（外文电子版资料）Robert J. Sawyer - The Hand Youre Dealt.pdf

file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Robert%20J.%20Sawyer%20-%20The%20Hand%20Youre%20Dealt.txt The Hand Youre Dealt by Robert J. Sawyer Copyright 漏 1997 by Robert J. Sawyer All Rights Reserved Current HUGO AWARD Finalist For Best Short Story of the Year Current ARTHUR ELLIS AWARD Finalist For Best Short Story of the Year First published in the anthology Free Space, edited by Brad Linaweaver and Edward E. Kramer (Tor, 1997). This is the authors preferred text as published in the anthology Crossing the Line: Canadian Mystery Fiction With A Twist, edited by Robert J. Sawyer David Skene-Melvin (Pottersfield, 1998) And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. -- John 8:32 Got a new case for you, said my boss, Raymond Chen. Homicide. My heart started pounding. Mendelia habitat is supposed to be a utopia. Murder is almost unheard of here. Chen was fat -- never exercised, loved rich foods. He knew his lifestyle would take decades off his life, but, hey, that was his choice. Somebody offed a soothsayer, over in Wheel Four, he said, wheezing slightly. Baranskis on the scene now. My eyebrows went up. A dead soothsayer? This could be very interesting indeed. I took my pocket forensic scanner and exited The Cop Shop. That was its real name -- no taxes in Mendelia, after all. You needed a cop, you hired one. In this case, Chen had said, we were being paid by the Soothsayers Guild. That meant we could run up as big a bill as necessary -- the SG was stinking rich. One of the few laws in Mendelia was that everyone had to use soothsayers. Mendelia consisted of five modules, each looking like a wagon wheel with spokes leading in to a central hub. The hubs were all joined together by a long axle, and separate travel tubes connected the outer edges of the wheels. The whole thing spun to simulate gravity out at the rims,