3 Snowy search

Chapter Three SNOWY SEARCH "Do you have the coordinates Dr. Anderson gave you, Kiki?" asked Connor. Kiki adjusted her gloves and put her hands on the handlebars. "I've got coordinates for the research centre and Dr. Mikkelsen's tracker data. I've already input everything into our GPS," she said. "We've got to find the doctor first. Ready to go, Beagle?"

第三章雪天搜索“你有坐标吗？ “是安德森给你的吗，琪琪？”康纳问。 琪琪调整好手套，把手放在车把上。 “我得到了研究中心的坐标。 Mikkelsen的追踪器数据。我已经把所有东西都输入了我们的GPS，”她说。 “我们得先找到医生。 准备好了吗，小猎犬？”

The Beagle beeped as Kiki pressed the "START" button and turned the throttle. She maneuvered the snowmobile around in a half-circle until they were facing down the sloping ice shelf. Then she gunned the engine. The Beagle sped smoothly down the slope and out into the snowy wilderness that lay all around. The wind buffeted her face, but Kiki was warm and cozy in her thick layers of thermal clothing.

当琪琪按下“开始”按钮并转动油门时，小猎犬发出了哔哔声。 她驾驶着雪地摩托绕了半个圈，直到他们面对倾斜的冰架。 然后她发动了引擎。 小猎犬号平稳地滑下山坡，驶进了四周白雪皑皑的荒野。 风拍打着她的脸，但Kiki穿着厚厚的保暖衣服，感到温暖和舒适。

Dr. Mikkelsen's signal led them east. After a short distance, Kiki saw a set of snowmobile tracks carved into the snow ahead of them. "Those must be her tracks. We should be able to follow them right to her," she said, pointing them out to Connor. "But what if it's someone else?" Connor asked. Kiki raised her eyebrows. "Unlikely!" she said with a grin. "I haven't seen a single other person out here."

米克尔森博士的信号指引他们向东。 走了一小段路后，琪琪看到一组雪地摩托的足迹刻在他们前面的雪地上。 “那一定是她的脚印。 我们应该能顺着它们找到她，”她指着它们给康纳看。 “但如果是别人呢？”康纳问道。 琪琪扬起眉毛。“不可能！”她笑着说。 “我在外面一个人也没看见。”

Connor laughed. "I guess there aren't that many people hanging around the Arctic," he agreed. They sped on, following Dr. Mikkelsen's snowmobile tracks. The light was bright against the snow, even with the gray skies overhead. Kiki had no idea snow could cover everything so completely. It softened the edges of the land and blurred the horizon, wrapping the world in a huge, fluffy blanket.

康纳笑了。“我猜没有那么多人在北极闲逛，”他表示赞同。 他们加速前进，跟在博士后面。 Mikkelsen的雪地摩托足迹。 尽管头顶上是灰蒙蒙的天空，但在雪的衬托下，灯光还是很明亮。 琪琪不知道雪能把一切都覆盖得这么彻底。 它软化了陆地的边缘，模糊了地平线，把世界包裹在一个巨大的、毛茸茸的毯子里。

The incredible landscape was a lot more varied than she had expected, too. There were broken plateaus of ice, as well as flat plains, and she had to steer the Beagle around several large, craggy outcroppings. On the horizon lay a range of mountains, which Kiki guessed were parts of frozen islands. The ice looked bluer in some places than others, and she instinctively avoided those. Even though she'd never seen snow, or stepped on ice before, it wasn't hard to figure out that in those blue patches, the ice was thinner and less stable. "Watch out for that crevasse!" Connor called over her shoulder through the biting Arctic wind. He pointed at a great long gash in the ice to the west, where the icy sides were sheer and a deep, dark blue. "We don't want to fall in and end up in the sea underneath!"

这令人难以置信的风景也比她想象的要丰富得多。 这里有破碎的冰高原，也有平坦的平原，她不得不驾驶小猎犬号绕过几处巨大而崎岖的露头。 地平线上有一排山脉，琪琪猜那是冰冻岛屿的一部分。 有些地方的冰看起来比其他地方更蓝，她本能地避开了那些地方。 尽管她以前从未见过雪，也没有踩过冰，但不难看出，在那些蓝色的斑块上，冰更薄，更不稳定。 “小心那个裂缝！”康纳在刺骨的北极风中回过头来喊道。 他指了指西边冰面上的一条又大又长的裂缝，那里的冰壁非常陡峭，呈深蓝色。 “我们可不想掉进去，最后葬身海底！”

The Beagle skimmed across the vast whiteness, carving up the snow ahead of them and leaving caterpillar tracks behind. The tracks from Dr. Mikkelsen's snowmobile stretched ahead of them, clear and deep.

小猎犬号在茫茫的雪地上疾驰而过，劈开了前面的积雪，留下了毛毛虫的足迹。 米克尔森博士的雪地摩托留下的足迹在他们前面延伸开来，清晰而深刻。