β Scribed by James Blish
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
Blish's Pantropy tales appear in The Seedling Stars. Humans are modified for alien environments as it's easier & cheaper than terraforming.
1/Seeding Program concerns Pantropy's inception. The program's deteriorated into hideous genetic experimenting & has been outlawed. It describes an adapted, Sweeney, with a liquid ammonia & sulphur bond metabolism with IceIV bones, inserted into a Ganymede colony by the Terran paramilitary Port Authority to capture a scientist to end plans to seed modified humans on distant worlds. However, the government really wants to derail pantropy because it threatens terraforming profits. Sweeney is surprised to find an established community on Ganymede, realizes he's expendable & that he's been fed false hopes about being changed into a normal human. He switches sides. With his help the Ganymedans manage to launch seed ships to destinations beyond governmental reach.
2/The Thing in the Attic tells of a small group of intellectuals from a primitive culture of modified monkey-like humans living in jungle trees. Having openly voiced the heresy that godly giants don't literally exist as claimed in the book of laws, they're banished. In their exile on the ground they have to adapt, fight monsters & finally happen upon the godly giants--human scientists who've just arrived on the world to monitor the progress of the adapteds. The protagonists are told their whole race must eventually leave the treetops to conquer their world.
3/Surface Tension has a pantropy starship crashing on an ocean world orbiting Tau Ceti. Without hope of rescue, survivors modify their genetic material to seed tiny aquatic humans into the world's lakes & puddles & leave a message engraved on metal plates. Their creations explore their environment, make alliances, invent tools, fight wars with hostile beings & finally gain dominance over other sentient beings. They decipher some of the metal plates. They build a 2" wooden space ship to overcome surface tension & travel to other worlds--the next puddle--in search of their ancestry, as they've come recognize they aren't native to their world.
4/Watershed looks at a distant future. A starship crewed by standard humans heads for a backwater planet to deliver a pantropy team of seal-like adapteds. Racial tension mounts. As the captain plans to restrict passengers to their cabins to prevent escalation, the adapteds' leader tells him the planet ahead is Earth, where normals evolved. He challenges them to follow him onto the surface of the ancestral home to prove they're superior to the adapteds who'll be seeded--or admit they're beaten. The captain & a lieutenant ponder the possibility that standards are an obsolete minority.
The anthology's German title's Auch sie sind Menschen, "They, Too, are Humans" subsuming Aussaatplan, Himmel & HΓΆlle, OberflΓ€chenspannung & RΓΌckkehr: Seeding Plan/Heaven & Hell/Surface Tension/Return or Homecoming.
Library : Science Fiction
Formats : EPUB
ISBN : 9780099067108
π SIMILAR VOLUMES
You didn't make an Adapted Man with just a wave of the wand. It involved an elaborate constellation of techniques, known collectively as pantropy, that changed the human pattern in a man's shape and chemistry before he was born. And the pantropists didn't stop there. Education, thoughts, ancestors a
Ruth Rabinowitz believes. She believes that her daughter, Bethany, is a terrific little actress, so they have come to Hollywood, where dreams come true. Ruths husband and Bethanys father, who thinks their quest for stardom is delusional, has been left behind in Seattle. Joining Bethany Rabinowitz i
Ruth Rabinowitz believes. She believes that her daughter, Bethany, is a terrific little actress, so they have come to Hollywood, where dreams come true. Ruth's husband and Bethany's father, who thinks their quest for stardom is delusional, has been left behind in Seattle. Joining Bethany Rabinowitz
SUMMARY: Ruth Rabinowitz believes. She believes that her daughter, Bethany, is a terrific little actress, so they have come to Hollywood, where dreams come true. Ruth's husband and Bethany's father, who thinks their quest for stardom is delusional, has been left behind in Seattle. Joining Bethany
SUMMARY: Ruth Rabinowitz believes. She believes that her daughter, Bethany, is a terrific little actress, so they have come to Hollywood, where dreams come true. Ruth's husband and Bethany's father, who thinks their quest for stardom is delusional, has been left behind in Seattle. Joining Bethany