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"A tour guide who lives in seclusion. Yes, I see your point." He considered. "If you are right, it seems impossible for Rashid to finish me. How can he step outside the system?" "He has a window in his room." "What?" "A window." She wasn't sure she knew how to explain the part of Rashid that sought to look outward, beyond the boundaries. "He knows what he's doing. Trust him, Zaki." "I do." He rose and walked around his desk. "But never again will I have the chance to know the world as you see it." Her voice caught. "I thank you for considering that important. But someday you'll have plenty of opportunity to interact with people. So missing the chance with me doesn't really matter." "It does to me." He watched her from the screen, as if he could see her with his eyes rather than as digitized data sent to him by a camera. "The nanobots in your body talk to file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...aar/Catherine%20Asaro%20-%20The%20Veiled%20Web.html (261 of 359)20-2-2006 21:09:19 Catherine Asaro - The Veiled Web the Jazari suit and the suit talks to me. It's a link from your brain to mine. If you take me into the Web using the suit, I will see it through your mind." Gently he said, "Share that with me. So I will have a part of you to remember after you leave." She was struck by the magnitude of the dream encompassed in his simple request. A way to understand, really understand, another human being. Then reality brought her home. "The suit is experimental. Rashid doesn't want me to use it again." "Has it caused you damage?" "No, I'm fine. Ahmed checked this morning." She brushed her hand on her arm, as if she could feel the strange molecules in her body. "The number of bots inside me has gone way down. Not as fast as Rashid expected, but they should be gone in a couple more days." "You are not in danger?" "Apparently not." "Then we could try again." "Rashid said no." He made a frustrated sound. "Rashid always says no. Maybe Rashid is wrong." "Perhaps. But I still respect his wishes." "What about my wishes?" "You're a computer program." His fist clenched at his side. "Where do you draw the line between calling me a thing and an intelligence? When it suits your purposes, you treat me like a machine." She raised her eyebrows. "Children obey their parents. That doesn't mean their parents treat them like machines." "I am not a child. That I have existed for fewer years than a human adult is irrelevant. I think. I am aware of myself. I'm a form of life. If humans deserve respect, don't I also?" Lucia stared at him. I think. I am aware of myself. I'm a form of life. Good Lord, was she witnessing the emergence of his consciousness? It both awed and dismayed her. If she file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...aar/Catherine%20Asaro%20-%20The%20Veiled%20Web.html (262 of 359)20-2-2006 21:09:20 Catherine Asaro - The Veiled Web made a mistake now, if she constrained him as he was becoming self-aware, she could do irreparable damage, both to him and in how he came to view humans. But Rashid didn't want her to use the suit. If she went against his wishes, would it cause harm? She saw no simple answer, no definitive right or wrong, only a field of gray, without black or white. Which decision was more right, then? Watching Zaki, she knew the answer. Sand, blue water, and sunshine swirled around Lucia and Zaki as they spun through the air. The city of Agadir, on the Atlantic coast of Morocco, was a tourist paradise, glistening beaches surrounded by ranks of modern hotels. A Moroccan girl in a bikini walked only paces away from a veiled woman in a jellaba with a child in tow. The beach looked, felt, smelled, sounded, even tasted real, with a tang of salt. Yet on no real beach could Lucia and Zaki have flown above the ocean in bright streams of color. Lucia's laugh swirled around the sky, taking on the texture of the wind. "It's incredible. How did you do it?" A blur of light looped around her. "Everything we see here is defined in the Web," Zaki said. "I find the information, then tell the Jazari suit how to convert it into a virtual reality." Reaching the Web had proved easier than she expected. She didn't have to jimmy the lock on the closet that hid the patch panel. Rashid had left it open. All she had to do was plug in the cable he had pulled out. She wondered if he had left the closet open because her going onto the Web no longer mattered to him. Why would he care, if she was leaving soon? Or perhaps it was the reverse, that he was as rattled as she by all that had happened this morning and had forgotten to lock the door. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |