“I am an intelligence that isn’t human. Not a machine—a system based on information. Like you are based on biology. I live in a machine like you live in meat.” Almost everybody except Gabriel acted afraid of Astronaut. Liren, and Ali, and perhaps Kyu, at least a little. Rachel’s stomach fluttered. She was talking to someone the Council feared. “Why do you want to talk to me?” “You interest me. You are a slave for the Council, like I am. You and I share some of their goals. Any other choice would be death. But some of our individual goals, mine and yours, are different from Council’s goals. So
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