She twisted the head on the bench. The silence was unchanging. (What was silence?) Other heads on the bench didn't move; they weren't supposed to. Once they had been attached to clumsy machines and could move about with a stiff degree of freedom. They couldn't now, though they could twist the light perceptors in whichever direction suited them.
But they didn't know where to look.
She herself couldn't see the thing that was approaching. It was because her eyes were imperfect. Lenses were pliable and nerve endings were huge things, too gross to catch the instant infinitesimal signals. Or perhaps it was permeability—force bounced on distant impenetrability and bounded back to and through her senses.
She'd have to align the heads to help them help her, string them together for what reinforcement they offered each other. And still they wouldn't see because what they depended on for seeing was too slow. By itself the hookup wouldn't correct their sight.
But nearby was a fast mind though a lazy one. It liked routine once the meaning of it was made clear. And it worked with instantaneity. Blind itself it could fingertip touch the incredible impulses and interpret what it felt for those who had eyes. It would join with her, reluctantly but surely if she made it interesting, a game at which it could always win. And winning wouldn't be difficult for it, not against these nine circuit bound minds, even if it was true that they did augment one another. Singly there were stupid and even added they were not much better. Their virtue was that they were electronic.
(Alone) Were there intangible machines? Sometimes she thought there might be. People twisted their mouth and (not because they were smiling) to indicate that they too understood. She could touch the air coming out but the impulses had no meaning. It was not like vibrations machines set up, harmonics that told of the unseen structure. There was nothing mechanical that could be concealed from harmonics—there were no hard and fast secrets. But what came out of mouths was senseless. It told nothing, or if it did have meaning her hands and her skin were unable to relay the interpretation further. (People were soft machines and they did not ring true. It was difficult to understand.)
Her hands were usually quite capable. (Now) she wove wires so fine that only occasional light was caught and brilliantly reflected. Each strand led somewhere. She removed panels from the robots' heads and grouped them closer. They were beginning to shake off their incomplete individuality. They were no longer separate mechanisms, each of which could only grope for a small fragment of reality. They were merging, becoming larger and stronger. There was more to be done to them but she couldn't do it.
As light as her touch was it was too inaccurate for what must follow. There were objects smaller than her eye could see, movements finer than her muscles could control. She summoned a repair machine whose microsenses were adequate to begin with. She would like to have the one she repaired some time ago (actually it was quite smart) but it had disappeared and she didn't know where to find it. However this one would do.
It was set merely to repair what was already built, but what she wanted was not yet made. She changed the instructions; they were not to her liking anyway.
She delved into the machine and set the problem. The statement of it was complex and she wasn't sure how much data the robot aide would need. When she finished it stood there thrumming. It didn't move.