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"I'm a farm boy. It's very interesting; you can detect self-starting characteristics in this society and they are strongest among people who have had some kind of rural upbringing and a very impressionable stage."
- Frank Herbert
 |
| Dromozoa | ||
| Life forms that cause the human body to bud new parts for harvesting. |
| You specimens are turned loose on the surface of Shayol. The dromozoa are a special life-form there. When they settle in your body, B'dikkat—that's the attendant—carves them out with an anesthetic and sends them up here. We freeze the tissue cultures, and they are compatible with almost any kind of oxygen-based life. Half the surgical repair you see in the whole universe comes out of buds that we ship from here. Shayol is a very healthy place, so far as survival is concerned. You won't die." |
| Technovelgy from A Planet Named Shayol,
by Cordwainer Smith. Published by Galaxy Science Fiction in 1961 Additional resources -
|
Here's how B'dikkat describes the process:
"You jump when the dromozoa hit you. You'll be upset when you start growing new parts—heads, kidneys, hands. I had one fellow in here who grew thirty-eight hands in a single session outside. I took them all off, froze them and sent them upstairs..."
Thanks to Peter Jacobs for suggesting this item.
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