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"Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done and why. Then do it."
- Robert Heinlein
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| Variable Sword | ||
| A sword that could vary in length, and cut through anything. |
Among the various inventions which make use of a Slaver stasis field, the variable-sword was one of the more elegant. Very compact, which was very handy for the kzin who wielded it.
| "I have a variable-sword," said Speaker-to-Animals. "I urge calm." The kzin stood against a curved wall. In one clawed fist he held something like an oversized jump rope handle. Ten feet from the handle, held expertly at the level of the kzin's eyes, was a small, glowing red ball. The wire which joined ball to handle was too thin to be visible, but Louis didn't doubt it was there. Protected and made rigid by a Slaver stasis field, the wire would cut through most materials including the back of Louis's crash couch. |
| From Ringworld,
by Larry Niven. Published by Ballantine in 1970 Additional resources -
|
Louis Wu, the 200 year old protagonist of this novel, considered grabbing the red ball to gain control of the weapon, but one of the other aliens had a better way to control this unruly kzin.
And what, you ask, is a kzin that you should fear it? Imagine an eight-foot tall tabby cat built like a linebacker, with paws the size of baseball gloves, with retractable claws to match.
Find out about a uniquely flexible blade: the belt sword by William Gibson.
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'This was the center of Interplanetary Communications.'
'... the Scarab [flying robot] buzzed into the great workroom as any intruding insect might...'
'When he had first built them, they had been crude indeed, flying mechanisms with little more than a reflex-response unit.'
