The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Record of Currupira, by Robert Abernathy

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Title: The Record of Currupira

Author: Robert Abernathy

Release Date: March 24, 2010 [EBook #31762]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RECORD OF CURRUPIRA ***

Produced by Greg Weeks, Barbara Tozier and the Online
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This etext was produced from Fantastic Universe, January 1954.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed.

_This story contains what is, to us, at any rate, a novel
idea--that when we of Earth finally reach Mars we may find
there records of prehistoric Earth far surpassing those of our
paleontologists. Or, in other words, that creatures of Mars
may have visited this planet tens of thousands of years ago
and returned home with specimens for their science. A nice
idea well told._

THE RECORD OF CURRUPIRA

_by ... Robert Abernathy_

From ancient Martian records came the grim song of a creature
whose very existence was long forgotten.

James Dalton strode briskly through the main exhibit room of New
York's Martian Museum, hardly glancing to right or left though many
displays had been added since his last visit. The rockets were coming
home regularly now and their most valuable cargoes--at least from a
scientist's point of view--were the relics of an alien civilization
brought to light by the archeologists excavating the great dead
cities.

One new exhibit did catch Dalton's eye. He paused to read the label
with interest--

MAN FROM MARS:

_The body here preserved was found December 12, 2001, by an
exploring party from the spaceship NEVADA, in the Martian
city which we designate E-3. It rested in a case much like
this, in a building that had evidently been the municipal
museum. Around it, in other cases likewise undisturbed since a
period estimated at fifty thousand years ago, were a number of
Earthly artifacts. These finds prove beyond doubt that a
Martian scientific expedition v