| "The Gift of Gab" | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Author | Jack Vance |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Science fiction |
| Publisher | Astounding |
| Publication date | September 1955 |
"The Gift of Gab" is an early science fiction short story by American author Jack Vance, first published in 1955. It is a mystery story, and the main theme is the nature of intelligence.
Mineral prospectors on another planet examine their environment more closely when crew members start to disappear. There seems to be no intelligent life on the planet, which is predominantly covered by shallow seas, teeming with marine life. But one of the scientists who is studying the marine species in aquariums begins to suspect that the decapods, a creature similar to a squid or nautilus with ten tentacles and eyes, may be smarter than an ordinary mollusc. He attempts to teach a semaphore-like code, using the decapods's tentacles like hands of a clock to represent letters than can spell out English. Meanwhile, the prospectors discover rich mineral deposits on the floor of the sea that can be easily mined, but at the cost of destroying the species. The biologist argues that intelligent life cannot be lightly wiped out, while the prospectors argue there is no intelligence and plot to kill the nautilus. At the climax, a prospector secretly poisons the decapod with acid, but the biologist rescues it just in time as the decapod signals "H-O-T-W-A-T-E-R" and then names the prospector.
Squid are cephalopods in the superorder Decapodiformes with elongated bodies, large eyes, eight arms and two tentacles. Like all other cephalopods, squid have a distinct head, bilateral symmetry, and a mantle. They are mainly soft-bodied, like octopuses, but have a small internal skeleton in the form of a rod-like gladius or pen, made of chitin.
A cephalopod is any member of the molluscan class Cephalopoda such as a squid, octopus, or nautilus. These exclusively marine animals are characterized by bilateral body symmetry, a prominent head, and a set of arms or tentacles modified from the primitive molluscan foot. Fishermen sometimes call them inkfish, referring to their common ability to squirt ink. The study of cephalopods is a branch of malacology known as teuthology.
The nautilus is a pelagic marine mollusc of the cephalopod family Nautilidae, the sole extant family of the superfamily Nautilaceae and of its smaller but near equal suborder, Nautilina.
Sea cucumbers are echinoderms from the class Holothuroidea. They are marine animals with a leathery skin and an elongated body containing a single, branched gonad. Sea cucumbers are found on the sea floor worldwide. The number of holothurian species worldwide is about 1,717 with the greatest number being in the Asia Pacific region. Many of these are gathered for human consumption and some species are cultivated in aquaculture systems. The harvested product is variously referred to as trepang, namako, bêche-de-mer or balate. Sea cucumbers serve a useful role in the marine ecosystem as they help recycle nutrients, breaking down detritus and other organic matter after which bacteria can continue the degradation process.
A humanoid is something that has an appearance resembling a human without actually being one. The earliest recorded use of the term, in 1870, referred to indigenous peoples in areas colonized by Europeans. By the 20th century, the term came to describe fossils which were morphologically similar, but not identical, to those of the human skeleton.
Spirula spirula is a species of deep-water squid-like cephalopod mollusk. It is the only extant member of the genus Spirula, the family Spirulidae, and the order Spirulida. Because of the shape of its internal shell, it is commonly known as the ram's horn squid or the little post horn squid. Because the live animal has a light-emitting organ, it is also sometimes known as the tail-light squid.
The Songs of Distant Earth is a 1986 science fiction novel by British writer Arthur C. Clarke, based upon his 1958 short story of the same title. He stated that it was his favourite of all his novels. Clarke also wrote a short step outline with the same title, published in Omni magazine and anthologized in The Sentinel in 1983.
The Voyage of the Space Beagle (1950) is a science fiction novel by Canadian-American writer A. E. van Vogt. An example of space opera subgenre, the novel is a "fix-up" compilation of four previously published stories:
The argonauts are a group of pelagic octopuses. They are also called paper nautiluses, referring to the paper-thin eggcase that females secrete. This structure lacks the gas-filled chambers present in chambered nautilus shells and is not a true cephalopod shell, but rather an evolutionary innovation unique to the genus Argonauta. It is used as a brood chamber and for trapped surface air to maintain buoyancy. It was once speculated that the argonauts did not manufacture their own eggcases but instead utilized shells abandoned by other organisms, in the manner of hermit crabs. Experiments by pioneering marine biologist Jeanne Villepreux-Power in the early 19th century disproved this hypothesis, as Villepreux-Power was able to successfully rear argonaut young and observe the development of their shells.
Oegopsida is one of the two orders of squid in the superorder Decapodiformes, in the class Cephalopoda. Together with the Myopsina, it was formerly considered to be a suborder of the order Teuthida, in which case it was known as Oegopsina. This reclassification is due to Oegopsina and Myopsina not being demonstrated to form a clade.
The Future Is Wild is a British 2002 thirteen-part speculative documentary television miniseries. Based on research and interviews with several scientists, the miniseries shows how life could evolve in the future if humans were to disappear from the Earth altogether through extinction. The version broadcast on Animal Planet and the Discovery Channel modified this premise, supposing instead that the human species had completely abandoned the Earth and had sent back probes to examine the progress of life on the planet as time progressed. The show styled itself after the format of a nature documentary. It is narrated by Tim White in the Animal Planet version.
"In the Walls of Eryx" is a short story by American writers H. P. Lovecraft and Kenneth J. Sterling, written in January 1936 and first published in Weird Tales magazine in October 1939. It is unusual among Lovecraft's work, being a standard science fiction story involving space exploration in the near future.
Cephalopod intelligence is a measure of the cognitive ability of the cephalopod class of molluscs.
Sea apple is a common name for the colorful and somewhat round sea cucumbers of the genera Pseudocolochirus, found in Indo-Pacific waters. Sea apples are filter feeders with tentacles, ovate bodies, and tube-like feet. They can release their internal organs or a toxin into the water when stressed.
Tweel is a fictional extraterrestrial from the planet Mars, featured in two short stories by Stanley G. Weinbaum. The alien was featured in A Martian Odyssey, first published in 1934, and Valley of Dreams four months later. Weinbaum died of lung cancer soon after, and a third installment in the series never saw fruition. Tweel remains one of the most recognised aliens in early science fiction, and is said to be an inspiration for aliens in the works of Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke.
The Dry Salvages is a futuristic science fiction story of novella length by Caitlín R. Kiernan, published in 2004 as a stand-alone hardback volume by Subterranean Press. The story consists of two parallel narratives, one set in the novella's present-day and the other in the novel's past. Told as a first-person narrative, the story is being written down with three antique ballpoint pens by Audrey Cather, an exopaleontologist and the lone survivor of an ill-fated mission to an extrasolar planet, Cecrops, a gas giant orbiting the low-mass red dwarf star Gliese 876. The Montelius mission included two other human astronauts, Peter Connor and Joakim Hamilton, and one parahuman astronaut, Umachandra Murdin, along with a number of androids. Its object was to investigate evidence of an extraterrestrial civilization which had long ago mined Piros, a moon of Cecrops. A blend of dystopian sf, Lovecraftian horror, and cyberpunk, along with elements of space opera, the novella paints a grim view of the future and of interstellar travel and alien contact. Earth has been ravaged by war, pollution, and violent climatic changes, and the menacing intelligence the crew of the Montelius discover on Piros leads to a government cover-up. The author uses Audrey Cather's three reconditioned ballpoint pens as a literary device, dividing the story into three sections, "The First Pen," "The Second Pen," and "The Third Pen." The Dry Salvages provides an example of an unreliable narrator, as Audrey Cather continually makes mistakes and contradicts herself regarding events aboard the Montelius.
The Viagens Interplanetarias series is a sequence of science fiction stories by L. Sprague de Camp, begun in the late 1940s and written under the influence of contemporary space opera and sword and planet stories, particularly Edgar Rice Burroughs's Martian novels. Set in the future in the 21st and 22nd centuries, the series is named for the quasi-public Terran agency portrayed as monopolizing interstellar travel, the Brazilian-dominated Viagens Interplanetarias. It is also known as the Krishna series, as the majority of the stories belong to a sequence set on a fictional planet of that name. While de Camp started out as a science fiction writer and his early reputation was based on his short stories in the genre, the Viagens tales represent his only extended science fiction series.
Atolla wyvillei, also known as the Atolla jellyfish or Coronate medusa, is a species of deep-sea crown jellyfish. It lives in oceans around the world. Like many species of mid-water animals, it is deep red in color. This species was named in honor of Sir Charles Wyville Thomson, chief scientist on the Challenger expedition.
All cephalopods possess flexible limbs extending from their heads and surrounding their beaks. These appendages, which function as muscular hydrostats, have been variously termed arms, legs or tentacles.