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1、【国外英文文学】All Day SeptemberThe meteor, a pebble, a little larger than a match head, traveledthrough space and time since it came into being. The light from the star that died when the meteor was created fell on Earth before the first lungfish ventured from the sea.In its last instant, the meteor fell
2、on the Moon. It was impeded byEvans tractor.It drilled a small, neat hole through the casing of the steam turbine,and volitized upon striking the blades. Portions of the turbine alsovolitized; idling at eight thousand RPM, it became unstable. The shafttried to tie itself into a knot, and the blades,
3、 damaged and undamagedwere spit through the casing. The turbine again reached a stable state,that is, stopped. Permanently stopped.It was two days to sunrise, where Evans stood.It was just before sunset on a spring evening in September in Sydney.The shadow line between day and night could be seen fr
4、om the Moon to bedrifting across Australia.Evans, who had no watch, thought of the time as a quarter afterAustralia.Evans was a prospector, and like all prospectors, a sort of jackknifegeologist, selenologist, rather. His tractor and equipment cost twohundred and fifty thousand dollars. Fifty thousa
5、nd was paid for. Therest was promissory notes and grubstake shares. When he was broke, whichwas usually, he used his tractor to haul uranium ore and metallic sodiumfrom the mines at Potters dike to Williamson Town, where the rocketslanded.When he was flush, he would prospect for a couple of weeks. O
6、nce hefollowed a stampede to Yellow Crater, where he thought for a while thathe had a fortune in chromium. The chromite petered out in a month and ahalf, and he was lucky to break even.Evans was about three hundred miles east of Williamson Town, the site ofthe first landing on the Moon.Evans was due
7、 back at Williamson Town at about sunset, that is, in aboutsixteen days. When he saw the wrecked turbine, he knew that he wouldntmake it. By careful rationing, he could probably stretch his food out tomore than a month. His drinking water-kept separate from the water inthe reactor-might conceivably
8、last just as long. But his oxygen was toocarefully measured; there was a four-day reserve. By diligentconservation, he might make it last an extra day. Four daysreserve-plus one is five-plus sixteen days normal supply equalstwenty-one days to live.In seventeen days he might be missed, but in sevente
9、en days it would bedark again, and the search for him, if it ever began, could not beginfor thirteen more days. At the earliest it would be eight days too late. * * * * *Well, man, tis a fine spot youre in now, he told himself.Lets find out how bad it is indeed, he answered. He reached for thelight
10、switch and tried to turn it on. The switch was already in the onposition.Batteries must be dead, he told himself.What batteries? he asked. Therere no batteries in here, the powercomes from the generator.Why isnt the generator working, man? he asked.He thought this one out carefully. The generator wa
11、s not turned by themain turbine, but by a small reciprocating engine. The steam, however,came from the same boiler. And the boiler, of course, had emptied itselfthrough the hole in the turbine. And the condenser, of course-The condenser! he shouted.He fumbled for a while, until he found a small flas
12、hlight. By the lightof this, he reinspected the steam system, and found about three gallonsof water frozen in the condenser. The condenser, like all condensers,was a device to convert steam into water, so that it could be reused inthe boiler. This one had a tank and coils of tubing in the center of
13、acurved reflector that was positioned to radiate the heat of the steaminto the cold darkness of space. When the meteor pierced the turbine,the water in the condenser began to boil. This boiling lowered thetemperature, and the condenser demonstrated its efficiency by quicklyfreezing the water in the
14、tank.Evans sealed the turbine from the rest of the steam system by closingthe shut-off valves. If there was any water in the boiler, it wouldoperate the engine that drove the generator. The water would condense inthe condenser, and with a little luck, melt the ice in there. Then, ifthe pump wasnt bl
15、ocked by ice, it would return the water to the boiler.But there was no water in the boiler. Carefully he poured a cup of hisdrinking water into a pipe that led to the boiler, and resealed thepipe. He pulled on a knob marked Nuclear Start/Safety Bypass. Thewater that he had poured into the boiler qui
16、ckly turned into steam, andthe steam turned the generator briefly.Evans watched the lights flicker and go out, and he guessed what thetrouble was.The water, man, he said, there is not enough to melt the ice in thecondenser.He opened the pipe again and poured nearly a half-gallon of water intothe boi
17、ler. It was three days supply of water, if it had been carefullyused. It was one days supply if used wastefully. It was ostentatiousluxury for a man with a months supply of water and twenty-one days tolive.The generator started again, and the lights came on. They flickered asthe boiler pressure bega
18、n to fail, but the steam had melted some of theice in the condenser, and the water pump began to function.Well, man, he breathed, theres a light to die by. * * * * *The sun rose on Williamson Town at about the same time it rose on Evans.It was an incredibly brilliant disk in a black sky. The stars n
19、ext tothe sun shone as brightly as though there were no sun. They might haveappeared to waver slightly, if they were behind outflung corona flares.If they did, no one noticed. No one looked toward the sun without darkfilters.When Director McIlroy came into his office, he found it lighted by therisin
20、g sun. The light was a hot, brilliant white that seemed to piercethe darkest shadows of the room. He moved to the round window, screeninghis eyes from the light, and adjusted the polaroid shade to maximumdensity. The sun became an angry red brown, and the room was dark again.McIlroy decreased the de
21、nsity again until the room was comfortablylighted. The room felt stuffy, so he decided to leave the door to theinner office open.He felt a little guilty about this, because he had ordered that alldoors in the survey building should remain closed except when someonewas passing through them. This was
22、to allow the air-conditioning systemto function properly, and to prevent air loss in case of the highlyimprobable meteor damage. McIlroy thought that on the whole, he wasdisobeying his own orders no more flagrantly than anyone else in thesurvey.McIlroy had no illusions about his ability to lead men.
23、 Or rather, hedid have one illusion; he thought that he was completely unfit as aleader. It was true that his strictest orders were disobeyed withcheerful contempt, but it was also true his mildest requests werecomplied with eagerly and smoothly.Everyone in the survey except McIlroy realized this, a
24、nd even heaccepted this without thinking about it. He had fallen into the habit ofsuggesting mildly anything that he wanted done, and writing orders hedidnt particularly care to have obeyed.For example, because of an order of his stating that there would be noalcoholic beverages within the survey bu
25、ilding, the entire survey wasassured of a constant supply of home-made, but passably good liquor.Even McIlroy enjoyed the surreptitious drinking.Good morning, Mr. McIlroy, said Mrs. Garth, his secretary. Morning toMrs. Garth was simply the first four hours after waking.Good morning indeed, answered
26、McIlroy. Morning to him had no meaningat all, but he thought in the strictest sense that it would be morningon the Moon for another week.Has the power crew set up the solar furnace? he asked. The solarfurnace was a rough parabola of mirrors used to focus the suns heat onanything that it was desirabl
27、e to heat. It was used mostly, from sun-upto sun-down, to supplement the nuclear power plant.They went out about an hour ago, she answered, I suppose thats whatthey were going to do.Very good, whats first on the schedule?A Mr. Phelps to see you, she said.How do you do, Mr. Phelps, McIlroy greeted hi
28、m.Good afternoon, Mr. Phelps replied. Im here representing theMerchants Bank Association.Fine, McIlroy said, I suppose youre here to set up a bank.Thats right, I just got in from Muroc last night, and Ive been goingover the assets of the Survey Credit Association all morning.Ill certainly be glad to
29、 get them off my hands, McIlroy said. I hopetheyre in good order.There doesnt seem to be any profit, Mr. Phelps said.Thats par for a nonprofit organization, said McIlroy. But wereamateurs, and were turning this operation over to professionals. Imsure it will be to everyones satisfaction.I know this
30、seems like a silly question. What day is this?Well, said McIlroy, thats not so silly. I dont know either.Mrs. Garth, he called, what day is this?Why, September, I think, she answered.I mean what _day_.I dont know, Ill call the observatory.There was a pause.They say what day where? she asked.Greenwic
31、h, I guess, our official time is supposed to be Greenwich MeanTime.There was another pause.They say its September fourth, one thirty A.M.Well, there you are, laughed McIlroy, it isnt that time doesnt meananything here, it just doesnt mean the same thing.Mr. Phelps joined the laughter. Bankers hours
32、dont mean much, at anyrate, he said. * * * * *The power crew was having trouble with the solar furnace. Three of thenine banks of mirrors would not respond to the electric controls, andone bank moved so jerkily that it could not be focused, and itthreatened to tear several of the mirrors loose.What
33、happened here? Spotty Cade, one of the electrical techniciansasked his foreman, Cowalczk, over the intercommunications radio. Ivegot about a hundred pinholes in the cables out here. Its no wonder theydont work.Meteor shower, Cowalczk answered, and thats not half of it. Walkersays hes got a half doze
34、n mirrors cracked or pitted, and Hoffman onbank three wants you to replace a servo motor. He says the bearing washit.When did it happen? Cade wanted to know.Must have been last night, at least two or three days ago. All of emtoo small for Radar to pick up, and not enough for Seismo to get arumble.So
35、unds pretty bad.Could have been worse, said Cowalczk.Hows that?Wasnt anybody out in it.Hey, Chuck, another technician, Lehman, broke in, you could maybe gethurt that way.I doubt it, Cowalczk answered, most of these were pinhead size, andthey wouldnt go through a suit.It would take a pretty big one t
36、o damage a servo bearing, Cadecommented.That could hurt, Cowalczk admitted, but there was only one of them.You mean only one hit our gear, Lehman said. How many missed?Nobody answered. They could all see the Moon under their feet. Smallcraters overlapped and touched each other. There was-except in t
37、heplaces that men had obscured them with footprints-not a square footthat didnt contain a crater at least ten inches across, there was not asquare inch without its half-inch crater. Nearly all of these had beenmade millions of years ago, but here and there, the rim of a cratercovered part of a footp
38、rint, clear evidence that it was a recent one.After the sun rose, Evans returned to the lava cave that he had beenexploring when the meteor hit. Inside, he lifted his filter visor, andfound that the light reflected from the small ray that peered into thecave door lighted the cave adequately. He tapp
39、ed loose some whitecrystals on the cave wall with his geologists hammer, and put them intoa collectors bag.A few mineral specimens would give us something to think about, man.These crystals, he said, look a little like zeolites, but that cantbe, zeolites need water to form, and theres no water on th
40、e Moon.He chipped a number of other crystals loose and put them in bags. One ofthem he found in a dark crevice had a hexagonal shape that puzzled him.One at a time, back in the tractor, he took the crystals out of the bagsand analyzed them as well as he could without using a flame which wouldwaste o
41、xygen. The ones that looked like zeolites were zeolites, allright, or something very much like it. One of the crystals that hethought was quartz turned out to be calcite, and one of the ones that hewas sure could be nothing but calcite was actually potassium nitrate.Well, now, he said, its probably
42、the largest natural crystal ofpotassium nitrate that anyone has ever seen. Man, its a full inchacross.All of these needed water to form, and their existence on the Moonpuzzled him for a while. Then he opened the bag that had contained theunusual hexagonal crystals, and the puzzle resolved itself. Th
43、ere wasnothing in the bag but a few drops of water. What he had taken to be atype of rock was ice, frozen in a niche that had never been warmed bythe sun. * * * * *The sun rose to the meridian slowly. It was a week after sunrise. Thestars shone coldly, and wheeled in their slow course with the sun.
44、OnlyEarth remained in the same spot in the black sky. The shadow line creptaround until Earth was nearly dark, and then the rim of light appearedon the opposite side. For a while Earth was a dark disk in a thin halo,and then the light came to be a crescent, and the line of dawn began tomove around E
45、arth. The continents drifted across the dark disk and intothe crescent. The people on Earth saw the full moon set about the sametime that the sun rose. * * * * *Nickel Jones was the captain of a supply rocket. He made trips from andto the Moon about once a month, carrying supplies in and metal and o
46、resout. At this time he was visiting with his old friend McIlroy.I swear, Mac, said Jones, another season like this, and Im goingback to mining.I thought you were doing pretty well, said McIlroy, as he poured twodrinks from a bottle of Scotch that Jones had brought him.Oh, the money I like, but I will say that Id have more if I didnthave to fight the union and the Lunar Trade Commission.McIlroy had heard all of this before. Hows that? he asked politely.