. That one way was physically2. In the dense3 green of the canopy4, with the rich blue of the sky between the leaves; with a breeze keeping her skin cool, and the faint scent5 of the flowers delighting her whenever she sensed it; with the rustle6 of the leaves, the song of the hundreds of birds, and the distant murmur7 of the waves on the seashore, all her senses were lulled8 and nurtured9, and if she could have stopped thinking, she would have been entirely10 lapped in bliss11.
But of course thinking was what she was there for.
And when she looked through her spyglass and saw the relentless12 outward drift of the sraf, the shadow particles, it seemed to her as if happiness and life and hope were drifting away with them. She could find no explanation at all.
Three hundred years, the mulefa had said: that was how long the trees had been failing. Given that the shadow particles passed through all the worlds alike, presumably the same thing was happening in her universe, too, and in every other one. Three hundred years ago, the Royal Society was set up: the first true scientific society in her world. Newton was making his discoveries about optics and gravitation.
Three hundred years ago in Lyra's world, someone invented the alethiometer.
At the same time in that strange world through which she'd come to get here, the subtle knife was invented.
She lay back on the planks13, feeling the platform move in a very slight, very slow rhythm as the great tree swayed in the sea breeze. Holding the spyglass to her eye, she watched the myriad14 tiny sparkles drift through the leaves, past the open mouths of the blossoms, through the massive boughs15, moving against the wind, in a slow, deliberate current that looked all but conscious.
What had happened three hundred years ago? Was it the cause of the Dust current, or was it the other way around? Or were they both the results of a different cause altogether? Or were they simply not connected at all?
The drift was mesmerizing16. How easy it would be to fall into a trance, and let her mind drift away with the floating particles...
Before she knew what she was doing, and because her body was lulled, that was exactly what happened. She suddenly snapped awake to find herself outside her body, and she panicked.
She was a little way above the platform, and a few feet off among the branches. And something had happened to the Dust wind: instead of that slow drift, it was racing18 like a river in flood. Had it sped up, or was time moving differently for her, now that she was outside her body? Either way she was conscious of the most horrible danger, because the flood was threatening to sweep her loose completely, and it was immense.
She flung out her arms to seize hold of anything solid, but she had no arms. Nothing connected. Now she was almost over that abominable19 drop, and her body was farther and farther from reach, sleeping so hoggishly20 below her. She tried to shout and wake herself up: not a sound. The body slumbered21 on, and the self that observed was being borne away out of the canopy of leaves altogether and into the open sky.
And no matter how she struggled, she could make no headway. The force that carried her out was as smooth and powerful as water pouring over a weir23; the particles of Dust were streaming along as if they, too, were pouring over some invisible edge.
And carrying her away from her body.
She flung a mental lifeline to that physical self, and tried to recall the feeling of being in it: all the sensations that made up being alive. The exact touch of her friend Atal's soft-tipped trunk caressing24 her neck. The taste of bacon and eggs. The triumphant25 strain in her muscles as she pulled herself up a rock face. The delicate dancing of her fingers on a computer keyboard. The smell of roasting coffee. The warmth of her bed on a winter night.
And gradually she stopped moving; the lifeline held fast, and she felt the weight and strength of the current pushing against her as she hung there in the sky.
And then a strange thing happened. Little by little (as she reinforced those sense-memories, adding others, tasting an iced margarita in California, sitting under the lemon trees outside a restaurant in Lisbon, scraping the frost off the windshield of her car), she felt the Dust wind easing. The pressure was lessening26.
But only on her: all around, above and below, the great flood was streaming as fast as ever. Somehow there was a little patch of stillness around her, where the particles were resisting the flow.
They were conscious! They felt her anxiety and responded to it. And they began to carry her back to her deserted27 body, and when she was close enough to see it once more, so heavy, so warm, so safe, a silent sob28 convulsed her heart.
And then she sank back into her body and awoke.
She took in a shuddering29 deep breath. She pressed her hands and her legs against the rough planks of the platform, and having a minute ago nearly gone mad with fear, she was now suffused30 with a deep, slow ecstasy31 at being one with her body and the earth and everything that was matter.
Finally she sat up and tried to take stock. Her fingers found the spyglass, and she held it to her eye, supporting one trembling hand with the other. There was no doubt about it: that slow sky-wide drift had become a flood. There was nothing to hear and nothing to feel, and without the spyglass, nothing to see, but even when she took the glass from her eye, the sense of that swift, silent inundation32 remained vividly33, together with something she hadn't noticed in the terror of being outside her body: the profound, helpless regret that was abroad in the air.
The shadow particles knew what was happening and were sorrowful.
And she herself was partly shadow matter. Part of her was subject to this tide that was moving through the cosmos34. And so were the mulefa, and so were human beings in every world, and every kind of conscious creature, wherever they were.
And unless she found out what was happening, they might all find themselves drifting away to oblivion, everyone.
Suddenly she longed for the earth again. She put the spyglass in her pocket and began the long climb down to the ground.
Father Gomez stepped through the window as the evening light lengthened35 and mellowed36. He saw the great stands of wheel trees and the roads lacing through the prairie, just as Mary had done from the same spot sometime before. But the air was free of haze37, for it had rained a little earlier, and he could see farther than she had; in particular, he could see the glimmer38 of a distant sea and some flickering39 white shapes that might be sails.
He lifted the rucksack higher on his shoulders and turned toward them to see what he could find. In the calm of the long evening, it was pleasant to walk on this smooth road, with the sound of some cicada-like creatures in the long grass and the setting sun warm in his face. The air was fresh, too, clear and sweet and entirely free of the taint40 of naphtha fumes41, kerosene42 fumes, whatever they were, which had lain so heavily on the air in one of the worlds he'd passed through: the world his target, the tempter herself, belonged to.
He came out at sunset on a little headland beside a shallow bay. If they had tides in this sea, the tide was high, because there was only a narrow fringe of soft white sand above the water.
And floating in the calm bay were a dozen or more. Father Gomez had to stop and think carefully. A dozen or more enormous snow-white birds, each the size of a rowboat, with long, straight wings that trailed on the water behind them: very long wings, at least two yards in length. Were they birds? They had feathers, and heads and beaks43 not unlike swans', but those wings were situated45 one in front of the other, surely...
Suddenly they saw him. Heads turned with a snap, and at once all those wings were raised high, exactly like the sails of a yacht, and they all leaned in with the breeze, making for the shore.
Father Gomez was impressed by the beauty of those wing-sails, by how they were flexed46 and trimmed so perfectly47, and by the speed of the birds. Then he saw that they were paddling, too: they had legs under the water, placed not fore17 and aft like the wings but side by side, and with the wings and the legs together, they had an extraordinary speed and grace in the water.
As the first one reached the shore, it lumbered22 up through the dry sand, making directly for the priest. It was hissing48 with malice49, stabbing its head forward as it waddled50 heavily up the shore, and the beak44 snapped and clacked. There were teeth in the beak, too, like a series of sharp incurved hooks.
Father Gomez was about a hundred yards from the edge of the water, on a low grassy51 promontory52, and he had plenty of time to put down his rucksack, take out the rifle, load, aim, and fire.
The bird's head exploded in a mist of red and white, and the creature blundered on clumsily for several steps before sinking onto its breast. It didn't die for a minute or more; the legs kicked, the wings rose and fell, and the great bird beat itself around and around in a bloody53 circle, kicking up the rough grass, until a long, bubbling expiration54 from its lungs ended with a coughing spray of red, and it fell still.
The other birds had stopped as soon as the first one fell, and stood watching it, and watching the man, too. There was a quick, ferocious55 intelligence in their eyes. They looked from him to the dead bird, from that to the rifle, from the rifle to his face.
He raised the rifle to his shoulder again and saw them react, shifting backward clumsily, crowding together. They understood.
They were fine, strong creatures, large and broad-backed, like living boats, in fact. If they knew what death was, thought Father Gomez, and if they could see the connection between death and himself, then there was the basis of a fruitful understanding between them. Once they had truly learned to fear him, they would do exactly as he said.
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spacious
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| adj.广阔的，宽敞的 | |
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physically
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| adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律 | |
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dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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canopy
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| n.天篷，遮篷 | |
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scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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rustle
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| v.沙沙作响；偷盗(牛、马等)；n.沙沙声声 | |
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murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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lulled
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| vt.使镇静，使安静（lull的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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nurtured
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| 养育( nurture的过去式和过去分词 )； 培育； 滋长； 助长 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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bliss
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| n.狂喜，福佑，天赐的福 | |
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relentless
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| adj.残酷的，不留情的，无怜悯心的 | |
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planks
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| （厚）木板( plank的名词复数 )； 政纲条目，政策要点 | |
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myriad
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| adj.无数的；n.无数，极大数量 | |
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boughs
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| 大树枝( bough的名词复数 ) | |
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mesmerizing
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| adj.有吸引力的，有魅力的v.使入迷( mesmerize的现在分词 ) | |
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fore
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| adv.在前面；adj.先前的；在前部的；n.前部 | |
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racing
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| n.竞赛，赛马；adj.竞赛用的，赛马用的 | |
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abominable
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| adj.可厌的，令人憎恶的 | |
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hoggishly
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| 贪婪的 | |
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slumbered
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| 微睡，睡眠（slumber的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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lumbered
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| 砍伐（lumber的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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weir
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| n.堰堤，拦河坝 | |
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caressing
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| 爱抚的，表现爱情的，亲切的 | |
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triumphant
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| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
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lessening
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| 减轻，减少，变小 | |
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deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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sob
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| n.空间轨道的轰炸机；呜咽，哭泣 | |
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shuddering
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| v.战栗( shudder的现在分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
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suffused
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| v.（指颜色、水气等）弥漫于，布满( suffuse的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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ecstasy
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| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
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inundation
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| n.the act or fact of overflowing | |
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vividly
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| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
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cosmos
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| n.宇宙；秩序，和谐 | |
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lengthened
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| （时间或空间）延长，伸长( lengthen的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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mellowed
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| （使）成熟( mellow的过去式和过去分词 )； 使色彩更加柔和，使酒更加醇香 | |
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haze
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| n.霾，烟雾；懵懂，迷糊；vi.(over)变模糊 | |
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glimmer
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| v.发出闪烁的微光；n.微光，微弱的闪光 | |
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flickering
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| adj.闪烁的，摇曳的，一闪一闪的 | |
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taint
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| n.污点；感染；腐坏；v.使感染；污染 | |
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fumes
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| n.(强烈而刺激的)气味，气体 | |
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kerosene
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| n.(kerosine)煤油，火油 | |
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beaks
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| n.鸟嘴( beak的名词复数 )；鹰钩嘴；尖鼻子；掌权者 | |
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beak
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| n.鸟嘴，茶壶嘴，钩形鼻 | |
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situated
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| adj.坐落在...的，处于某种境地的 | |
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flexed
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| adj.[医]曲折的，屈曲v.屈曲( flex的过去式和过去分词 )；弯曲；（为准备大干而）显示实力；摩拳擦掌 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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48
hissing
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| n. 发嘶嘶声, 蔑视 动词hiss的现在分词形式 | |
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malice
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| n.恶意，怨恨，蓄意；[律]预谋 | |
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50
waddled
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| v.（像鸭子一样）摇摇摆摆地走( waddle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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51
grassy
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| adj.盖满草的；长满草的 | |
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promontory
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| n.海角；岬 | |
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bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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expiration
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| n.终结，期满，呼气，呼出物 | |
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ferocious
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| adj.凶猛的，残暴的，极度的，十分强烈的 | |
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