Want to find out the name of a story I have forgotten

April 19, 2012 6:57 AM

I am trying to find a short sci-fi story but cannot recall either the writer or the title. The story is about a spaceship marooned on a hostile ice planet where they are constantly under siege from the indigenous race there - not described. The people undertake a genetic development programme to alter themselves and their offspring to cope with the outside environment and be more hostile, stronger and savage than the indigenous population. The denouement of the story is the leader telling the last generation of people there that the children are ready to leave .... and that is all I can remember. Can anybody give me any clues or even the name of the story? Kevin
posted by hruntlefoot to writing & language (7 answers total)

Do you have any idea where or when you read it?
posted by endless_forms at 8:23 AM on April 19, 2012

Sounds not entirely dissimilar to a Deathworld novel, but I don't think any of those are on ice planets.
posted by buxtonbluecat at 8:36 AM on April 19, 2012

I read it mid-70s whilst living in Germany, I did read it in English though. As to the Deathworld series, I don't think it is part of that, it most definitely takes place on a totally hostile, ice-type planet, with a non-oxygen atmosphere.

I remember that in the scene where the last human leader - the children no longer being classed as humans - tells the others that the children are going to be released outside and for them to take their places for evacuation, and then he pauses and says: "...please," which sets them off into a rage for some reason that I have forgotten...

Kevin
posted by hruntlefoot at 8:49 AM on April 19, 2012

What are the odds - I just read this the other day. It's "Between the Dark and the Daylight" by Algis Budrys. From this collection.
posted by jbickers at 9:04 AM on April 19, 2012 [2 favorites]

Now that is astounding and outstanding! I have been trying for nigh-on 20 years to recall this. I can't thank you enough, I shall now hasten off forthwith to buy it.

This truly is an amazing site, so chuffed I joined.

Kevin
posted by hruntlefoot at 9:28 AM on April 19, 2012 [2 favorites]

I just asked a similar question and the answer was an Algis Budrys story. What’s going on here?
posted by bongo_x at 12:16 PM on April 19, 2012

That was a really interesting read, but I'm not sure I quite understood the ending. So these colonists have bred children so fantastically well-adapted to this alien planet that those children no longer recognize their parents as of the same race, and upon their release start to attack the dome themselves? This seems pretty poorly motivated.
posted by d. z. wang at 12:09 AM on April 20, 2012