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"Money to me is freedom, and freedom is essential. Money allows me to say that I will now devote my life to being me, rather than putting on my shoes and tie, and going to an office every day."
- Robert Silverberg

Mercy Rifle  
  Device fired slivers of anesthetic as darts.  

The goggled figure in front of the camp tent was cleaning a mercy rifle. By the time we were out of the car, he had closed it up and loaded it with inch-long slivers of anesthetic chemical. The slivers could be fired individually or in one-second bursts of twenty, and they dissolved instantly in anything that resembled blood. One type of sliver would usually fit all the lifeforms on a given world.
Technovelgy from Grendel, by Larry Niven.
Published by Ballantine in 1968
Additional resources -

Compare this idea to the needle pipe from the 1928 novel Beyond the Stars by Ray Cummings.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Grendel
  More Ideas and Technology by Larry Niven
  Tech news articles related to Grendel
  Tech news articles related to works by Larry Niven

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