TAILIEUCHUNG - EVOLUTION'S DARLING

Does a clone have a soul? Darling, an astronavigational control unit and personal companion, achieves sentience and wants to know. Now, 200 years and an artificial body later, he is off in search of a dead artist, a living artwork, and the forces behind a mystery that spans the universe. Accompanied by a female assassin, he'll confront the Maker and get the answer. | EVOLUTION S DARLING by SCOTT WESTERFELD Copyright 1999 ISbN 1-56858-149-1 If we can find out those measures whereby a rational creature . . . may and ought to govern his opinions and actions we need not be troubled that some other things escape our knowledge. John Locke To San Miguel and those who came. Prologue THE MOVEMENTS OF HER EYES It started on that frozen world among the stone figures in their almost suspended animation. Through her eyes the irises two salmon moons under a luminous white brow like fissures in the world of rules of logic. The starship s mind watched through the prism of their wonder and began to make its change. She peered at the statue for a solid unblinking minute. Protesting tears gathered to blur her vision but Rathere s gaze did not waver. Another minute and a tic tugged at one eye taking up the steady rhythm of her heartbeat. She kept watching. Ha she finally proclaimed. I saw it move. Where asked a voice in her head unconvinced. Rathere rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands mouth open awestruck by the shooting red stars behind her eyelids. Her blinks made up now for the lost minutes and she squinted at the dusty town square. His foot she announced it moved. But maybe . . . only a centimeter. The voice made an intimate sound a soft sigh beside Rathere s ear that did not quite reject her claim. Maybe just a millimeter Rathere offered. A touch of unsure emphasis hovered about the last word she wasn t used to tiny units of measurement though from her father s work she understood light-years and metaparsecs well enough. In three minutes Perhaps a micrometer the voice in her head suggested. Rathere rolled the word around in her mouth. In response to her questioning expression software was invoked as effortless as reflex. Images appeared upon the rough stones of the square a meter-stick a hundredth of its length glowing bright red a detail box showing that hundredth with a hundredth of its length flashing yet another detail box . . . .

• Sinh học
• inhomogeneity theory
• Material symmetries
• material archetype
• material parallelisms
• material connection
• intuitive picture