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"To get anywhere, or even live a long time, a man has to guess, and guess right, over and over again, without enough data for a logical answer."
- Robert Heinlein
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| Metal BIrds | ||
| Surveillance robots that carried weapons, in addition to using their metal bodies. |
These are the heavily weaponized version of the robot tracking devices from the same novel.
 (...cubes of glittering steel) On the platform the metal projectile had been joined by another; now a third landed, coming to rest beside the other two. Three cubes of glittering steel, holding tightly to the marble with clawlike grippers. "Attention!" the voice repeated. It came from the first projectile, an artificial voice - the sound of steel and wiring and plastic parts. These were instruments of death. And now they were out in the open. A fourth landed with the others. Metal squares, sitting together in a row like vicious mechanical crows. Murderous birds - hammer-headed destroyers... The four projectiles peered around the room, looking and listening intently.
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| Technovelgy from Vulcan's Hammer,
by Philip K. Dick. Published by Ace Books in 1956 Additional resources -
|
The flying hammer-headed robots could attack in groups:
"I can't understand how Vulcan 3 came to have such things," Daily said...
"It made them," Barris said. "They're adaptations of mobile repair instruments... It must have perceived the possibilities in the situation a long time ago, and started turning them out..."
A hammer dived for the window... "These are no random attacks; those damn metal birds are co-ordinated...
It's mechanical flying objects controlled by a machine buried deep beneath the earth.
These devices were also equipped with pencil lasers.
Compare to the tracer birds from Changeling (1980), by Roger Zelazny and to the robot bird from Invader on My Back, by Philip E. High, published by Ace Books in 1968.
...he watched a mob of Healers struggling with a flock of hammers. Again and again the hammers dipped, striking and retreating...
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'It's so light that you can set it up in five minutes by yourself...'
'Heavy penalties... were to be applied to any one found driving manually-controlled machines.'
'Buy a Little Dingbat... electropen, wrist watch, pocketphone, pocket radio, billfold ... all in one.'
'... an elastic, tinted material that had all the feel and appearance of human flesh and epidermis.'
'It is remarkable that the long leverages of their machines are in most cases actuated by a sort of sham musculature...'
'Briquet’s head seemed to think that to find and attach a new body to her head was as easy as to fit and sew a new dress.'
'...copy was turned out in a charming and entirely feminine handwriting.'
'It was almost unheard of for slunch to spread that fast...'
