《Rim Sister Under the Skin 》作者：- A. Bertram Chandler【EPUB】

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CHANDLERKENNEDY waited until the work of discharge was well under way then wentashore. He could have left the ship earlier he could had he so wished ithave been the first to leave but the other officers his juniors were allmarried and he was not not any longer. Still he reflected he was lucky tohave a home to go to. He was lucky to have a sister. It would be utterlygrim to come in from Deep Space—especially after a voyage to a drab worldlike Beta Sextans III known to spacemen as the Slag Heap—to spend onesleave in dreary hotel rooms. She was a good kid Judith he thought eventhough she did marry that stuffed shirt of a Colonel.The taxi was waiting for him at the foot of the gangway. Kennedy slung hisbags into the passenger compartment followed them. He sat backcomfortably in his seat as the whirling vanes lifted him clear of thespaceport with its busy cranes and gantries and conveyor belts thegleaming ships that looked like huge spinning tops scattered by some giantchild.quotA good voyage Misterquot asked the driver.quotNoquot said Kennedy. quotLousy. Its good to be back on Earth. I hope they sendus somewhere better next trip.quotquotWherere you in fromquot asked the driver. quotIt looked like metal you weredischarging. Slabs and ingots . . .quotquotBeta Sextans IIIquot replied Kennedy. quotThe Slag Heap. Three months fromEarth even with the Ehrenhaft Drive running flat out and when you getthere its nothing but a big ball of rubble where it rains for three hundredand ninety days out of the four hundred that make its year. Theres nosurface vegetation except for a few things like Terran lichens. Therere fungiin the caves