《Grimes 015 The Long Fall - A. Bertram Chandler》作者：- Larry Niven【EPUB】

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A. Bertram Chandler is the dean of Australias science fiction writers and returns to thismagazine after far too long an absense with a puzzle: How could a planetary colony based onreligious ideals have regressed to primitive squalor What caused— THE LONG FALL A. BERTRAM CHANDLER Illustrated by STEVE FABIAN “YOU ARE getting the feel of the ship Captainquot asked the Baroness. Grimes with a mouthfulof tea could not reply at once. He hastily swallowed the almost scalding fluid and wasembarrassed by the distinctly audible gurgle. He put the fragile cup down in its saucer withtoo much of a clatter. quotPerhapsquot he admitted cautiously quotthe ship is getting the feel of me . . . He realised thatshe was regarding him even more coldly than usual and hastily added quotYour Excellency.quot quotBut surely to a spaceman of your experience a ship is only a shipquot she said. You know bloody well that this one isnt he thought mutinously. To begin with a normal shipis not built of gold—even though that precious metal its molecular structure rearranged bythe Electran metallurgists is superior to any of the alloys usually utilised by navalarchitects. And a normal ship is not automated to the extent that The Far Traveller was. Anormal ship does not possess a mind of her own—although many generations of spacemen and ofairmen and seamen before them have half believed that such is the case. A normal ship come tothat does not have a Master who is on the run from the long punitive arm of the InterstellarFederations Survey Service as ex-Commander Grimes lately captain of IFSS Discovery mostcertainly was. A normal ship does not boast an Owners Suite decorated and furnished in a style appropriate tothe salon of a well-heeled titled lady in Eighteenth Century France ... Michelle Baroness dEstang was more than merely well-heeled. She was filthy rich as a memberof the financial elite who had made their home on El Dorado she could not possibly have beenanything else. Her spaceyacht The Far Traveller had been built to her own specifications byAstronautics and Electronics of Electra a yard specialising in the construction of non-standard vessels. The Baroness had not intended to employ any crew whatsoever the pilot-computer was programmed to cope with almost every possible astronautical problem. But Lloydsof London had refused to supply insurance cover unless a qualified flesh-and-blood Master wereon the Register. A Captain