It was improbable for him to meet his old friends here? Fine, so it was improbable; but it had happened… — Charles Sheffield

Data are not the same as information. Before you can get the answers you want, you have to ask the right question.

“Any other instructions?”

“Not without breaking one of my own golden rules. In an unpredictable situation, the man or woman on the spot should make the decisions, not the general sitting on his ass a million miles away from the action.”

Only the final choice would require a human decision: enter the Link, or decline to do so? It occurred to Chan that perhaps this was the choice that humans were least qualified to make. He recognized in himself the tendency to say, we’ve come so far, we can’t possibly change our minds now. People following that philosophy died climbing mountains, they signed disastrous contracts, they flew into hurricanes, and they embarked on lifelong commitments to the wrong mates. Perhaps they headed to the stars for the same reason.