《Master of the Road to Nowhere 》作者： - Carol Emshwiller【EPUB】

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MASTER OF THE ROAD TO NOWHERE by Carol Emshwiller Carol Emshwiller’s 2006 story “World of No Return,” which became the basis of her new novel The Secret City (Tachyon Publications), showed us an alien could attempt to pass himself off within the confines of our culture. Moving in even closer, she now reveals how another group of outsiders might find a way to survive at the very edges of our society. — What we know so far: That we are few though we used to be many. That, through no fault of ours, we no longer have a land of our own. It was the season to go from the fish and frog’s legs, to the pine nuts, but the way was barred by new housing settlements, so we turned to the berries and the rabbits, and that way was barred, too. — Our group asked the man guarding the crossroad if there was a hidden valley anywhere in these mountains, and how to get there if there is one. He took our dollar and pointed out the way. We could see, at the end of the other road, a town, all its windows shiny in the morning sun as if telling us to go that way, but we went in the direction he said, away from the town, but it was hard and always up. We wonder if he just wanted to get rid of us. We’ve walked ... climbed mostly ... for two days but so far we haven’t arrived anywhere. Now that we’re in unknown territory, even Grandma doesn’t know which way to go. The road dwindled to little more