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"Science fiction operates a little bit like science itself, in principle. You've got thousands of people exploring ideas, putting forth their own hypotheses. Most of them are dead wrong; a few stand the test of time; everything looks kind of quaint in hind"
- Peter Watts
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| General Bodies Tortoise | ||
| A passenger vehicle genetically engineered from tortoise DNA and controlled by implanted electronics. |
| Nick had opened the garage door that morning and led the Tortoise out for relief from the heat. Now the family vehicle was waiting in the drive, shaded by nearby trees. Nick had bought it when he was in college and single. It had been young then, with the passenger compartment in the shell just big enough, in a squeeze, for two... As advertised, the Tortoise had grown too, maturing from the sportscar stage to coupe. Eventually, timed by gengineers like Emily to match a family's growth, it would gain the capacity of a station wagon.
...The gengineers had given it size and speed, and a cavity beneath the shell. The General Bodies shops had fitted a windshield, side windows, and doors, installed plush seats, added headlights and taillights, and wired the controls into the Tortoise's nervous system. |
| Technovelgy from Sparrowhawk,
by Thomas A. Easton. Published by Ace Books in 1990 Additional resources -
|
See also the entry for Roachster from the same book.
Compare to Robert Heinlein's Steel Tortoise, the original all-terrain vehicle.
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More Ideas
and Technology from Sparrowhawk
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| Leader-Follower Autonomous Vehicle Technology |
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'...I saw a nice black heavy-looking cloud sailing by just now, and I can get the electrical machine out in five minutes to draw it down.'
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'The answer to the dumb student's prayer.'
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'The dinner was excellent. It was completely vegetarian — grown in specially prepared gardens in this Moon base...'
'Telepaths had their sensitiveness enlarged to an immense range by the pin-sets, which were telepathic amplifiers adapted to the mammal mind.'
'It was a relief to enter one of the comfortable autos, whisper a direction down the tube, and just know that you would be taken to your destination in the quickest, safest, and cheapest manner.'
'But he didn't get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts. George winced...'
