标题: 《Rim Man Who Could Not Stop 》作者：- A. Bertram Chandler【EPUB】 [打印本页] 作者: zaq 时间: 2013-9-5 19:08 标题: 《Rim Man Who Could Not Stop 》作者：- A. Bertram Chandler【EPUB】 THE MAN WHO COULD NOT STOP THEY AREN'T particular about settlers in the Rim Worlds. They can't afford to be. The night sky, at those seasons of the year when the sun is in conjunction with the great lens of the Galaxy, is frightening, even to those who were born and reared there, on the planets of the last, the ultimate frontier. It is the emptiness of the firmament that is so shocking, the emptiness made even worse by the dim, incredibly distant nebulosities that are other galaxies, that are island universes. Many a man has come to Thule, or Faraway, or Ultimo to carve out a new career and, after a stay of only a few months, has taken ship for some planet in towards the Galactic center, for some world where at night the sky is ablaze with stars, with the beckoning, comradely lights of far-flung colonies and kingdoms. There is a continual drain of population from the Rim Worlds. Their imports are, literally, everything, and their exports are young men and women. Without Federation aid the colonies would have to be abandoned; but they are lookout posts on the frontier of the endless dark, and as such must be maintained. They are also the worlds from which a man on the run can run no further. Clavering was on the run, and he ran to Faraway. Clavering was wanted, originally, on Earth, but during his flight he had contrived to make himself interesting to the police forces of at least a dozen other planets