1　 With a gentle sigh the service tube dropped a message capsule into the receiving cup. The attention bell chimed once and was silent. Jason dinAlt stared at the harmless capsule as though it were a ticking bomb.　 Something was going wrong. He felt a hard knot of tension form inside of him. This was no routine service memo or hotel munication, but a sealed personal message. Yet he knew no one on this planet, having arrived by spacer less than eight hours earlier. Since even his name was new-dating back to the last time he had changed ships- there could be no personal messages. Yet here one was.　 Stripping the seal with his thumbnail, he took the top off. The recorder in the pencil-sized c　

shall lie across the Pattern of the Age, and the Dark One shall once more layhis hand upon the world of man. Women shall weep and men quail as the nations ofthe earth are rent like rotting cloth. Neither shall anything stand nor abide...Yet one shall be born to face the Shadow, born once more as he was born beforeand shall be born again, time without end. The Dragon shall be Reborn, and thereshall be wailing and gnashing of teeth at his rebirth. In sackcloth and ashesshall he clothe the people, and he shall break the world again by his ing,tearing apart all ties that bind. Like the unfettered dawn shall he blind us,and burn us, yet shall the Dragon Reborn confront the Shadow at the Last Bat　

I stood in line, as patient as the other taxpayers, my filled out forms and my cash gripped body in my hand. Cash, money, the old fashioned green folding stuff. A local custom that I intended to make expensive to the local customers. I was scratching under the artificial beard, which itched abominably, when the man before me stepped out of the way and I was at the window. My finger stuck in the glue and I had a job freeing it without pulling the beard off as well."e, e, pass it over," the aging, hatchet-faced, bitter and shrewish female official said, hand extended impatiently."On the contrary," I said, letting the papers and banknotes fall away to disclose the immense .75 recoilless pistol　

　 Revelation 21:9　　1　　NIGHT FELL CLEAN and cold in Dublin, and wind moaned beyond my room as if a million pipes played the air. Gusts shook old windowpanes and sounded like spirits rushing past as I rearranged pillows one more time, finally resting on my back in a snarl of Irish linen. But sleep would not touch me, and images from the day returned. I saw bodies without limbs or heads, and sat up, sweating.　I switched on lamps, and the Shelbourne Hotel was suddenly around me in a warm glow of rich old woods and deep red plaids. I put on a robe, my eyes lingering on the phone by my fitfully-slept-in bed. It was almost two A.M. In Richmond, Virginia, it would be five hours earlier, and 　

　　1　　 mander James D. Swanson of the U.S. Navy was short, plump and crowding forty. He had jet-black hair topping a pink, cherubic face, and with the deep permanent creases of laughter lines radiating from his eyes and curving around his mouth, he was a dead ringer for the cheerful, happy-golucky extrovert who is the life and soul of the party where the guests park their brains along with their hats and coats. That, anyway, was how he struck me at first glance, but on the reasonable assumption that I might very likely find some other qualities in the man picked to mand the latest and most powerful nuclear submarine afloat I took a second and closer look at him and this time I saw what I sho　

　Kona Weather　　MISS MINERVA WINTERSLIP was a Bostonian in good standing, and long past the romantic age. Yet beauty thrilled her still, even the semi-barbaric beauty of a Pacific island. As she walked slowly along the beach she felt the little catch in her throat that sometimes she had known in Symphony Hall, Boston, when her favorite orchestra rose to some new and unexpected height of loveliness.　It was the hour at which she liked Waikiki best, the hour just preceding dinner and the quick tropic darkness. The shadows cast by the tall cocoanut palms lengthened and deepened, the light of the falling sun flamed on Diamond Head and tinted with gold the rollers sweeping in from the coral reef. 　

　Doyne Farmer and Alletta Belin, 1992　　There are many people, including myself, who are quite queasy about the consequences of this technology for the future.　K. Eric Drexler, 1992　　Introduction　Artificial Evolution in the Twenty-first Century　　The notion that the world around us is continuously evolving is a platitude; we rarely grasp its full implications. We do not ordinarily think, for example, of an epidemic disease changing its character as the epidemic spreads. Nor do we think of evolution in plants and animals as occurring in a matter of days or weeks, though it does. And we do not ordinarily imagine the green world around us as a scene of constant, sophisticated chemical warfare, w　

　work as a tribute to　Her Britannic Majesty,　Elizabeth II, to the people　of Her Crown Colony of　Hong Kong - and perdition to their enemies.　　　Of course this is a novel. It is peopled with imaginary persons and panies and no reference to any person or pany that was, or is, part of Hong Kong or Asia is intended.　I would also like to apologize at once to all Hong Kong yan - all Hong Kong persons - for rearranging their beautiful city, for taking incidents out of context, for inventing people and places and streets and panies and incidents that, hopefully, may appear to have existed but have never existed, for this, truly, is a story. ...　　June 8,1960　　PROLOGUE...　

　On July 16, in the aching torpid heat of the South Florida summer, Terry Whelper stood at the Avis counter at Miami International Airport and rented a bright red Chrysler LeBaron convertible. He had originally signed up for a Dodge Colt, a sensible low-mileage pact, but his wife had told him go on, be sporty for once in your life. So Terry Whelper got the red LeBaron plus the extra collision coverage, in anticipation of Miami drivers. Into the convertible he inserted the family-his wife Gerri, his son Jason, his daughter Jennifer-and bravely set out for the turnpike.　The children, who liked to play car games, began counting all the other LeBarons on the highway. By the time the Whelpers go　

　　THE WAVES TURNED VICIOUS AND WORSENED WITH EVERY rush of wind. The calm weather of the morning transformed from Dr. Jekyll into a vehement Mr. Hyde by late evening. Whitecaps on the crests of towering waves were lashed into sheets of spray. The violent water and black clouds merged under the onslaught of a driving snowstorm. It was impossible to tell where water ended and sky began. As the passenger liner Princess Dou Wan fought through waves that rose like mountains before spilling over the ship, the men on board were unaware of the imminent disaster that was only minutes away. The crazed waters were driven by northeast and northwest gales that simultaneously caused ferocious currents t　

　　WIN in the Gulf　　An hour before dawn, in the Straits of Hormuz: a dark and dangerous time and place. The air was a chill mixture of sea and sweetness, giving no hint of the heat that would be generated once day took over. The massive Japanese-registered oil-tanker Son of Takashuni slowly ploughed its way towards the Gulf of Oman and parative safety. Its vast deck rolled gently; the tall superstructure, rising from the stem, looking like a block of flats, appeared to tip more violently than the deck because of its height.　Every officer and rating aboard could feel a tightening of the stomach muscles, the sense of urgency, and the absurd detached feeling which people experience when they kn　

　　　　 Red Nails　　 Jewels of Gwahlur　　 Beyond the Black River　　　　RED NAILS　　　　　　For some two years, as captain of the Wastrel, Conan continues a highly successful career as a freebooter. However, the other Zingaran pirates, jealous of the outlander in their midst, at last bring him down off the coast of Shem. Escaping inland and hearing that wars are in the offing along the borders of Stygia, Conan joins the Free panions, a band of condottieri under the mand of one Zarallo. Instead of rich plunder, however, he finds himself engaged in uneventful guard duty in the border post of Sukhmet, on the frontier of the black kingdoms. The wine is sour and the pickings poor, and Conan soon gets tired of