On p. 687, this story confirms that Krakeners refer to the gods and that Old Earth might no longer exist. These four concluding Technic History instalments tell us nothing of Earth. The narratives are remote not only in time but also in space.
An Allied Planets expedition has descended by ferry to Lokon from the orbiting mother ship, New Dawn. The voice-operated computers in the ferry are portables linked through the master in the ferry to a data bank in New Dawn by orbiting relay units. When Evalyth asks her computer a question, that computer links to the master, thus to the nearest relay unit, thus to others, thus to a computer in New Dawn, thus to a data bank, thus to scanners. A long way around.
When Evalyth asks how to track a local who has eaten an expedition member, she is asked the origin of the expedition member and, when she replies that he was the computer's master, she is told that tracking this local may be possible. No emotion is involved as there might have been if a human servant were being asked to help.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I'm a bit surprised by your last paragraph. I had no trouble understanding what Evalyth meant, the past times I read "Sharing," when she called Donli Sairn the computer's "master."
Ad astra! Sean
Why is the data only available from a central source? Nearly infinite storage should be available everywhere, from distributed sources.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I had thoughts like that as well. The answer seems obvious: "The Sharing of Flesh" was written more than fifty years ago, when the computer technology known to Anderson was nowhere as advanced as it is today.
Ad astra! Sean
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