"Science fiction represents the modern heresy and the cutting edge of speculative imagination as it grapples with Mysterious Time---linear or non-linear time."
- Frank Herbert
A spacer who modified herself to more easily live in space.
It was uncanny, beyond belief, how Javelin had threaded herself through the seemingly impassable maze.
Lilo looked at Javelin and saw a two-meter cylinder, swelling gently from the extremities to a fatter part in the middle, with a hand at each end. The cylinder was flexible at four points, which were her knee, hip, shoulder, and elbow. Growing from her "shoulder" at a slight angle from the rest of the cylinder was her head, with brown hair cut efficiently short. She wore a simple blue tube of cloth that left her arm and leg bare.
That was Javelin, with her arm held straight up. When she put her arm at her side, she looked like a jackknife.
What she had done was not a simple matter of getting rid of her right arm and left leg. Dispensing with two limbs—usually the legs—was common among spacers. But rib cage, right shoulder, and left hip had been redesigned with plastic structures replacing the bones. She had got rid of her left kidney, right lung, and a lot of intestine. Her elbow and knee had been reengineered with ball and socket joints.
She was limber as a snake. What was left of her could wriggle through a hole twenty centimeters in diameter...
They got the items moved into the scooter. It might have gone faster, but all three were fascinated by Javelin's movements. She would grab a handle at the side of the lock with one hand, reach out with her leg and use the hand on that end to snatch a piece of furniture, pull, and bend like an eel as she guided it through the hatch.
From The Ophiuchi Hotline, by John Varley.
Published by Quantum Science Fiction in 1977
Thanks again to @sailor_peter, @NelC, N_J_Bennett and especially @CptButton who chimed in with a text quote. See 'Parastronaut' First Astronaut With Disability From ESA (Updated!) for more examples.
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