（外文电子版资料）Among the Hairy Earthmen by R.A.Laffery.docVIP

This is an allegory that contains a good deal of subtlety. It is an entertaining and fanciful story by a writer who, although a relative newcomer to science fiction, has developed a unique understanding of his craft. Incidentally, Mr. Lafferty prefers the title A Pride of Children for this story. R. A. Lafferty AMONG THE HAIRY EARTHMEN There is one period of our World History that has aspects so different from anything that went before and after that we can only gaze back on those several hundred years and ask: Was that ourselves who behaved so? Well, no, as a matter of fact, it wasnt. It was beings of another sort who visited us briefly and who acted so glorious-ly and abominably. This is the way it was: The Children had a Long Afternoon free. They could go to any of a dozen wonderful places, but they were already in one. Seven of them full to the craw of wonderful places decided to go to Eretz. Children are attracted to the oddest and most shambling things, said the Mothers. Why should they want to go to Eretz? Let them go, said the Fathers. Let them see before they be gone one of the few simple peoples left. We ourselves have become a contrived and compromised people. Let the Children be children for half a day. Eretz was the Planet of the Offense, and therefore it was to be (perhaps it recently had been) the Planet of the Restitution also. But in no other way was it distinguished. The Children had received the tradition of Eretz as children receive all traditions like lightning. Hobble, Michael Goodgrind, Ralpha, Lonnie, Laurie, Bea and Joan they called themselves as they came down on Eretz for these were their idea of Eretzi names. But they could have as many names as they wished in their games. An anomalous intrusion of great heat and force! The rocks ran like water where they came down, and there was formed a scarp-pebble enclave. It was all shanty country and shanty towns on Eretz clumsy hills, badly done plains and piedmonts, ragged fields, uncleansed riv