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| Go on. You can't stop now. | Продолжай, раз начал. |
| I ain't gonna sleep anyhow." | Все равно мне нынче не уснуть. |
| Jess swallowed hard and said, | Джесс глотнул воздуха и договорил: |
| "Seems to me somebody is eliminating - people." | - Похоже, что кто-то ликвидирует... человечество. |
| "How'd they do that?" Marv complained querulously. | - Как так? |
| Doc answered instead of Jess. "Ever hear of the screw-worm?" We all shook our heads. "Of course not. They're all gone. But they used to be a serious warm-country cattle pest. The adult females -ordinary looking flies - laid eggs on wounds or scratches in the hide of cattle. When the larvae hatched out, they burrowed into the flesh, sometimes eating the poor beasts alive." "What's a dead screw-worm got to do with this?" Marv asked impatiently. Jess held up his hand for time, like he held it up to a jury just as a witness was about to make the point that would swing the case. Then he nodded at Doc. Doc went on. "Science wiped out the screw-worm. The female, it seems, mated only once. So entomologists raised flocks of males, sterilized them with gamma rays, and let them loose. The females laid infertile eggs for the rest of their lives, and the screw-worm was extinct." "I don't see" Marv began. Jess cut him off. | На это ответил док: |
| "Instead of sterile males, somebody is making sterile females, and making them so good that nobody wants to marry anything else. | - Ученые делают стерильных женщин и такого высокого качества, что люди уже не желают жениться на других. |
| Look at it this way--the paternal instinct is an acquired reflex. | Тем более что отцовский инстинкт - не врожденный. |
| It's practically non-existent before marriage. | До женитьбы он у нас практически отсутствует. |
| To a bachelor, somebody's kid is just a pest. | Для холостяка чужой ребенок нечто похуже черта. |
| Then he gets married. | Но вот холостяк женился. |
| If he wants kids, it's just because he thinks it's the thing to do. | Если он согласится иметь детей, так только потому, что это нужно. |
| Not because he needs them." Doc nodded reluctantly. So did the rest of us. | А вовсе не потому, что он этого жаждет. |
| Jess spread his hands wide. | Но Джесс, разведя руками, повторил: |
| "So? We're being eliminated." "By who?" I asked. | - Нас ликвидируют. |
| "About sixty years ago," Jess said, "in the fifties, lots of people swore they saw flying saucers in the air. | Помните, лет тридцать назад, в пятидесятых годах, многие божились, будто видели летающие блюдца. |
