Zero

Poul Anderson, "Epilogue" IN Anderson, Explorations (New York, 1981), pp. 177-240.

The opening paragraph:

"His name was a set of radio pulses. Converted into equivalent sound waves, it would have been an ugly squawk; so because he, like any consciousness, was the center of his own coordinate system, let him be called Zero." (p. 177)

Zero knows his radio name but not this sonic name, "Zero." He does not reflect on how his name would sound if converted into sound. It is an omniscient narrator that refers to Zero by the masculine pronoun and bestows the name, "Zero." 

This narrator proceeds, in the second paragraph, to inform us that Zero:

"...felt a dwindling potential." (ibid.) (My emphasis.)

- and that:

"Zero...wanted a more easily assimilated charge than the accumulators provided." (ibid.) (My emphasis.)

We have already been told that Zero is conscious. Consciousnesses feel and want. In fact, feeling a lack and wanting to satisfy it must be the most basic inner sensations? An organism has evolved from needing to both needing and wanting sustenance. Sensitivity has become sensation. Being has become conscious - although the references to "potential," "charge" and "accumulators" alert us to the possibility that Zero is a mechanism rather than an organism. In any case, he has definitely become our viewpoint character. But what exactly is he?