《Surface Tension》作者： - James Blish【EPUB】

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Book 3. Surface Tension. Prologue. Dr. Chatvieux took a long time over the microscope leavingla Ventura with nothing to do butlook at the dead landscapeof Hydrot. Waterscape he thought would be a better word. From space the new world had shown only one small trian-gular continent set amid endlessocean and even the con-tinent was mostly swamp. The wreck of the seed-ship lay broken squarely across theone real spur of rock which.Hydrotseemed to possess whichreared a magnificent twenty-one feet above sea-level. Fromthiseminence la Ventura could see forty miles to the horizonacross a flat bed of mud. The redlight of the star Tau Cetiglinting upon thousands of small lakes pools ponds andpuddlesmade the watery plain look like a mosaic of onyxand ruby. quotIf I were a religious manquot the pilot said suddenly quotIdcall this a plain case of divinevengeance.” Chatvieiix said: quotHmn” quotIts as if wed been struck down foris it hubris Pridearrogance” quotHybrisquot Chatvieux said looking up at last. quotWell is it I dont feel swollen with pride at the moment. Do you” .quotIm not exactly proud of my pilotingquot la Ventura ad-mitted. quotBut that isnt quite what Imean. I was thinking aboutwhy we came here in the first place. It takes a lot of arro-gance tothink that you can scatter men or at least thingsvery much like men all over the face of thegalaxy. It takeseven more pride to do the jobto pack up all the equipmentand move from planetto planet and actually make men makethem suitable for every place you touch.” quotI suppose it doesquot Chatvieux said. quotBut were only one ofseveral hundred seed-ships in thislimb of the galaxy so Idoubt