《A Relic of the Empire》作者： - Larry Niven【EPUB】

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A Relic of the Empire Larry Niven Produced by calibre 0.6.40 A RELIC OF THE EMPIRE WHEN THE SHIP arrived Dr. Richard Schultz-Mann was out among the plants flying over andaround them on a lift belt. He hovered over one inspecting with proprietary interest ananomalous patch in its yellow foliage. This one would soon be ripe. The nature-lover was a breadstick of a man very tall and very thin with an aristocratic headsporting a close cropped growth of coppery hair and an asymmetric beard. A white streak ranabove his right ear and there was a patch of white on each side of the chin one coincidingwith the waxed spike. As his head moved in the double sunlight the patches changed colorinstantly. He took a tissue sample from the grayish patch stored it and started to move on. The ship came down like a daylight meteor streaking blue-white across the vague red glare ofBig Mira. It slowed and circled high overhead weaving drunkenly across the sky then settledtoward the plain near Manns Explorer. Mann watched it land then gave up his bumblebeeactivities and went to welcome the newcomers. He was amazed at the coincidence. As far as heknew his had been the first ship ever to land here. The company would be good...but what couldanyone possibly want here Little Mira set while he was skimming back. A flash of white at the far edge of the sea andthe tiny blue-white dwarf was gone. The shadows changed abruptly turning the world red. Manntook off his pink-tinged goggles. Big Mira was still high sixty degrees above the horizon andtwo hours from second sunset.The newcomer was huge a thick blunt-nosed cylinder twenty times the size of the Explorer. Itlooked old: not damaged not even weathered but indefinably old. Its nose was still closedtight the living bubble retracted if indeed it had a living bubble. Nothing moved nearby.They must be waiting for his welcome before they debarked. Mann dropped toward the newcomer. The stunner took him a few hundred feet up. Without pain and without sound suddenly all Mannsmuscles turned to loose jelly. Fully conscious and completely helpless he continued to divetoward the ground. Three figures swarmed up at him from the newcomers oversized airlock. They caught him beforehe hit. Tossing humorous remarks at each other in a language Mann did