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"By the time I can take people out to where Hubble is looking, they won't be human anymore, by a long way."
- Larry Niven
 |
| Digger Worm | ||
| A robot shaped like a fat snake, or worm; used for mining. |
A small planet named Botea has IIIB diamonds, selectively conductive crystals that are used to make kilolayered computer chips. Handily, they are not far below the surface, buried in nice soft coal deposits. What sort of machine do you send down below the surface?
| "I think this is the worm." He knelt down and began clearing the chunks of yellow coal away. Under it was the smooth gray of the worm's grinding head...
"Where are the exploders?" she said. "Inside the mouth. We won't be able to get at them, but the controls should be right here, at the back of its head." He swept away more rubble to reveal a beveled rectangle and flipped up the control plate. "When a worm's digging a new trail, it spits out an exploder, backs up to a safe distance, and detonates it..." The worm gave a low growl and shudder and reared its gray metal head clear of the coal rubble... |
| Technovelgy from With Friends Like These,
by Connie Willis. Published by Tor in 1985 Additional resources -
|
This item appears in one of the short stories in Berserker's Base, by Fred Saberhagen.
Compare to the mining worm robot from Love Among the Robots (1946) by Emmett McDowell, the robot snake from Bait for the Tiger (1952) by Lee Chaytor, the robot earthworm from War with the Robots (1962) by Harry Harrison, the mechanical cobra from Lord of Light (1967) by Roger Zelazny and the robot snake spy from Mariposa (2009) by Greg Bear.
Thanks to Tim Morrison for suggesting this item.
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