A Fire Upon the Deep (Zones of Thought, #1)

by Vernor Vinge

Lines and rings are interesting people; not great minds, but about the largest effective pack you’d find outside the tropics. There were stories of lines ten miles long, with thousands of members. The largest Peregrine had ever seen had fewer than one hundred. Take a group of ordinary people and train them to string out, not in packs but as individual members. If each member stayed just a few yards from its nearest neighbors, they could maintain something like the mentality of a trio. The group as a whole was scarcely brighter—you can’t have much in the way of deep thoughts when it takes seconds for an idea to percolate across your mind. Yet the line had an excellent grasp of what was happening along itself. And if any members were attacked, the entire line would know about it with the speed of sound. Peregrine had served on lines before; it was a strung-out existence, but not nearly as dull as ordinary sentry duty. It’s hard to be bored when you’re as stupid as a line.