标题: 《Beauty and the Beast 》作者：- Henry Kuttner【EPUB】 [打印本页] 作者: zaq 时间: 2013-3-30 14:28 标题: 《Beauty and the Beast 》作者：- Henry Kuttner【EPUB】 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST Henry Kuttner Jared Kirth saw the meteor as he lay under the pines staring up at the stars. He was on theverge of slumber and the sleeping bag that wrapped his lean body was warm and comfortable. Kirth was feeling well satisfied with himself his stomach bulged with crisp freshly caughttrout and there was still a week left of the fortnights vacation he had allowed himself. Sohe lay quietly watching the night sky and the meteor shrieked its death agony in that lastincandescent plunge through the atmosphere. But before it went out of sight the luminous body seemed to turn and arc in midair. That wasqueer enough. And even stranger was the shape of the thing an elongated ovoid. Vaguely recalling that meteorssometimes contained precious ores Kirth marked the spot where the flaming thunderbolt fellbeyond a high ridge. And the next morning he shouldered his fishing tackle and hiked in thatdirection. So he found the wrecked spaceship. It lay among the pines a broken giant its hullfused in many places by the heat of friction. Kirths pinched rather mean mouth tightened ashe looked down at the vessel. He was remembering that two months before a man named Jay Ardenhad left the Earth on the first interplanetary voyage. Arden had been lost in space-so thepapers had said. But now apparently his ship had returned and Kirths gaunt gray-stubbledface was eager as he hastened down the slope. He walked around the ship slipping on sharp rocks and cursing once or twice before he foundthe port. But the metal .surrounding it had fused and melted so that entry was impossible atthis point. The gray pitted rough metal of the craft defied the tentative ax-blows Kirth gaveit. Curiosity mounted within him. He examined the ship more closely. The sun rising above the eastern