Blindsight, page 229 by Peter Watts
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then we could have tripped over a whole herd of scramblers and it wouldn't even register in our conscious minds. Agnosias happen by accident, for God's sake. If you've got the senses and reflexes to hide between someone's saccades, why stop there? Why not do something that really works?"
"Why do you think?" I asked, reflexively nondirective.
"I think that first one was--you know it was a juvenile, right? Maybe it was just inexperienced. Maybe it was stupid, and it made a bad decision. I think we're dealing with a species so far beyond us that even their retarded children can rewire our brains on the fly, and I can't tell you how fucking scared that should make you."
I could see it in his topology. I could hear it in his voice. His nerveless face remained as calm as a corpse.
"We should just kill them now," he said.
"Well, if they're spies, they can't have learned much. They've been in those cages the whole time, except--" for the way up. They'd been right next to us the whole trip back...
"These things live and breath EM. Even stunted, even isolated, who knows how much of our tech they could have just read through the walls?"
"You've got to tell Sarasti," I said.
"Oh, Sarasti knows. Why do you think he wouldn't let them go?"
"He never said anything about--"
"He'd be crazy to fill us in. He keeps sending you down there, remember? Do you think for a second he'd tell you what he knows and then set you loose in a labyrinth full of mind-reading minotaurs? He knows, and he's already got it factored a thousand ways to Sunday." Keeton's eyes were bright manic points blazing in an expressionless mask. He raised them to the center of the drum, and didn't raise his voice a decibel. "Isn't that right, Jukka?"
I checked ConSensus for active channels. "I don't think he's listening, Robert."
Cunningham's mouth moved in something that would have been a pitying smile if the re