Download the Book - Islam and Science Fiction

New, Improved Grapes
Hussein Daryadel studied the little orb he had just removed from
his pants-leg, careful not to touch the short pin protruding from one
side. That, he surmised, was the electrode that had just given him
such a nasty shock. The sphere was yellow, with one hemisphere
banded with black stripes, converging on the electrode. He spotted a
seam in the shell, gave the gizmo a twist, and separated it into two
halves.
Mike Graffo swung through the hatch and drifted overhead,
stopping himself with a gentle touch against a display panel.
"Whatcha got, Hussein"?
"Guess I'm a full-fledged member of the crew now," Hussein
replied. "Unless I'm terribly mistaken, I've just been graped."
Mike chuckled. "Beats some of the initiations mariners used to
go through."
"Oh?" Hussein replied. "Says who? This thing packs quite a
punch. Nobody told me they were rigged for electrocution. Look,
see? It has a little voltage inverter on it."
Mike took the tiny device. "Damn, you're right. Never seen one
like that before. Usually they're cold or wet. That's one of the
inverters we use to set off exploding bolts." He slapped Hussein on
the back. "Congratulations, you're the first victim of a whole new
tradition."
Hussein eyed the device. "How's this thing work, anyway?"
Mike pointed to a squat silver cylinder on one side. "The watch
battery provides the power. There are four piezo fans arranged in a
tetrahedron for directional thrust, and some myoelectric vanes to
vector thrust for rotation. The chip's got an IR receiver, computer,
and an inertial reference nanoplatform."
"I could see that much," Hussein grunted. "What I really want to
know is where can I get a remote control for this bloody thing?"
"Oh, just execute GRAPECON on your terminal," Mike replied.
"Should be pretty self-explanatory. Up, down, forward, back,
sideways, pitch, roll, yaw."
"I don't see a camera on it," Hussein observed. "How do you
track your target?"
"You have to be able to watch both the grape and the victim,"
Mike admitted, "but, hell, what's the point of graping someone if
you're not there to see it?"
After his shift, Hussein re-assembled the grape, found the control
software, and spent half an hour learning to control the device. On a
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