【導(dǎo)讀】成本，提高企業(yè)的市場競爭力已經(jīng)成為擺在我國企業(yè)面前的一個最大的問題。中小企業(yè)在未來的物流管理中,應(yīng)高度重視物流觀念的變革,不斷開創(chuàng)新的。理員信息進行管理；管理企業(yè)的招聘信息；由于操作人員的計算機知識普遍較差，統(tǒng)可以自動保護原始數(shù)據(jù)的安全；系統(tǒng)退出。企業(yè)物流管理平臺使物流企業(yè)走上了科學(xué)化、網(wǎng)絡(luò)化管理道路。物流管理系統(tǒng)是集現(xiàn)代運輸、倉儲、配送、搬運、包裝、產(chǎn)品流通及

　　

【正文】 ace where I would be especially importa nt. That can get either boring or difficult fairly quickly, depending on how responsible you want to be. I wanted to be an irresponsible nonentity and just enjoy myself. Texorami was a wide open port city, with sultry days and long nights, lots of good music, gambling around the cloc k, duels every morning and inbetween mayhem for those who couldn39。t wait. And the air currents were fabulous. I had a little red sail plane I used to go sky surfing in, every couple of days. It was the good life. I played drums till all hours in a basement spot up the river where the walls sweated almost as much as the customers and the smoke used to wash around the lights like streams of milk. When I was done playing I39。d go find some action, women, or cards, usually. A nd tha t was it for the rest of the night. Damn Eric, anywayl That reminds me again . . . He once accused me of cheating at cards, did you know that? And that39。s about the only thing I wouldn39。t cheat at. I ta ke my card playing seriously. I39。m good and I39。m also luc ky. Eric was neither. The trouble with him was that he was good at so many things he woul dn39。t admit even to himself that there were some things other people could do better. If you kept beating him at anything you had to be cheating. He started a nasty argument over it one nightcould have gotten seriousbut Gerard and Caine broke it up. G ive Caine that. He took my part that time. Poor guy . . . Hell of a way to go, you know? His throat . . . Well, anyhow, there I was in Texorami, making music and women, winning at cards and jockeying around the sky. Palm trees and nightblooming wallflowers. Lots of good port smellsspices, coffee, tar, saltyou know. Gentlefolk, merchants, and peons the same straights as in most other places. Sailors and assorted travelers passing in and out. Guys like me living around the edges of things. I spent a little over two years in Texorami, happy. Really. Not much contact with the others. Sort of postcard like hellos via the Trumps every now and then, and that was about it. Amber was pretty much off my mind. All this changed one night when I was sitting there with a fu ll house and the guy across from me was trying to make up his mind whether or not I was bluffing. The Jack of Diamonds began talking to me. Yes, that is how it started. I was in a weird frame of mind anyway. I had just finished a couple very hot sets and was still kind of high. A lso, I was physically strung out from a long day39。s gliding and not much sleep the night before. I decided later that it must be our mental quir k associated w ith the Trumps that made me see it that way when someone was trying to reach me and I had cards in my handany cards. Ordinarily, of course, we get the message empty handed, unless we are doing the calling. It could have been that my subconsciouswhich was kind of footloose at the timejust seized on the available props out of habit Later, though, I had cause to wonder. Really, I just don39。t know. The Jac k said, Random. Then its face blurred and it said, Help me. I began getting a feel of the personality by then, but it was we ak. The whole thing was very weak. T hen the face rearranged itself and I saw that I was right. It was Brand. He looked like hell, and he seemed to be chained or tied to something. Help me, he said again. I39。m here, I said. What39。s the matter? . . . prisoner, he said, and something else that I couldn39。t make out. Where? I a sked. He shook his head at that. Can39。t bring you through, he said. No Trumps, and I am too weak. You will have to e the long way around.... I did not ask him how he was managing it without my Trump. Finding out where he was seemed of first importance. I asked him how I could locate him. Look very closely, he said. Remember every feature. I may only be able to show you once. Come armed, too. . . . Then I saw the landscapeover his shoulder, out a window, over a battlement, I can39。t be sure. It was far from Amber, somewhere where the shadows go mad. Farther than I like to go. Star k, w ith shifting colors. Fiery. Day without a sun in the sky. Rocks that glided like sailboats across the land. Brand there in some sort of to wera small point of stability in that f lowing scene. I remembered it, all right. A nd I remembered the presence coiled about the base of tha t tower. Br illiant. Prismatic. Some sort of watchthing, it seemedtoo bright for me to make out its outline, to guess its proper size. Then it all just went away. Instant off. And there I was, staring at the Jac k of Diamonds again, with the guy across from me not knowing w hether to be mad at my long distra ction or concerned that I might be having some sort of sick spell. I closed up shop with that hand and went home. I lay stretched out on my bed, smoking and thinking. Brand had still been in Amber when I had departed. Later, though, w hen I had asked af ter him, no one had any idea as to his whereabouts. He had been having one of his melancholy spells, had snapped out of it one day and ridden off. And that was that. No messages eithereither way. He wasn39。t answering, he wasn39。t talking. I tried to figure every angle. He was smart, damn smart. Possibly the best mind in the family. He was in trouble and he had c alled me. Eric and Gerard were more the heroic types and would probably have weled the adventure. Caine w ould have gone out of curiosity, I think. Julian, to look better than the rest of us and to score points w ith Dad. Or, easiest of all, Brand could have called Dad himself. Dad would have done something about it. But he had called me. Why? It occurred to me then that maybe one or more of the others had been responsible for his circumsta