PeterWatts_Blindsight

Peter Watts 207 Blindsight
they eat, which we don't. Robert says they're in no immediate
danger of starvation anyway. Maybe when they get hungry they
can deal."
I killed the archival feed and reverted to realtime. "Maybe they
eat—I don't know, radiation. Or magnetic energy. The cage can
generate magnetic fields, right?"
"Tried it." She took a breath, then squared her shoulders. "But I
guess these things take time. He's only had a couple of days, and I
only got out of the crypt myself a day ago. We'll keep trying."
"What about negative reinforcement?" I wondered.
She blinked. "Hurt them, you mean."
"Not necessarily anything extreme. And if they're not sentient
anyway..."
Just like that, Susan went away. "Why, Keeton. you just made a
suggestion. You giving up on this whole noninterference thing?"
"Hello, Sascha. No, of course not. Just—making a list of what's
been tried."
"Good." There was an edge to her voice. "Hate to think you
were slipping. We're going to grab some down time now, so
maybe you could go and talk to Cunningham for a bit. Yeah, do
that.
"And be sure to tell him your theory about radiation-eating
aliens. I bet he could use a laugh."
He stood at his post in BioMed, though his empty chair was
barely a meter away. The ubiquitous cigarette hung from between
the fingers of one hand, burned down and burned out. His other
hand played with itself, fingers tapping against thumb in sequence,
little to index, index to little. Windows crawled with intelligence
in front of him; he wasn't watching.
I approached from behind. I watched his surfaces in motion. I
heard the soft syllables rising from his throat:
"Yit-barah v'yish-tabah v'yit-pa-ar v'yit-romam..."
Not his usual litany. Not even his usual language; Hebrew,
ConSensus said.
*