《Biding Time》作者： - Robert J. Sawyer【EPUB】

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Biding Time by Robert J. Sawyer First published in Slipstreams Edited by Martin H. Greenberg and John Helfers DAW Books New York May 2006 Ernie Gargalian was fat—“Gargantuan Gargalian” some called him. Fortunately like me he livedon Mars it was a lot easier to carry extra weight here. He must have massed a hundred and fifty kilosbut it felt like a third of what it would have on Earth. Ironically Gargalian was one of the few people on Mars wealthy enough to fly back to Earth asoften as he wanted to but he never did I don’t think he planned to ever set foot on the mother planetagain even though it was where all his rich clients were. Gargalian was a dealer in Martian fossils: hebrokered the transactions between those lucky prospectors who found good specimens and wealthycollectors back on Earth taking the same oversize slice of the financial pie as he would have of a realone. His shop was in the innermost circle—appropriately he knew everyone. The main door wastransparent alloquartz with his business name and trading hours laser-etched into it not quite carved instone but still a degree of permanence suitable to a dealer in prehistoric relics. The business’s name wasYe Olde Fossil Shoppe—as if there were any other kind. The shoppe’s ye olde door slid aside as I approached—somewhat noisily I thought. WellMartian dust gets everywhere even inside our protective dome some of it was probably gumming up theworks. Gargalian seated by a long worktable covered with hunks of rock was in the middle of atransaction. A prospector—grizzled with a deeply lined face he could have been sent over from CentralCasting—was standing next to Gargantuan okay I was one of those who called him that too. Both ofthem were looking at a monitor showing a close-up of a rhizomorph fossil.