PeterWatts_Blindsight

Peter Watts 235 Blindsight
imagine I was Robert Cunningham.
I had to imagine I was Siri Keeton as well.
Of course, that only raises another question. If my guess about
Cunningham was right, why did my tricks work on Isaac Szpindel?
He was every bit as discontinuous as his replacement.
I didn't think about it much at the time. Szpindel was gone but
the thing that had killed him was still there, hanging right off the
bow, a vast swelling enigma that might choose to squash us at any
instant. I was more than a little preoccupied.
Now, though—far too late to do anything about it—I think I
might know the answer.
Maybe my tricks didn't work on Isaac either, not really. Maybe
he saw through my manipulations as easily as Cunningham did.
But maybe he just didn't care. Maybe I could read him because he
let me. Which would mean— I can't find another explanation that
fits— that he just liked me, regardless.
I think that might have made him a friend.
*
"If I can but make the words awake the feeling"
—Ian Anderson, Stand Up
Night shift. Not a creature was stirring.
Not in Theseus, anyway. The Gang hid in their tent. The
transient lurked weightless and silent below the surface. Bates was
in the bridge— she more or less lived up there now, vigilant and
conscientious, nested in camera angles and tactical overlays. There
was nowhere she could turn without seeing some aspect of the
cipher off our starboard bow. She did what good she could, for the
good it would do.
The drum turned quietly, lights dimmed in deference to a diel