商业托福阅读：星球大战第九章(6)
Luke looked genuinely puzzled. "I don’t know. It had me—and then I was free. It just let me go and disappeared. Maybe I didn’t smell bad enough for it." "I’ve got a very bad feeling about this," Solo murmured.Again the distant rumble filled the room; again the walls began their inward march. Only this time neither sound nor movement showed any sign of stopping.
"Don’t just stand there gaping at each other!" the Princess urged them. "Try to brace them with something.
Even with the thick poles and old metal beams Chewbacca could handle, they were unable to find anything capable of slowing the walls’ advance. It seemed as if the stronger the object was that they placed against the walls, the easier it was snapped. Luke pulled out his comlink, simultaneously trying to talk and will the walls to retreat. "Threepio…come in, Threepio!" A decent paused produced no response, causing Luke to look worriedly at his companions.
"I don’t know why he doesn’t answer." He tried again. "See Threepio, come in. Do you read?" "See Threepio," the muted voice continued to call, "come in, See Threepio." It was Luke’s voice and it issued softly in between buzzings from the small hand comlink resting on the deserted computer console. Save for the intermittent pleading, the gantry office was silent.
A tremendous explosion drowned out the muffled pleadings. It blew the office door clean across the room, sending metal fragments flying in all directions. Several of them struck the comlink, sending it flying to the floor and cutting off Luke’s voice in midtransmission.
In the wake of the minor cataclysm four armed and ready troopers entered through the blown portal. Initial study indicated the office was deserted—until a dim, frightened voice was heard coming from one of the tall supply cabinets near the back of the room.
"Help, help! Let us out!" Several of the troopers bent to inspect the immobile bodies of the gantry officer and his aide while others opened the noisy cabinet. Two robots, one tall and humanoid, the other purely mechanical and three-legged, stepped out into the office.
The taller one gave the impression of being half unbalanced with fear.
"They’re madmen, I tell you, madmen!" He gestured urgently toward the doorway. "I think they said something about heading for the prison level. They just left. If you hurry, you might catch them. That way, that way!" Two of the troopers inside joined those waiting in the hallway in hustling off down the corridor. That left two guards to watch over the office. They totally ignored the robots as they discussed what might have taken place.
"All the excitement has overloaded the circuitry in my companion here," Threepio explained carefully. "If you don’t mind, I’d like to take him down to Maintenance." "Hmmm?" One of the guards looked up indifferently and nodded to the robot.
Threepio and Artoo hurried out the door without looking back. As they departed it occurred to the guard that the taller of the two ’droids was of a type he had never seen before. He shrugged. That was not surprising on a station of this size.
"That was too close," Threepio muttered as they scurried down an empty corridor. "Now we’ll have to find another information-control console and plug you back in, or everything is lost."
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