I found myself in one of those all-or-nothing situations. I’d made a decision to help the Deltans avoid extinction. What had started as a small, anonymous intervention quickly turned into a full-time job as The Bawbe, resident sky god. I hoped eventually to be able to leave them to their own fate, but that probably wasn’t in the cards for a generation or so.
We had arrived at the practice range, so I dropped the topic. Practice range was a trumped-up description, of course. The range consisted of a flat area at the side of the steep embankment leading up to the central bluff. Deltans staked up targets on the slope, and they used these to practice the new technology of spear-chucking.
We watched for a few minutes. Most Deltans could get a spear into the right area, point first, most of the time. But actually hitting one of the targets was an accomplishment, and usually resulted in a lot of dancing and taunts directed at the other students. Any thought of precision was an unreachable fantasy for most. Some Deltans were out-and-out terrible, and one or two couldn’t get it through their heads that the spear had to fly point-first. Those individuals generally stayed on pigoid-hunting duty, where the spear never left your hand.
Archimedes was exceptionally good with a spear, but he lacked the upper-body strength to get any kind of distance. When he reached full adulthood, though, he would be formidable.
Arnold was the other prodigy in this new technology. He had an intuitive feel for anything that involved killing. A natural warrior, he’d been the first Deltan to kill a gorilloid with a hand axe, splitting the beast’s skull with one blow. Arnold was almost as big as a juvenile gorilloid, so he generally got very little backtalk.
Arnold paced back and forth, helping individuals with their technique and yelling encouragement. I chuckled, without letting it play out through the drone. I’d rigged the translator to render his speech with an Austrian accent. It never got old.
“How is it going with the medicine woman?” Archimedes asked, interrupting my train of thought.
I cringed inwardly. One of the surprising things about Deltans was their lack of awe for the divine authority of The Bawbe, and Cruella took that philosophy to new heights. A tribe of primitive humans would have been hanging on to my every word, but Deltans were much more skeptical and inclined to question. My first attempt to introduce them to tents still smarted a little.
“Not so well. She either flat out doesn’t believe most of what I say, or she just doesn’t want to change her ways. I am able to get the occasional concession, but it’s an uphill battle.”
Archimedes grinned up at the drone. “Welcome to my tribe. Maybe you should use one of the flying rocks on her.”
I laughed, not only at the comment, but at the fact that Archimedes was sounding so much like me. He’d picked up the concept of dry humor right away, but it was completely beyond any but maybe a half-dozen other Deltans.
And using a buster on the medicine woman was certainly tempting. A self-propelled forty-pound ball of steel impacting at Mach 1 didn’t leave much room for argument. “I’ll take it under advisement. She’s at least taken my suggestions for cleaning wounds. She’s not completely closed-minded, just very conservative.”
Archimedes shrugged. He’d been dealing with that level of conservatism his whole life. It was a constant source of amusement to him that I was surprised by the attitude.
We continued along the path, which led up to the top of the central bluff. It was a flat area, about the size of a small house. Completely exposed to the elements, it would be useless as a living space, but the view was spectacular. On a sunny day like this, many of the adolescent Deltans gathered here to do what teenagers did the universe over—get away from the adults.
We endured a few moments of staring as Archimedes came over the crest, the football-sized drone hovering by his shoulder. But I was old news, and the kids soon went back to what they were doing. They appeared to be playing Rinjhaxa, a sort of pick-up-sticks with betting. Again, I was struck by how very human-like these people were. We only had two data points as of yet, but I wondered if there was some universality about the way intelligent species developed and behaved.
Archimedes waved at Diana, who sat with some of her friends. She smiled and waved back, then glared at the drone and turned away. Not my number one fan, for sure. I’d never given her any reason to hate me, as far as I knew. It might be as simple as competition for Archimedes’ attention.
Archimedes sat down, facing north-east towards the mountain range that split this section of the continent. I brought the drone down to a comfortable talking height and took a moment to enjoy the view.
One of the two moons of Eden hung in the sky, twice the apparent size of Earth’s moon. The sun, low in the west, imparted a golden highlight on the scattered clouds. The forest, stretching horizon to horizon, would have looked completely natural on Earth, before human beings clear-cut the planet.
Archimedes gestured towards the mountains in the distance. Most of them were high enough to have snow year-round. “That’s a big journey. It was hard with you leading us back here, when we knew what we were heading for. It must have been harder when our parents and their parents were going the other way and had no idea what they’d find.”
He looked around at the village, spread below us on the mesa. “It’s so much better here. Except for all the gorilloids, of course.” Archimedes showed his teeth, which I automatically translated to a frown.
“That’s good, Archimedes. I want to see your people succeed. I don’t know if there are a lot of intelligent species in all the worlds of the sky, but each one is priceless. So far, my brothers haven’t found any others.”
“How many Bawbes are there?”
I smiled at the question, but Archimedes couldn’t see that. “I don’t really know. I made four others before I left the last star, but they will hopefully have made more. I’ve made three here, so far. Two have left, and Marvin is still here, helping me.”
“You make brothers?”
“It’s complicated, Archimedes. I’m not flesh and blood, like you. Each brother I make is a copy of me, with my memories and everything. But usually a little different in personality. Marvin is more cautious than me and tends to keep me from implementing wild plans.”
Archimedes stared at the drone for a few more seconds, then looked away. “Questions just bring more questions, and I never catch up. I should stick to things that affect my people.”
I laughed, which the translation routine converted into the Deltan expression of humor. “That’s fine, Archimedes. I have a very similar problem. I call it a TODO list. It only ever seems to get bigger.”
Archimedes grinned in response and turned to the vista spread out before us. He sat and I hovered in silence, enjoying the scenery.
4. Water Planet
Mulder
October 2170
Eta Cassiopeiae
Eta Cassiopeiae was a long-period binary. The brightest of the pair, Eta Cassiopeiae A, was class G3V, only slightly larger and more luminous than Sol. At 19.5 light years from Epsilon Eridani, it was a bit of a hike. But all of the closer good candidates were spoken for. As part of Bill’s third cohort, I had to take potluck, I guess. Most stars are K and M class, and I just didn’t see a tidally locked planet sitting practically inside the chromosphere of its parent star as being a desirable vacation getaway. So, here I was, twenty-odd years later. By now, Homer and Riker would have gotten to Sol, and whatever situation they found would be resolved one way or another.
I chuckled, remembering the early days back at Epsilon Eridani. Homer was a real card. I think he picked his name at least as much because it bugged the other Bobs as anything else. I wondered if Riker would kill Homer himself in a “friendly fire” incident. That made me laugh out loud, and Guppy looked at me with fishy concern.
I lifted Spike off my lap and put her on the desk, then got up and stepped outside into the sun. My VR was a tropical location, with open-air huts, remin
iscent of Gilligan’s Island. It would be totally impractical in the real world, of course, but in VR you could do anything.
Guppy followed me out. [Results are in. We have found no Jovians]
“None?” I frowned. “I wonder if that’s good or bad.”
[Insufficient information]
I nodded distractedly, and turned back to face the beach.
I took a minute to enjoy the sun on my face and listen to the surf. I suppose I might eventually get tired of this scene, but not any time soon. It made me regret that I’d never taken the time for this kind of vacation when I was alive.
Taking a deep breath, I stepped past Guppy and back into the hut. The holotank showed the layout of the star system with about 95% confidence at this point. There might be a few smaller bodies floating around that we’d missed, but I doubted they’d be major players.
The companion star, Eta Cassiopeiae B, had a closest approach of 36 AU at periastron, which meant planets were unlikely outside of about 9 AU of EC-A. It also meant that the Oort and Kuiper objects had been disturbed many times. Any planets in this system would have taken more than one good pelting. The good news was there was probably very little left out there to send inward.
“That one,” I pointed to the third planet. “Is right smack in the Comfort Zone. Any indication of size?”
[No. But spectroscopic analysis is showing oxygen and water lines]
“Oh, that’s excellent.”
[There is also indication of a wobble, which would indicate a satellite]
“Better and better. Okay, Guppy, plot a course to planet three.”
[Deploy mining and survey drones?]
“Naw, let’s see if this system is worth hanging around in, first.”
Guppy somehow managed to look disappointed, although if pressed, I couldn’t for the life of me describe what a disappointed fish looked like.
I stared in thought at the image floating in front of me. We’d detected four other rocky planets, two inside and two outside the Comfort Zone, but no Jovian planets. That worried me a little, as Jovians tended to keep the inner system relatively safe by perturbing anything coming straight in from the outer system.
Of more concern was the lack of a significant asteroid belt. The general plan for the HEAVEN project was to use the mineral wealth of asteroid belts to build the space station and future Bobs. No asteroid belt could spell trouble.
Meh. One thing at a time.
It took a few days to get there. I spent that time doing fine scans of the system for any sparse asteroid belts that I might have missed. No such luck. This system really had been swept clean. I had five planets, and whatever moons they might have, to work with. Planetary mining would require a lot of re-think.
I also got a bead on the moons of planet three. There were two bigger ones, one about half the size of Earth’s moon, and one about a fifth the size; and two smaller ones, closer in, really not much more than big rocks. The planet itself was a little smaller than Earth, with a .87 surface gravity and a 26-hour rotation. The atmosphere was delightfully Earth-like, maybe a little more oxygen-rich.
I inserted myself into a polar orbit and started deep scans. The planet had a lot of cloud, just like Earth. That was good, since it indicated robust weather patterns. It also had a lot of water. In fact, so far, all I’d seen was water.
“Have we detected land, yet?”
[Negative]
“Well, that’s… irritating. Alert me as soon as we find something.”
[Aye]
* * *
[Scans are complete]
“But you were supposed to alert me—oh.”
I examined the scans and started to laugh. Honest to God, a good belly laugh still feels good, even in VR.
The planet had water, all right. Oh, did it have water! What didn’t it have? Land. None. Nada. Not so much as an atoll. This was just one big ball of ocean. Not even any freakin’ ice caps to stand on.
Which raised the question of what exactly was creating the oxygen. On Earth, that would be green plants. But plants, not to put too fine a point on it, tended to require dirt. Excuse me, soil.
“Guppy, are you sure about the chlorophyll?”
[Affirmative]
Huh. Weird. I was obviously missing something. This would require a closer look.
I’d gotten a message from Bill with plans for planetary exploration drones while I was still incoming, but with no raw materials to work with, I was pretty much S.O.L.
I sighed theatrically and turned to Guppy, who was standing at parade rest, as usual. “I guess we’d better survey the system. Set a course to take us past each planet. Let’s start with a flyby of this planet’s moons.”
[Aye]
It took a couple of weeks to hit all the other planets and their satellites. While I was buzzing around, I did manage to catalog a couple of asteroids with relatively eccentric orbits. I sat back in my beach chair, with a coffee in my hands, and reviewed the reports. There was lots of metal in this system. It appeared to be a little richer than Sol, in fact. But everything was planetside. It looked like the space junk that normally infests a system had virtually all become an impactor at some point. I could only guess that the effect of the binary partner, combined with the lack of a Jovian, had resulted in some weird chain of events that cleared the system. I’m sure an astrophysicist would have an explanation at the ready, and I promised myself I’d give that a think when I had the time.
I flew out to the fourth planet, the second moon of which had good ore deposits close to the surface. I set up the autofactory in orbit and fed several of my drones and roamers into it to use as construction material. A week later, the autofactory had built a couple of small cargo vessels. I loaded them up with mining drones and sent the whole crew down to the moon’s surface.
While I waited, I re-examined the scans of planet three and pondered. I remembered reading that all of Earth’s water could have been supplied by a single icy comet about 1000 km in diameter. Given the amount of material in Sol’s Oort cloud, that was barely a sneeze. Since this system seemed to have had its cloud cleared, it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to think that the planets got pounded early on.
While the mining drones slaved away, I pondered the question of whether this world was even worth reporting as a colonization candidate. Oh, it had oxygen, and it had water, but the amount of effort required to build any kind of base would be incredible. I knew from the libraries that Earth in the twenty-second century had started building and populating floating cities, but they operated only with the support of land-bound industries.
Well, not my decision. I would just send in a report and let the powers that be hash it out. If there still were any powers that be, that is. The war could have wiped out humanity entirely, for all I knew, which would make this whole exercise moot.
Still, eventually, Riker would report back to Bill, and Bill would transmit the news in one of his regular blogs. Until I heard different, I was going to continue to play Von Neumann probe. I owed that to Dr. Landers.
* * *
[Construction AMI controller is now online]
“Cool, thanks, Guppy. Order it to start on a couple of Bobs, then the space station.”
[Aye]
The Artificial Machine Intelligence could handle routine construction using standard plans, and would contact me if it ran into any issues that were beyond its programming.
The various construction tasks would take months, so I flew back to the third planet with a couple of exploration drones to look around. I started with a deep scan of the ocean. And got my money’s worth. I had to retune three times before I was able to detect ocean bottom. Eight hundred kilometers deep. That was just nuts. I’d had some thought of artificial islands, but unless there was a Mount Lookitthat down there somewhere, there wasn’t going to be anything close enough to anchor to or build up.
I stared at the result in disbelief, then turned to G
uppy. “Start a detailed mapping survey of the ocean floor, using the current SUDDAR settings. Let me know when you have a complete globe.”
[Aye]
Telescopic surveys indicated some kind of green patches on the ocean, so I sent some drones down to investigate. It didn’t take long to discover the source of the atmospheric oxygen. Plants had discovered that by sitting on top of the water, they could get much better light. The plants formed large mats—and by large, I mean literally kilometers in diameter. I dispatched a biology drone to take samples.
The drones couldn’t go underwater. That would just screw up the SURGE drive something fierce. Even atmosphere required careful tuning to avoid futzing up the field. But SUDDAR scans from in close revealed that the underwater ecosystem was rich beyond belief.
“Well, this is looking not so bad, suddenly. Assuming any of this is edible, people could live here and work upstairs.” I looked at Guppy for a reaction. I might as well not have bothered.
The biological drone spent weeks surveying the mats and immediate area. The mats actually seemed to be comprised of multiple species of plant in symbiotic relationships. The animals had found the free ride, and there was a thriving commensal zoological ecosystem in and on the mats.
At the end of two months, I took the completed survey results and reviewed them.
Biocompatible. And according to the report, exceptionally so. In fact, other than a few amino acids and vitamins, it looked like humans could go native on the mats, barring anything poisonous.
I formatted a complete report and handed it off to the space station AMI, to be transmitted to Bill once the station was completed. The autofactory had completed a couple of computer matrices and cradles, so I did a backup and restored it into the matrices. HIC3821-1 and HIC3821-2 came online.
I expanded my VR to make room for company and invited them in.
Two Bobs popped into existence across the desk from me. I offered them beach chairs, and Jeeves brought coffee.
Bobiverse 2: For We Are Many Page 3