（外文电子版资料）Gene Wolfe - The Other Dead Man.pdfVIP

THE OTHER DEAD MAN Gene Wolfe Reis surveyed the hull without hope and without despair, having worn out both. They had been hit hard. Some port-side plates of Section Three lay peeled back like the black skin of a graphite-fiber banana; Three, Four, and Five were holed in a dozen places. Reis marked the first on the comp slate so that Centcomp would know, rotated the ship’s image and ran the rat around the port side of Section Three to show that. REPORT ALL DAMAGE, Centcomp instructed him. He wrote quickly with the rattail: Rog . REPORT ALL DAMAGE, flashed again and vanished. Reis shrugged philosophically, rotated the image back, and charted another hole. The third hole was larger than either of the first two. He jetted around to look at it more closely. Back in the airlock, he took off his helmet and skinned out of his suit. By the time Jan opened the inner hatch, he had the suit folded around his arm. “Bad, huh?” Jan said. Reis shook his head. “Not so bad. How’s Hap?” Jan turned away. “How’s Dawson doing with the med pod?” “I don’t know,” Jan said, “He hasn’t told us anything.” He followed her along the spiracle. Paula was bent over Hap, and Dawson was bent over Paula, a hand on her shoulder. Both looked up when he and Jan came in. Dawson asked, “Anybody left downship?” Reis shook his head. “I didn’t think so, but you never know.” “They’d have had to be in suits,” Reis said. “Nobody was.” “It wouldn’t be a bad idea for us to stay suited up.” Reis said nothing, studying Hap. Hap’s face was a pale, greenish-yellow, beaded with sweat; it reminded Reis of an unripe banana, just washed under the tap. So this is banana day, he thought. “Not all of the time,” Dawson said. “But most of the time.” “Sure,” Reis told him. “Go ahead.” “All of us.” Hap’s breathing was so shallow that he seemed not to breathe at all. “You won’t order it?” “No,” Reis told Dawson, “I won’t order it.” After a moment he added, “And I won’t do it myself, unless I fee