《The Locusts 》作者：- Larry Niven, Steve Barnes【EPUB】

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The Locusts Larry Niven Steve Barnes Produced by calibre 0.6.40 THE LOCUSTS by Larry Niven and Steve Barnes There are no men on Tau Ceti IV. Near the equator on the ridged ribbon of continent which reaches north and south to cover bothpoles the evidence of Man still showamp There is the landing craft a great thick saucer with arounded edge gaping doors and vast empty space inside. Ragged clumps of grass and scrubvegetation surround its base now. There is the small town where they lived grew old anddied: tall stone houses a main street of rock fused with atomic fire a good deal of machinerywhose metal is still bright. There is the land itself overgrown but still showing the tracesof a square arrangement that once marked it as farmland. And there is the fores4 reaching north and south along the sprawling ribbon of continentspreading even to the innumerable islands which form two-thirds of Ridgebacks land mass Whereforest cannot grow because of insufficient water or because the carefully bred bacteria havenot yet built a sufficient depth of topsoil there is grass an exceptionally hardy hybrid ofBuffalo and Cord with an abnormal number of branching roots developing a dense and fertilesod. There are flocks of moos resurrected from a lost New Zealand valley. The great flightlessbirds roam freely sharing their grazing land with expanding herds of wild cattle and buffalo. There are things in the forest. They prefer it there but will occasionally shamble out intothe grasslands and sometimes even into the town. They themselves do not understand why theygo: there is no food and they do not need building materials or other things which may be therefor the scavenging. They always leave the town before nightfall arrives. When men came the land was as barren as a tabletop. Doc and Elise were among the last to leave the ship. He took his wifes hand and walked downthe ramp eager to feel alien loam between his toes. He kept his shoes on. Theyd have tomake the loam first. The other colonists were exceptionally silent as if each were afraid to speak. Notsurprising Doc thought The first words spoken on Ridgeback would become history. The robot probes had found five habitable worlds besides Ridgeback in Earths neighborhood.Two held life in more or less primitive stages but Ridgeback was perfect. There was one-celled life in Ridgebacks seas enough to give the planet an oxygenating atmosphere and nolife at all on land. They would start with a clean slate. So the biologists had chosen what they believed was a representative and balanced ecology. Aworlds life was stored in the cargo hold