《Grimes 011 Spartan Planet 》作者：- A. Bertram Chandler【EPUB】

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Spartan PlanetA. Bertram ChandlerChapter 1THERE WAS THAT SOUND AGAIN-thin high querulous yet audible evenabove the rhythmic stamp and shuffle of the dance that beat out throughthe open windows of the Club. It sounded as though something were inpain. Something was.Brasidus belched gently. He had taken too much wine and he knew it. Thatwas why he had come outside-to clear his head and he hoped to dispelthe slight but definitely mounting waves of nausea. The night air was coolbut not too cool on his naked body and that helped a little. Even so hedid not wish to return inside just yet.He said to Achron quotWe may as well watch.quotquotNoquot replied his companion. quotNo. I dont want to. Its . . . dirty somehow .. .quot Then with a triumphant intonation he delivered the word for which hehad been groping. quotObscene.quotquotIts not. Its . . . natural.quot The liquor had loosened Brasidus tongueotherwise he would never have dared to speak so freely not even to onewho was after all only a helot. quotIts we whore being obscene by beingunnatural. Cant you see thatquotquotNo I cantquot snapped Achron pettishly. quotAnd I dont want to. And I thankZeus and his priesthood that we dont have to go through what that bruteis going through.quotquotIts only a scavenger.quotquotBut its a sentient being.quotquotAnd so what Im going to watch anyhow.quotBrasidus walked briskly to where the sound was coming from followedreluctantly by Achron. Yes there was the scavenger struggling in thecenter of the pool of yellow light cast by a streetlamp. The scavenger-orscavengers . . . had either of the young men heard of Siamese twins thatwould have been the analogy to occur to them-a pair of Siamese twinsfighting to break apart. But the parallel would not have been exact as oneof the two linked beings was little more than half the size of the other.Even in normal circumstances the scavengers were not pretty animalsalthough they looked functional enough. They were quadrupedal withcylindrical bodies. At one end they were all voracious mouth and from theother end protruded the organs of excretion and insemination. They wereunlovely