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"The immediate problem with our meat brains is that they have no back-up. We can lose the most precious information we have from one bump on the head or stroke. You want a mind system with back-up that can access other databases."
- Bart Kosko
 |
| Planetfall | ||
| Making a landing on a planet from space. |
| What with the retarding effect of the millions of miles of gas they had traversed and Ronny's skillful adaptation of his surviving machinery, the Thuban's speed had been reduced to manageable proportions by the time they were in position for their planetfall. Coming in on a tangent about a hundred miles above the estimated surface, Yphon encircled the cloud-wrapped orb three times on a slowly tightening spiral, gliding swiftly through the tenuous stratosphere, braking as he went. |
| Technovelgy from Quicksands of Youthwardness,
by Malcolm Jameson. Published by Astonishing Stories in 1940 Additional resources -
|
A second quote:
The wreckage of the engine room was complete. The inner bulkheads were torn and twisted like crumpled paper, and the intermediate ones pierced in many places by the hurtling splinters of the gigantic Kinetogen, but nowhere had the hull been breached. Ronny looked at the scattered fragments of his great force engine with a wry face. The auxiliaries he could repair or replace from the spare stores, but there was nothing to be done about their motive power unless somehow they could make a planetfall. And even if that unlikely feat could be accomplished, it would have to be on a civilized planet — a rare body in these parts.
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'He found a barber shop which, he thought, would be good for an idle hour.'
'Thirty rounds of fighting is tough work. Even for machines.'
'...the excavations were already in progress, for he saw gray slopes of rubble.'
'...the walking mills of Puffy Products began to tread delicately on their centipede legs across the wheat fields of Kansas.'
'Here is a Clerk that would work incessantly, and neither eat, sleep, want payment, or grumble.'
'ZARNAK, YOU'RE TO COMMAND A SCOUTING EXPEDITION --- FIND OUT WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT!'
'These are your rudimentary seed packages... Some will combine in place to form more complicated structures.'
