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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
 |
| Etherphone Receiver | ||
| A special earpiece to hear coded updates. |
| Concealed in his right ear was a tiny etherphone receiver, part of the equipment of every member of the Terrestrial Guard Police, to which he belonged as a requirement of his position as Chief of Watch in the greatest other-world hostelry in the Americas. He listened now, to low, ticking messages, presented in intricate code, as he walked on through the quiet Martian section of the hotel. “Space Liner Ardis coming in from Planet Five of Antares. Landing at 10:19 p.m. in fourth cradle of Civic Space Docks. 4-2-5 on board! 4-2-5 on board! Caution! Caution!" |
| Technovelgy from Hotel Cosmos,
by Raymond Z. Gallun. Published by Astounding Science Fiction in 1938 Additional resources -
|
You've got to watch out for 4-2-5's:
Planet Five of Antares was a hellish, hot, reeking place with an atmosphere so lethal that one breath of it would swiftly have killed a man. But 4-2-5 ’s kind were not men. Their flesh was of a porous, silicous composition, breath- ing and living in a different way than any flesh native to Earth. Hideous, hard-shelled things, 4-2-5’s kind crept through the shadowy jungles of their world,
4-2-5 — the code number assigned by the Space Travel Bureau to a visiting entity who must otherwise remain forever nameless on Earth. Dave had been warned before of 4-2-S’s possible sinister purposes.
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'What would you do,' Eric asked the robot cabdriver, 'if your wife had turned to stone, your best friend were a toad, and you had lost your job?'
'those suits they wear -- call them 'stillsuits' -- that reclaim the body's own water...'
'Now, except for weight and heat, the same conditions prevail in this chamber as in space.'
'there were so many worms and counterworms loose in the data-net...'
'Now, look, let's start with the three fundamental Rules of Robotics...'
'..the synthetic intellects at the Place of Knowledge had far outstripped the minds of men.'
'But after washing and drying clothes had to be smooth - free from fine lines and wrinkles ...'
