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tent caught in a gale, so that they gasped their way to death.
 Most of them I could have rescued; the same Displacers I was using to bombard
the place could have sucked them off it, and as a last resort my effectors
might have plucked their mind-states from their heads even as their bodies
froze or burned around them. There was ample time.
 But you left them.
 Yes.
 And watched them.
 Yes.
 Still, it was their choice to stay.
 Indeed.
 And did you ask their permission to record their death throes?
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 No. If they would hand me the responsibility for killing them, they could at
least indulge me in that. I did tell all concerned what I would be doing
beforehand. That information saved a few. It did attract criticism, though.
Some people felt it was insensitive.
 And what did you feel?
 Appalled. Compassion. Despair. Detached. Elated. God-like. Guilty. Horrified.
Miserable. Pleased.
Powerful. Responsible. Soiled. Sorrowful.
 Elated? Pleased?
 Those are the closest words. There is an undeniable elation in causing
mayhem, in bringing about such massive destruction. As for feeling pleased, I
felt pleasure that some of those who died did so because they were stupid
enough to believe in gods or afterlives that do not exist, even though
I felt a terrible sorrow for them as they died in their ignorance and thanks
to their folly. I
felt pleasure that my weapon and sensory systems were working as they were
supposed to. I felt pleasure that de- spite my misgivings I was able to do my
duty and act as I had determined a fully morally responsible agent ought to,
in the circumstances.
 And all this makes you suitable to command a world of fifty billion souls?
 Perfectly, the avatar said smoothly.  I have tasted death, Ziller. When my
twin and I merged, we were close enough to the ship being destroyed to
maintain a real-time link to the substrate of the
Mind within as it was torn apart by the tidal forces produced by a line gun.
It was over in a micro-second, but we felt it die bit by bit, area by
distorted area, memory by disappearing memory, all kept going until the
absolute bitter end by the ingenuity of Mind design, falling back, stepping
down, closing off and retreating and regrouping and compressing and abandoning
and abstracting and finessing, always trying by whatever means possible to
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keep its personality, its soul intact until there was nothing remaining to
sacrifice, nowhere else to go and no survival strategies left to apply.
 It leaked away to nothingness in the end, pulled to pieces until it just
dissolved into a mist of sub-atomic particles and the energy of chaos. The
last two coherent things it held onto were its name and the need to maintain
the link that communicated all that was happening to it, from it, to us. We
experienced everything it experienced; all its bewilderment and terror, each
iota of anger and pride, every last nuance of grief and anguish. We died with
it; it was us and we were it.
 And so you see I have already died and I can remember and replay the
experience in perfect detail, any time I wish. The avatar smiled silkily as
it leant closer to him, as though imparting a confidence.  Never forget I am
not this silver body, Mahrai. I am not an animal brain, I am not even some
attempt to produce an Al through software running on a computer. I am a
Culture Mind. We are close to gods, and on the far side.
 We are quicker; we live faster and more completely than you do, with so many
more senses, such a greater store of memories and at such a fine level of
detail. We die more slowly, and we die more completely, too. Never forget I
have had the chance to compare and contrast the ways of dying.
It looked away for a moment. The Orbital streamed past above their heads.
Nothing stayed in sight for longer than the blink of an eye. The underground
car tracks were blurs. The impression of speed was colossal. Ziller looked
down. The stars appeared now to be stationary.
He d done the maths in his head before they entered the module. Their speed
relative to the
Orbital was now about a hundred and ten kilometres per second. Long-range
express car-trains would still be overtaking them; the module would take an
entire day to circle the world hovering here, while Hub s travel-time
guarantee was no more than two hours from any express port to any.other, and a
three-hour journey from any given sub-Plate access point to another.
 I have watched people die in exhaustive and penetrative detail, the avatar
continued.  I have felt for them. Did you know that true subjective time is
measured in the minimum duration of demonstrably separate thoughts? Per
second, a human - or a Chelgrian - might have twenty or thirty, even in the
heightened state of extreme distress associated with the process of dying in
pain. The avatar s eyes seemed to shine. It came forward, closer to his face
by the breadth of a
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hand.
 Whereas I, it whispered,  have billions. It smiled, and some- thing in its
expression made
Ziller clench his teeth.  I watched those poor wretches die in the slowest of
slow motion and I
knew even as I watched that it was I who d killed them, who was at that moment
engaged in the process of killing them. For a thing like me to kill one of
them or one of you is a very, very easy thing to do, and, as I discovered,
absolutely disgusting. Just as I need never wonder what it is like to die, so
I need never wonder what it is like to kill, Ziller, because I have done it,
and it is a wasteful, graceless, worthless and hateful thing to have to do.
 And, as you might imagine, I consider that I have an obligation to discharge. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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