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Peter Watts 40 Blindsight
Theseus carried no regular crew—no navigators or engineers, no
one to swab the decks, no meat wasted on tasks that machinery
orders of mag smaller could perform orders of mag better. Let
superfluous deckhands weigh down other ships, if the
nonAscendent hordes needed to attach some pretense of usefulness
to their lives. Let them infest vessels driven only by commercial
priorities. The only reason we were here was because nobody had
yet optimized software for First Contact. Bound past the edge of
the solar system, already freighted with the fate of the world,
Theseus wasted no mass on self-esteem.
So here we were, rehydrated and squeaky-clean: Isaac Szpindel,
to study the aliens. The Gang of Four—Susan James and her
secondary personae— to talk to them. Major Amanda Bates was
here to fight, if necessary. And Jukka Sarasti to command us all, to
move us like chess pieces on some multidimensional game board
that only vampires could see.
He'd arrayed us around a conference table that warped gently
through the Commons, keeping a discreet and constant distance
from the curved deck beneath. The whole drum was furnished in
Early Concave, tricked unwary and hung-over brains into thinking
they were looking at the world through fisheye lenses. In
deference to the creakiness of the nouveaux undead it spun at a
mere fifth of a gee, but it was just warming up. We'd be at halfgrav
in six hours, stuck there for eighteen out of every twenty-four
until the ship decided we were fully recovered. For the next few
days, free-fall would be a rare and blesséd thing.
Light sculptures appeared on the tabletop. Sarasti could have fed
the information directly to our inlays— the whole briefing could
have gone through ConSensus, without the need to assemble
physically in the same place— but if you want to be sure
everyone's paying attention, you bring them together.
Szpindel leaned in conspiratorially at my side. "Or maybe the
bloodsucker just gets off seeing all this meat in close quarters, eh"
If Sarasti heard he didn't show it, not even to me. He pointed to
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