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"I've taken some stick for passages in Altered Carbon which people complained had sickened them, but then violence should be sickening."
- Richard Morgan
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| Flying Eye | ||
| A remote-controlled device for surveillance overflight. |
When trying to repair a broken hyperspace beacon on a distant planet, it's always a good idea to get some idea of the "lay of the land" before going in oneself.
| Staying outside the atmosphere, I sent a Flying Eye down to look things over. In this business, you learn early where and when to risk your own skin. The Eye would be good enough for the preliminary survey.
...There was a nose and tail radar in the Eye, and I fed their signals in to a scope as an amplitude curve. When the two [landmark mountain] peaks coincided, I spun the Eye controls and dived the thing down. |
| Technovelgy from The Repairman,
by Harry Harrison. Published by Galaxy Science Fiction in 1959 Additional resources -
|
The Eye could be controlled manually, or it could be locked into a particular course. For example, you might want the device to circle a particular location at a set radius and altitude.
Take a look at the copseye from Larry Niven's 1972 short story Cloak of Anarchy and the Raytron apparatus from Ray Cummings' 1928 classic Beyond the Stars for different takes on this ancient wish (remote viewing - see Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, circa 200 BC).
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'Space-sickness is one of the most unpleasant sensations that a human being can experience. Not all are subject to it...'
'...I saw a nice black heavy-looking cloud sailing by just now, and I can get the electrical machine out in five minutes to draw it down.'
'From a distance it could resolve the cosmic rays reflected from various substances.'
'The answer to the dumb student's prayer.'
'He had travelled the space-lanes of the solar system for the greater part of his life...'
'The dinner was excellent. It was completely vegetarian — grown in specially prepared gardens in this Moon base...'
'Telepaths had their sensitiveness enlarged to an immense range by the pin-sets, which were telepathic amplifiers adapted to the mammal mind.'
'It was a relief to enter one of the comfortable autos, whisper a direction down the tube, and just know that you would be taken to your destination in the quickest, safest, and cheapest manner.'
'But he didn't get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts. George winced...'
