（外文电子版资料）Robert J. Sawyer - Peking Man.pdf

file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Robert%20J%20Sawyer%20-%20Peking%20Man.txt Peking Man by Robert J. Sawyer Copyright 漏 1996 by Robert J. Sawyer All Rights Reserved First published as the lead story in the anthology Dark Destiny III, edited by Edward E. Kramer (White Wolf, October 1996). Winner of the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Award (the Aurora) for Best English-Language Short Story of the Year. PEKING MAN by Robert J. Sawyer The lid was attached to the wooden crate with eighteen nails. The return address, in blue ink on the blond wood, said, Sender: Dept. of Anatomy, P.U.M.C., Peking, China. The destination address, in larger letters, was: Dr. Roy Chapman Andrews The American Museum of Natural History Central Park West at 79th Street New York, N.Y. U.S.A. The case was marked Fragile! and REGISTERED and Par Avion. A brand had burned the words Via Hongkong and by U.S. Air Service into the wood. Andrews had waited anxiously for this arrival. Between 1922 and 1930, he himself had led the now-famous Gobi Desert expeditions, searching for the Asian cradle of humanity. Although hed brought back untold scientific riches -- including the first-ever dinosaur eggs -- Andrews had failed to discover a single ancient human remain. But now a German scientist, Franz Weidenreich, had shipped to him a treasure trove from the Orient: the complete fossil remains of Sinanthropus pekinensis. In this very crate were the bones of Peking Man. Andrews was actually salivating as he used a crowbar to pry off the lid. Hed waited so long for these, terrified that they wouldnt survive the journey, desperate to see what humanitys forefathers had looked like, anxious -- The lid came off. The contents were carefully packed in smaller cardboard boxes. He picked one up and moved over to his cluttered desk. He swept the book