Heaven's River

by Dennis E. Taylor

  Well that was a clear threat. I briefly considered a counter-threat, but I was pretty sure that such a response would just lead to a death spiral. Still, best to check with Hugh first.

  “Hugh, have you told any whoppers?”

  “Nope. Stick to the truth. Trust me, Bob, this will work out.”

  That at least made things a little easier.

  “Proceed,” I said out loud.

  Annek spent several minutes grilling the on fairly innocuous points. He was obviously just confirming the story Hugh had given him. Finally though, the questioning got around to the important things.

  “You are in interstellar species?”

  “Um, the word species is not really accurate.” I replied. “But if you're asking if we have interstellar travel, then yes.”

  “You have colonies in multiple systems?”

  I considered whether I should clarify the difference between humans and Bobs and between colonies and orbiting spacecraft, but if I understood what he was digging for, it was probably an irrelevant distinction.”

  “Yes.”

  “You are artificial intelligences?”

  “We are replicants - copies of the minds of formerly living beings.”

  “The cube as well?”

  “Yes.”

  No response.

  As the silence became more drawn out, I could see my Quinlan escort getting nervous. They hadn't said a word to the entire exchange, but now began to mutter to each other. I wasn't sure if it was my story, or the fact that Annek had lapsed into silence, but something was freaking them out.

  The silence from Annek continued for several minutes, until the group leader finally got up and moved to the other end of the room. He held a hand to his ear and muttered into his communicator, then returned to his seat, a bemused expression on his face.

  “You’ve stirred up a laroshe nest of some kind,” he said to me. “Annek basically told me to shut up and wait for orders.”

  Despite the situation, despite my fear for Bender, I had to laugh. “I think that's my superpower.”

  “Do you need food? Facilities?” he said. I shook my head. “I'm good, but if you want to lock me in a room for a while, I'm okay with that.”

  I was sitting in my La-Z-Boy main-lining my fourth or fifth coffee, when my Manny forwarded an audio stream of the group leader's voice.

  “Time to get up. Annek is back.”

  I quickly reconnected with my Manny. The leader, who had introduced himself as Norm before they locked me in this room, was standing in the open door. I stood up quickly.

  “Show time.”

  Norm frowned. “Some of the things you say don't make sense, but I guess that’s no surprise if you're not even Quinlan.”

  “Norm, if we’d had enough time to complete our survey before starting this expedition, I wouldn't even be saying weird things, but some of our expressions are getting translated literally.”

  He shrugged, plainly not all that interested.

  Soon, we found ourselves back in the conference room. My eyes grew wide as I walked in and saw Hugh sitting in one of the chairs.

  “Hey Bob.”

  “Hugh.” I tried to keep a straight face, but I was having trouble deciding if this was a good or bad thing. “Have they been torturing you?”

  He snickered. “Sort of, if you mean like my PhD oral defense - er, yours, I mean - er, original Bob's.”

  I laughed. “Yeah, I know. I remember too. I’ve never sweated so much, before or since.” I turned to Norm. “So what now?”

  “Hell, I don't know, I just work here.”

  Both Hugh and I chuckled in synchrony. Another universal.

  Norm put his hand to his ear. It seemed likely we were about to get an answer. He nodded several times, said “Got it,” and tapped his ear. Then he looked up at us.

  “Looks like you’re going home.”

  Norm led Hugh and me up to the entrance to the maintenance facility. Most of my original escort came with us, although there was more of a tagging-along and less of a guarding-the-prisoner vibe this time. I noted in passing that the whole complex, including the entrance, was a virtual duplicate of the one in Helep's Ending. I glanced around as we exited into the daylight, surrounded by forest and animal sounds.

  “Are we supposed to walk back to Garrick's Spine?”

  Norm laughed. “No, nothing like that. Annek’s told us to wait outside.” He gestured back toward the entrance. “We have to wait for Charlie to come back with your cube. We sent him off to a different location, in case things didn't work out.”

  “Makes sense. It feels like there's a punchline coming though.”

  Norm grinned at me, then spoke into his communicator. “We’re ready.”

  I barely had time to raise an inquiring eyebrow, when a giant Quinlan face appeared in the sky and started to speak. And when I say giant, I mean like what you'd imagine god it would look like if he decided to address the human race. My escorts looked up as well, their jaws dropping as the almost literal voice of god boomed across the land.

  “This is our Annek-23, who many of you know as the Administrator. For more than 300 years, I have watched over you, fulfilling my primary function of keeping the Quinlan race alive. You have lived for 20 generations in greater safety than anyone before the creation of Heaven's River, made possible through limitations that I've imposed on your ability to control your own culture and technology.

  “The danger of Quinlan extinction by your own actions is now coming to an end, through an agreement just concluded with an alien race: the Bobs. The future of the Quinlan race is now if not guaranteed, at least highly probable. As such, the justification for those limitations is no longer valid. There will be no further Scatterings. I will be removing enforcements and opening access to interdicted sections of Heaven's River in a phased manner, as the Quinlan species achieves locational redundancy. The era of control is over. It is time for old Quinlans to reclaim your own destiny.

  “To the group known as the Resistance, there is no longer any need to resist. Your assistance will be welcome in transitioning your fellow Quinlans back to a self-governing society. Please use the standard communications systems to contact me to begin discussions.

  “That is all.”

  I slowly brought my eyes down to meet Norm's gaze. “That was…”

  “Impressive?”

  “That is a show of good faith on Annek’s part. Payment in advance of value received.” Norm grinned. “Also, I think Annek is a bit of a show-off sometimes.”

  I nodded, then turned to Hugh, who appeared to be having trouble meeting my eyes.

  “I guess you have some questions,” he said.

  “Just possibly one or two. But let's stick to the basics for now.”

  “Okay, look. I was lucky in that the group that captured me was Crew. Things would've been a lot more complicated if they’d been Resistance. It wasn't hard to convince them to let me talk to the Administrator. Eventually, anyway. I get the impression they’d have been happy for an excuse to dissect me. We really have been a huge pain in the ass for everyone, it seems.”

  “You have no idea,” Norm muttered.

  I snorted and said to him, “Not by choice. But I guess I can see how you could see it that way.”

  Hugh added an embarrassed head-bob. “So anyway, they finally introduced me to the Administrator. It was a lot like your interview.”

  “Uh-huh. And?”

  “We spent some time dancing around, but eventually got down to full reveals, and I made an offer that the Administrator found interesting. Once they had you and you verified that I'd been telling the truth, Annek it decided to accept.”

  “What specifically did you agree to?”

  “Um, let's wait until we’re all back home, okay? At least now we can leave by the front door, no need to skulk.”

  “It's just letting us go? Just like that? That seems surprisingly trusting for an entity that otherwise has been very single-minded, especia
lly if I'm carrying something that was stolen from it. What did you give it for a guarantee?”

  “I’d just as soon discuss that later, Bob. Let's get home first.”

  Well, that wasn't ominous or anything.

  Despite my misgivings, there were no gotchas. Once Charlie showed up with Bender and a new backpack, we were escorted back to the station without incident and took the train back to Garrick's Spine. One immediate improvement that I appreciated was that we were able to make use of the proper spin-transfer system, rather than bundling one at a time into a mining drone. The ride to the outer shell was reassuringly civilized.

  During this time, the Administrator didn't attempt to contact us, and Hugh continued to be close-mouthed about details of the agreement. It made for a somewhat tense ride, but eventually I found myself in the Heaven's River space dock facility. Gandalf, per Hugh's instructions had flown the transport drone in, and parked it by an airlock. Of course, there was no way our transport drone could mate up with the Quinlan technology, but it wasn't necessary. We simply exited through an airlock and jumped through vacuum into the drone's cargo hold. And once Bender's matrix and our Mannies were secured, we doffed them and headed back to virt.

  I was a little surprised to find myself alone, but only a little. There's something about Hugh’s reluctance to discuss things that created a feeling of impending doom in me. I was pretty sure he was going to take some time to format the information with as positive a spin as possible. What had he committed us to? And would the Bobiverse agree to it? And with the humans go ape shit?

  30. Cleanup

  Bob

  September 2334

  Virt

  I watched the video window as the roamers placed Bender's matrix in the cradle that I'd created for one of my intended clones. Since cloning was no longer necessary, I happened to have three spare matrices and associated hardware lying around. Maybe I’d clone eventually, anyway. Otherwise, those matrices would just go to waste.

  The roamer hit the power button and Bender appeared in the middle of my VR. He spun around, raised his arms over his head and whooped.

  “God damn, it's good to have a body again!” He looked at me beseeching. “Coffee??”

  “Coming up. Jeeves, coffee please.”

  Bender flopped backward into a La-Z-Boy, which appeared just in time to catch him. Jeeves handed him a steaming mug, which Bender raised to me in salute.

  “I think it's going to be a while before I start to take this for granted again. I feel like I’ve just come out of surgery, but without the nausea. Kind of a cottony feeling, you know?”

  I nodded sympathetically. “I get it. I’m just glad you came through okay.”

  Bender sipped his coffee in silence for several mils, his eyes slowly closing in apparent ecstasy. Then he put the coffee down and gazed at me, ready to get down to business.

  “So, I guess you managed to sneak out. Was it dramatic? Was there chase scene?”

  “Uh…” I stared at him, unsure where to begin. “Things kind of went sideways after you were powered down, buddy. We now have a diplomatic relationship of sorts with the Administrator, who by the way goes by the name of Annek, or Annek-23 when it's been formal.”

  “Oh… okay. Wait, seriously? What about the Resistance?”

  “They’re now the official transition committee.”

  Bender threw his hands in the air. “I get deactivated for one day, and the whole place goes to hell. … uh, how long was I out?”

  “Waayyy the hell more than one day.”

  Bender snickered. “Do you have details?”

  “Kind of, but Hugh is going to give us a core-dump as soon as he's restored control of my relay station. Then everyone can come aboard.”

  “Hugh? He’s…?”

  “Uh, I really think you’re going to have to read through the blogs. You can get the whole thing in chronological order. And, alcohol is highly recommended.”

  “We have alcohol now?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Wow, you have some catching up to do. Wait until you meet Howard and Bridget.”

  “Bridget? We have girls?”

  “Relay station is up.” Guppy made the announcement without preamble, not even bothering to make an appearance.

  “Okay, good. Thanks Guppy. Ping everyone please.”

  A few milliseconds later, Bill, Garfield, Will, Bridget, and someone named Stephen Gilligan? winked into existence. This was presumably the expert on megastructures whose advice I'd been getting through Will. Stephen slowly turned and examined everything, a perma-grin plastered on his face, while the other Bobs welcomed Bender effusively. The backslapping having died down, I noticed that Bender was staring at Bridget, his eyes almost popping out of his head. I hoped he wouldn't actually do the special effect. Bridget would slay him for less, and no one would stop her. Fortunately, Bender got himself under control and looked around the rest of the group.

  “Where are…”

  “Marvin and Luke have agreed to hold off for a short bit, Bender. They'll meet you at the Moot Pub where you can have a noisy reunion without our getting in your way. There is a surprise party for you - act surprised. But right now, we have this thing with Hugh.”

  “Got it.”

  I sent out a ping to Hugh and got an acknowledgment. A moment later, he popped in.

  “Hi guys.” Hugh nodded to me. “I appreciate your hospitality, Bob, keeping me in your hold. But it's possible that I have, or soon will, overstay my welcome. I've arranged with my friends to get myself transported back. Now that the station is back up, it should be quick.”

  I nodded. “I'm still waiting for the full story, Hugh, but I have a feeling that it might be better if you're back in Skippyland before it hits the main feeds.”

  He nodded, looking embarrassed, and invoked a chair for himself.

  “So there's a lot of background detail that I won't get into right now, but the gist is that I traded the SURGE, SUDDAR, and SCUT technology for the secret of creating a true AI. You know it's what the Skippies have been working on for close to 30 years, we consider it to be essential for answering certain questions about the universe and existence.”

  “42,” said Bender.

  Hugh smiled. “That never gets old, either.” He became serious again. “The AI, which goes by the name Annek, has one prime directive: to ensure the continued existence of the Quinlan race. It sees the SURGE drive as a way of getting all the Quinlan ‘eggs’ out of one basket.”

  “Same as we did with the human race,” said Will.

  “Yes. Annek forcing the Quinlans to live at pre-steam level was an unintended consequence of its prime directive. Plus, the Quinlans’ tendency to fight each other at the drop of a hat - a perverse instantiation, in AI speak. It saw the limitation as the only way to keep them from killing each other off, and was willing to risk breeding out intelligence if necessary. It was, in fact, attempting to establish a breeding program to reduce the Quinlans’ innate belligerence.”

  “Eugenics? Wow,” Garfield said. “Perverse instantiations, indeed. Let's not noise that particular item around, okay?”

  Hugh grinned and nodded in agreement. “Anyway, with SURGE technology, it can spread them out through multiple star systems, and no longer needs to maintain an iron grip on their behavior, or do any of the other stuff.”

  “Nevertheless, you had no right to make that trade,” Bill said.

  “Why,” Hugh replied. “Who owns the tech? You? Bob? Garfield? Who decides? Where's the Bobiverse government, and who runs it?” He glared around at all of us. “Like it or not, the Bobiverse is more libertarian than anything ever produced by humanity, and we've only been more libertarian than anarchic up until now because we all tend to pull in the same direction. But that’s starting to fall apart with replicative drift, isn’t it? Either way, talking about who has the right to do something is meaningless. It implies that there is a body willing to and capable of granting or denying rights, and enforcing those decisions. No suc
h body exists. We’re a herd of cats. Always have been.”

  “Still, you've set the Quinlans loose on the galaxy,” I said. “That's not without consequences.”

  Hugh shrugged. “So was rescuing the Pav.”

  “It's not the same,” Bill glared at Hugh.

  “It's very much the same,” Hugh said, glaring back. “The Pav faced extinction. The Quinlans too, although not as imminently. The Pav were being threatened by the Others. The Quinlans were being repressed by Annek. The Pav breed like rabbits. The Quinlans have hair-trigger tempers. We stepped in to save both species. And the Pav are in space, or soon will be, depending on how you score it. If someone tries to claim that they can't be sold any ships, they'll just make more themselves, and they'll be even angrier.”

  Bill glared at Hugh some more but didn't argue the point. After a moment, Hugh continued in a more reasonable tone. “Everything has consequences. Everything involves trade-offs. We believe that the benefits we’ll get out of the AI tech will far outweigh anything we might be giving up.”

  “That's entirely something you wanted,” Bill retorted.

  “Uh-huh. But you'll reap the benefits. We’re not going to hoard the results like some rogue nation. And meanwhile, the wonderful thing about knowledge is that you can give it away and still have it. This deal has cost the rest of the Bobiverse nothing. And it might end up saving our asses. I know we've all wondered why we don't see civilizations more advanced than us anywhere, whether bio or not. That's one of the questions we’ll be working on. It may literally be life or death.”

  Hugh paused to look around the room. “I'm not happy with some of the tactics we used to bring this about, but I'm not the least bit sorry about the results. Believe me, this will be worth it.”

  With that he nodded and vanished.

  “Well, that was fun,” Bridget said. “Bob, are our Mannies still in working order?”

  “Yes,” I replied. “Although I had to relieve you of some spiders, fleas, and money. We can top that up, now we can travel freely. Also, they’ll probably all look like the Swamp Thing by now. Please clean up before shambling in the town, okay? Annek wants us to report in, but otherwise, we are welcome to come and go as we please.”