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Peter Watts 77 Blindsight
direction of Susan James.
She grabbed the nearest chair, sat, raised her hands as if cueing
an orchestra. Her fingers trembled in mid-air as she played virtual
icons; her lips and jaw twitched with subvocal commands. I
tapped her feed and saw text accreting around the alien signal:
RORSCHACH TO VESSEL APPROACHING 116°AZ -23°
DEC REL. HELLO THESEUS. RORSCHACH TO VESSEL
APPROACHING 116°AZ -23°DEC REL. HELLO
THESEUS. RORSCHACH TO VESSEL APPROACHI
She'd decoded the damn thing. Already. She was even
answering it:
Theseus to Rorschach. Hello Rorschach.
HELLO THESEUS. WELCOME TO THE
NEIGHBORHOOD.
She'd had less than three minutes. Or rather, they'd had less than
three minutes: four fully-conscious hub personalities and a few
dozen unconscious semiotic modules, all working in parallel, all
exquisitely carved from the same lump of gray matter. I could
almost see why someone would do such deliberate violence to their
own minds, if it resulted in this kind of performance.
Up to now I had never fully convinced myself that even survival
was sufficient cause.
Request permission to approach, the Gang sent. Simple and
straightforward: just facts and data, thank you, with as little room
as possible for ambiguity and misunderstanding. Fancy sentiments
like we come in peace could wait. A handshake was not the time
for cultural exchange.
YOU SHOULD STAY AWAY. SERIOUSLY. THIS PLACE