November 22, 2011
Regret and Rage
We were all on edge. There wasn’t a personality among us that was in possession of any particular fondness for Siri Keeton. But still. . . it was hard — impossible even.
We felt mostly guilt. Michelle and Sascha for their part in releasing the oxygen into the chamber. The gas was toxic to the scramblers. None of us had felt good about that test to begin with, we had sensed that something was not right. We should have questioned, we should not have blindly obeyed. Damn Sarasti! Damn him for what he did to Keeton. The burden of torturing alien life forms weighs heavily enough on our consciences. We did not need the added strain of Siri’s pain. Was it our fault? We flipped the switch, the alarm went off, Sarasti struck, Siri bled and hurt. Cause and effect. No matter how you look at it you cannot entirely remove the weight of it from our consciences. If only we could know what truly transpired between those two while our eyes were averted. If only we could know why Sarasti was truly urged to attack. Did Siri provoke an attack by trying to defend the scramblers from the poison gas that we released? Or did Sarasti’s deeply buried bestial nature finally claw its way out to the surface? If only we could know. If only we could find a way to assuage this guilt. .
Beyond Michelle and Sascha’s delicate feelings of concern and blame, are Susan and Cruncher’s repressed feelings of hostility towards Sarasti. Susan was controlling us when we witnessed what Sarasti did to Siri Keeton — When we were forced to stand by and do nothing while he was brutalized and humiliated. Sarasti toyed with him like a cat plays with a mouse, obviously getting a sick sense of pleasure out of his pain. At the time we tried to stop him, or we thought we did, but how hard did we really try. How hard were any of us really willing to try to defend Siri Keeton. Were any of us, and not just the Gang, Bates and Cunningham too, willing to risk the excruciating agony evident on Keeton’s face just to spare the spy some pain. Obviously not. So we feel anger, we feel rage towards Sarasti for what he did, and towards ourselves for what we did not do to help. We are cowards.
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Siri came to us much later, when he awoke. I suppose he wanted answers for what had happened. Who could blame him. We only wish we had answers. Michelle was on top then, she couldn’t face him. The guilt was still too strong. He asked for Susan anyways and Michelle eagerly retreated back into the recesses of our mind, trying as hard as she could not to watch what followed — not to even listen to what Siri had to say. He absolved us, but the relief was only momentary. Our area of expertise is languages. On our best day, with our minds combined, we cannot understand the human mind or behavioral science even a fraction as well as a trained synthesis like Siri can. Yet something in him had obviously changed. Siri Keeton was not the same person as he was before.
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I wrote on page 298- 301 and then 320-321. I wanted to do an experiment in how it would be to experience emotions and thoughts from the gangs point of view. Since they must always think in multiples and take into account several different personalities and points of view. I also really enjoyed that scene where Sarasti attacks Siri and have spent quite a bit of time pondering the true motives behind his actions. Also, even though Bates, Cunningham and The Gang insist that Sarasti’s attack was not planned and that they had not prior knowledge of the event before it occurred we never know the truth of that statement and in fact there are moments when that seems to be the exact opposite of the truth. However, in my interpretation of events I chose to believe Susan James’ account of events as she relays it to Siri on page 321.
Filed by forthefairest at November 22nd, 2011 under Uncategorized
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