human
What are they after? complained the Captain suddenly.
gpt
What do they want?
human
Who?
gpt
Whoever it was who said 'Welcome to our planet.'
human
They want us dead.
gpt
Do they?
human
They don't want us to leave the ship, and they don't want the ship to leave the planet.
gpt
Then it's the ship they want.
human
Yeah, amended Ives,
gpt
You can't conclude that, Ives. They've inconvenienced us. They've turned us in on ourselves, and put a drain on our intangible resources as men and as a crew. But so far they haven't actually done anything to us. We've done it to ourselves.
human
We wrecked the unwreckable controls, manufactured that case-hardened darkness, and talked to ourselves on an all-wave carrier with no source, about information no outsider could get?
gpt
I didn't say any of that. Paresi paused to choose words.
human
Of course they're responsible for these phenomena. But the phenomena haven't hurt us. Our reactions to the phenomena are what has done the damage.
gpt
A fall never hurt anyone, they told me when I was a kid, said Ives pugnaciously.
human
It's the sudden stop.
gpt
I still say that while we have been astonished, frightened, puzzled and frustrated, we have not been seriously threatened. Our water and food and air are virtually unlimited. Our ability to live with one another under emergency situations has been tested to a fare-thee-well, and all we have to do is recognize the emergency as such and that ability will rise to optimum. He smiled suddenly.
human
It could be worse, Ives.
gpt
I suppose it could, said Ives.
human
That blackness could move in until it really crowded us, or--
gpt
It _is_ moving in.
human
No....