In the Next Life, Canto III, stanzas 139-142

She showed him how to mine a home
or store for solid-state appliances and toys.
Their clients hated them but would ignore
a human if it made the proper noise.

She taught him also how he could exist
as a complete self-standing entity,
opposed to, say, a simple colonist
whose worth depended on the colony.

She helped to lift him from his mental roost.
Admittedly, the climb was not too steep.
His mind was ready to receive the boost.
He’d come to her but partially asleep.

She finished, then, a process that began
when he rejected for its lack of source
the value system of his erstwhile clan.
That happens when one reads too much, of course.

Proper noise: A signal of some sort to let the carriers know they are being approached by a trader human, I suppose. We are left to guess how this could have been initiated.
Value system: As we have seen, the erstwhile clan hadn’t much of one to reject. This process would have been much more difficult had he belonged to a well-developed culture, as Merrimac presumably does. The Objectivists do, and I understand that many of them even come from strongly religious families, but they, of course, don’t remove themselves as far as Ciral or his creator.

©2010 Louis A. Merrimac