A Deepness in the Sky (Zones of Thought, #2)

by Vernor Vinge

‘Dear Sherk was so sure of impossible things like A1. For me, Focus was like a dream. My mission was to understand you Spiders perfectly, and the emotions just came along with it. It was the side effect Tomas Nau never expected.’ Personhood as a Spider had come slowly, growing with each advance in language knowledge. The radio debate had been the turning point, where Trixia and Zinmin Broute and the others had actually transformed and taken sides in the perfection of their craft. I’m so sorry, Xopi. We were Focused and suddenly you were the enemy. When we scrambled your MRI codes, we didn’t really know we’d murdered you. Any of us could have been the Pedure translator, any of us could have been in your place. And that had been when Trixia first reached down across the comm links and revealed herself to Sherkaner Underhill.