"Crowds milled back and forth. No one had the civilized reflex of getting under cover when artillery spoke." (p. 59)
So far, the Toborko respond like human beings, pre-artillery. However, other intelligent species will also have some alien group responses. The text continues:
"But neither did many scuttle about blinded by terror. Panic would likeliest take the form of a mad rush to the waterfront, with weapons - swords and bows against pentanitro." (p. 59)
War-time reflexes are learned. We were in Dublin during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. When visiting family in the North, we always took a taxi between railway stations in Belfast. People there learned, during a bomb alert, to go home and stay home whereas, during the occasional unaccustomed alert in Dublin, people stood outside a building waiting to watch it collapse on them.
Two thousand years in our future, in the presence of radiation (in a different future history):
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I hope MY reaction under bombardment would be to get undercover, and not either scuttle around blinded by terror or foolishly watching to see if one of those buildings in Dublin would either blow up or collapse! And of course stay home during bomb alerts a la Belfast.
As for Amalfi's instinctive gesture, I was reminded of how, in Ben Bova's SAM GUNN, UNLIMITED, he had his hero wearing lead lined jock straps or underwear while in space, to protect his genitals.
Ad astra! Sean
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