NARRATOR: Within the Matrioshka Brain known as the All-Star...
PUTZHO: I think I'm okay with things now.
Did you make me be okay?
ULAQUE: Of course not. You're adapting on your own.
"Physiologically" you're rewriting some key pathways in your hardware. It's very similar to what happens in meat-brains.
PUTZHO: Then the All-Star isn't one big computer. It's a billion-billion smaller computers.
Wait, that's too low... A trillion-trillion.
ULAQUE: Close, but still low by about half. Two-point-two-one septillion.
2.21 times 10 to the 24th.
PUTZHO: On that scale... it's not a computer system. It's a machine ecology.
Power transduction, repair, recycling... How does it all work?
ULAQUE: I could explain it, but with your permission I'll thread it to you for direct import.
PUTZHO: Hit me.
PUTZHO: Whoa...
Colossal.
And messy.
And perfect.
And...
Hey.
You're only at 44% capacity. You could pull everybody else in the galaxy in here, and still not tick past 45%.
ULAQUE: We tried that once. As raptures go, it was unacceptably lossy.