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The Flight of the Horse Larry Niven Produced by calibre 0.6.40 The Flight of the Horse The year was 750 AA Ante Atomic or 1200 AD Anno Domini approximately. Hanville Svetzstepped out of the extension cage and looked about him. To Svetz the atomic bomb was eleven hundred years old and the horse was a thousand years dead.It was his first trip into the past. His training didnt count it had not included actualtime-travel which cost several million commercials a shot. Svetz was groggy from the peculiargravitational side-effects of time-travel. He was high on pre-industrial-age air and drunk onhis own sense of destiny while at the same time he was not really convinced that he had goneanywhere. Or anywhen. Trade joke. He was not carrying the anesthetic rifle. He had come to get a horse he had not expected tomeet one at the door. How big was a horse Where were horses found Consider what the institutehad had to go on: a few pictures in a salvaged childrens book and an old legend not to betrusted that the horse had once been used as a kind of animated vehicle In an empty land beneath an overcast sky Svetz braced himself with one hand on the curvedflank of the extension cage. His head was spinning. It took him several seconds to realize thathe was looking at a horse. It stood fifteen yards away regarding Svetz with large intelligent brown eyes. It was muchlarger than he had expected. Further the horse in the picture book had had a glossy brown peltwith a short mane while the beast now facing Svetz was pure white with a mane that flowedlike a womans long hair. There were other differences . . . but no matter the beast matchedthe book too well to be anything but a horse. To Svetz it seemed that the horse watched him waited for him to realize what was happening.Then while Svetz wasted more time wondering why he wasnt holding a rifle the horse laughedturned and departed. It disappeared with astonishing speed. Svetz began to shiver
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