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"In 1970 I found little difficulty staying 30 years ahead of the man in the street, and now I find it difficult to stay 18 months ahead of the man on the street."
- Vernor Vinge
 |
| Slug | ||
| An underwater "barge", consisting of a giant tube for transporting oil. |
| In the cold Arctic waters outside the Ram, pumps turned, hose nozzles sought out bottom muck for ballast. The plastic slug began to swell with its cargo of oil -- like a live thing drinking at a jugular in the earth.
The hands of the timelog swept around, around. Fifty-one hours at the well. Full slug. It stretched out on the bottom behind the Ram, turgid with its cargo, now almost a mile long, held in delicate hydrostatic balance so that it would tow beneath the surface. |
| Technovelgy from Dragon in the Sea,
by Frank Herbert. Published by Doubleday in 1956 Additional resources -
|
Apparently, in 1958 the British Dunlop company began to produce and sell the "slug" barge idea as the "Dracone Barge". Both Arthur C. Clarke and Fritz Leiber recommended that Herbert take legal action, but he found that there is a two-year discovery period that lapsed after the publication of his book, so it was too late to file.
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'...the rocket’s landing-arms automatically unfolded.'
'...points and patches of light... sliding all over their faces in a programmed manner that had been designed to foil facial recognition systems.'
'...the combined Wind-Suncatcher, like a spray of tulips mounted fanwise.'
'I went to the control room where the three other men were manipulating their mechanical men.'
'The low-slung monorail car, straddling its single track, bored through the shadows on a slowly rising course.'
'It was a smooth ovoid floating a few inches from the floor...'
'... he thrust in his charging arm to replenish his store of energy.'
'...the terrible Jovian gravity that made each movement an effort.'
