Starfish (Rifters, #1)

by Peter Watts

You’d be underwater most of the time, but you’d be well-equipped.”

“Pre-adapted,” was what he said.

Pre-adapted to being inhuman.

She’s the founding mother, the template against which other, rawer recruits trace themselves. They come down and they see that her eyes are always capped, and they go and do likewise. But she knows it isn’t true. The rift is the real creative force here, a blunt hydraulic press forcing them all into shapes of its own choosing.

This was hardly the first time that Lenie Clarke thought she was going to die. But this was the first time in years that it seemed to matter.

She floods the airlock. By now the feeling is almost sensual; her insides folding flat, the ocean rushing into her, cold and unstoppable like a lover.

“You don’t understand,” Clarke says, her voice absolutely level. “It’s not how much shit you’ve raised that suits you for the rift. It’s how much you’ve survived.”

say, you became a concert pianist, the part that runs your fingers would actually spread out, take up more of the strip to meet the increased demand for finger control. But you lose something, too. The adjacent parts of the strip get crowded out. So maybe you couldn’t wiggle your toes or curl your tongue as well as you could before you started practicing.”

“Expert defense witnesses, including a smart gel online from Rutgers, testified that neuron cultures lack primitive evolved midbrain structures necessary to experience pain, fear, or a desire for self-preservation. Defense argued that the concept of a ‘right’ is intended to protect individuals from unwarranted suffering. Since smart gels are incapable of physical or mental distress of any sort, they have no rights to protect regardless of their level of self-awareness. This reasoning was eloquently summarized during the defense’s closing statement ‘Gels themselves don’t care whether they live or die. Why should we?’ The verdict is under appeal. Cross-linked to next item under AI and World News.”

“Yves Scanlon for Patricia Rowan.” “Dr. Rowan is occupied. Her simulator is expecting your call. This conversation is being monitored for quality-control purposes.” A click, and another voice that sounded real: “Hello, Dr. Scanlon.”

“Her simulator”

“Scanlon.”

It really doesn’t bother him, being stuck in a dead man’s quarters. After all, where else is there? It’s not as though he’s going to move in with one of the vampires.

You’ve got maybe five years before you’re obsolete.

It turns out that protein microtubules, permeating each and every neuron, act as receivers for certain weak signals at the quantum level. It turns out that consciousness itself is a quantum phenomenon. It turns out that under certain conditions conscious systems can interact directly, bypassing the usual sensory middlemen.

Ha ha.

corpses

CORPoration Executives.

Seventeen jumps away through gate 52, Node 6230/BCC had learned how to evenly divide prime numbers by three.

Got something of a definitional problem there.

Usenet groups

if you want a sort of mood-setting Starfish theme song, play Sarah MacLachlans’ “Obsession” in a dark room, with the volume cranked.

A good layperson’s introduction to the coastal geology of the Pacific Northwest, including a discussion of midocean ridges such as Juan de Fuca, can be found in Cycles of Rock and Water by K. A. Brown (1993, HarperCollins West).