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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
Bel's statement over in Miscellany gave me an idea: Seems like you could write a fab SciFi story based on this word. Why don't we try it? I'll start, and see if anybody feels like adding on. Maybe we should give a time limit--say, 7 to 10 days, if we want a definite end to it? I've thought of a title, but as I am not creative, will entertain suggestions for alterations.
THE HYPOGEAN HORIZON
"Malgor", complained his companion, "what's the rush"? They were scuttling along the well-worn trail as though the Mole had snuffled in and was after them. "Damn this rain anyway", he said, swiping first one hand, then the other, down his smooth-skinned arms. Malgor turned his eyeless face up towards the sky, curling his tongue out to catch a few drops as they fell from the stone arching far overhead.
"I wish we had a way to know when it was going to rain", he remarked. "I've sometimes wondered whether something happens above the sky that causes it."
"Above the sky??", his companion said in astonishment. "How could there be anything above the sky?"
"Yeah, you're right, no doubt", Malgor replied. "But come on--I want to check on something in the third Garden Chamber". They hurried past the first two, sniffing casually at the scents of carrots, onions and beets. Had they had eyes and a speck of light, they would have seen that the leaves of every plant were dead-white. As it was, a quick stoop and brush with the hand told them that the onions and beets were coming along fine, while the carrots seemed rather small for the time since they had been planted.
Some distance further down the path, they slowed their pace to save their feet: for the space of about 10 yards, the soft layer of earth became impervious stone. Malgor had chosen this path over the alternate, preferring the slowed pace to the going-on-all-fours required by the other route. His companion could tell he was all but quivering with excitement. "Here we are", he said as they came to the third Chamber; "I think the entire community will be interested in this."
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Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 10,535 Likes: 1
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 10,535 Likes: 1 |
Now that I see your first paragaphs...I recall a scifi story from forty or fifty years ago dealing with a crashed rocket on an earthlike-but-mostly-underwater planet where the (temporarily) surviving crew take their own DNA and make a new race of tiny underwater dwellers in their own image, and some metal plates of information that over time become Scripture, and over more time some enterprising descendants find a way to break through the surface tension (could it have been titled that? "Surface Tension"? James Blish? I don't recall) and verify the previously heretical notion that there really _is_ a world above the "sky"... Does this sound at all familiar to anyone else? Addendum: Oh my. Sometimes I even impress myself. And the Web is an amazing instrument. Here it is, all written. 1952: http://users.ev1.net/~holliser/Prescience/Text/Surface.html
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
Neat, wofa, thanks. I can't remember what I've read by James Blish, but I know I liked it. This story reminds me of one (title, author completely forgotten) about some scientists (?) trying to find out why their emissaries/scouts kept disappearing instead of reporting back their findings as they were supposed to. Finally it turns out that, to prepare for the exploration, they have to physiologically adapt to that world, and they all loved the joyous freedom of the jaguar-like creatures they became too much to be bothered going back to report.
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