The Project Gutenberg EBook of Genesis, by H. Beam Piper

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Title: Genesis

Author: H. Beam Piper

Release Date: April 2, 2006 [EBook #18105]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GENESIS ***

Produced by Greg Weeks, Geetu Melwani and the Online
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Transcriber's Notes:

This etext was produced from "Future combined
with Science Fiction Stories" September 1951. Extensive research did not
uncover any evidence that the copyright on this publication was renewed.

A number of typographical errors found in the
original text have been corrected in this version. A list of these
errors is provided at the end of the book.

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GENESIS

By H. Beam Piper

FEATURE NOVELET
OF LOST WORLDS

Was this ill-fated expedition the end of a proud, old race--or the
beginning of a new one?

There are strange gaps in our records of the past. We find traces
of man-like things--but, suddenly, man appears, far too much
developed to be the "next step" in a well-linked chain of
evolutionary evidence. Perhaps something like the events of this
story furnishes the answer to the riddle.

Aboard the ship, there was neither day nor night; the hours slipped
gently by, as vistas of star-gemmed blackness slid across the
visiscreens. For the crew, time had some meaning--one watch on duty and
two off. But for the thousand-odd colonists, the men and women who were
to be the spearhead of migration to a new and friendlier planet, it had
none. They slept, and played, worked at such tasks as they could invent,
and slept again, while the huge ship followed her plotted trajectory.

Kalvar Dard, the army officer who would lead them in their new home, had
as little to do as any of his followers. The ship's officers had all the
responsibility for the voyage, and, for the first time in over five
years, he had none at all. He was finding the unaccustomed idleness more
wearying than the hectic work of loading the ship before the