Poul Anderson, Harvest Of Stars, 6, Database.
The
round trip to Alpha Centauri is STL. The explorers are robots. One
contains a downloaded human personality. On Demeter, there is rain and
wind and there are two suns in the sky.
A
fifteen-centimeter insect-like biologist robot probing a green-brown
vegetable mat with its tendrils transmits to a balloon-borne receiver
which amplifies the signal and re-transmits it to the mainframe computer
at the station.
Through his robot body's treads,
download Guthrie feels fine grit and damp soil. Through its eye stalks,
he sees a beach strewn with weed, shells and dead animals like worms or
jellyfish and the surfacing of a mother vessel for robots studying the
sea. Production facilities make investigators which are then flown
around the planet. Guthrie also has a legged body. He makes discoveries
and devises procedures transcending the abilities of computer programs.
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