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1、【英文读物】The Fire and the SwordChapter 1Nothing could have seemed pleasanter than thatpeaceful planet. Then why was a non-suicidalman driven to suicide there? Yet it made sense.Why do people commit suicide?Templin tightened his safety belt and lay back on the acceleration bunk. The lights in the cabin
2、dimmed to a dull, red glow that meant the time for takeoff was nearing. He could hear noises from deep within the ship and the tiny whir of the ventilator fan, filling the air with the sweetish smell of sleeping gas. To sleep the trip away was better than to face the dull monotony of the stars for d
3、ays on end.Oh, they kill themselves for lots of reasons. Maybe ill health or financial messes or family difficulties. An unhappy love affair. Or more complex ones, if you went into it deeper. The failure to achieve an ambition, failure to live up to ones own ideals. Weltschmerz, perhaps.He could sme
4、ll the bitter fragrance of tobacco smoke mingling with the gas. Eckert had lit a cigarette and was calmly blowing the smoke at the neon No Smoking sign, which winked on and off in mechanical disapproval.He turned his head slightly so he could just see Eckert in the bank facing him. Eckert, one of th
5、e good gray men in the Service. The old reliables, the ones who could take almost anything in their stride because, at one time or another, they had had to.Chapter 2It was Eckert who had come into his office several days ago and told him that Don Pendleton had killed himself.Only Pendleton wasnt the
6、 type. He was the kind who have everything to live for, the kind you instinctively know will amount to something someday. And that was a lousy way to remember him. The clichs always come first. Your memory plays traitor and boils friendship down to the status of a breakfast food testimonial.The soft
7、 red lights seemed to be dancing in the darkness of the cabin. Eckert was just a dull, formless blur opposite him. His cigarette was out.Eckert had come into his office without saying a word and had watched his scenery-window. It had been snowing in the window, the white flakes making a simple patte
8、rn drifting past the glass. Eckert had fiddled with the controls and changed it to sunshine, then to a weird mixture of hail amid the brassy, golden sunlight.And then Eckert had told him that Pendleton had taken the short way out.He shouldnt get sentimental. But how the hell else should he remember
9、Pendleton? Try to forget it and drink a toast to him at the next class reunion? And never, never be so crude as to speculate why Pendleton should have done it? If, of course, he had.The cabin was hazy in the reddish glow, the sleeping gas a heavy perfume.Eckert and he had talked it out and gone over
10、 the records. Pendleton had come of good stock. There had been no mental instability in his family for as far back as the genetic records went. He had been raised in a middle-class neighborhood and attended a local grammar school where he had achieved average grades and had given his instructors the
11、 normal amount of trouble. Later, when he had made up his mind to enter the Diplomatic Service, his grades had improved. He had worked hard at it, though he wasnt what you would call a grind. In high school and later in college, he was the well-balanced type, athletic, popular, hard-working.How long
12、 would it be before memories faded and all there was left of Pendleton was a page of statistics? He had been on this team, he had been elected president of that, he had graduated with such and such honors. But try getting a picture of him by reading the records, resurrect him from a page of black pr
13、int. Would he be human? Would he be flesh and blood? Hell, no! In the statistics Pendleton was the All-Around Boy, the cold marble statue with the finely chiseled muscles and the smooth, blank sockets where the eyes should be. Maybe someday fate would play a trick on a hero-worshiping public and the
14、re would actually be kids like that. But they wouldnt be human; they wouldnt be born. Parents would get them by sending in so many box tops.He was drowsy; the room was filled with the gas now. It would be only a matter of minutes before he would be asleep.Pendleton had been in his second year as att
15、ache on Tunpesh, a small planet with a G-type sun. The Service had stumbled across it recently and decided the system was worth diplomatic recognition of some kind, so Pendleton had been sent there. He had been the first attache to be sent and naturally he had gone alone.There was no need to send mo
16、re. Tunpesh had been inspected and certified and approved. The natives were primitive and friendly. Or maybe the Service had slipped up, as it sometimes did, and Tunpesh had received something less than a thorough survey.And then an unscheduled freighter had put in for repairs, one of the very few ships that ever came by Tunpesh. The captain had tried to pay his respects to Pendleton. Only Pendl
