PeterWatts_Blindsight

Peter Watts 61 Blindsight
"Tit-for-tat's the best strategy. They pinged us, we pinged back.
Ball's in their court now; we send another signal, we may give
away too much."
"I know the rules, Amanda. They say if the other party never
takes the initiative again, we ignore each other for the rest of the
mission because game theory says you don't want to look needy."
"The rule only applies when you're going up against an unknown
player, " the Major explained. "We'll have more options the more
we learn."
James sighed. "It's just—you all seem to be going into this
assuming they'll be hostile. As if a simple hailing signal is going to
bring them down on us."
Bates shrugged. "It only makes sense to be cautious. I may be a
jarhead but I'm not eager to piss off anything that hops between
stars and terraforms superJovians for a living. I don't have to
remind anyone here that Theseus is no warship."
She'd said anyone; she'd meant Sarasti. And Sarasti, focused on
his own horizon, didn't answer. Not out loud, at least; but his
surfaces spoke in a different tongue entirely.
Not yet, they said.
Bates was right, by the way. Theseus was officially tricked out
for exploration, not combat. No doubt our masters would have
preferred to load her up with nukes and particle cannons as well as
her scientific payload, but not even a telemattered fuel stream can
change the laws of inertia. A weaponized prototype would have
taken longer to build; a more massive one, laden with heavy
artillery, would take longer to accelerate. Time, our masters had
decided, was of greater essence than armament. In a pinch our
fabrication facilities could build most anything we needed, given
time. It might take a while to build a particle-beam cannon from
scratch, and we might have to scavenge a local asteroid for the raw
material, but we could do it. Assuming our enemies would be
willing to wait, in the interests of fair play.
But what were the odds that even our best weapons would prove
*