Now, apparently, the distributed computer mind had nothing better to do than snoop. Where are you going, Erasmus? Omnius demanded from a tiny speaker beneath the watcheye. Why are you walking so fast?
 
You could walk, too, if you chose to do so. Why not give yourself legs for a while and wear an artificial body, just to see what it is like? Erasmus's metallic polymer mask reshaped itself into a smile. We could go for a stroll together.
 
The watcheye buzzed along beside Erasmus. Corrin had long seasons, because its orbit was so far around the giant sun. Winters and summers each lasted for thousands of days. The rugged landscape had no indigenous forests or wildernesses, only a handful of ancient orchards and agricultural fields that had gone to seed since the machine takeover, left to propogate untended?