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"I think we could solve our problems more easily through strength of character; but that's always been a commodity in extremely short supply."
- Gregory Benford
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| Doughpot | ||
| A mass of white, dough-like protoplasm, ranging in size from a single cell to perhaps twenty tons of mushy filth. |
I don't ordinarily add creatures to the index, but this is an early description of this kind of alien creature.
| It was after the second rain that he met the doughpot, as the creature is called in British and American Venus. In the French strip, it’s the pot à colie, the "paste pot"; in the Dutch — well, the Dutch are not prudish, and they call the horror just what they think it warrants. Actually, the doughpot is a nauseous creature. It’s a mass of white, dough-like protoplasm, ranging in size from a single cell to perhaps twenty tons of mushy filth. It has no fixed form; in fact, it’s merely a mass of de Proust cells — in effect, a disembodied, crawling, hungry cancer. It has no organization and no intelligence, nor even any instinct save hunger. It moves in whatever direction food touches its surfaces; when it touches two edible substances, it quietly divides, with the larger portion invariably attacking the greater supply. It’s invulnerable to bullets; nothing less than the terrific blast of a flame-pistol will kill it, and then only if the blast destroys every individual cell. It travels over the ground absorbing everything, leaving bare black soil where the ubiquitous molds spring up at once — a noisome, nightmarish creature. |
| Technovelgy from Parasite Planet,
by Stanley G. Weinbaum. Published by Astounding Stories in 1935 Additional resources -
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'Their only check on the growth and development of Vulcan 3 lay in two clues: the amount of rock thrown up to the surface... and the amount of the raw materials and tools and parts which the computer requested.'
'I guess there's nobody round this table who doesn't have a Crosswell [tapeworm] working for him in the small intestine.'
'Figments of his mind in one sense, of course, for he had shaped them...'
'So the parent drone carries a spotter that it launches...'
'...nurse drones that would cruise around dumping large amounts of power into randomly selected pods.'
'It's done with a flip of the third joint of the tentacle on the down beat.'
'...for months Grantline bores had dug into the cliff.'
'I hope all those other cars are on automatic,' he said anxiously.
'It’s smart enough to go wrong in very complicated ways, but not smart enough to help us find out what’s wrong.'
