PeterWatts_Blindsight

Peter Watts 102 Blindsight
somehow those rules told it to respond with threats of violence."
"But if it doesn't even know what it was saying—"
"It doesn't. It can't. We parsed the phrasing nineteen different
ways, tried out conceptual units of every different length..." A long,
deep breath. "But it attacked the probe, Isaac."
"Jack just got too close to one of those electrode thingies is all.
It just arced."
"So you don't think Rorschach is hostile?"
Long silence—long enough to make me wonder if I'd been
detected.
"Hostile," Szpindel said at last. "Friendly. We learned those
words for life on Earth, eh? I don't know if they even apply out
here." His lips smacked faintly. "But I think it might be something
like hostile."
Michelle sighed. "Isaac, there's no reason for—I mean, it just
doesn't make sense that it would be. We can't have anything it
wants."
"It says it wants to be left alone," Szpindel said. "Even if it
doesn't mean it."
They floated quietly for a while, up there past the bulkhead.
"At least the shielding held," Szpindel said finally. "That's
something." He wasn't just talking about Jack; our own carapace
was coated with the same stuff now. It had depleted our substrate
stockpiles by two thirds, but no one wanted to rely on the ship's
usual magnetics in the face of anything that could play so easily
with the electromagnetic spectrum.
"If they attack us, what do we do?" Michelle said.
"Learn what we can, while we can. Fight back. While we can."
"If we can. Look out there, Isaac. I don't care how embryonic
that thing is. Tell me we're not hopelessly outmatched."
"Outmatched, for sure. Hopelessly, never."
"That's not what you said before."
"Still. There's always a way to win."
"If I said that, you'd call it wishful thinking."
"If you said that, it would be. But I'm saying it, so it's game
theory."
"Game theory again. Jesus, Isaac."