| Text 1 A Very Special
Goose by Isaac Asimov A goose that could lay golden eggs drew scientists and
armed guards in droves to the Texas farm and Project Goose was begun.
How could the goose lay golden eggs? The scientists wanted to find the
answer. I couldn't tell you my real name if I wanted to, and
under the circumstances I don't want to. I'm not much of a writer myself, so
I'm having Isaac
Asimov write this up for me. I've picked him because he's a biochemist,
so he understands what I tell him. Besides, he writes science fiction
and that is very important. I wasn't the first person to have the honor of meeting
The Goose. That honor belongs to a Texas cotton farmer named Ian Angus
MacGregor (I'm using fictitious names, of course), who owned it before
it became Government property. By summer of 1957 he'd sent a dozen letters to the Department
of Agriculture requesting information on the hatching of goose eggs.
The Department sent him all the information it could, but he kept wanting
more. I'm in the employ of the Department and I was attending a convention
in San Antonio in July of 1957, so my boss asked me to stop off at
MacGregor's place and see what I could do. So it was that on July 17, 1957, I met The Goose.I met MacGregor first. He was in his fifties, a tall
man with a lined face full of suspicion. I went over all the information
he'd been requesting, then asked politely if I might see his geese.
He said， "It's not geese, mister,
it's one goose." I said， "If it's only one goose,
what's your worry? Kill
it and eat it." I got up and reached for my hat. He said "Wait!" and I stood there while he hesitated.
Then he muttered, "Come with me." I went out with him to a pen near the house. The pen,
surrounded by barbed wire, with a locked gate to it, held only one goose.
"That's The Goose," he said. I could hear the capitals
as he spoke. It looked like any other goose: fat,
self-satisfied, short-tempered. MacGregor said, "And here's one of its eggs. It
won't hatch." He produced the egg from a capacious overalls pocket, letting
it lie on the palm of his hand. It was smaller and rounder than a
goose's
egg ought to be. MacGregor said, "Take it." I reached out and took it. Or tried to. I had to try
harder, and then up it came. It weighed nearly two pounds! MacGregor grinned sourly. "Drop it," he said. I just looked at him. So he dropped it himself. It hit soggy. It didn't smash. There was no spray of
white and yolk. It just lay where it fell, with the bottom caved in.
I picked it up again. The white eggshell had shattered
where the egg had struck. Pieces of it had flaked away and what shone
through was a dull yellow in color. My hands trembled. It was all I could do to make my
fingers work, but I got some of the rest of the shell flaked away and
stared at the yellow. I didn't have to run any analyses. My heart told me.
This was The Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs! My first problem was to get MacGregor to give up that
golden egg. I said， "I'll give you a receipt.
I'll guarantee payment. I'll give you a personal check. I'll do
anything." "I don't want the Government butting
in," he said stubbornly. I was twice as stubborn. I followed him about. I pleaded.
I yelled. In the end I signed a receipt and he dogged me out to my car
and stood in the road as I drove away, following me with his eyes. The head of my section at the Department of Agriculture
is Louis P. Bronstein. (False names, remember.) I laid the egg on the
desk between us. I said， "It's a yellow metal and it could be brass.
Only it isn't, because it's inert to concentrated nitric acid." Bronstein said， "It's some sort of hoax. It must
be." "A hoax that uses real gold? When I first saw this thing
it was covered completely with authentic unbroken eggshell. I analyzed
a bit and it was calcium carbonate." So Project Goose was started. That was July 20, 1957.
I was the responsible investigator at the start, though
matters quickly got beyond me. To begin with, the egg had a radius of thirty-five
millimeters on the average. The gold shell was just about two and a
half millimeters thick. Inside was a real egg; it was no hoax. It contained
all the proteins, fats, vitamins, and pigments one would expect. The only important abnormality that showed up at once
was the egg's behavior on being heated. A small portion of it hard-boiled
at once. Boris W. Finley of Temple University, a Department consultant,
said， "The proteins are obviously in bad shape, and it must be the fault
of the gold. Small quantities of any heavy metal break down protein." So the yolk was analyzed for gold. And, sure enough,
it contained just about one-third of 1 percent of gold in a soluble
form known as chloroaurate. As for the shell, that was virtually pure gold. The
only detectable impurity was iron, and that amounted to only about one-fourth
of 1 percent. The iron content of the egg yolk was twice as high as
it should have been, too. But at the moment the matter of the iron was
neglected. One week after Project Goose was begun the first expedition
left for Texas. Five biochemists went, along with three truckloads of
equipment and a squadron of Army personnel. As soon as we arrived we cut
MacGregor's off from the
world. Naturally, MacGregor didn't like all the security regulations
and all the men and equipment settling down all about him. He didn't
like being told that The Goose and its eggs were Government property.
He didn't like it, but he had to agree. What could he do? He was compensated,
of course. The Goose didn't like a few things, either
－ like having
blood samples taken. It took two men to hold The Goose each time. The blood of The Goose was put through every test conceivable.
It contained two-thousandths of 1 percent of the
chloroaurate I've mentioned. We took X rays. Parts of the body that
were rich in gold would stop the X rays and appear white on the negative.
The liver showed up as light gray, while The Goose's egg-laying apparatus
was pure white. Finley said， "The chloroaurate is passed into the bloodstream
by the liver. It's poisonous, so the blood passes it on to the reproductive
organs, which get rid of it by making eggshells out of it. That kills
the eggs but keeps The Goose alive." He paused and said， "That leaves one embarrassing
question." I knew what it was. We all did. Where was the gold in the liver coming from? There was no answer to that for a while. There was no
gold in the Goose's feed, of course, nor any gold in the soil to speak
of. A search of the grounds revealed nothing. On August 16, 1957, Albert Nevis of Purdue got the first
lead. He was studying the stomach contents of The Goose by using tubes
that he forced down its throat. He came rushing to us. "The Goose is practically zero
on bile pigment!" he shouted. Let me explain something at this point. Bile
pigments
are colored materials that are contained in the juice the liver pours
out into the intestines. The pigments are produced by the breakdown
of hemoglobin, which is the red coloring matter of blood. Finley's eyes began to glitter. This was the first sign
of anything wrong with the chemistry of The Goose, other than the gold.
He stated the obvious. "There must be something wrong with the hemoglobin
or with the liver's machinery for handling hemoglobin." Promptly we took more blood samples. This time we separated
the hemoglobin out of the blood in the usual dark red crystals. However,
further treatment separated a small quantity of a bright orange substance.
It turned out to be similar to hemoglobin but not hemoglobin.
Ordinary hemoglobin contains an iron atom in its molecule. This contained
a gold atom. The liver, it seemed, was not breaking up the hemoglobin
to bile pigment. Instead, it was changing some of the hemoglobin to
the gold-containing variety and getting rid of it by way of eggshell.
We tried injecting The Goose with solutions containing
radioactive gold, to see if we could learn the exact route traveled
by gold atoms in its body. But the experiment failed. This still left us with the question of where the gold
came from, and it was Nevis who first made the crucial suggestion. "Maybe," he said, at a meeting on August 25, 1957,
"The
Goose changes the iron into gold by transmutation （the radioactive transformation
of one element into another）." Maybe he wasn't serious when he said that, but we were
so desperate we had to take him seriously. On September 5, 1957, John I. Billings of the University
of California, one of the country's best nuclear physicists, arrived.
He had some equipment with him, and more arrived in the following weeks.
I could see that within a year we would have a whole research institution
built around The Goose. Finley brought Billings up to date and said，
"The trouble
with the iron-to-gold idea is, for one thing, that the total quantity
of iron in The Goose is only about half a gram; yet nearly forty grams
of gold a day are being manufactured." Billings had a clear, high-pitched voice. He said，
"There's
a worse problem than that. The nucleus of the gold atom contains much
more energy than the nucleus of the iron atom. To manufacture all the
gold The Goose does would take an atom bomb's worth of energy." But he got right to work. He isolated some of the iron
from the hemoglobin of The Goose and among other things, ran an isotopic
analysis on it. The result nearly choked him. He said， "There's no iron-56." Let me explain again. Most elements are made up of a
variety of closely similar atoms called isotopes. Iron contains four
different isotopes, of which the most abundant is iron-56. Well, that
one was missing; the other three were there. Billings said， "There must be a nuclear reaction going
on in The Goose, but where is it getting the energy?" We didn't see Billings for two days. When he came back he said， "See here. There are two
parts to this reaction. First, some simple isotope （say, oxygen-18）
must be converted to iron-56. That's a type of reaction that produces
energy. Then the energy produced is used immediately to change the iron-56
into gold. It's like going down one side of a roller coaster and up
the other. And there's enough oxygen-18 in the body to supply all the
gold The Goose produces." We could check that theory. You see, oxygen-18 is one
of the minor oxygen isotopes. It's easy to get samples of water containing
more oxygen-18 than normal water does. We fed The Goose on water with high oxygen-18 content
for a week. Gold production went up. "There's no doubt about it," said Billings. He stood
up， "That Goose is a living nuclear reactor."
The Goose was obviously a mutation, a sport － a creature that had
had a different chemistry from birth. The best guess was that it was
the result of radiation. Nuclear tests conducted in 1954 and 1955 had
resulted in fallouts passing near MacGregor's farm. We checked the records.
The Goose had been born shortly after one of the fallouts. "What it amounts to," said Billings,
"is that The Goose
can convert any radioactive isotope into a stable one. It has developed
the perfect defense against radiation sickness." We tried gamma rays on The Goose. It developed a slight
fever and got more bad-tempered than usual, but nothing else. Finley said， "It's the creature of the future. If only
human beings could develop such defenses, atomic war would lose some
of its terrors." Billings said， "Not only that. If we could find out
how The Goose does it and duplicate it in industry we'd have the perfect
way of disposing of radioactive ash from nuclear power plants." We sat there, all of us, staring at The Goose and thinking
of the secret in its liver. We couldn't remove the liver for study. Who would dare
kill The Goose That Lays the Golden Eggs? If we could only hatch some
of those eggs! Nevis said， "We need some good
idea." In a miserable attempt at a joke I said，
"We could advertise
in the newspapers." And that gave me an idea. I said excitedly， "We
could write this up as a science-fiction story." They stared at me. "Why not?" I said. "We wouldn't be breaking security
regulations. No one would take it seriously. And we might ask for ideas.
What can we lose?" They were unmoved. So I said, "And you know, The Goose
won't live forever." That did it. And this is the story. Now － how can we study The Goose without killing it? How
can we hatch the eggs and get more gold-laying geese? Any ideas? (2 214 words) TOP |
课文一 一只奇特的鹅 艾萨克•阿西莫夫 得克萨斯某农场一只能下金蛋的鹅引来了大批的科学家和全副武装的保安，由此开始了“鹅蛋工程”。鹅怎么会下金蛋呢？科学家们决心找到答案。 即使我想告诉你我的真实姓名，我也不能这么做，何况在这种情况下我也不想告诉你。
我自己不大会写作，所以我请艾萨克•阿西莫夫替我整理这篇东西。我选中他是因为他是个生物化学家，他能明白我的意思。而且他还写科幻小说，这一点很重要。
我并不是第一个有幸见到那只鹅的人。幸运者是得克萨斯的一位棉农，叫安格斯•麦格雷戈（当然我用的是化名），鹅原先是他的，后来成了政府的财产。
到1957年夏天为止，他已经给农业部写了十几封信，索取有关孵化鹅蛋的资料。农业部把所能找到的资料全部都寄给了他，但他还是不停地索要。我在农业部工作，1957年7月我到圣安东尼奥开会，上司让我中途在麦格雷戈的农场停一下，看看我能帮点什么忙。
于是，1957年7月17日我见到了那只鹅。我先见到了麦格雷戈。他五十多岁，高个子，满脸皱纹，见到我，满脸狐疑之色。我翻看了他索取的所有资料，然后客气地提出要
看一看他的那些鹅。
他说：“不是那些鹅，先生，是一只鹅。”
我说：“要是只有一只鹅，你有什么好担心的呢？杀了吃掉。”我站起身去取帽子。
他说“等一等！”我站住了，而他在犹豫不决，然后喃喃地说道：“跟我来吧。”
我跟着他来到屋子附近的鹅棚。鹅棚用带刺的铁丝网围着，门上了锁，里面只关了一只鹅。
“就是这只鹅,”他说。我听得出他语气加重了。
这只鹅和别的鹅没有什么区别：肥硕、自傲而暴躁。
“这就是它下的蛋当中的一枚，怎么也孵化不了。”麦格雷戈说着从宽大的工装裤袋里掏出一只蛋来，放在掌上。这只蛋比一般的鹅蛋要小一点，圆一点。
麦格雷戈说道：“你拿拿看。”
我伸出手，拿起鹅蛋，或者说试图拿起来。我不得不再用点力，才拿起来。这蛋差不多有两磅重！
麦格雷戈咧嘴尖笑一声，说道：“把它扔到地上。”
我只是看着他，于是他自己把蛋扔到了地上。
蛋重重地掉在地上，却没有摔破，蛋白和蛋黄也没有流出来。它只是躺在落下去的地方，底部陷进地里。
我又把蛋捡起来。着地部分的蛋壳已经摔破，裂开的白色蛋壳剥落，从里面发出的是暗黄色的光。
我的双手颤抖起来。要想指头管用，手就得颤抖，不过我将剩下的蛋壳又剥掉一些，两眼直瞪着那一团黄色。
不必做任何的分析，我的心已经告诉我了。
这是那只下金蛋的鹅！
我的首要问题，是如何说服麦格雷戈转让那只金蛋。
我说道：“我给你一张收据，我保证付钱，我会给你一张私人支票。要我干什么都行。”
“我不想政府插手，”他固执地说。
我加倍地固执。我跟着他，我央求他，我大喊大叫。最后我开了张收据，他跟着我出来，一直到我的汽车跟前，站在路中央看着我开车离去。
我所在农业部部门的负责人叫路易斯•P•布朗斯坦（请记住是化名）。我把蛋放在我俩之间的办公桌上。
我说道：“这是一种黄色金属，可能是黄铜，但却不是，因为它在浓硝酸中不起反应。”
布朗斯坦说道：“这是个骗局。肯定是。”
“用真金做的骗局？我一开始见到时，它可全包在完整的天然蛋壳里。我稍稍做了点分析，蛋壳的成分是碳酸钙。”
于是“鹅蛋工程”开始了，那一天是1957年7月20日。
起初我是主管的调研员，但事情的发展很快就超出了我的控制。
首先，鹅蛋的平均半径是35毫米，金壳大约有2.5毫米厚。壳内是一只真蛋，不是什么骗局。它含有真蛋该有的蛋白质、脂肪、维生素和色素。
马上显示的唯一重要反常之处，是它受热时发生的变化：这只蛋有一小部分一煮就老。
农业部顾问、坦普尔大学的鲍里斯•W•芬利说：“蛋白质的状况显然很糟，这得归咎于金子，因为无论什么重金属，只要一小点儿就会破坏蛋白质。”
于是化验了蛋黄，看看含金量。果然，蛋黄里有大约三百分之一的黄金，呈现出一种叫做氯金酸盐的溶液状。
而蛋壳简直就是纯金。唯一能检测到的杂质是铁，含量只有四百分之一。蛋黄中的铁含量也高出正常含量的两倍，但此时铁的问题没有引起注意。
“鹅蛋工程”开始一周后，调查组首次踏上了前往得克萨斯的征程。这次去了5位生物化学家，带了3卡车的设备和一个中队的武装人员。
我们一到就把麦格雷戈的房子与外界隔离开来。麦格雷戈自然不喜欢所有这些安全规定，这么多的人和设备安营扎寨在他的周围。他不喜欢别人告诉他，说那只鹅和那些蛋是政府的财产。他虽不喜欢，但也只好认了。他有什么办法呢？当然，他得到了补偿。
那只鹅也有几桩事情不喜欢，比如取血样。每次取样都要有两个人来按住它。
用尽一切可能想到的实验方法化验了鹅血。血中含有十万分之二我所提到过的氯金酸盐。我们拍了X光片，体内含金较多的器官会阻隔X光，在胶片上呈白色。鹅肝部分呈灰白色，而产蛋的器官完全呈白色。
芬利说：“肝脏把氯金酸盐输送到血液里。由于氯金酸盐有毒，所以血液把它送入生殖器官，生殖器官用它生成蛋壳，排出体外。这样，牺牲了蛋，救了鹅的命。”
他顿了顿，又说：“还有个让人费解的问题。”
我知道是什么问题，我们全都知道。
肝脏里的金子是从哪儿来的？
我们一度找不到答案。鹅饲料里当然没有金子，泥土里也谈不上有什么金子，因为在地上搜查了半天我们一无所获。
1957年8月16日，普尔杜大学的艾伯特•内维斯率先取得了进展，其时他将管子塞入鹅的咽喉，检查胃里面的东西。
他跑到我们面前，大嚷道：“这只鹅几乎没有胆色素！”
这儿我要稍作一点解释。胆色素是有色物质，肝脏输送到肠子里的液体中含有胆色素，它由血红蛋白分解而成，血红蛋白就是使血呈红色的那种物质。
芬利的眼睛开始发亮。这是鹅的化学作用反常的第一个迹象，而不是金子。他说了一个显然的事实：“一定是血红蛋白或者肝处理血红蛋白的机理出了问题。”
我们立刻又取了一些血样。这次我们把血红蛋白从血液里分离出来，形成通常的深红色晶体状。然而，经过进一步的处理又分离出来一种微量的鲜橙色物质。
结果是，这种物质类似血红蛋白，却不是血红蛋白。正常的血红蛋白分子里有一个铁原子，而它却含有一个金原子。
看来肝并没有把血红蛋白分解成胆色素。相反，它把部分血红蛋白变成了含金的变体，并通过蛋壳排出体外。
我们尝试着向鹅的体内注射含有放射性黄金的溶液，看能否找到金原子在鹅体内的准确运动路线，但实验失败了。
至此我们还没有解决金子从哪儿来的问题。内维斯第一个提出了至关重要的建议。
“也许，”他在1957年8月25日的会上说：“这只鹅通过突变（一种成分转变成另一种成分的放射性变化）把铁变成了金子。”
也许他说话的时候并不当真，可是我们实在走投无路，只好把他的话当回事。
1957年9月5日，美国最优秀的核物理学家之一、加利福尼亚大学的约翰•I•比林斯来到了农场。他带来一些仪器，以后几个星期里又带来了一些。我觉得，不到一年我们就可以围绕鹅建起一整座研究所。
芬利先向比林斯作了情况通报，然后说：“铁变金的说法有一个问题，比如这只鹅体内总共只含有大约半克铁，而它一天却能生产差不多重40克的金子。”
比林斯的嗓音清脆响亮，他说：“还有一个更糟糕的问题。金原子核所含的能量要比铁原子核多得多，要生产出这只鹅所生产的那么多金子的话，需要相当于一颗原子弹的能量。”
他立刻投入工作。他从鹅的血红蛋白中分离出一些铁，并做了一些试验，其中之一就是对这些铁进行了同位素试验。试验结果令他目瞪口呆。
他说：“没有找到铁-56。”
这里我还要解释一下。大多数元素都是由叫做同位素的几种非常相似的原子构成，铁含有4种不同的同位素，其中铁-56的含量最高。鹅的血红蛋白中含有其它3种同位素，惟独少铁-56。
比林斯说：“这只鹅的体内一定发生了核反应，但它从哪儿得到能量呢？”
我们有两天没有见到比林斯。
他回来后说：“你们看，这个反应有两部分。首先，某个简单的同位素（比方说氧-18）必须转变成铁-56，这种反应会产生能量。然后，产生的能量立刻被用来把铁-56转变成金子。这就像乘过山车，从一边下去，又从另一边上来。鹅的体内有足够的氧-18供它生产所有的金子。”
我们可以检验这种理论。你看，氧-18是一种简单的同位素，我们可以很容易地取得比普通水含有更多氧-18的水样。
连续一个星期，我们给鹅喝氧-18含量高的水，金子的产量上升了。
“毫无疑问，”比林斯说着站起身来，“这只鹅是个活的核反应堆。”
这只鹅显然是个突变体，一个变种——生来具有不同寻常的化学特性。这或许是辐射的结果，这种可能性最大。1954年到1955年间进行的核试验所产生的尘埃曾经从麦格雷戈的农场附近飘过。我们查过记录，这只鹅是在一次尘埃过后不久出生的。
“也就是说，”比林斯说道，“这只鹅能够把任何放射性同位素转变成稳定的同位素，它产生了一套完整的放射性疾病防御系统。”
我们对鹅做了γ射线试验。实验后它发了低热，脾气也比平常更加暴躁，但其它并没有什么异常。
芬利说：“它就是未来生物。要是人类能够产生这种防御能力，核战争也就不那么可怕了。”
比林斯说：“还不止这些，如果我们能够搞清楚这只鹅是如何运作的，并把这种机制运用到工业中去，那么我们就为核电厂处理放射性烟尘找到了一个十全十美的办法。”
我们大家都坐在那儿，盯着那只鹅看，寻思着它肝里面的秘密。
我们不能把肝取出来研究。谁敢杀掉这只下金蛋的鹅呢？要是我们能孵化几个金蛋该多好啊！
内维斯说：“我们需要一些好点子。”
我无可奈何地开了一个玩笑：“我们可以在报纸上登广告。”这倒使我产生了一个点子，我兴奋地说：“我们可以把这件事写成科幻小说。”
他们都盯着我。
“怎么不可以？”我说。“我们不会违反安全规定，谁也不会把它当真的，我们还可以征询好的想法。我们能有什么损失?”
他们不为所动。
于是我又说：“大家都知道，这只鹅不会长生不老的。”
这下起作用了，于是就有了这篇故事。
那么——我们怎样才能在不杀鹅的情况下研究它呢？我们怎样才能孵化那些蛋，得到下金蛋的鹅呢？
你有办法吗？
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