PeterWatts_Blindsight

Peter Watts 165 Blindsight
"You have eyes, but you do not see"
—Jesus the Nazorean
I don't know how to feel about this, I thought. He was a good
man. He was decent, he was kind to me, even when he didn't know
I was listening in. I didn't know him long— he wasn't a friend
exactly— but still. I should miss him. I should mourn.
I should feel more than this sick sinking fear that I could be
next...
Sarasti hadn't wasted any time. Szpindel's replacement met us as
we emerged, freshly thawed, nicotine-scented. The rehydration of
his flesh was ongoing— saline bladders clung to each thigh—
although it would never entirely erase the sharpness of his features.
His bones cracked when he moved.
He looked past me and took the body. "Susan—Michelle...I—"
The gang turned away.
He coughed, began fumbling a body condom over the corpse.
"Sarasti wants everyone in the drum."
"We're hot," Bates said. Even cut short, the excursion had piled
up a lethal Seivert count. Faint nausea tickled the back of my
throat.
"Decontaminate later." One long pull of a zipper and Szpindel
was gone, engulfed in an oily gray shroud. "You—" he turned in
my direction, pointed at the scorched holes in my jumpsuit. "With
me."
Robert Cunningham. Another prototype. Dark-haired, hollowcheeked,
a jaw you could use as a ruler. Both smoother and
harsher than the man he had replaced. Where Szpindel had ticced
and jerked as if static-charged, Cunningham's face held all the
expression of a wax dummy's. The wetware that ran those muscles
had been press-ganged into other pursuits. Even the tremors that
afflicted the rest of his body were muted, soothed by the nicotine
he drew with every second breath.
He held no cigarette now. He held only the shrouded body of his
hard-luck primary and his ongoing, freshly thawed distaste for the
ship's synthesist. His fingers trembled.
Bates and the Gang moved silently up the spine. Cunningham