Canned goods represent the dwindling hope for salvation that Ted, Ellen, Gorrister, Benny, and Nimdok desperately hold onto as they are trapped in the belly of AM. In the beginning of the story, the main action is sparked by Nimdok’s hallucination that there are canned goods waiting for the group in the ice caverns. Although Ted and Gorrister think that it’s just another one of AM’s many tricks, Ellen convinces them to go seek them out. Hungry, and with no other options besides waiting for more torture, the group begins their incredibly long journey to what Ellen hopes are “Bartlett pears or peaches.” After over 100 years trapped within the “belly” of a sadistic, sentient supercomputer, the canned goods symbolize the group’s final hope for salvation. Like a mirage in the desert, AM’s final and cruelest trick is that it doesn’t provide them a tool with which to open the cans. Forcing their bodies and minds into starvation mode, AM removes their last hope that their shared eternity within it would include anything but “Worms. Thick, ropey” for the next hundred years. Thus, the disappointment of the inaccessible cans represents the utter futility and hopelessness of humanity trying to outsmart the sadistic, violent whims of an intelligent and all-powerful supercomputer—a creation for which their own species is responsible.
