Kulagin shook his head fractionally, staring at the screen. "I was born here in C-K. I don’t know that much about the old-style Mechs, but I do know that most of the first ones are dead. Outdated, crowded out. Driven over the edge by future shock. A lot of the first life-extension efforts failed, too, in very ugly ways...Wellspring survived that, too, from some innate knack he has. Think of it, Hans. Here we sit, products of technologies so advanced that they’ve smashed society to bits. We trade with aliens. We can even hitchhike to the stars, if we pay the Investors’ fare. And Wellspring not only holds his own, he rules us. We don’t even know his real name."