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"I can remember when the first pulsars were discovered. I was able to go and sit down and listen to graduate students talking about what their theories, to explain what pulsars really were."
- Vernor Vinge
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| Reserve Bracelet | ||
| A means of sending a message via tiny shocks in code, delivered to the wrist. |
| Ben Sholto was in the very act of getting an extraordinarily fine fix on a sethee bird in its elaborate nuptual dance, when the Reserve bracelet he was wearing nearly tore his arm off. It felt like that, at any rate. The electric shock tensed his muscles, threw the three-dimensional camera into an ungraceful wabble which wrecked the recording, and his sudden and violent movement revealed his presence...
Ben rubbed his arm vigorously and swore. He hastily dried the skin under the bracelet so that the order to follow would be less painful. It was sharp enough, at that —the series of long and short electric shocks which solemnly ordered him to get in touch with Reserve Headquarters for this sector at once. |
| Technovelgy from Plague,
by Murray Leinster. Published by Astounding Science Fiction in 1944 Additional resources -
|
The Reserve bracelet also provided the position of the wearer:
Compare to the Wrist Search Display from A Matter of Size (1934) by Harry Bates,
Wireless Wrist Intercom from The Shape of Things To Come (1936) by H.G. Wells,
Tattletale from The Game Players of Titan (1963) by Philip K. Dick,
Wristband Viewer from Changeling (1980) by Roger Zelazny,
Implant-Watch from Cloak of Anarchy (1972) by Larry Niven,
Predator Wrist Display from Predator (1987) by John McTierna,
Wrist Command from Tides of Light (1989) by Gregory Benford,
Tracking Bracelet from Shadowspeer (1990) by Patricia Jo Clayton,
Inertial Bracelet from Psychohistorical Crisis (2001) by Donald Kingsbury,
Command Bracelet from Sagramanda (2006) by Alan Dean Foster and the
Wristpad from New York 2140 (2017) by Kim Stanley Robinson.
There was no need to report his own position, of course. The same force that could make his Reserve bracelet give him senselessly severe electric shocks could cause it to radiate direction-waves by which he could be triangulated upon — even without his knowledge — from an incredible distance.
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