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"Retire? Yeah, I want to die with my head in the typewriter. That's my idea of retirement."
- Alfred Bester
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| Reaction Attachment | ||
| Independent maneuvering for space suits. |
| The crater seemed endless in length. I had plumbed its depth for miles when suddenly I shot down into a vast, spherical cavern. My body bobbed back and forth across this subterranean cavity like a pendulum, finally coming to rest in the very center. I floated free, as if in space. The crater had brought me into the very center of the asteroid. I shouted my discovery to Rourke. He replied — then his voice was cut off by a sharp click. Shadowy forms closed in upon me. Something seized my neck in a tight grip. Raising my atomic pistol, I fired into a hideous face which stared into mine. Dismal creatures on leathern wings flew all about me. Once again I fired my atom gun, this time over my shoulder. The clutch on my neck was released. I became aware of a strange atmosphere about me. A horny beak snapped at me as a dark form flapped past.
 (Reaction Attachment from 'The Asteroid of Death' by Neil R. Jones) With the reaction attachment on my suit, I propelled myself back in the direction of the shaft. The bat creatures attacked me viciously so that often I was hard set. My blazing atomic pistol cleared a way for me, and I shot up the shaft, the winged terrors of the asteroid in pursuit. They followed only a short distance, however. In the upper reaches of the crater, the atmosphere in which they lived became thin, eventually dying away into vacuum. |
| Technovelgy from The Asteroid of Death,
by Neil R. Jones. Published by Wonder Stories Quarterly in 1931 Additional resources -
|
Star Wars fans might be reminded of the mynocks:
Terrific description of exploring an asteroid:
I shall never forget my first glimpse of the asteroids. Our detector warned us that we were approaching one of the little worlds. We all watched through the transparent panelling of the port. The asteroid loomed before us, the far off sun lighting up its eerie crags. Like a jagged mountain it appeared, the shadows sharp etched in bold relief across the sunlit half. I judged the diameter of the planetoid to be five miles.
Compare to the self-propulsive space suit (illustrated!) from Anthony Gilmore's 1932 story The Bluff of the Hawk and the Self-Propelled Space Suit from The Cavern of the Shining Pool (1937) by Leo Zagat.
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| The First Space Warship For Space Force |
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'The observation vehicle was of that peculiar variety used in conveying a large number of people across rough terrain.'
'The real border was defended by... a swarm of quasi-independent aerostats.'
'I ... set my automatic astronomical instruments to searching for a habitable planet.'
'...haven't you a section of the factory where only robot labor is employed?'
'... oblongs were all over the floor and surfaces.'
