第一篇 回顾与展望 - the Educator Login page!

"It's all internal, within the Warsaw Pact."This was disturbing. The facade of peace and cooperation had been undisturbed almost since the bugger warsbegan. What Peter had detected was a fundamental disturbance in the world order. She had a mental picture, asclear as memory, of the way the world had been before the buggers forced peace unon them. "So it's back to theway it was before.""A few changes. The shields make it so nobody bothers with nuclear weapons anymore. We have to kill eachother thousands at a time instead of millions." Peter grinned. "Val, it was bound to happen. Right now there's avast international fleet and army in existence, with American hegemony. When the bugger wars are over, all thatpower will vanish, because it's all built on fear of the buggers. And suddenly we'll look around and discover natall the old alliances are gone, dead and gone, except one, the Warsaw Pact. And it'll be the dollar against fivemillion lasers. We'll have the asteroid belt, but they'll have Earth, and you run out of raisins and celery kind offast out there, without Earth."What disturbed Valentine most of all was that Peter did not seem at all worried. "Peter, why do I get the ideathat you are thinking of this as a golden opportunity for Peter Wiggin?""For both of us, Val.""Peter, you're twelve years old. I'm ten. They have a word for people our age. They call us children and theytreat us like mice.""But we don't think like other children, do we, Val? We don't talk like other children. And above all, we don'twrite like other children.""For a discussion that began with death threats, Peter, we've strayed from the topic, I think." Still, Valentinefound herself getting excited. Writing was something Val did better than Peter. They both knew it. Peter hadeven named it once, when he said that he could always see what other people hated most about themselvee, andbully them, while Val could always see what other people liked best about themselves, and flatter them. It was acynical way of putting it, but it was true. Valentine could persuade other people to her point of view-- she could第 134 页 共 340 页http://www.en8848.com.cn/ 原 版 英 语 阅 读 网