Itâs caveman strategy: find the Achilles heel, craft the exploit, slide it home. Forge hope from static. Let remorse and the faint hope of redemption do the rest.
All too easy to dismiss, if not for one thing: the sheer, mind-boggling egotism it would take to believe that a lonely old baseline could possibly matter to a collective of such godlike intellect. The thought that this unremarkable caveman would even merit notice , much less manipulation.
âIâve set my apartment to run in autonomous mode for the duration of my absence. I would nonetheless appreciate it if someone could drop by occasionally to check in on my cat.â
He has to admit, in the face of all his fear and mistrust: compassion, after all, might be the most parsimonious explanation.
He thumbs S END , lets the transmitter slip from his fingers. His valediction has travelled a thousand kilometers by the time his boot grinds the little device into the dirt; it will reveal itself to the chain of command in due course. The Colonel leaves behind everything but the clothes on his back, two broad-spectrum antivenom capsules, and enough rations for a one-way hike to the monastery. If Bicameral thought processes are rooted in any kind of religious philosophy, hopefully it will be one of those faiths that preach charity to lost souls, and the forgiveness of trespass.
No guarantees, of course. There are so many ways to read the sliver of intelligence the hive has granted him. Perhaps heâs merely a pawn in some greater game after all; or a starving insect who once seized a crumb from the Heavens, and now presumes to think it has a relationship with God. Only one thing is certain out of all the scenarios, all the competing hypotheses. One insight, after all these years, that leaves the Colonel so hungry for more heâll risk everything: His son was lost, but now is found.
His son is coming home.
âGo home,â he tells the Nissan, and sets out across the desert.
Copyright © 2014 by Peter Watts
Art copyright © 2014 by Richard Anderson
All too easy to dismiss, if not for one thing: the sheer, mind-boggling egotism it would take to believe that a lonely old baseline could possibly matter to a collective of such godlike intellect. The thought that this unremarkable caveman would even merit notice , much less manipulation.
âIâve set my apartment to run in autonomous mode for the duration of my absence. I would nonetheless appreciate it if someone could drop by occasionally to check in on my cat.â
He has to admit, in the face of all his fear and mistrust: compassion, after all, might be the most parsimonious explanation.
He thumbs S END , lets the transmitter slip from his fingers. His valediction has travelled a thousand kilometers by the time his boot grinds the little device into the dirt; it will reveal itself to the chain of command in due course. The Colonel leaves behind everything but the clothes on his back, two broad-spectrum antivenom capsules, and enough rations for a one-way hike to the monastery. If Bicameral thought processes are rooted in any kind of religious philosophy, hopefully it will be one of those faiths that preach charity to lost souls, and the forgiveness of trespass.
No guarantees, of course. There are so many ways to read the sliver of intelligence the hive has granted him. Perhaps heâs merely a pawn in some greater game after all; or a starving insect who once seized a crumb from the Heavens, and now presumes to think it has a relationship with God. Only one thing is certain out of all the scenarios, all the competing hypotheses. One insight, after all these years, that leaves the Colonel so hungry for more heâll risk everything: His son was lost, but now is found.
His son is coming home.
âGo home,â he tells the Nissan, and sets out across the desert.
Copyright © 2014 by Peter Watts
Art copyright © 2014 by Richard Anderson
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