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"I don't have an e-mail address. As much as I admire the Internet I suffer literally agoraphobia, which in it's original sense means a fear of the marketplace. I do not want to receive three hundred e-mail messages per week from strangers…"
- William Gibson
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| Portable G-ray | ||
| A backpack device that shields its wearer against gravitation force. |
When you get visitors from planets with less gravity than Earth, they should be properly prepared.
| "Mado!" he exclaimed in surprise as a husky, bronzed Martian squeezed through the quickly opened manhole and clambered heavily to the platform. Mado of Canax —a n old friend!
"Devils of Terra!" gasped the Martian, his knees giving way, "—your murderous gravity! Here, help me. I've forgotten the energizing switch." Carr laughed as he fumbled with a mechanism that was strapped to the Martian's back. Mado, who tipped the scales at over two hundred pounds on his own planet, weighed nearly six hundred here. His legs simply couldn't carry the load! "There you are, old man." Parker had located the switch and a musical purr came from the black box between the Martian's broad shoulders. "Now stand up and tell me what you're doing here. And what's the idea of the private ship? Come all the way from home in it?" His friend struggled to his feet with an effort, for the field emanating from the black box required a few seconds to reach the intensity necessary to counteract two-thirds of the earth's gravity. |
| Technovelgy from Vagabonds of Space,
by Harl Vincent. Published by Astounding Stories of Super Science in 1930 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the gravity web from Whipping Star (1969) by Frank Herbert. See also what Baron Vladimir Harkonnen uses in Frank Herbert's Dune - the suspensor. Compare to the geopeller from One Against the Legion (1939) by Jack Williamson. See also the levitator pack from Gears for Nemesis (1942) by Raymond Z. Gallun.
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'The answer to the dumb student's prayer.'
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'But he didn't get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts. George winced...'
