《The Pritcher Mass 》作者：- Gordon R. Dickson【EPUB】

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The Pritcher MassGordon R. DicksonOutOf MyLife And ThoughtquotLate on the third day at the very moment when at sunset we were making our way through a herd of hippopotamuses there flashed uponmy mind unforeseen and unsought the phrase Reverence for Life... Now I had found my way to the idea in which affirmation of the world and ethics are contained side by side now I knew that the ethicalacceptance of the world and of life together with the ideals of civilization contained in this concept has a foundation in thought . .quot byAlbertSchweitzerIChaz Santhad evoked the familiar passage from Schweitzer out of the cluttered attic of his memory. It was to help him do battle with thegrim anger still burning inside him at having once more failed the paranormals test for work on the Mass. If there was anything he believed inutterly himself it was the cool clean thought the old humanitarian had laid out in that passage but the hot flame of his own alwaystooreadyfury was hard to put down. He knew as well as he knew his own heartbeat that he had the special ability to pass that test. Only it hadbeen as if something was deliberately tripping him as he took it . . .A sudden shrieking of railcar brakes and a heavy pressure of deceleration jerked him out of his thoughts. He lifted his head staring around.Everyone else in the packed city was also staring around. But the brake shriek and the deceleration went on pressing all their uprightbodies hard against the straps of the commuter harnesses that protected them.With a rough jolt they stopped. There was a second of absolute silence then the faint but distinct sounds of two explosions fromsomewhere ahead of them—so faint in fact that they had to come from outside the sterile seal of their car the middle one of a threecarCommuters Special on this 18:15 run from Chicago to the Wisconsin Dells.Then the abnormal silence was shattered by a roar of voices. It was a typical crowded daysend run and everyone in the cars two hundredand forty harnesses seemed to be talking at once making guesses at what had happened. Chaz himself was strapped in next to the longwindow running along the right side of the car but he could see nothing unusual beyond its double thicknesses of glass. Onlya twilight autumnbrown and weedy landscape of the unsterile outside a field that might once have been farmed acres was now rough with clumps ofaspen saplings and the occasional splash of deadly color from the golden fruit of a Jobs berry bush.He craned his neck trying to see up along the track forward but at this spot it curved to the left through a stand of pines and there wasnothing to be seen that way either but the trees and the bulging windowed right side of the Specials first car.quotSabotagequot said the thin woman in the harness to Chaz immediate left. Her face was pale except for small spots of color over herprominent cheekbones and her voice was tight. quotIts always on an evening run like this. The rails are going to be torn up ahead. Our sealwill get cracked somehow and theyll never let us back into the Dells...quotShe closed