Rifters 4 - Blindsight by Peter Watts Page A

Sascha shook her head. "I'd have dumped you on the spot."
     
    *
     
    My nightly constitutional up the spine: glorious dreamy flight along a single degree of freedom. I sailed through hatches and corridors, threw my arms wide and spun in the gentle cyclonic breezes of the drum. Bates ran circles around me, bouncing her ball against bins and bulkheads, stretching to field each curving rebound in the torqued pseudograv. The toy ricocheted off a stairwell and out of reach as I passed; the major's curses followed me through the needle's eye from crypt to bridge.
    I braked just short of the dome, stopped by the sound of quiet voices from ahead.
    "Of course they're beautiful," Szpindel murmured. "They're stars ."
    "And I'm guessing I'm not your first choice to share the view," James said.
    "You're a close second. But I've got a date with Meesh."
    "She never mentioned it."
    "She doesn't tell you everything. Ask her."
    "Hey, this body's taking its antilibs. Even if yours isn't."
    "Mind out of the gutter, Suze. Eros is only one kind of love, eh? Ancient Greeks recognized four."
    "Riiight." Definitely not Susan, not any more. "Figures you'd take your lead from a bunch of sodomites."
    " Fuck , Sascha. All I'm asking is a few minutes alone with Meesh before the whip starts cracking again..."
    "My body too, Ike. You wanna pull your eyes over my wool?"
    "I just want to talk, eh? Alone . That too much to ask?"
    I heard Sascha take a breath.
    I heard Michelle let it out.
    "Sorry, kid. You know the Gang."
    "Thank God . It's like some group inspection whenever I come looking for face time."
    "I guess you're lucky they like you, then."
    "I still say you ought to stage a coup."
    "You could always move in with us."
    I heard the rustle of bodies in gentle contact. "How are you?" Szpindel asked. "You okay?"
    "Pretty good. I think I'm finally used to being alive again. You?"
    "Hey, I'm a spaz no matter how long I've been dead."
    "You get the job done."
    "Why, merci . I try."
    A small silence. Theseus hummed quietly to herself.
    "Mom was right," Michelle said. "They are beautiful."
    "What do you see, when you look at them?" And then, catching himself: "I mean—"
    "They're—prickly," Michelle told him. "When I turn my head it's like bands of very fine needles rolling across my skin in waves. But it doesn't hurt at all. It just tingles. It's almost electric. It's nice."
    "Wish I could feel it that way."
    "You've got the interface. Just patch a camera into your parietal lobe instead of your visual cortex."
    "That'd just tell me how a machine feels vision, eh? Still wouldn't know how you do."
    "Isaac Szpindel. You're a romantic."
    "Nah."
    "You don't want to know. You want to keep it mysterious."
    "Already got more than enough mystery to deal with out here, in case you hadn't noticed."
    "Yeah, but we can't do anything about that."
    "That'll change. We'll be working our asses off in no time."
    "You think?"
    "Count on it," Szpindel said. "So far we've just been peeking from a distance, eh? Bet all kinds of interesting stuff happens when we get in there and start poking with a stick."
    "Maybe for you. There's got to be a biological somewhere in the mix, with all those organics."
    "Damn right. And you'll be talking to 'em while I'm giving them their physicals."
    "Maybe not. I mean, Mom would never admit it in a million years but you had a point about language. When you get right down to it, it's a workaround. Like trying to describe dreams with smoke signals. It's noble, it's maybe the most noble thing a body can do but you can't turn a sunset into a string of grunts without losing something. It's limiting . Maybe whatever's out here doesn't even use it."
    "Bet they do, though."
    "Since when? You're the one who's always pointing out how inefficient language is."
    "Only when I'm trying to get under your skin. Your pants—whole other thing." He laughed at his own joke. "Seriously, what are they gonna to use instead, telepathy? I say you'll be up to your