This story is a true gem! Richly drawn characters--especially when you consider the overall length of the tale--good story development, and an unusual POV....told from the perspective of the Cybernetic Consciousness, the author did a superb job of really "putting you inside" the mind of the consciousness.
As with the other story submitted for the contest, I found myself wanting the story to continue when I had reached the end, so I think it's fair to say that the author is a natual at the art of weaving together a story.
If there's one weakness I could point to here, it would be that the gaians were treated with fairly broad brush strokes, and I found myself wishing there had been more time spent on the Gaian people in general (but hey, being a short story, I guess you gotta cut something somewhere, and since they weren't the main focus of the story....)
It's often a very hard thing in short fiction to develop characters sufficiently to create a sense of empathy with those characters. The author of this story, however, succeeded amazingly well in that, and for me, that was the strongest selling point of all...being sucked right into the story, experiencing the author's wonderful vision of life in the consciousness. That's top-notch writing!