（外文电子版资料）Peter F. Hamilton - Softlight Sins.pdf

file:///D|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry/Desktop/Peter%20F%20Hamilton%20-%20Softlight%20Sins.txt Softlight Sins a short story by Peter F Hamilton Ghosts drifted through Douglas McEwans mind as he drove down the long road towards the execution. There were four spectres, the family of Adrian Reynolds, his mother, his abominable father, and his two lovely young sisters. The forensic teams in situ video had shown them in their beds, captured in a frozen pose that feigned sleep: eyes closed, lips relaxed, fingers splayed like albino starfish. In each case their throats had been slit open, black yawning gashes that had sprayed thick jets of blood across the sheets. The phosphene mirage was broken when Douglass police escort switched on their lights and sirens. The five-car convoy was motoring along a thin ribbon of road that cut through the heavily wooded Ling common to the north of Kings Lynn. Tall pines and slim silver birch trees stood sentinel duty on either side, their small yellowed leaves swirling through the air like a rusty snowstorm, settling on the grass verges where they formed a soggy mantle. Twin lines of parked press vehicles were backed up a hundred metres from the entrance of the Clinical Rehabilitation Institute. A dense knot of people was blocking the road ahead. The media circus. And to Douglass eyes they did look like clowns, dressed in their bulky garishly coloured parkas, noses and cheeks raw from the chill morning air. A double rank of police in blue-grey riot tunics had linked arms, creating a barrier to hold them back from the road. A hundred shouted questions merged into a single unintelligible bawl as Douglas drove past. Cameras zoomed in. Protesters had taken up the prime sites on either side of the Institutes gate, their stamping feet pounding th