Each gorilloid has on its neck two lumens (cavities) closed by sphincters. The next kind of, well-armored, animal is the size and shape of a military helmet with the eyes of an octopus and no mouth but tentacles that might serve as parasitical suckers. Rereading, thus with the benefit of hindsight, it seems obvious where the intelligences are hiding.
Larry Niven's Known Space future history series includes "Eye of an Octopus," about parallel evolution.
I have to go out now but I leave you with these speculations about extraterrestrial intelligences.
6 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
It makes me feel rueful when I remember how I sure as heck did not figure out who were these intelligences before Nicholas van Rijn did!
I wonder if either of us might live to know for sure that non-human intelligent life does exist on other worlds?
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Knowledge of the universe comes in increments, not in any burst of revelation.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Of course! But we can hope for an OCCASIONAL burst.
Ad astra! Sean
The whole arrangement is reminiscent of the triple-species collective intelligences Flandry encounters in THE REBEL WORLDS.
Indeed. Flandry makes that comparison.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Paul!
Both: He did, in THE REBEL WORLDS, where he mentions the "vanrijns." Then goes on to say the tribodied Didonians were even more "outre."
Truthfully, multiple bodied intelligent beings would seem too clumsy and awkward to be likely to last long, unless in very rare cases. Such beings would seem to be easy prey to predators and single body intelligent races if any had evolved around the same time.
Ad astra! Sean
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