Message-ID: <711@topaz.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 20-Feb-85 05:58:49 EST
Article-I.D.: topaz.711
Posted: Wed Feb 20 05:58:49 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 22-Feb-85 20:37:57 EST
Sender: daemon@topaz.ARPA
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Lines: 38

From: utcsri!mcgill-vision!mcgill-vision!mouse@uw-beaver.arpa (der Mouse)

It's questionable  whether it is a legitimate group mind, but here it is
anyway:  "Mechanical Mice", by Maurice A. Hugi (Astounding, anthologized
in Famous Science-Fiction Stories:  Adventures in Time and Space).

	***SPOILER ON***
This  is  about a "future viewer" which  is incidental  except  that  it
allows an inventor to build a machine which is analogous to a queen bee.
Stopping it once it's built a swarm is what the story is about.
	***SPOILER OFF***.

Try also  "The  Possessed", by Clarke  (eg in  his collection  "The Nine
Billion Names of God").

> And to all you people in net land: I remember a short story (by
> Heinlein or Asimov?) that involved a starship manned by a
> multi-racial crew coming to evacuate Earth before Sol goes nova.  A
> few of the crew were part of a group mind.  This was important when
> a landing party was trapped in a trans-Atlantic subway and cut off
> from radio communications.  Anyone know the author/title?

Try "Rescue Party", by Clarke (also in "The Nine Billion Names of God").
See if this sounds right:

     "Last came one of the  strange beings  from the system  of Palador.
It was nameless, like all its kind, for it possessed no identity  of its
own, being merely a mobile but still dependent cell in the consciousness
of its race.  [half a paragraph later] When a creature of Palador spoke,
the pronoun it used  was always 'We'.   There was  not, nor could  there
ever be, any first person singular in the language of Palador.  [about a
page later]  In  moments  of crisis, the  single  units  comprising  the
Paladorian mind could  link together in an  organization  no  less close
than  that of any physical  brain.    At  such  moments  they  formed an
intellect more powerful than any other in the Universe."

					der Mouse
		...ihnp4!utcsri!mcgill-vision!mouse