He looked at me expectantly, and I made a rolling motion with my hand for him to continue.
“They do not appear to be from this area at all. It looks as though the sentient Deltan subspecies originated here…” Marvin rotated the globe and pointed to a different part of the continent. “…and moved from there to the current location.”
“And they’re no longer at the old location? Why?”
“That’s what I don’t get, Bob. I’ve found a lot of evidence of abandoned Deltan villages, and some burial sites, but not nearly enough graves to account for the expected population.”
“Predation?”
“You’d think, but then we’d find Deltan remains here and there, at least in the form of piles of bones. You’ve seen what the gorilloids leave behind when they’re done with a meal. They’re not fastidious.”
I rubbed my chin, gazing at the globe. “That doesn’t make sense, anyway. From your notes, the original area didn’t have gorilloids at all. So they moved from a safer area to a more dangerous area, and disappeared in the safer area.”
“Then fled the more dangerous area to set up in an even more dangerous area.” Marvin shook his head in confusion. “They aren’t morons. They may be just in the process of becoming human-level sentient, but they have common sense. We’re missing something.”
I shrugged, and sent the globe spinning with a flick of a finger. “It’s a mystery, Marvin, and we do love a mystery.” We exchanged grins. After all, Bob. “But the important thing is that they’re much safer here, compared to where we found them. They’ve settled in nicely in Camelot, the hunting’s good, and the gorilloids are beginning to get the hint and have pretty much stopped trying to pick off Deltans.”
“You’re really going to call their village Camelot?” Marvin gave me the stink-eye. “Every time you say it, I hear Knights of the Round Table.”
I grinned at him and waggled my eyebrows. “It’s only a model.”
Marvin rolled his eyes and stopped the globe. “Anyway, I’ll keep at this, but we’re at a disadvantage here. On Earth, scientists were building up from existing knowledge of a world they understood. On Eden, we’re starting from scratch.”
“Yeah, and even then, it took years for them to figure out things like the fate of the Anasazi.” I sat back and shook my head. “Yeah, I get it, Marv. I have to admit, I’m glad this is a pet project for you. I did some basic research and exploration when I landed, but it wasn’t a priority for me.”
Marvin chuckled and, with a parting nod, disappeared back to his own VR.
2. Colony Site
Howard
September 2188
Vulcan
Colonization of a new planet was always so easy in science fiction. Actually, scratch that. It was never easy. Something always came out of the woodwork to endanger the colony. Well, they got one thing right. Sort of.
On the plus side, nothing was bursting out of people’s chests. However, setting up a human colony on Vulcan was turning out to be a little bit like being pecked to death by ducks. Large ducks. With teeth and claws. Milo’s notes and planetary catalog made it very clear that setting up would require attention to defensive strategies. The ecosystem was prolific and competitive.
The colony ships Exodus-1 and -2 orbited Vulcan, most of the colonists from the USE enclave still in stasis, waiting for the settlement teams to prepare a site. Construction teams, security teams, and engineers worked day and night to clear enough jungle and build a home for this first wave of humanity.
The USE colonists would also be expected to provide some support to future colony ships. Exodus-3 was only a few months behind us, and more would be coming as fast as Riker could build them.
Like we needed the extra pressure.
Five days after humans set foot on Vulcan, the planet claimed its first casualty.
[Message from the security chief. There has been an attack]
I nodded to Guppy, acknowledging the information. I took a moment to minimize the monitoring window that had been floating in the air in front of me, and ordered the construction AMIs to continue on their own. They could handle most of the tasks involved in building the orbiting farm donut, and they would text me if they ran into something above their pay grade.
I turned in my chair and raised an eyebrow at Guppy, inviting more information. But the GUPPI system interface, in the form of an avatar resembling Admiral Ackbar, wasn’t inclined to volunteer anything beyond the basic facts. Huge fish eyes blinked at me, waiting for a command. Accepting the inevitable, I motioned with my hand, and he pushed the video window to me.
The window showed the head of security, Stéphane Brodeur, with that look people get when they’re on an adrenaline high—wide eyes, slight sheen of sweat, nostrils dilated. He began to speak as soon as he saw me. “There has been an attack. The therapod-like predators that we’ve tagged as raptors. Northwest corner, at the fence construction boundary.”
Brodeur spoke with a pronounced Quebecois accent. I wondered idly how he had managed to get into the USE colony, but dismissed the question as irrelevant. I frame-jacked for a moment and sent a couple of drones to the fence construction area, then returned my frame rate to normal. A human being wouldn’t even notice the millisecond glitch in my image. “Casualties?”
“One.”
“Dead?”
“No, but it will need the new paint job.” Brodeur grinned at me.
I raised an eyebrow, and he continued, “A small group of raptors attacked a backhoe. The equipment will need the paint touched up. We killed most of the animals, and the rest ran off. One of the carcasses is being sent to Dr. Sheehy for necropsy.”
“So what can I do?”
The security chief shook his head. “About the attack, nothing. It’s done, and we’ve taken care of the attackers. I am hoping you can set up surveillance of some kind.”
A reasonable request. I nodded in thought. “Mr. Brodeur, I have some drones I can put on guard duty now, although they aren’t really optimized for that. Bill, over in Epsilon Eridani, has been refining surveillance and exploration drones for a couple of decades now. I’ll get some plans from him and start printing up something suitable. It’ll take a week or two before they’re ready. Can you hold out?”
“I will talk to the construction chief and see if we can cut back on some of the tasks until you’re done. We would be spread too thin, right now.”
“Do that, Chief. I’ll keep you updated.”
I closed the connection, and sent an email to Bill, requesting information on his observation drones. He’d designed them more for use by Bobs exploring new systems, but they’d do fine for my purposes as well.
* * *
Security personnel were still swarming the area when my drones arrived at the fence construction site. Blood covered the ground, fortunately all raptor. A very sad-looking backhoe sat off to one side, long scrapes and scratches marring the bright yellow paint job. I wondered idly if the backhoe’s AMI controller would need therapy.
Personnel were hauling several carcasses into the back of transport trucks. The raptors resembled movie velociraptors closely enough to give nightmares to anyone who’d seen Jurassic Park. But instead of the peg-like teeth of the canonical carnosaur, their teeth resembled those of sharks—triangular, serrated, and razor sharp. So far, the use of military-grade automatic weapons on them hadn’t blunted their enthusiasm for the newly arrived food group.
I found Chief Brodeur overseeing the cleanup and floated over to him.
He turned as the drone approached and grinned. “And to think I turned down the desk job.”
I chuckled politely in response. “Welcome to the frontier. Did you get all of them?”
“No.” He shook his head. “We let one or two get away to communicate fear of humans to their friends.”
“And how’s that working out, so far?”
Chief Brodeur laughed and shook his head. “I have a meet
ing with the colonel this afternoon. Perhaps you could attend.”
“He’s already invited me, Mr. Brodeur. I’ll see you there.”
Chief Brodeur nodded to the drone, then turned back to help his staff with cleanup. I took the opportunity to inspect the progress on construction.
A fence stretched about a third of the way around the planned town site. Five meters tall, it was built from a combination of native wood and metal. The Vulcan trees were close enough to their Terran equivalents that the setup crews were able to adapt them with little effort. The trees were harvested from the area immediately around the fence, forming a clear-cut for additional security. I had my doubts about whether the fence was tall enough to keep the brontos at bay, but no one had asked me. Not that the brontos would eat people or anything. They were more of an “accidentally step on you” kind of danger.
To the west, Vulcan’s sister planet Romulus hung in the sky, clouds and seas clearly visible. When Exodus-3 arrived, the passengers, from the FAITH and Spitz enclaves, would be settling there. I expected life to get very interesting once the FAITH colony got started. I doubted that nineteen years of stasis would improve Minister Cranston’s disposition. The FAITH leader wasn’t what I’d call a people-person to begin with, and his relationship with the Bobs had developed into kind of a hate-hate thing.
I sent another drone up a few hundred meters and set it to circle the area, watching for any movement of native life. Nothing lurked nearby, probably due to the noise of the automatic weapons.
Things appeared to have calmed down, and everyone was back to work. I backed out of the drone and back into my VR. Sighing, I rubbed my forehead. Sometimes I missed sleeping for a third of each day. It had been a nice break from reality.
“Guppy, I have some printer schedule changes.”
Guppy popped in and waited silently for me to continue. Looking at him, I wondered if I should change the Admiral Ackbar image. But nothing else came to mind, and anyway it had become a kind of tradition with the Bobs.
“We need more observation drones.”
[All printer groups are currently engaged in producing parts for the orbiting farms. Do you want to bump this activity?]
“Hmm, not really. Okay, put half the printers on drones, and produce four full squads. Then back to building the farm donuts.”
[Aye]
Guppy went into command fugue while he reprogrammed the 3D printers. I turned back to the video windows from my active drones. I would build more drones as requested, but I had a bad feeling that we’d go through a few colonists before we got the fence completed.
* * *
“Good afternoon, Colonel.” The video window showed Colonel Butterworth, as usual looking impeccable and wrinkle-free. I wondered how he did it.
“Morning, Howard.” He nodded toward my image on his desk phone. “Good to see you. I heard about today’s attack.”
I took a moment to be surprised. I didn’t remember Colonel Butterworth ever greeting Riker with that level of friendliness back on Earth. I wasn’t sure if I should be offended for Riker or pleased for me.
The leader of the USE enclave had been at odds with Riker since day one. I had all Riker’s memories of those days of course, right up to the moment that Riker had cloned me. It would be an understatement to describe Butterworth as “pushy,” although at least he was always professional.
With a mental shrug, I decided not to worry about it. Different time, different place, and let’s face it, I wasn’t Riker.
“Yeah, but we won’t be so lucky next time,” I replied. “The raptors are smart. They’ll figure out that backhoes aren’t edible. If they’ve got good color vision—a high likelihood—they’ll probably associate bright yellow with inedible things with hard shells. Then they’ll start concentrating on the soft and squishy two-legged things.”
Butterworth snorted. “I saw your immediate strategy with the drones. I’m just reading your plan for observation and surveillance systems. Looks comprehensive. I have a few small suggestions, which we can go over when convenient.”
I nodded without comment. The colonel’s suggestions would be good ones, and I’d very likely implement them.
“So, where’s Mr. Brodeur? Wasn’t he supposed to be here?”
“He was.” The colonel shrugged. “Something came up. I’ll debrief him separately, and call you if anything requires more discussion.”
I nodded, then glanced over the colonel’s shoulder, where the townsite plan was posted on the far wall. I motioned at it with my chin. “Kind of old-school, isn’t it? A paper poster tacked up on a wall?”
“Hardcopy still has its place, Howard. It’s much bigger than an image on a tablet, and I can make notes on it with a color marker. Of course, I also take a picture, periodically.” The colonel gave me his trademark dry smile. “In other news, we are ready to decant the farming specialists from stasis. Mr. Brodeur tells me that they will have the farm area enclosed within a week.”
“Good. Bert and Ernie are getting antsy about unloading everyone soon.” Butterworth winced as I mentioned the two colony-ship Bobs. I wasn’t sure which was more amusing—that he disapproved so much over our naming choices, or that he recognized the reference.
“Another month or so, Howard, then we can make that decision with confidence.” The colonel reached forward out of frame. “And maybe by the time Exodus-1 and Exodus-2 get back to Earth for another load, someone will have found another habitable system and they’ll stop shipping people our way.” Without waiting for a response, he ended the call.
3. Life in Camelot
Bob
March 2167
Delta Eridani
Archimedes placed the bone tool with care and tapped it with a rock. A fleck of flint dropped off the core, and Moses nodded in approval. Archimedes repositioned the tool for his next strike, and glanced at Moses with his ears pointed slightly forward. Moses made a small hand motion. Archimedes moved the tool a fraction to the left and his ears curled with concentration as he again tapped on the tool.
The other Deltan adolescent, whom I’d named Richard, watched Archimedes then tried to copy his technique. But the tool slipped off the cobble and stabbed into his foot. He leaped up and hopped on the other foot, cursing with enthusiasm.
After a few moments, Richard noticed Archimedes’ grin and scowled. Snarling, he compared Archimedes to pigoid droppings, then stalked off, limping.
Moses and Archimedes were the tribe’s best flint experts and tool-makers. And based on Richard’s performance, still the only ones. Archimedes was a teenager by Deltan standards—past puberty, but not yet fully grown. He was, however, easily the most intelligent Deltan in the village. Which meant, based on our searches, the most intelligent Deltan on the entire planet of Eden.
Archimedes was the first Deltan in years, it seemed, who could understand Moses’ flint-knapping instructions. A couple of juveniles, like Richard, had shown some interest, but couldn’t maintain the level of concentration required to complete a tool. Very likely Archimedes would have to wait for some of his own progeny before he’d be able to attract any apprentices of his own.
“Moses isn’t looking so good,” Marvin commented, looking over my shoulder.
“Yeah, I know. I think the march from the old village was harder than we expected. A couple of other elderly Deltans have died since they got here.”
I mentioned my theory about potential apprentices, and Marvin laughed. “I can think of at least two females from Archimedes’ cohort who are actively working on that.”
Yeah, gotta love adolescence. Between his flint-knapping skills, his tool-making ability in general, and his position as primary spokesperson for The Bawbe, Archimedes had a level of mojo totally out of keeping with his youth. All of which apparently went over quite well with the girls.
Archimedes set aside the core and the tools, stood up, and stretched. He and Moses exchanged a few words, and Moses got up and wandere
d off. There was no nine-to-five in Deltan society. Things got done when things got done. It looked like they’d had enough for the moment.
Archimedes turned and looked around until he located the drone I was using to observe. He grinned up at me and made a head motion toward the practice range. I bobbed the drone in agreement, then floated after him as he headed in that direction.
I opened the conversation. “Things are looking good. Everyone seems to have settled in.”
Archimedes nodded. He walked in silence for a few more moments. “Arnold is happy with the new village, uh, Camelot?” I had mentioned my name for the camp once, without running it through the translator. Archimedes was trying to render the word phonetically. It was a valiant attempt, but no human would have recognized the sound.
“Let’s just go with your word for it, Archimedes. My language doesn’t translate well into Deltan.”
“Fine with me. That hurt my throat. Anyway, Arnold likes how we can defend the two access paths instead of the entire boundary.”
Camelot was a located on a small mesa that was surrounded by scree and cliffs most of the way around. It reminded me a little of an aircraft carrier, including a rocky bluff in the center resembling a carrier’s control island. Two paths, about 120 degrees apart, were the only ways on or off the mesa, unless you could fly. It was a huge improvement over their old village, which had been just a clearing in the forest. Guarding against gorilloid attacks had been a full-time job at the old village, and they’d still been losing the battle.
“Two people were killed in the last two hands of days, though, right?” I said.
Archimedes shrugged. “The gorilloids are a problem. They are always hungry. And there are so many on this side of the mountains. Guarding is a bigger job when people are away from the village.”
All the more reason to make it less necessary to leave the village. I already had herding on my list of things to teach them. I still needed to find an appropriate herd animal to domesticate. I turned away from the drone window just long enough to sigh and shake my head. That TODO list just kept growing.
Bobiverse 2: For We Are Many Page 2