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"Science fiction writers foresee the inevitable, and although problems and catastrophes may be inevitable, solutions are not."
- Isaac Asimov
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| Mutated Kodiak Bears | ||
| Animals modified for increased intelligence for defense and companionship. |
| Huyghens, as the human population of Loren II, faced the work-force, fighting-force, and—with Nugget—four-fifths of the terrestrial non-human population of the planet. They were mutated Kodiak bears, descendants of that Kodius Champion for whom the Kodius Company was named. Sitka Pete was a good twenty-two hundred pounds of lumbering, intelligent carnivore, Sourdough Charley would weigh within a hundred pounds of that figure. Faro Nell was eighteen hundred pounds of female charm and ferocity. Then Nugget poked his muzzle around his mother's furry rump to see what was toward, and he was six hundred pounds of ursine infancy. The animals looked at Huyghens expectantly. |
| From Exploration Team,
by Murray Leinster. Published by Astounding in 1956 Additional resources -
|
"How the devil," panted Bordman, panting—they had stopped for a breather, and the bears waited patiently for them—"how do you train bears like these? I can understand Semper."
"I don't train them," said Huyghens, staring into the plate. "They're mutations. In heredity the sex-linkage of physical characteristics is standard stuff. There's also been some sound work done on the gene-linkage of psychological factors. There was need, on my home planet, for an animal who could fight like a fiend, live off the land, carry a pack and get along with men at least as well as dogs do. In the old days they'd have tried to breed the desired physical properties in an animal who already had the personality they wanted. Something like a giant dog, say. But back home they went at it the other way about. They picked the wanted physical characteristics and bred for the personality, the psychology. The job got done over a century ago. The Kodiak bear named Kodius Champion was the first real success. He had everything that was wanted. These bears are his descendants."
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'... the lens displays would be useless without a wearable computer to do the graphics.'
'the registration number which the traffic control automatically photographed as she left the controlway...'
'It could maintain a steady six miles per hour...'
'Then they press one of these here thirteen buttons...'
'...without burning a single hydrocarbon molecule to injure the diseased atmosphere any further.'
'Bird-like robots now descended from the ceiling of the theatre...'
'The efficient robot waiter of the Sky Club had cleared away the remnants of an epicurean meal.'
'...in the tank the new body and the new mind and memory and life has taken almost instant form.'
