The automonk’s cut-away saffron robe lay in a pool on the flagstones of the courtyard. The dragonfly, perched on the shoulders of the automonk’s smooth, sexless body, worked in the damaged shoulder joint with its forelimbs. The automonk seemed not to notice.

We are not alive.

There was a flash of acetylene spark and a smell of ozone. The automonk was still walking its meditative circle. It had been moving the entire time, its head gently declined toward the ground.

“I can see why you would choose to study with them,” Ha said. “Such a different technology. Being able to see the world that way must have been extraordinary.”

“Yes. That’s what I was telling you before: the octopus reminds me of myself. I think I understand her—the way she must feel in the sea, and that connectedness … At least I understand a part of it. And I spend part of my life immersed in fluid as well. I think that makes me at least an honorary underwater creature.”

“Altantsetseg’s study with the Tibetans is part of what made her so good,” Evrim said. “It’s why DIANIMA was so eager to hire her.”

Altantsetseg shrugged. “The Buddhist Republic always has the best operators. It’s what the Tibetans are famous for. I knew I had talent. I had what in the industry they call ‘high plasticity’: the ability to connect well to systems, to adapt to their control mechanisms. But I wanted to do more. I wanted to be the best. The best operators in the world will someday get to operate the institute’s Quantum Control Units, and guide the drones building the habitats on Mars. That’s what I wanted to do.”

The dragonfly drone lifted gently off the automonk’s shoulders and continued its work on the severed limb Evrim had retrieved. The other dragonfly was darting around the perimeter, attaching what looked like iridescent beetles to the trunks of trees. A deterrence perimeter. Nodes capable of delivering levels of deterrent from an unpleasant smell to a panic-inducing pheromone to a lethal electrical charge. “Why didn’t you stay in Tibet?”

“War broke out. War came to my home, and I knew I could use the skills I had learned to help my people.”

“Yes—but after the war?”

“After the war I wasn’t that person anymore.”

Chapter 27

Again and again I asked myself how humankind could transcend the limitations of our own form, the rigidity of our structures. Again and again, the solution seemed impossible. In our bodies as in society, our structures are built to replicate themselves, and themselves only. We are embedded in habit. We dread the truly new, the truly emergent. We don’t fear the end of the world—we fear the end of the world as we know it.

—Dr. Arnkatla Mínervudóttir-Chan, Building Minds

27

“WE FOUGHT FOR NOTHING.”