The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect (86 page)

Caroline continued. "So they learn where the pleasure points are by hook or crook, then stimulate themselves directly. And when they get it right, they never do anything else. They get everything maximized, tuned up, and they just sit there forever enjoying it."
"Right. Now is a creature that is doing that, not interacting with the world at all any more, human?"
Caroline thought about it. "No."
"Prime Intellect thinks otherwise. But it has its doubts. Those doubts were strong enough to kick the Death Jockey contract action potential down from one point one two to point nine
nine
. Because in one case an indefinite Death Jockey contract had directly created such a vegetable. Introducing the time limit made Prime Intellect confident that such a thing wouldn't happen again, at least not so rapidly and directly, and that kicked the potential back up to its current value of one point oh six."
"So?"
"So, can you imagine what it thinks about the Change in general, since none of those vegetables would be vegetating if there hadn't been a Change?"
"I imagine it figures there would be a lot worse things that would have happened without the Change."
"That's right. But look at this." To the monitor: "Debugger, display the Action Potential for reversing the Change."
Caroline gasped. It was not the number on the screen which astonished her, but the idea itself -- reversing the Change, stated just so baldly. How long had Lawrence and Prime Intellect been considering this? How close was it to actually happening? Caroline suddenly felt alive, electrified with the possibilities.
The number on the TV screen was four point six. And some odd decimals.
"It isn't very sure of itself," she said cautiously. She was very afraid that if Lawrence guessed what she was thinking he would shut up. And she was right.
"A lot of that is the aliens. Four hundred worlds of them -- a lot more than there were humans at the time of the Change, though we've outbred them all now. The weirder humans get, the more human the aliens look. That number has dropped steadily during the last five hundred and ninety years. When you drove
AnneMarie
insane, it dropped from thirty-seven down to twelve point something all at once.
"But part of it is also that same weirdness seen from the other side. Suppose that infinitely masturbating vegetables, Death Jockeys, and discorporate entities really aren't people