《At the bottom of a hole 》作者：- Larry Niven【EPUB】

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At the bottom of a hole Larry Niven Produced by calibre 0.6.40 At the Bottom of a Hole TWELVE STORIES BELOW the roof gardens were citrus groves grazing pastures and truck farms.They curved out from the base of the hotel in neat little squares curved out and up and upand up and over. Five miles overhead was the fusion sunlight tube running down the radius ofthe slightly bulging cylinder that was Farmers Asteroid. Five miles above the sunlight tubethe sky was a patchwork of small squares split by a central wedding ring of lake and bytributary rivers a sky alive with the tiny red glints of self-guided tractors. Lucas Garner was half-daydreaming letting his eyes rove the solid sky. At the Beltgovernments invitation he had entered a bubbleworld for the first time combining a vacationfrom United Nations business with a chance at a brand new experience--rare thing for a manseventeen decades old. He found it pleasantly kooky to look up into a curved sky of fused rockand imported topsoil. quotTheres nothing immoral about smugglingquot said Lit Shaeffer. The surface overhead was dotted with hotels as if the bubbleworld were turning to city. Garnerknew it wasnt. Those hotels and the scattered hotels in the other bubbleworld served everyBelters occasional need for an Earthlike environment. Belters dont need houses. A Beltershome is the inside of his pressure suit. Garner returned his attention to his host. quotYou mean smugglings like picking pockets on Earthquot quotThats just what I dont meanquot Shaeffer said. The Belter reached into his coverall pocketpulled out something flat and black and laid it on the table. quotIll want to play that in a minute. Garner picking pockets is legal on Earth. Has to be theway you crowd together. You couldnt enforce a law against picking pockets. In the Beltsmuggling is against the law but it isnt immoral. Its like a flatlander forgetting to feedthe parking meter. Theres no loss of self-respect. If you get caught you pay the fine andforget it.quot quot0h.quot quotIf a man wants to send his earnings through Ceres thats up to him. It costs him a straightfifty percent. If he thinks he can get past the goldskins that too is his choice. But if wecatch him well confiscate his cargo and everybody will be laughing at him. Nobody pities aninept smuggler.quot quotIs that what Muller tried to doquot quotYah. He had a valuable cargo twenty kilos of pure north magnetic