Blindsight, page 249 by Peter Watts
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just couldn't care less what happens to me.
"It's true," Sarasti told her, "that your intellect makes up for your self-awareness to some extent. But you're flightless birds on a remote island. You're not so much successful as isolated from any real competition."
No more clipped speech patterns. No more terse phrasing. The transient had made his kill, found his release. Now he didn't care who knew he was around.
"You?" Michelle whispered. "Not we?"
"We stop racing long ago," the demon said at last. "It's not our fault you don't leave it at that."
"Ah." Cunningham again. "Welcome back. Did you look in on Ke--"
"No." Bates said.
"Satisfied?" the demon asked.
"If you mean the grunts, I'm satisfied you're out of them," Bates said. "If you mean-- it was completely unwarranted, Jukka."
"It isn't."
"You assaulted a crewmember. If we had a brig you'd be in it for the rest of the trip."
"This isn't a military vessel, Major. You're not in charge."
I didn't need a visual feed to know what Bates thought of that. But there was something else in her silence, something that made me bring the drum camera back online. I squinted against the corrosive light, brought down the brightness until all that remained was a faint whisper of pastels.
Yes. Bates. Stepping off the stairway onto the deck
"Grab a chair," Cunningham said from his seat in the Commons. "It's golden oldies time."
There was something about her.
"I'm sick of that song," Bates said. "We've played it to death."
Even now, my tools chipped and battered, my perceptions barely more than baseline, I could see the change. This torture of prisoners, this assault upon of crew, had crossed a line in her head. The others wouldn't see it. The lid on her affect was tight as a boilerplate. But even through the dim shadows of my window the topology glowed around her like neon.
Amanda Bates was no longer merely consi