羊毛战记 Part 3 Casting Off 19
时间：2024-04-11 08:37:00
（单词翻译:单击）
19
Days Earlier
Juliette sat on the floor of the holding cell, her back against the tall rows of steel bars, a mean worlddisplayed on the wallscreen before her. For the past three days, while she had attempted to teachherself how to be silo sheriff, she had studied this view of the outside and wondered what the fusswas all about.
All she saw out there were dull slopes of ground, these gray hills rising up toward grayer clouds,dappled sunlight straining to illuminate1 the land with little success. Across it all were the terriblewinds, the frenzied2 gusts3 that whipped small clouds of soil into curls and whorls that chased oneanother across a landscape meant only for them.
For Juliette, there was nothing inspiring about the view, nothing that aroused her curiosity. It wasan uninhabitable wasteland devoid4 of anything useful. There were no resources beyond the taintedsteel of crumbling5 towers visible over the hills, steel it would no doubt cost more to reclaim,transport, smelt6, and purify than it would to simply pull new ore from the mines beneath the silo.
The forbidden dreams of the outside world, she saw, were sad and empty. They were deaddreams. The people of the up top who worshipped this view had it all backward—the future wasbelow. That’s where the oil that provided their power came from, the minerals that became anythinguseful, the nitrogen that renewed the soil in the farms. Any who shadowed in the footsteps ofchemistry and metallurgy knew this. Those who read children’s books, those who tried to piecetogether the mystery of a forgotten and unknowable past, remained deluded7.
The only sense she could make of their obsession8 was the open space itself, a feature of thelandscape that frankly9 terrified her. Perhaps it was something wrong with her that she loved the wallsof the silo, loved the dark confines of the down deep. Was everyone else crazy to harbor thoughts ofescape? Or was it something about her?
Juliette looked from the dry hills and the fog of soil to the scattered10 folders12 around her. It was herpredecessor’s unfinished work. A shiny star sat balanced on one of her knees, not yet worn. Therewas a canteen sitting on one of the folders, safe inside a plastic reusable evidence bag. It lookedinnocent enough lying there, having already done its deadly deed. Several numbers written withblack ink on the bag had been crossed out, cases long since solved or abandoned. A new numberstood to one side, a case number matching a folder11 not present, a folder filled with page after page oftestimony and notes dealing13 with the death of a mayor whom everyone had loved — but whomsomeone had killed.
Juliette had seen some of those notes, but only from a distance. They were written in DeputyMarnes’s hand, hands that would not relinquish14 the folder, hands that clutched it madly. She hadtaken peeks15 at the folder from across his desk and had seen the spattered tears that smearedoccasional words and caused the paper to pucker16. The writing amid those drying tears was a scrawl,not as neat as his notes in the other folders. What she could see seemed to crawl angrily across thepage, words slashed17 out violently and replaced. It was the same ferocity Deputy Marnes displayed allthe time now, the boiling anger that had driven Juliette away from her desk and into the holding cellto work. She had found it impossible to sit across from such a broken soul and be expected to think.
The view of the outside world that loomed18 before her, however sad, cast a far less depressingshadow.
It was in the holding cell that she killed time between the static-filled calls on her radio and thejaunts down to some disturbance19. Often, she would simply sit and sort and resort her foldersaccording to perceived severity. She was sheriff of all the silo, a job she had not shadowed for butone she was beginning to understand. One of the last things Mayor Jahns had told her had provedtruer than she could imagine: people were like machines. They broke down. They rattled21. They couldburn you or maim22 you if you weren’t careful. Her job was not only to figure out why this happenedand who was to blame, but also to listen for the signs of it coming. Being sheriff, like being amechanic, was as much the fine art of preventive maintenance as it was the cleaning up after abreakdown.
The folders scattered on the floor were sad cases of the latter: complaints between neighbors thatgot out of hand; reported thefts; the source of a poisonous batch23 of amateur tub gin; several morecases stemming from the trouble this gin had caused. Each folder awaited more findings, morelegwork, more hikes down the twisting stairs to engage in twisted dialogue, sorting lies from truth.
Juliette had read the Law portion of the Pact24 twice in preparation for the job. Lying in her bed inthe down deep, her body exhausted25 from the work of aligning26 the primary generator27, she had studiedthe proper way to file case folders, the danger of disturbing evidence, all of it logical and analogousto some part of her old job as mechanic. Approaching the scene of a crime or an active dispute wasno different from walking into a pump room where something was broken. Someone or somethingwas always at fault. She knew to listen, to observe, to ask questions of anyone who could have hadanything to do with the faulty equipment or the tools they had used, following a chain of events allthe way down to the bedrock itself. There were always confounding variables—you couldn’t adjustone dial without sending something else off-kilter—but Juliette had a skill, a talent, for knowing whatwas important and what could be ignored.
She assumed it was this talent that Deputy Marnes had originally seen in her, this patience andskepticism she employed to ask one more stupid question and stumble eventually onto the answer. Itwas a boost to her confidence that she had helped solve a case before. She hadn’t known it then, hadbeen more concerned with simple justice and her private grief, but that case had been an interviewand job training all in one.
She picked up that very folder from years gone by, a pale red stamp on its cover reading closed inbold block letters. She peeled the tape holding its edges together and flipped28 through the notes. Manyof them were in Holston’s neat hand, a forward- slanting29 print she recognized from just abouteverything on and inside her desk, a desk that had once been his. She read his notes about her,refamiliarized herself with a case that had seemed an obvious murder but had actually been a seriesof unlikely events. Going back through it, something she had avoided until now, gave birth to oldpains. And yet—she could also recall how comforting it had been to distract herself with the clues.
She could remember the rush of a problem solved, the satisfaction of having answers to offset30 thehollowness left by her lover’s death. The process had been similar to fixing a machine on extra shifts.
There was the pain in her body from the effort and exhaustion31, offset slightly by the knowledge that arattle had been wrenched32 away.
She set the folder aside, not yet ready to relive it all. She picked up another and placed it in herlap, one hand falling to the brass33 star on her knee.
A shadow danced across the wallscreen, distracting her. Juliette looked up and saw a low wall ofdirt spill down the hill. This layer of soot35 seemed to shiver in the wind as it traveled toward sensorsshe had been trained to think of as important, sensors36 that gave her a view of the outside world shehad been frightened as a child into believing was worth seeing.
But she wasn’t so sure, now that she was old enough to think for herself and near enough toobserve it firsthand. This up top’s obsession with cleaning barely trickled37 its way to the down deep,where true cleaning kept the silo humming and everyone alive. But even down there, her friends inMechanical had been told since birth not to speak of the outside. It was an easy enough task whenyou never saw it, but now, walking by it to work, sitting before this view of a vastness one’s braincould not comprehend, she saw how the inevitable38 questions must have surfaced. She saw why itmight be important to squelch39 certain ideas before a stampede to the exits formed, before questionsfoamed on people’s mad lips and brought an end to them all.
She flipped opened Holston’s folder. Behind the bio tab was a thick stack of notes about his lastdays as sheriff. The portion relating to his actual crime was barely half a page long, the rest of thepiece of paper blank and wasted. A single paragraph simply explained that he had reported to the up-top holding cell and had expressed an interest in the outside. That was it. A few lines to spell a man’sdoom. Juliette read the words several times before flipping40 the page over.
Underneath41 was a note from Mayor Jahns asking that Holston be remembered for his service tothe silo and not as just another cleaner. Juliette read this letter, written in the hand of someone whowas also recently deceased. It was strange to think of people she knew that she could never see again.
Part of the reason she had avoided her father all these years was because he was, simply put, stillthere. There was never the threat of her not being able to change her mind. But it was different withHolston and Jahns: they were gone forever. And Juliette was so used to rebuilding devices thoughtbeyond repair that she felt if she concentrated enough, or performed the correct series of tasks in theright order, she should be able to bring the deceased back, be able to re-create their wasted forms. Butshe knew that wasn’t the case.
She flipped through Holston’s folder and asked herself forbidden questions, some for the very firsttime. What had seemed trivial when she lived in the down deep, where exhaust leaks couldasphyxiate and broken flood pumps could drown everyone she knew, now loomed large before her.
What was it all about, this life they lived in underground confines? What was out there, over thosehills? Why were they here, and for what purpose? Had her kind built those tall silos crumbling in thedistance? What for? And most vexing42 of all: what had Holston, a reasonable man—or his wife forthat matter—been thinking to want to leave?
Two folders to keep her company, both marked closed. Both belonging in the mayor’s office,where they should have been sealed up and filed away. But Juliette kept finding herself returning tothem rather than the more pressing cases in front of her. One of these folders held the life of a manshe had loved, whose death she had helped unravel43 in the down deep. In the other lived a man shehad respected whose job she now held. She didn’t know why she obsessed44 over the two folders,especially since she couldn’t stomach seeing Marnes peer forlornly down at his own loss, studyingthe details of Mayor Jahns’s death, going over the depositions45, convinced he had a killer46 but with noevidence to corner the man.
Someone knocked on the bars above Juliette’s head. She looked up, expecting to find DeputyMarnes telling her it was time to call it a day, but saw a strange man peering down at her instead.
“Sheriff?” he said.
Juliette set the folders aside and palmed the star off her knee. She stood up and turned around,facing this small man with a protruding47 gut48, glasses perched at the end of his nose, his silver IToveralls snugly50 tailored and freshly pressed.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
The man stuck his hand between the bars. Juliette moved the star from one palm to the other andreached out to accept it.
“Sorry I’m late getting up here,” he said. “There’s been a lot going on, what with the ceremonies,that generator nonsense, and all the legal wrangling51. I’m Bernard, Bernard Holland.”
Juliette felt her blood run cold. The man’s hand was so small, it felt like it was missing a finger.
Despite this, his grip was solid. She tried to pull back, but he refused to let go.
“As sheriff, I’m sure you already know the Pact inside and out, so you know that I’ll be actingmayor, at least until we can arrange a vote.”
“I’d heard,” Juliette said coolly. She wondered how this man had gotten past Marnes’s deskwithout some sort of violence. Here was their prime suspect in Jahns’s death—only he was on thewrong side of the bars.
“Doing some filing, are you?” He relinquished52 his grip, and Juliette pulled her hand away. Hepeered down at the paperwork strewn across the floor, his eyes seeming to settle on the canteen in itsplastic bag, but Juliette couldn’t be sure.
“Just familiarizing myself with our ongoing53 cases,” she said. “There’s a little more room in hereto … well, think.”
“Oh, I’m sure a lot of deep thought has taken place in this room.” Bernard smiled, and Juliettenoticed his front teeth were crooked54, one of them overlapping55 the other. It made him look like thestray mice she used to trap in the pump rooms.
“Yes, well, I’ve found the space conducive56 to sorting my thoughts out, so maybe there’ssomething to that. And besides”—she leveled her eyes at him—“I don’t expect it to remain empty forlong. And once it’s occupied, I’ll be able to take leave of all this deep thought for a day or two whilesomeone is put to cleaning—”
“I wouldn’t count too much on that,” Bernard said. He flashed his crooked teeth again. “The worddown below is that the poor mayor, rest her soul, plumb57 wore herself out with that crazy climb ofhers. I believe she was hiking down to see you, isn’t that right?”
Juliette felt a sharp sting in her palm. She loosened her grip on the brass star, the knuckles58 on bothhands white from making fists.
Juliette continued to level her eyes at him, trying not to be distracted by the reflection of the dullhills visible in his spectacles. “I suppose you should know, as acting34 mayor, that we’re treating thisvery much as a murder,” she said.
“Oh my.” His eyes widened over a limp smile. “So the rumors60 are true. Who would do such athing?” The smile grew, and Juliette realized she was dealing with a man who felt himselfinvulnerable. It wasn’t the first time she’d encountered a dirty and outsized ego61 such as his. Her timeas a shadow in the down deep had been spent surrounded by them.
“I believe we’ll find the party responsible was the one with the most to gain,” she said dryly. Aftera pause, she added: “Mayor.”
The crooked smile faded. Bernard let go of the bars and stepped back, his hands tucking into hisoveralls. “Well, it’s nice to finally put a face to the name. I’m aware that you haven’t spent muchtime out of the down deep—and to be honest I’ve stayed much too insulated in my own office—butthings are changing around here. As mayor and sheriff, we will be working together a lot, you andme.” He glanced down at the files at her feet. “So I expect you to keep me posted. About everything.”
With that, Bernard turned and left, and it required a concerted effort for Juliette to relax her fists.
When she finally peeled her fingers away from the star, she found its sharp edges had gouged62 into herpalm, cutting her and drawing blood. A few drops caught the light on the edge of the brass, lookinglike wet rust63. Juliette wiped the star clean on her new overalls49, a habit born of her previous lifeamong the sludge and grease. She cursed herself when she saw the dark spot the blood had left on hernew clothes. Turning the star over, she peered at the stamped insignia on its face. There were thethree triangles of the silo and the word Sheriff arched over the top of them. She turned it over againand fingered the clasp that held the sharp spike64 of the pin. She opened the clasp and let the pin hingefree. The stiff needle had been bent65 and straightened in several places over the years, giving it a hand-forged look. It wobbled on its hinge—echoing her hesitation66 to wear the thing.
But as Bernard’s footsteps receded67, as she heard him say something indecipherable to DeputyMarnes, she felt a new resolve steel her nerves. It was like encountering a rusted68 bolt that refused tobudge. Something about that intolerable stiffness, that reluctance69 to move, set Juliette’s teeth on edge.
She had come to believe that there were no fasteners she couldn’t unstick, had learned to attack themwith grease and with fire, with penetrating70 oil and with brute71 strength. With enough planning andpersistence, they always gave. Eventually.
Looking down at the star was a little surreal. There were a dozen folders at her feet demanding herattention, and Juliette felt, for the first time since arriving at the up top, that this was her job. Herwork at Mechanical was behind her. She had left that place in far better condition than she’d found it,had stayed long enough to hear the near-silent hum of a repaired generator, to see a shaft73 spin in suchperfect alignment74 that one couldn’t tell if it was moving at all. And now she had traveled to the uptop to find here the rattle20 and squelch and grind of a different set of gears, a misalignment that waseating away at the true engine of the silo, just as Jahns had forewarned.
Leaving most of the folders where they were, she picked up Holston’s, a folder she shouldn’t evenhave been looking at but couldn’t be without, and pulled the cell door open. Rather than turn to heroffice, she first walked the other way toward the yellow steel entrance to the airlock. Peering throughthe triple-paned glass for the dozenth time in several days, she imagined the man she had replacedstanding inside, wearing one of those ridiculously bulky suits, waiting for those far doors to open.
What went through a man’s thoughts as he waited there alone to be cast off? It couldn’t have beenmere fear, for Juliette had tasted that well enough. It had to be something beyond that, a whollyunique sensation, the calm beyond the pain, or the numbness75 past the terror. Imagination, she figured,just wasn’t up to the task of understanding unique and foreign sensations. It knew only how todampen or augment76 what it already knew. It would be like telling someone what sex felt like, or anorgasm. Impossible. But once you felt it yourself, you could then imagine varying degrees of thisnew sensation.
You could mix the known, but you couldn’t create the strange out of nothing. So maybe it was onlythe cleaners who understood what it felt like to stand there, trembling—or perhaps not afraid one bit—as they waited for their death.
The obsession with why played out in whispers through the silo—people wanting to know whythey did what they did, why they left a shiny and polished gift to those who had exiled them—butthat did not interest Juliette at all. She figured they were seeing new colors, feeling the indescribable,perhaps having a religious experience that occurred only in the face of the reaper79. Wasn’t it enough toknow that it happened without fail? Problem solved. Take it as an axiom. Move on to a real issue,like what it must feel like to be the one going through it. That was the real shame of the taboos80: notthat people couldn’t pine for the outside world, but that they weren’t even allowed to commiseratewith the cleaners during the weeks after, to wonder what they had suffered, to properly express theirthanks or regrets.
Juliette tapped the yellow door with the corner of Holston’s folder, remembering the man in bettertimes, back when he was in love, a lottery81 winner, telling her about his wife. She nodded to his ghostand stepped away from the imposing82 metal door with its small panes83 of thick glass. There was akinship she felt from working in his post, now wearing his star, even sitting in his cell. She had loveda man once and knew what that felt like. She had loved in secret, not involving the silo in theirrelationship, ignoring the Pact. And so she also knew what it meant to lose something so precious.
She could imagine, if her old lover was out there on that hill—wasting away in plain sight rather thanfeeding the roots—that she could be driven to cleaning, to wanting to see those new colors forherself.
She opened Holston’s file again as she wandered back toward her desk. His desk. Here was oneman who knew of her secret love. She had told him, once the case was settled in the down deep, thatthe man who had died, whose case she had helped solve, had been her lover. Maybe it was how hehad gone on and on about his wife the days before. Maybe it was his trustworthy smile that made himsuch a good sheriff, engendering84 this baffling urge to divulge85 secrets. Whatever the cause, she hadadmitted something to a man of the law that could have gotten her in trouble, an affair completely offthe books, a wanton disregard for the Pact, and all he had said, this man entrusted86 with upholdingthose laws, was: “I’m sorry.”
Sorry for her loss. And he had hugged her. Like he knew what she was holding inside, this secretgrief that had hardened where her hidden love once lay.
And she had respected him for that.
Now she sat at his desk, in his chair, across from his old deputy, who held his head in his handsand peered down, unmoving, at an open folder dotted with tears. All it took was a glance for Julietteto suspect that some forbidden love lay between him and the contents of that folder as well.
“It’s five o’clock,” Juliette said as quietly and gently as she could.
Marnes lifted his face out of his hands. His forehead was red from resting it there so long. Hiseyes were bloodshot, his gray mustache shimmering87 with fresh tears. He looked so much older thanhe had a week ago in the down deep, when he had come to recruit her. Swiveling in his old woodenchair, the legs squeaking88 as if startled by the sudden movement, he glanced at the clock on the wallbehind him and surveyed the time imprisoned89 behind its yellowed and aged90 plastic dome91. He noddedsilently at the ticking of the hand, stood up, his back stooping for a moment as he fought to straightenit. He ran his hands down his overalls, reached to the folder, closed it tenderly, and tucked it underhis arm.
“Tomorrow,” he whispered, nodding to Juliette.
“See you in the morning,” she said as he staggered out toward the cafeteria.
Juliette watched him go, feeling sorry for him. She recognized the love behind his loss. It waspainful to imagine him back in his small apartment, sitting on a cot wide enough for one, sobbingover that folder until he finally collapsed92 into his fitful dreams.
Once alone, she placed Holston’s folder on her desk and slid her keyboard closer. The keys hadbeen worn bare long ago, but someone in recent years had neatly93 reprinted the letters in black ink.
Now even these handwritten faces were fading and would soon need another coat. Juliette wouldhave to see to that—she couldn’t type without looking at her keyboard like all these office workerscould.
She slowly pecked out a request to wire down to Mechanical. After another day of getting littledone, of being distracted by the mystery of Holston’s decision, she had come to a realization94: therewas no way she could perform this man’s job until she first understood why he had turned his backon it, and on the silo itself. It was a nagging95 rattle keeping her from other problems. So instead ofkidding herself, she was going to embrace the challenge. Which meant that she needed to know morethan his folder contained.
She wasn’t sure how to get the things she needed, how to even access them, but she knew peoplewho might. This was what she missed most about the down deep. They were family there, all withuseful skills that overlapped96 and covered one another. Anything she could do for any of them, shewould. And she knew they would do the same, even be an army for her. This was a comfort shesorely missed, a safety net that felt all too far away.
After sending the request, she sat back with Holston’s folder. Here was a man, a good man, whohad known her deepest secrets. He was the only one who ever had. And soon, God willing, Juliettewould uncover his.
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收听单词发音
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illuminate
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| vt.照亮，照明；用灯光装饰；说明，阐释 | |
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frenzied
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| a.激怒的；疯狂的 | |
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gusts
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| 一阵强风( gust的名词复数 )； （怒、笑等的）爆发； （感情的）迸发； 发作 | |
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devoid
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| adj.全无的，缺乏的 | |
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crumbling
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| adj.摇摇欲坠的 | |
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smelt
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| v.熔解，熔炼；n.银白鱼，胡瓜鱼 | |
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deluded
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| v.欺骗，哄骗( delude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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obsession
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| n.困扰，无法摆脱的思想(或情感) | |
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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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folder
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| n.纸夹，文件夹 | |
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folders
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| n.文件夹( folder的名词复数 )；纸夹；（某些计算机系统中的）文件夹；页面叠 | |
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dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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relinquish
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| v.放弃，撤回，让与，放手 | |
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peeks
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| n.偷看，窥视( peek的名词复数 )v.很快地看( peek的第三人称单数 )；偷看；窥视；微露出 | |
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pucker
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| v.撅起，使起皱；n.（衣服上的）皱纹，褶子 | |
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slashed
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| v.挥砍( slash的过去式和过去分词 )；鞭打；割破；削减 | |
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loomed
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| v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的过去式和过去分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
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disturbance
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| n.动乱，骚动；打扰，干扰；(身心)失调 | |
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rattle
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| v.飞奔，碰响；激怒；n.碰撞声；拨浪鼓 | |
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rattled
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| 慌乱的，恼火的 | |
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maim
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| v.使残废，使不能工作，使伤残 | |
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batch
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| n.一批(组，群)；一批生产量 | |
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pact
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| n.合同，条约，公约，协定 | |
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exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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aligning
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| n. (直线)对准 动词align的现在分词形式 | |
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generator
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| n.发电机，发生器 | |
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flipped
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| 轻弹( flip的过去式和过去分词 )； 按（开关）； 快速翻转； 急挥 | |
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slanting
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| 倾斜的，歪斜的 | |
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offset
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| n.分支，补偿；v.抵消，补偿 | |
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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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wrenched
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| v.（猛力地）扭( wrench的过去式和过去分词 )；扭伤；使感到痛苦；使悲痛 | |
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brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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soot
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| n.煤烟，烟尘；vt.熏以煤烟 | |
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sensors
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| n.传感器，灵敏元件( sensor的名词复数 ) | |
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trickled
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| v.滴( trickle的过去式和过去分词 )；淌；使)慢慢走；缓慢移动 | |
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38
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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39
squelch
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| v.压制，镇压；发吧唧声 | |
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40
flipping
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| 讨厌之极的 | |
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41
underneath
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| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
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42
vexing
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| adj.使人烦恼的，使人恼火的v.使烦恼( vex的现在分词 )；使苦恼；使生气；详细讨论 | |
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43
unravel
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| v.弄清楚（秘密）；拆开，解开，松开 | |
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44
obsessed
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| adj.心神不宁的,鬼迷心窍的,沉迷的 | |
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45
depositions
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| 沉积（物）( deposition的名词复数 )； （在法庭上的）宣誓作证； 处置； 罢免 | |
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46
killer
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| n.杀人者，杀人犯，杀手，屠杀者 | |
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47
protruding
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| v.（使某物）伸出，（使某物）突出( protrude的现在分词 )；凸 | |
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48
gut
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| n.[pl.]胆量；内脏；adj.本能的；vt.取出内脏 | |
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49
overalls
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| n.（复）工装裤；长罩衣 | |
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50
snugly
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| adv.紧贴地；贴身地；暖和舒适地；安适地 | |
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51
wrangling
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| v.争吵，争论，口角( wrangle的现在分词 ) | |
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52
relinquished
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| 交出，让给( relinquish的过去式和过去分词 )； 放弃 | |
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53
ongoing
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| adj.进行中的，前进的 | |
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54
crooked
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| adj.弯曲的；不诚实的，狡猾的，不正当的 | |
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55
overlapping
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| adj./n.交迭（的） | |
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56
conducive
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| adj.有益的，有助的 | |
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57
plumb
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| adv.精确地，完全地；v.了解意义，测水深 | |
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58
knuckles
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| n.（指人）指关节( knuckle的名词复数 )；（指动物）膝关节，踝v.（指人）指关节( knuckle的第三人称单数 )；（指动物）膝关节，踝 | |
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59
foul
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| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
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60
rumors
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| n.传闻( rumor的名词复数 )；[古]名誉；咕哝；[古]喧嚷v.传闻( rumor的第三人称单数 )；[古]名誉；咕哝；[古]喧嚷 | |
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61
ego
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| n.自我，自己，自尊 | |
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62
gouged
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| v.凿( gouge的过去式和过去分词 )；乱要价；（在…中）抠出…；挖出… | |
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63
rust
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| n.锈；v.生锈；(脑子)衰退 | |
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64
spike
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| n.长钉，钉鞋；v.以大钉钉牢，使...失效 | |
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65
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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66
hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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67
receded
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| v.逐渐远离( recede的过去式和过去分词 )；向后倾斜；自原处后退或避开别人的注视；尤指问题 | |
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68
rusted
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| v.（使）生锈( rust的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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69
reluctance
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| n.厌恶，讨厌，勉强，不情愿 | |
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70
penetrating
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| adj.（声音）响亮的，尖锐的adj.（气味）刺激的adj.（思想）敏锐的，有洞察力的 | |
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71
brute
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| n.野兽，兽性 | |
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72
wavy
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| adj.有波浪的，多浪的，波浪状的，波动的，不稳定的 | |
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73
shaft
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| n.(工具的)柄，杆状物 | |
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74
alignment
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| n.队列；结盟，联合 | |
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75
numbness
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| n.无感觉，麻木，惊呆 | |
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76
augment
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| vt.(使)增大，增加，增长，扩张 | |
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77
hues
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| 色彩( hue的名词复数 )； 色调； 信仰； 观点 | |
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78
previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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79
reaper
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| n.收割者，收割机 | |
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80
taboos
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| 禁忌( taboo的名词复数 )； 忌讳； 戒律； 禁忌的事物（或行为） | |
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81
lottery
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| n.抽彩；碰运气的事，难于算计的事 | |
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82
imposing
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| adj.使人难忘的，壮丽的，堂皇的，雄伟的 | |
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83
panes
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| 窗玻璃( pane的名词复数 ) | |
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84
engendering
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| v.产生（某形势或状况），造成，引起( engender的现在分词 ) | |
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85
divulge
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| v.泄漏(秘密等)；宣布，公布 | |
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86
entrusted
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| v.委托，托付( entrust的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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87
shimmering
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| v.闪闪发光，发微光( shimmer的现在分词 ) | |
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88
squeaking
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| v.短促地尖叫( squeak的现在分词 )；吱吱叫；告密；充当告密者 | |
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89
imprisoned
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| 下狱，监禁( imprison的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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90
aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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91
dome
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| n.圆屋顶，拱顶 | |
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92
collapsed
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| adj.倒塌的 | |
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93
neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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94
realization
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| n.实现；认识到，深刻了解 | |
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95
nagging
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| adj.唠叨的，挑剔的；使人不得安宁的v.不断地挑剔或批评（某人）( nag的现在分词 )；不断地烦扰或伤害（某人）；无休止地抱怨；不断指责 | |
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96
overlapped
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| _adj.重叠的v.部分重叠( overlap的过去式和过去分词 )；（物体）部份重叠；交叠；（时间上）部份重叠 | |
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