PeterWatts_Blindsight

Peter Watts 169 Blindsight
"The grunts didn't see anything," Bates remarked. "By the time
we broke through the septum the tunnel behind was empty."
"Any bogey would have had plenty of time to hightail,"
Cunningham said. He planted his feet on the deck and grabbed a
handhold; the subdrum began to move. I drifted obliquely against
my restraints.
"I don't disagree," Bates said, "But if there's anything we've
learned about that place, it's that we can't trust our senses."
"Trust Michelle's," Sarasti said. He opened a window as I grew
heavier: a grunt's-eye view of a fuzzy, bright blob weaving behind
the translucent waxed-paper fibers of the skinned septum. James's
headlight, from the wrong side of the barrier. The image wobbled
a bit as the drone staggered through some local pocket of
magnetism, then replayed. Wobbled, replayed. A six-second loop.
"See something next to the Gang."
Non-vampires saw no such thing. Sarasti froze the image,
evidently realizing as much. "Diffraction patterns aren't consistent
with a single light source in open space. I see dimmer elements,
reflective elements. Two dark objects close together, similar size,
scattering light here—" a cursor appeared at two utterly
nondescript points on the image— "and here. One's the Gang. The
other's unaccounted for."
"Just a minute," Cunningham said. "If you can see it through all
that, why didn't Su—why didn't Michelle see anything?"
"Synesthesiac," Sarasti reminded him. "You see. She feels."
BioMed jerked slightly, locking into spin-synch with the drum;
the guard rail sank back into the deck. Off in some far-off corner,
something without eyes watched me watching it.
"Shit," Bates whispered. "There's someone home."
They never really talked like that, by the way. You'd hear
gibberish—a half-dozen languages, a whole Babel of personal
idioms—if I spoke in their real voices.
Some of the simpler tics make it through: Sascha's good-natured
belligerence, Sarasti's aversion to the past tense. Cunningham lost
*