国家地理 加里曼丹岛的地底洞天(4)（在线收听）

Not far above them, I sat in a large gallery, listening for their drills. The gallery was pristine; it had been discovered only days before, and I was one of the first ever to enter it. But where I sat, surrounded by towering stalagmites and colossal mushrooms of stone, the cavern was alive with other sounds. At my elbow, water tinkled into limpid basins, while overhead, thousands of swiftlets—tiny black birds that spend much of their lives in the pitch-black chambers—twittered and clicked and echolocated toward nests made of saliva, moss, and mud.

我坐在他们上方不远处的大型洞廊里，聆听他们钻壁的声音。这个廊道很原始，几天前才刚被发现，而我是首批进入这里的人。不过，当我坐在那儿——周围石笋高耸、巨型蕈状岩林立，却能听到洞穴里充满了各种声音。在我肘旁有水潺潺流入清澈的水洼，头顶则是成千上万只金丝燕，这种黑色小鸟大半辈子生活在漆黑洞室里，它们啁啾尖叫，利用回声定位飞向以唾液、苔藓和泥土做成的巢。

If Frank and Cookie were making history somewhere below my feet, I wasn't going to hear it. But that was fine. More than any other sport, caving is about secrets and the things we endure to find them out. Sometimes all you can do is wait to see what the darkness reveals. So I lay back, turned out my light, and listened as the swifts swooped low, coming so close I could feel wingbeats on my cheeks.

如果弗兰克和库奇在我脚下这个地方创造了历史，我不会去听。但这无所谓。与其他运动不同，洞穴探险是有关秘密和其他需要探索的事物的运动项目。有时，你只能等待，并发现黑暗所展示的东西。所以我躺下，关掉灯光，听着雨燕俯冲的声音，它们离我很近，近到我的脸颊上能感受到它们在振翅。