（外文电子版资料）Kuttner, Henry - We Guard the Black Planet.pdfVIP

greet me. Against the sky Freya, my fathers gerfalcon, was wheeling. And high on the crag was the Hall, its tower keeping unceasing vigil over the northern ocean. On the porch my father was waiting, a giant who had grown old. Nils Esterling had always been a silent man. His thin lips seemed clamped tight upon some secret he never told, and I think I was always a little afraid of him, though he was never unkind. But between us was a gulf. Nils seemed —shackled. I realized that first when I saw him watching the birds go south before the approach of winter. His eyes held a sick longing that, somehow, made me uneasy. Shackled, silent, taciturn, he had grown old, always a little withdrawn from the world, always I thought, afraid of the stars. In the daytime he would watch his gerfalcon against the deep blue of the sky, but at night he drew the shades and would not venture out. The stars meant something to him. Only once, I knew, he had been in space; he never ventured beyond the atmosphere again. What had happened out there I did not know. But Nils Esterling came back changed, with something dead inside his soul. I was going out now. In my pocket were my papers, the result of six years of exhausting work at Sky Point, where I had been a cadet. I was shipping tomorrow on the Martins, Callisto bound. Nils had asked me to come home first. His smile held no mirth. That I was ill? Or perhaps dying. No, Arn. Ive been dying for forty years— He looked at the gerfalcon. It doesnt matter a great deal now. Except that I hope it comes soon. Youll know why when I tell you about —about what happened to me in space four decades ago. Ill try not to be bitter, but its hard. Damned hard. Again Nils looked at the gerfalcon. He went on after a moment, threading the cord through Freyas jesses.