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"Does it open a new horizon for my thinking? Does it lead me to think new kinds of thoughts, that I would not otherwise perhaps have thought at all? These qualities are what [make] science fiction ...unique."
- Frederik Pohl
 |
| Bloodhound Machine | ||
| Could positively identify a person using their scent alone. |
| 2XZ4 —the man wanted for a score of crimes,
from murder up to treasonable plotting.
2XZ4 had never been arrested, never
been typed. But we had his olfactory
classification; the Bloodhound Machine,
as the newscasters luridly call it, had
contacted his trail several times, so that
the scent of him was mathematically
known. Much good that did us! No one knew where he was now; nor what was his name, his nationality, nor what he looked like. Indeed we knew nothing about him at all, except his scent, which gave him the index-symbol 2XZ4. |
| From Crimes of the Year 2000,
by Ray Cummings. Published by Fantastic Mysteries in 1935 Additional resources -
|
Here's how it works:
I thought that Green was not watching
me, but at once he gasped:
"What—you doing?"
I did not answer, but jumped suddenly
and pressed the vacuum cup of the
classifier against his shoulder. The dial
indicators swung wildly, and instantly
settled.
2XZ4!
Compare to the olfactory system of the Mechanical Hound from Fahrenheit 451.
I turned swiftly and whipped out the
little classified—the Bloodhound Machine.
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