Mar 202018
 

A long, LONG, time ago (late 70’s/early 80′) I read a short SF story, and have forgotten the title and author. Finding it again is not really important for any useful purpose… the problem is that I half remember it and it’s friggen’ bugging me that I can’t nail it down. I thought of it again recently after stories of Putins new Wunderwaffen; it may seem a little familiar.

What I remember: it’s the story of a robot, or perhaps a pair of robots. The robots are self-guided torpedoes that lurk under the sea for extended periods. I vaguely recall that one of them was waiting in a bay or a harbor for some length of time. The robots were not shaped like torpedoes but more like sperm or tadpoles, using wagging whip-like mechanical tails for propulsion. Something or other about one of these things doing its job and the tail being the only thing left after it blew up.

For a while my addled brain cells were telling me that this story was called “The Twonky,” but that’s an entirely different story.

The story was from the 1940’s or 1950’s, I think.

Sound familiar?

UPDATE:

This is it: Murray Leinster, “The Wabbler,” 1942. I can kinda see why I confused it with “The Twonky…” the titles, while not sounding alike, are both the same kind of thing. Both two-word titles, first being “The,” second being a two-syllable nonsense word. See comments for a link to a scan of the story.

 Posted by at 12:17 am