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"It is change ... that is the dominant factor in society today... the world as it will be. This means that ... every man must take on a science fictional way of thinking.""
- Isaac Asimov
 |
| Death Bath | ||
| A suicide chamber. |
| I know it hurts you to condemn a prolat to the Death Bath, but if you let him go on, his mistakes will bring us all to that end.”
I glanced toward where a black portal broke the circle of switchboards, and shuddered. Behind that grim gate leaped and flared eternally the flame of the consuming Ray, the exhaust flue of the solar energy by which the machines were fed. Once I had seen a condemned man step through that aperture at the order of an aristo whom he had offended. For a moment his tortured body had glowed with a terrible golden light. Then—there was nothing. |
| Technovelgy from The Revolt of the Machines,
by Nat Schachner (w. AL Zagat). Published by Astounding Stories in 1931 Additional resources -
|
Here is another quote, showing the device in use.
A click sounded loud through the stunned silence. Beyond the white crowd the huge black portal slid slowly open. A shimmering radiance of glowing vapors blazed from the space beyond.
“Prolats, file singly into the Death Bath!” Atuna raised his voice only slightly with the command. I glanced at Keston. He was livid with fury.
Incredible as it may seem, so ingrained was the habit of obedience to the aristos in the prolats that not even a murmur of protest came from the condemned beings. The nearest man to the flaming death stepped out into the void. His doomed body flared, then vanished. The next moved to his turn.
Compare to the government lethal chamber from the 1895 story The Repairer of Reputations by Robert W. Chambers.
You have done your work well, you are now no longer needed to control the machines. Therefore,”—he paused, and my heart almost stopped—“therefore, being no longer of value, you will be disposed of.”
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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.'
