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"I suspect that religion is a necessary evil in the childhood of our particular species. And that's one of the interesting things about contact with other intelligences: we could see what role, if any, religion plays in their development."
- Arthur C. Clarke
 |
| Plug-Ups | ||
| Tiny plastic balls that seal leaks on spacecraft. |
These devices were used in Climber-type warships due to their exceedingly thin hulls.
| "Where're the plug-ups?" the Commander demands...
"Oh." The man doing the relay talking hits a switch. Little gas-filled plastic balls swarm into the compartment. They range from golf-ball to tennis-ball size... The plug-ups will drift aimlessly throughout the patrol, and will soon fade into the background environment. No one will think about them unless the hull is breached. Then our lives could depend on them. They'll rush to the hole, carried by the escaping atmosphere. If the breach is small, they'll break trying to get through. A quick-setting, oxygen-sensitive goo coats their insides. |
| From Passage at Arms,
by Glen Cook. Published by Warner in 1985 Additional resources -
|
Compare to Robert Heinlein's tag-along balloons from his 1948 story Gentlemen, Be Seated.
Special thanks to Winchell Chung, who probably doesn't remember contributing this item.
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'The planes flew continuously, twenty-four hours a day...'
'It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time.'
'...a single perfectly level platform, which rose so high above the water that it was not splashed by the waves.'
'Is an extra-factual memory that convincing?' Quail asked.
Megastructures have repair robots, which have repair robots, ad infinitum.
‘She wouldn't stop until Antar had told her everything he knew...’
Perfect for clot-busting in the human brain. No Raquel Welch and no lasers, though.
