| 000 | 02647cam a22003613u 4500 | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 001 | 78703 | ||
| 003 | UtSlPG | ||
| 005 | 20260610134827.0 | ||
| 006 | m | ||
| 007 | cr n | ||
| 008 | 260607r20261952utu|||||o|||||||||||||| d | ||
| 040 | _aUtSlPG | ||
| 041 | 7 |
_aen _2iso639-1 |
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| 050 | 4 | _aPS | |
| 100 | 1 |
_aDye, Charles, _d1925-1960 |
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| 245 | 1 | 0 | _aTranslator's error |
| 264 | 1 |
_aSalt Lake City, UT : _bProject Gutenberg, _c2026 |
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| 300 |
_a1 online resource : _bmultiple file formats |
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| 336 |
_atext _btxt _2rdacontent |
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| 337 |
_acomputer _bc _2rdamedia |
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| 338 |
_aonline resource _bcr _2rdacarrier |
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| 500 | _aRelease date is 2026-05-18 | ||
| 508 | _aTom Trussel (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) | ||
| 520 | _aTranslator's error by Charles Dye is a science fiction short story written in the mid-20th century. It follows a Martian terraforming effort that collapses due to a fundamental misreading of the planet’s native telepaths and the true role of the moisture-devouring “Blotting Pads.” On Mars, Administrator Richard Potterboy arrives to find project chief Philip Grisby and new historian Theodore McGinnis facing disaster: the final polar-melting furnaces have vanished into the ice, dooming plans to fill the canals and kill Pads with high-tension cables along the banks. As they cross the desert, Grisby explains the Pads’ baffling properties and the Cones—seemingly degenerate, telepathic natives—who once tried to warn humans about water. At the planet’s sole surviving ruins—two indestructible walls—the men study murals that chronicle Mars’s fall from a lush, high culture to a sandy wasteland as Pads multiply and the Cones atrophy underground. After they leave, a coda reveals the truth: the Cones remain sapient, view liquid water as deadly, and command the Pads as organic robots; they even sabotaged the furnaces. When a deuterium water sphere finally splits against the wall, the Pads rush in at the Cones’ mental command to blot the “life-destroyer,” and the natives return to calm contemplation, their world protected from rehydration. (This is an automatically generated summary.) | ||
| 534 |
_pOriginally published: _cHolyoke, Mass.: Columbia Publications, Inc., 1952 |
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| 653 | _aScience fiction | ||
| 653 | _aShort stories | ||
| 653 | _aMars (Planet) -- Fiction | ||
| 700 | 1 |
_aKiemle, H. W. _q(Henry William), _d1908-1969 |
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| 700 | 1 |
_aRoss, Leslie _q(A. Leslie), _d1910-1989 |
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| 856 | 4 | _uhttps://archive.org/details/Dynamic_Science_Fiction_v01n01_1952-12_Gorgon776 | |
| 856 | 4 | 0 | _uhttps://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78703 |
| 999 |
_c119421 _d119421 |
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