《Late》作者： - A. Bertram Chandler 【EPUB】

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It was jokingly said that he would be late for his own funeral, but Jelks was the kind of technician who was methodical in everything he did. He was the logical operator, for instance, to send as observer on the space platform. Unfortunately, there was just one thing he missed . . . LATE By A. BERTRAM CHANDLER He was a big man, this Jelks—big, with a ruddy complexion, china blue eyes and thinning blonde hair. He was a slow man— slow, but thorough and . . slow. In the days of his not too far distant youth he had been told, often, by parents and teachers driven to and beyond the point of exasperation, that he would be late for his own funeral. On these frequent occasions he had smiled his slow, amiable smile and, the rebuke seemingly having failed to register, had plodded stolidly ahead with whatever had been the work in hand. In spite of his slowness— and because of his thoroughness—he had won scholarship after scholarship after scholarship, had whilst still in his early thirties, become the sort of scientist and mathematician ignored by the popular press but still possessing a solid reputation among his academic peers. "Jelks," old Professor Hartley had said, "will be the ideal man for the job. He's slow—I grant you that. He'll be late for his own funeral. But he's thorough. He'll be hanging up there for weeks—observing, monitoring, making out reports, cooped up in a tiny tin coffin. Some men it'd drive mad. It'd