标题: 《The Man From the Stars 》作者： - Robert Moore Williams【EPUB】 [打印本页] 作者: zaq 时间: 2014-4-24 08:02 标题: 《The Man From the Stars 》作者： - Robert Moore Williams【EPUB】 THE MAN FROM THE STARS By ROBERT MOORE WILLIAMS Aided by a Mind-Reading Machine, Inventor James Egan Discovers a Strange Exile—and Is Whirled into Furious Conflict Against a Villainous Banker and Two Sinister Greed-Maddened Thugs! A FANTASTIC COMPLETE NOVELET CHAPTER I Visitor from Afar EGAN was not the first man to seek knowledge. The quest for truth is almost as ancient as the quest for food, but with Egan research had almost become a mania. The odd thing was that he remembered to eat at all, but on this particular evening, directly after dinner, he went to his laboratory. In the kitchen he could hear Anna, his huge Negro cook, sullenly banging things around as she cleaned up the pots and pans. Egan sat down in the laboratory and waited. He was no prophet, but he knew what was going to happen. He did not like the idea, yet so far as he could see there was nothing much he could do about it. He did not have long to wait until Anna came padding down the hall and knocked on his lab door. Egan got up and opened it. She stood there, a huge mountain of a woman, her face sullen. She wouldn't come in and she wouldn't look in, either, contriving to stare into space. "Mr. Egan, could I speak with you a minute?" Egan sighed. Good cooks were hard to find. "Yes, Anna," he said. "You're leaving. I know." She seemed surprised. "How did you know that?" Egan did not bother to answer that. "I don't suppose I could persuade you to stay, Anna? I'm paying you well and the work is light. You have only me to cook for, and the housework to do, which isn't much. Good jobs are hard to find, Anna." "I know they is, Mr. Egan," the cook said. Then she realized she was looking into the laboratory, which was something she preferred not to do, and hastily transferred her gaze back to the door. "I sho' would like to keep on working for you, but I got a cousin that's bad sick, and they's only me to take care of her. So I got to quit, Mr. Egan." Egan let her talk. She went into great detail about her relative, telling him the