The United States government has experimented with intelligence amplification by connecting a chimpanzee named Norman Simmons to an electronic memory bank.

Believing he will be severely punished if caught, he uses his information access advantageously to evade government forces and escape from the lab in which he was held.

With the aid of stories that are linked to his mind, he formulates a plot to flee to Canada with the assistance of nearby Soviet agents.

The Soviets are captured, however; Norman runs away, but strays too far for the data link with the computer to be maintained and reverts to an ordinary animal.

This file is the culmination of a 30-year project by Prentice and his wife Moira to turn film into an art form which can be produced by individual artists.

During this visit the peddler encounters a planetary government which is dedicated to preventing any changing in civilization by maintaining the majority of humanity at subsistence level.

Set in a future market anarchist American society, composed solely of independent individuals and private organizations.

The ship is launched as a "long shot" to preserve the human race because the Earth is going to be destroyed by a rapidly expanding sun.

Ilse, the AI, carries human zygotes on a ten thousand year trip to search for a suitable planet around Alpha Centauri.

It is eventually determined that the tribe is descended from the only group of Afrikaners to escape from South Africa after a genocide of all white Africans after the northern hemisphere's nuclear war.

The Mikin's technology is significantly advanced beyond humanity's and their culture is unbelievably diverse due to an ingrained acceptance of differences.

The rest of the story is set in space on the occasion of the imperial heir's 18th birthday celebration, at which the emperor and most of the aristocracy is present.

He decides not to change his course or inform others of this, believing that his death in the collision will be worth the elimination of the empire's elite to free the Solar System from its tyranny.

The object is a skull-sized rock, that emits feelings of cold and desolation, which are assumed to be memories of Antarctica, and can convert plastic into diamonds.

Chente is an agent of the Canadian Hegemony, a society which has advanced far beyond current understanding (passing what Vinge refers to as the technological singularity).

He realizes that the only way to force the colonists to work together and build an industrial base that will deal with the disaster is to set himself up as an enemy to all, by attacking and disabling the nuclear weapons of both sides.

The organization backing the researcher wants the Shimans to progress in order to provide a worthy competitor to humanity, forcing them to improve and adapt.

On a human colony planet named Middle America, just inside the Slow Zone, lives Hamid, and his unique pet, the Blabber.

While Hamid is working with tourists from the Beyond in an attempt to get out of the Slow Zone, another visitor, Ravna&Tines comes to the planet, offering to buy the Blabber from him.

This is a letter offering a position to a researcher with an organization that will provide him with a mind-machine interface, implemented by a non-reversible tailored infection and manipulated with MRI.

The letter describes other organizations using the technique to induce any psychopathology, but promises to transform the researcher into an idiot savant in his field.

At one port they discover Tatja Grimm, ignorant but unexpectedly intelligent, who is a perfect match for the character Hrala, Barbarian Princess.

Bertie has contacts in Siberia and admits to being on a committee that controls a distance learning graduate "student" at MIT.

It turns out that Bertie has been subtly manipulating some students, and entices Miriam Gu to team up with Juan despite them never having spoken before and their different personalities (another positive grading criterion).

Miriam and Juan are accompanied into the forest by William, her grandfather who is growing a new nervous system and personality as part of an Alzheimer's treatment.

Using video from the nodes, which are mistaken for food, they discover a group of intelligent mice who have burrowed a series of tunnels into the gorge and formed a society.

William thinks they are a secret lab experiment, but Miriam's observations and cached information sources lead her to believe that the mice are part of an upcoming summer interactive entertainment "movie" by FoxWarner.

Instead of allowing Miriam to keep them as part of the project, he releases the rocket which flies back to the Fedex depot – from where the mice could escape into the world.