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"I've taken some stick for passages in Altered Carbon which people complained had sickened them, but then violence should be sickening."
- Richard Morgan
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| Hive-Sign | ||
| Specialized sign language developed by an offshoot of humanity. |
| One of the busily working specialists finally stopped and peered across the lab at Hellstrom. The worker signaled in Hive-sign, fingers shaping a "hurry-up" symbol against the tubular construction in a way that, in a flashing instant, said plainly, "Don't delay this." In the same movement
of hand and fingers, the specialist pressed the symbol against a dark forehead, saying just as plainly, "Your interruptive presence delays my thinking."
...Hellstrom managed to restrain a grin until he had turned away and was headed back across the lab. The sound of the work here seemed no different to him as he moved, but when he glanced back from the doorway, he saw several of the specialists clustered into a busily communicative group, their hands darting and flashing in Hive-sign. He caught the symbol for "heat" several times, but most of the other symbols escaped him. The researchers had developed their own language for use among themselves, he knew. |
| Technovelgy from Hellstrom's Hive,
by Frank Herbert. Published by Bantam Books in 1972 Additional resources -
|
Compare to atomician sign language from The Faceless Men (1948) by Leo Zagat and the humming-code from Dune (1965) by Frank Herbert.
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'I had determined that my first attempt should be a visit to Mars.'
To follow the user like a pet while carrying their cargo!
'Deveet unhooked his catch and laid it on the bank beside him. It was a metal fish.'
'...waldoes in the screen followed in exact, simultaneous parallelism.'
'Seen close it was not completely flexible, but made instead of pivoted and smoothly finished segments.'
'...great rectangular slabs of muscle, slung into a rectangular frame.'
'If the biological robots were not living creatures, they were certainly very good imitations.'
