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"I was wholly addicted to watching Kojack, for as long as it was on television."
- Frederik Pohl
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| Bladder Birds | ||
| Alien life well adapted. |
I don't usually put invented animal life in the index, but I couldn't resist this one.
| “Look I” she cried. "There’s something moving on the peaks — like a big ball. And way up where there’s no air at all !”
I glanced over. “It’s just a bladder bird,” I said indifferently. I’d seen plenty of them ; they were the commonest mobile form of life on Europa. But of course Qaire hadn’t, and she was eagerly curious. I explained. I threw stones into a tinkling grove of song-bushes until I flushed up another, and it went gliding over our heads with its membrane stretched taut. I told her that the three-foot creature that had sailed like a flying squirrel was the same sort as the giant ball she had glimpsed among the airless peaks, only the one on the peaks bad inflated its bladder. The creatures were able to cross from valley to valley by carrying their air with them in their big, balloonlike bladders. And, of course, bladder birds weren’t really birds at all ; they didn’t fly, but glided like the lemurs and flying squirrels of Earth, and naturally, couldn’t even do that when they were up on the airless heights. |
| Technovelgy from Redemption Cairn,
by Stanley G. and Helen Weinbaum. Published by Astounding Science Fiction in 1936 Additional resources -
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'What would you do,' Eric asked the robot cabdriver, 'if your wife had turned to stone, your best friend were a toad, and you had lost your job?'
'those suits they wear -- call them 'stillsuits' -- that reclaim the body's own water...'
'Now, except for weight and heat, the same conditions prevail in this chamber as in space.'
'there were so many worms and counterworms loose in the data-net...'
'Now, look, let's start with the three fundamental Rules of Robotics...'
'..the synthetic intellects at the Place of Knowledge had far outstripped the minds of men.'
'But after washing and drying clothes had to be smooth - free from fine lines and wrinkles ...'
