（外文电子版资料）John Argo - Harps.pdf

Harps a sf short story by John Argo The icon hovering in Eons dream was the face of a young woman, eyes downcast, with a tear on one cheek. Something about her brooding beauty: serene, sad, filled with possibilities. Eon Reely slept, but lately he did not feel-rested. He did not know the biosynth feared for her life. And his. * * * Pilon P67 turned slowly in space. Its tempestuous guts were full of sound and steam, scattered l!ght beams and screeching steel. Its power pools and rainbows of raw energy sucked up the waking hours of Eon Reelys days. Still lean of body and crisp of face, he was a maggner in the heart of Pilon P67. His tedious job, dreadful like all P67 jobs, was to keep the maggn aligned with the countless pilons holding up the Galactic Bridge. The Bridge used gray wormholes in alternetic space so 55th Century civilization could travel on the underpinnings as if distances between stellar objects were seconds rather than lightyears. How did a man fall so far from hope? No maggner spoke of the misfortunes that brought him under the Bridge, and hardly any of the maggners had any dreams left. P67 was a vast black cylinder rotating in empty space at the rim of the galaxy, devoid of joy. Around it swept seventy polygons of polished glass that amplified the waves of the obersole as it sang like a whale in the sea of stars. * * * I know pour name, the girl in the crisp uniform and rakish cap said with sensuous fondness. She sat on a fallen log in a forest among fireflies in Eons sleeping mind. The was elegantly attractive in a way hed forgotten women could look. A single moons puffy face looked over her shoulder, and the place smelled like , what?, pines in a mountain wind (what did that mean?). Eon Reely rubbed his eyes and sat up. I have to get my sleep. She grinn