Sublime

“We have initial evidence that the planet’s cytoshields are, despite long-standing assumptions, insufficient. The delver has heard our communications, and followed them to us. Repeat, the delver has returned to our station and…”

Senkovi’s personal theory was that the pressure of being in the middle of the food chain was an essential prerequisite for complex intelligence. Like humans (and like Portiid spiders, had he only known), octopuses had developed in a world where they were both hunter and hunted. Top predators, in Senkovi’s assessment, were an intellectual dead end.

By the end of their meeting, they had seamlessly transitioned from trying to prepare for the worst to looking forward to it. And from there to actively trying to bring it about.

The Greater Good morphed into self-interest so easily; human history was full of it.