Prologue | A Fire Upon the Deep | Vernor Vinge

Humans starting fires and playing with the flames.

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But the local net at the High Lab had transcended—almost without the humans realizing.

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"Of course they suspect. But what can they do? It's an old evil they've wakened. Till it's ready, it will feed them lies, on every camera, in every message from home."

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"While we exist, when we exist, we should do what we can."

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"...Perhaps all together, we can make a greater impossibility come true." Perhaps we can hurt the evil newly born here.