"Let Words Stand In"

Poul Anderson, Harvest The Fire, Chapter 1.

It is thirty years since Venator died, thus not very long after the events of the previous volume, The Stars Are Also Fire. Having been returned to individuality, Venator must already have been re-downloaded into an artificial neural network if not yet into a robot body?

By direct linkage, he converses with an aspect of the central intelligence. That aspect:

can merge with many other minds as necessary;

is what it is now only because this is deemed sufficient for the present purpose;

is distantly joined to the apex of the Teramind "...through nodes of ascending power..." (p. 34) like a finger joined to an arm and thus to a body.

The cybercosmic perception of transient, variable individuality might be similar to that of the Didonians?

The omniscient narrator informs the reader that Venator and the aspect do not really speak but exchange information and thoughts at nearly light-speed. Then, rather awkwardly, in my opinion, this narrator descends from his omniscient status to become one of us when he advises:

"But let words stand in for that lightninglike discourse. It is not altogether a false analogy." (p. 35)

But it is an analogy. The narrator, instead of remaining as far as possible invisible is directly addressing his audience in the imperative mood and making us realize that the verbal exchange that we are about to read does not really happen. In order to differentiate it from audible speech, the words are not enclosed inside quotation marks ("...") but preceded by a dash (-...).