Mínervudóttir-Chan had answered, “The great and terrible thing about humankind is simply this: we will always do what we are capable of.”

They descended the staircase from the pagoda.

Chapter 7

There is more to us than the physical linkages that make up our minds—but there is no denying this physical substrate. You have seen it if you have eaten chicken: those whitish strings you encounter on your plate are nerves—bundles of axons, evidence of the fleshy connectivity without which no sophisticated living mind on earth can function.

You can argue all you want about the soul. But without the connectome formed by the billions of synapses firing in the nervous system, there is no possibility of even the simplest memory. Every memory of lemonade you have is an electrochemical lightning bolt through flesh, on a microscopic scale. This is why I say I “build” minds: minds are as physical as a brick wall.

—Dr. Arnkatla Mínervudóttir-Chan, Building Minds

7

EIKO LOOKED PAST THE RUSTY BARS of the barracks windows to the ship’s processing deck. He was wrapped in two recycled plastidown blankets against the cold. The storm had subsided. The ship still bucked and rolled in the waves, and the barracks smelled of fear-sweat and vomit, but the worst was past.

Eiko pressed his face against the bars, trying to escape the vomit stench. A salt-mist lashed at his cheeks. The sharp stink of marine slaughter from the deck below, awash in the pink diluted blood of the morning catch, was preferable.

The processing shift was hard at work at the conveyors. They slid the blades of their knives into the bellies of the fish, scooped out the entrails, and whipped the guts into blue plastic buckets. Then they placed the fish on the conveyors that took them down to the factory room, where they were flash-frozen in blocks and sent to the storage freezers. The movements of the processing shift were efficient, mechanical. No waste of energy. Robotic. And you could see, on the deck, the rusted, torn baseplates where the robots that used to perform this task had been.

High-maintenance, robots. Susceptible to all sorts of weather damage at sea. Electricity and salt water are a bad combination. Rust, decay, short circuits. Expensive. We make better robots. Cheaper to maintain, more expendable.