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Peter Watts 158 Blindsight
develop into contracting irises, into complete septa, lazy as warm
candle wax. We seemed to be witnessing the growth of the
structure in discrete segments. Rorschach grew mainly from the
tips of its thorns; we'd made our incursion hundreds of meters from
the nearest, but evidently the process extended at least this far
back.
If it was part of the normal growth process, though, it was a
feeble echo of what must have been going on in the heart of the
apical zones. We couldn't observe those directly, not from inside;
barely a hundred meters towards the thorn the tube grew too lethal
even for suicidal flesh. But over those five orbits Rorschach grew
by another eight percent, as mindless and mechanical as a growing
crystal.
Through it all I tried to do my job. I compiled and collated,
massaged data I would never understand. I watched the systems
around me as best I could, factored each tic and trait into the mix.
One part of my mind produced synopses and syntheses while
another watched, incredulous and uncomprehending. Neither part
could trace where those insights had come from.
It was difficult, though. Sarasti wouldn't let me back outside the
system. Every observation was contaminated by my own
confounding presence in the mix. I did my best. I made no
suggestions that might affect critical decisions. In the field I did
what I was told to, and no more. I tried to be like one of Bates's
drones, a simple tool with no initiative and no influence on the
group dynamic. I think I pulled it off, for the most part.
My nonsights accumulated on schedule and piled up in Theseus's
transmission stack, unsent. There was too much local interference
to get a signal through to Earth.
Szpindel was right: the ghosts followed us back. We began to
hear voices other than Sarasti's, whispering up the spine.
Sometimes even the brightly-lit wraparound world of the drum
would warp and jiggle from the corner of my eye—and more than
once I saw boney headless phantoms with too many arms, nested in
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