1n1REzE

Peter Watts 302 Blindsight
I got a letter from Dad today. General delivery, he called it. I
think that was a joke, in deference to my lack of known address.
He just threw it omnidirectionally into the ether and hoped it would
wash over me, wherever I was.
It's been almost fourteen years now. You lose track of such
things out here.
Helen's dead. Heaven—malfunctioned, apparently. Or was
sabotaged. Maybe the Realists finally pulled it off. I doubt it,
though. Dad seemed to think someone else was responsible. He
didn't offer up any details. Maybe he didn't know any. He spoke
uneasily of increasing unrest back home. Maybe someone leaked
my communiqués about Rorschach; maybe people drew the
obvious conclusion when our postcards stopped arriving. They
don't know how the story ended. The lack of closure must be
driving them crazy.
But I got the sense there was something else, something my
father didn't dare speak aloud. Maybe it's just my imagination; I
thought he even sounded troubled by the news that the birth rate
was rising again, which should be cause for celebration after a
generation in decline. If my Chinese Room was still in proper
working order I'd know, I'd be able to parse it down to the
punctuation. But Sarasti battered my tools and left them barely
functional. I'm as blind now as any baseline. All I have is
uncertainty and suspicion, and the creeping dread that even with
my best tricks in tatters, I might be reading him right.
I think he's warning me to stay away.
He also said he loved me. He said he missed Helen, that she was
sorry for something she did before I was born, some indulgence or
omission that carried developmental consequences. He rambled. I
don't know what he was talking about. So much power my father
must have had, to be able to authorize such a broadcast and yet
waste so much of it on feelings.
Oh God, how I treasure it. I treasure every word.
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