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"We [science fiction writers] always wanted to believe in "private sector" space -- hucksters make better characters than a government does."
- Larry Niven
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| Homer | ||
| A device fired from a gun that ends the life of a citizen, based on the color of their palm flower. |
| There was someone in the shadows ahead. A silent scream ripped at her throat.
Sandman! Panic drove her heart against her chest in shuddering strokes. She spun about, clawed at the blistered boards, her fingernails breaking as she sought a grip on the coarse wood. The fence was too high... Huddled into herself, she studied the char-black flower crystal centered in the palm of her right hand. A few days ago it had been a warm blood-red—just as seven years before it had been electric-blue, and seven years earlier, sun-yellow. A color for each seven years of her life. Now she was twenty-one and her flower was dull black. Sleep black. Death black. The figure moved calmly toward her, across the moon-pavement. She didn’t look up. She stared at her palm, because her future and her past were written there. All of her days and her nights and her fears and her hopes. Why had she believed in Sanctuary? Insane. Impossible. Why hadn’t she been like all the others who had accepted Sleep? Now the dark figure, in black, stood over her, but she did not look up. She didn’t beg because begging was useless... She saw the Gun come up. The homer! She saw the moonlight dazzle off the dark-blue barrel. The homer! She saw the pale, tight-set face of the Sandman, and saw his eyes above the Gun, as his fingers whitened on the trigger. The homer! There was a soft explosion. That was the last thing she heard. And the last thing she felt was raw, blinding agony, as the homer struck, burned, ripped and unraveled her. |
| Technovelgy from Logan's Run,
by William Nolan (w/G.C. Johnson). Published by Unknown in 1967 Additional resources -
|
The homer was mostly able to distinguish humans at 98.6, I don't think it was able to distinguish a particular person.
Compare the homer with the mechanical hound from Ray Bradbury's 1953 novel Fahrenheit 451 (used unique scent characteristics), the mechanical cobra from Roger Zelazny's 1967 novel Lord of Light (ised unique encephalogram pattern) and the smart bullet from Michael Crichton's 1985 movie Runaway (used the unique heat signature of a person).
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Tech news articles related to works by William Nolan (w/G.C. Johnson)
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'...the combined Wind-Suncatcher, like a spray of tulips mounted fanwise.'
'I went to the control room where the three other men were manipulating their mechanical men.'
'The low-slung monorail car, straddling its single track, bored through the shadows on a slowly rising course.'
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'... he thrust in his charging arm to replenish his store of energy.'
'...the terrible Jovian gravity that made each movement an effort.'
