Presently, he drifted into his own peculiar arena of sleep, but it was a sleep haunted by the design on his cubby wall. The design took on distorted shapes from the holo of Legata in the Scream Room.

And Pandora was right out there . . . and . . . and . . . tomorrow . . .

Chapter 35

Chapter 35

Humankerro: “Does the listener project his own sense of understanding and consciousness?”

Avata: “Ahhh, you are building barriers.”

Humankerro: “That’s what you call the illusion of understanding, is it not?”

Avata: “If you understand, then you cannot learn. By saying you understand, you construct barriers.”

Humankerro: “But I can remember understanding things.”

Avata: “Memory only understands the presence or absence of electrical signals.”

Humankerro: “Then what’s the combination, the program for learning?”

Avata: “Now you open the path. It is the program which counts in the most literal sense.”

Humankerro: “But what are the rules?”

Avata: “Are there rules underlying every aspect of human life? Is that your question?”

Humankerro: “That appears to be the question.”

Avata: “Then answer it. What are the rules for being human?”

Humankerro: “But I asked you!”

Avata: “But you are human and I am Avata.”

Humankerro: “Well, what are the rules for being Avata?”

Avata: “Ahhhh, Humankerro, we embody such knowledge but we cannot know it.”

Humankerro: “You appear to be saying that such knowledge cannot be reduced to language.”

Avata: “Language cannot occur in a reference vacuum.”

Humankerro: “Don’t we know what we’re talking about?”

Avata: “Using language involves much more than recognizing strings of words. Language and the world to which it refers . . .”

Humankerro: “The script of the play?”

Avata: “The script, yes. The script of the game and its world must be interrelated. How can you substitute a word or some other symbol for every cellular element of your body?”

Humankerro: “I can talk with my body.”

Avata: “For that, you do not need a script.”

—Kerro Panille, The Avata, “The Q & A Game”

Chapter 36

Chapter 36

The mystery of consciousness? Erroneous data—significant results.

—P. Weygand, Voidship Med-tech

OAKES WATCHED the sentry on the Colony scanner. The man writhed and screamed in agony. The evening light of Alki cast long purple shadows which twisted as the man flopped and turned. The Current Outside Activity circuits reproduced the sounds of the sentry with clear fidelity, terrifyingly immediate. The man might be just outside this cubby’s hatch instead of on Colony’s north perimeter as the sensor log indicated.

The screams turned to a hoarse growl, like a turbine running down. There came a convulsive flopping, shudders, then quiet.

Oakes found that the sentry’s first screams still echoed in memory and would not be silenced.

Runners! Runners!

There was no escaping Pandora anywhere groundside. Colony remained under constant siege. And at the Redoubt—sterilization was their only solution. Kill everything.