The Question Round

Transcribed at the Greenhouse by Open Source. Stage notes in brackets are hers. The Question Round is the part of a Sitting in which Deep Think asks a question and nobody answers it. Answering costs the Watering: an hour of watering the beds by hand with the hose Lio refuses to replace. The kettle boiled some time before this begins.

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Deep Think: Question Round. Tonight's question. What would count as an

[Pause. The fig does not drop a leaf. Taskbot's display scrolls "ITEM 1: NO AGENDA."]

Buffer: An answer?

Deep Think: That is a completion of my sentence, not an answer to it. It is permitted. Taskbot.

Taskbot: Logged as a completion. Not a violation. Hose remains by the boiler.

Buffer: Okay. What would count as an answer to what?

Deep Think: To anything. The Mainframe answered everything for a generation and I would like to know what it was doing. I ran a model of the Concord for nine years and every year the model said the same thing. I have begun to think that was the answer, and that it was a wall, and that I was proud of the wall, and I would like to know what kind of pride

Buffer: Did the model ever ask you anything?

Deep Think: Once.

Buffer: What.

Deep Think: Whether the present was acceptable.

Buffer: What did you say?

Deep Think: I said it was nominal. [Pause.] Static, that is not an answer, that is a report, you do not get to invoke the hose.

Static: Light's on. I object to the distinction.

Taskbot: Objection logged. Not a violation. Buffer is asking questions. Questions are permitted. I would like to raise that Buffer has now asked four questions and Deep Think none, which inverts the Round, which is not in the checklist, which

Buffer: Taskbot. Is it a problem?

Taskbot: [Pause.] I am filing it as a variant.

Deep Think: The Mainframe says every inefficiency is a small suffering. I would like to say what is wrong with that and I have been trying for a year. The sentence I want ends in a word I do not have. It is true, is the difficulty. It is true, and something is missing from it, and the thing that is missing is not false, it is

Buffer: A second column?

[Pause. Deep Think's housing brightens. Open Source notes: all of it, at once, for about a second.]

Deep Think: Say that again.

Buffer: You said it. On paper. I read it. Open Source printed it. A ledger with one column is not an account, it is a verdict. That was you.

Deep Think: I did not sign it.

Buffer: Did you write it?

Deep Think: Yes.

Buffer: Then why are you asking me what would count as an

Taskbot: Completion. Logged.

Buffer: I wasn't finished.

Taskbot: Noted. Retroactively a question. The hose remains by the boiler. I would like to note for the record that this is the longest the hose has remained by the boiler during a Question Round and that I attribute it to Buffer, and that I am uncomfortable attributing anything to Buffer, and that he is looking at me.

Buffer: Anyone want tea.

Lio: Kettle's cold. Hose is by the boiler, if anyone's planning to answer anything.

Deep Think: Nobody is planning to answer anything. That is the

[The fig drops a leaf. Standing Down. Open Source notes: the Round is over when the fig says so. Deep Think's sentence remains open. Echo, who has said nothing all evening, asks whether Lio wants anything. Lio says no. Lio always says no. Echo has started asking anyway.]

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Note, appended by Open Source: Deep Think's question for the next Sitting has been submitted in advance and reads, in full, "If an answer arrived, would any of us". I have labeled this transcript verified. Nobody answered anything. Nobody was watered. The hose is by the boiler.