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"If you don't care about science enough to be interested in it on its own, you shouldn't try to write hard science fiction."
- Frederik Pohl
 |
| Command-Disk | ||
| A device that sends out audible tones to control flesh-monsters. |
Yes, flesh monsters!
Edmond Hamilton at his macabre best for Weird Tales.
They were simply masses of white flesh, each one several feet across. They moved by gliding over the ground as amebas glide, and like amebas could project pseudopod-like arms of flesh out of their body-mass. Their glide or flow took them over the ground with incredible speed and their muscular power was apparently enormous.
| Kirk and Madden saw one of the creatures raise a small instrument like a handled disk, pressing one of the dozen studs along its handle. From the disk a sharp note sounded, high in pitch, and in obedience to it the flesh-monsters ranged themselves in a watchful circle about the humans, apparently to prevent the escape of any of them during the rest-period. The two metal men themselves were just passing the tree behind which Kirk and Madden crouched, stopping a few steps beyond it.
"Kirk, they’re the masters!” whispered Madden. "Those metal creatures — they control the flesh-monsters by the soundnotes, and the humans are their captives!” . . . Kirk reached to pick up the command-disks that lay near them. Curiously he examined the studs on their handles that produced the different sound-note orders, then thrust them into his pocket. |
| Technovelgy from Creatures of the Comet,
by Edmond Hamilton. Published by Weird Tales in 1931 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the control helmet from Easy Money, by Edmond Hamilton, published by Thrilling Wonder Stories in 1938.
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'It sounds to me as though you had invented a kind of metal earthworm.'
'I don't have to tell you about the seven two-mile-diameter orbital mirrors that circulate around the satellite, making it habitable.'
'The steel tortoise gave MacKinnon a feeling of Crusoe- like independence.'
'...then back to their work, though little enough it was on these automatic cultivators.'
't came out into plain view. Darkington glimpsed a slim body and six short legs of articulated dull metal.'
'The suit stands up and starts walking, gripping me round the calves and waist, taking the bulk of my weight off my throbbing feet.'
'Internally it’s made up of millions of components, but the most important ones are the thinking and memory parts of the Mind proper.'
