Project Gutenberg 2007-12-20 Public domain in the USA. 102 Smith, George O. (George Oliver) 1911 1981 Smith, George Oliver Long, Wesley Martinez Instinct Produced from Astounding Science Fiction March 1959. Greg Weeks, Bruce Albrecht, Stephen Blundell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team "Instinct" by George O. Smith is a science fiction novella penned in the late 1950s. The story revolves around the themes of communication, human nature, and the cyclical rise and fall of civilizations, specifically reflecting on the interactions between humans from Earth (referred to as Terra) and a more advanced alien race. The narrative explores the difficulties that arise when different species attempt to understand each other's motivations and behaviors. The plot centers on Jerry Markham, a Terran astronaut, who is captured by an alien race after landing on a foreign planet. The aliens, led by Chelan, are intrigued but perplexed by the Terrans' propensity for conflict and their relentless drive to push boundaries despite past failures. As Markham finds himself isolated from communication and subjected to experimental isolation to uncover the secrets of human instinct, he begins to reflect deeply on memory and communication. Ultimately, the aliens learn that despite shutting off his sensory inputs, the essence of Markham's being—the drive to connect and communicate—remains unyielding, prompting a recognition of humanity’s persistent will to thrive, even when faced with adversity. The story concludes with the aliens reconsidering their approach to humanity, acknowledging its resilience and intrinsic nature. (This is an automatically generated summary.) en Science fiction Short stories PS Text Science Fiction Browsing: Literature Browsing: Science-Fiction & Fantasy Browsing: Fiction 54628 54513 2024-09-10T09:32:59.343626 2023-09-10T12:33:39.722616 text/html text/html 55927 2021-06-26T23:41:55 text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 53596 2021-06-26T23:50:04 text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 application/zip 96949 2024-09-10T09:33:02.683590 application/epub+zip 95996 2024-09-10T09:33:00.625616 application/epub+zip 64262 2024-09-10T09:32:59.791600 application/epub+zip 208684 2024-09-10T09:33:04.283602 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 201189 2024-09-10T09:33:02.102641 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 122225 2022-09-11T07:43:48.948952 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 47157 2024-09-10T09:32:59.093638 text/plain; charset=us-ascii 46939 2021-06-26T23:49:16 text/plain; charset=utf-8 18712 2021-06-26T23:49:41 text/plain; charset=utf-8 application/zip 18479 2024-09-10T09:33:04.422583 application/rdf+xml 9980 2024-09-10T09:33:00.122639 image/jpeg 2752 2024-09-10T09:32:59.955602 image/jpeg 99341 2024-09-10T09:32:59.355619 application/octet-stream application/zip Archives containing the RDF files for *all* our books can be downloaded at https://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:Feeds#The_Complete_Project_Gutenberg_Catalog en.wikipedia