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1、【英文读物】The LaboratoriansChapter 1 Yeah, we drop in just three c.c. from this here tube, said Rocco as he expertly twirled the erlenmeyer flask and watched the color shoot past the methyl orange end-point. Whitemarsh was annoyed and said so.Thats the sixth straight youve missed, and the acid comes out
2、 of the burette, not the tube; and you dont call the graduations c.c., you call them milliliters.Yeah? Well, here we call it a tube!And why dont you go down to the end-point drop by drop?Because the book dont say so! Thats why! You technos make me sick. Here we do all the blasted work, and you try t
3、o tell us how to do what weve been doing for ten years!Rocco was beginning to work himself into one of his famous rages. His bull neck was beginning to redden; his eyes started to flash. His entire squat body started to quiver.Whitemarsh wasnt impressed. Over at the atomic plant, Phobuss Quercus Mou
4、ntain, he had bossed a pretty quarrelsome crew of isotope wranglers. He had never dodged a fight in his life. But this was in a chemical laboratory and it surprised him to hear the assistants talk back.The only assistants he had ever known were clear-eyed youths taking a year away from their studies
5、 to recoup their tuition money and who tried to copy everything the chemists did. But Whitemarsh was new to the Interspatial Research Center on the Moon, and he still could not figure why the assistants acted as they did. So he waited.Rocco banged the flask down on the stone bench, glared at Whitema
6、rsh for an instant, and then rushed out of the Laboratory, muttering a few obscenities.Queer place this, mused Whitemarsh, filling up another flask and finishing the titration himself. Here the helpers tell the chemists what to do and get mad if we ask them what theyre doing.He started to look over
7、Roccos notes and ruefully decided all the work would have to be done over again. He was interrupted when a girl opened the door. In the week he had been stationed at IRC, he had been introduced to so many scientists that he had forgotten most of the names, but he remembered all the girls. His former
8、 Atomic Plant at Quercus Mountain had had all too few for him not to appreciate them now. Miss Sally Chester was a statuesque chemist with long blonde hair and a luscious figure which she hid under a white lab robe. He managed to stammer some sort of greeting.Why Dr. Whitemarsh! She seemed somewhat
9、puzzled. Youre not actually working with your hands?I sure am, unless were both space struck. Why not?Well, I suppose its all right other places, here we let the Laboratorians do all the manual work. Its sort of their privilege.Yes, but their techniques lousy. I sat here this afternoon and watched t
10、hat blow-hard Rocco muff six straight end-points in a row and when I asked him how come, he blew his top!She laughed at that. She sat down on the lab desk and said, Youre absolutely right. Antonio Roccos color blind and always misses his Methyl Orange end-points. And hes been doing them for ten year
11、s. But it hurts his feelings to be criticized, you should have been more diplomatic. Hes probably gone to complain to his boss!His boss? Arent we his bosses? On this sheet hes listed as my assistant.Actually yes. But traditionally the shop foreman is the leader of the Laboratorians. He certifies the
12、m to see that they know their work, signs their time cards and tells them when to take time off. Of course we outline the work they do, check their results and write reports from their data. Normally we come into the lab as little as possible.But Sally, how the hell do we know that their results are
13、 right? This mixed-up outfit is in the hands of a bunch of left-handed prima donnas who dont know Beilstein from Budweiser!She smiled again (and he thought of the ads for Stargleam toothpaste). Lets go over to the Scientists Snack Bar and get a cup of coffee, and Ill tell you a little about the hist
14、ory of this laboratory.So he let her lead him out of the individual laboratory into the pastel blue corridor where they followed the spiral runways to the glass enclosed Snack Bar.Here they sat on pale leather chairs and looked out over the expanse of the Central Laboratory. From where he sat, he co
15、uld see a square mile of magnificent equipment: Serpentine condensers, enormous distillation columns, molecular stills, ultra-centrifuges, electron microscopes, all were spread out before him. Surrounding the central laboratory were the innumerable railings of the corridors leading to the individual
16、 offices. Upstairs and downstairs strolled scientists and Laboratorians respectively, all obviously contented. He turned to face Miss Chester who was lolling in the chair beside him. She had poured him a cup of coffee, given him a plate of rolls and was ready to talk. She reminded him that in 2005 it was found necessary to build research laboratories on the Moon to avoid the guid
