“I wouldn’t want to get complacent, Colonel. These are intelligent animals. They won’t just keep marching into weapon range like a horde of zombies.”
“Yes.” The colonel waved a hand in a dismissive gesture. “Which is why I like the aerial surveillance system that you are implementing. Thermal imagers at night. And take out any that approach within a minimum radius.”
“Well, I doubt that the committee will give you any grief about that decision now.”
The colonel snorted, nodded to me, and ended the connection.
Colonel Butterworth and I got along much better than he and Riker ever did. Whether that was a difference in personality, or just the fact that the colonel was less stressed, was anyone’s guess.
I sighed and scrubbed my hand across my chin. It was time to get back to work.
I took a moment to check the status on the Artificial Womb construction. We were going to be force-growing a generation of farm animals, just in time for the completion of the secure ranching area. If raptors liked human, they’d love cow. Best be prepared.
Everything seemed to be in order, so I called up a session with Bob and Bill. It took a few milliseconds for the connection, and then they both popped into my VR, sitting around the campfire.
“Hey, Howard,” Bob greeted me with a smile. “Always love the camping theme.”
I smiled back, handed both of them sticks, and laid out the marshmallows and wieners. I’d put a lot of effort into getting the campground just right. Evenings around the campfire had been one of the highlights of my summers when my dad would take us out to the cabin. Even as a child, I had felt the spirituality and timeless Zen of sitting around the fire with the trees looming in the semi-darkness.
This fire had just enough poplar in it to cause the occasional pop, but not so much that it began to sound like gunfire. I’d edited out insects—we Bobs tend to be a little obsessive about realistic detail, but come on, who needs mosquitos?
Once everyone was properly set up and ruining perfectly good marshmallows, I started the meeting. “One of our hunting parties ran into a dozen raptors today. They’d set up an ambush, and a pretty good one. I had to busterize one of them or we’d be down another settler.”
Bill shrugged. “I’ve said it before—I know it looks like really intelligent behavior, but pack predators on Earth did that kind of thing all the time. It’s easily explained by instinct. Get Jurassic Park out of your mind.”
Bob was grinning at me, so I just smiled and nodded. “Yeah, okay, point taken. Anyway, Bob’s automated surveillance system should be pretty valuable, once we get it set up. Especially with Bob’s new and improved ordnance.”
“Guppy ran the surveillance system on Eden for years,” Bob said. “It’ll be interesting to wire up a dedicated GUPPI to handle the job, though. No replicant oversight. You sure about that, Howard?”
“Not entirely,” I admitted. “But I wouldn’t dare suggest using up resources to build Bobs just for running guard details, you know?”
Bill and Bob said in perfect unison, “Butterworth would have a cow.”
We all broke up in laughter. With certain notable exceptions, the Bobs all had similar senses of humor. What tickled one funny bone tickled all.
There were a few milliseconds of contemplative silence. I looked at Bob. “How’s it going with the Deltans?”
Bob smiled a sad smile and shrugged. “Archimedes has a growing family, now. Time marches on. People age, you know? It’s starting to freak me out a little. I’m watching people I know live their lives, getting older…”
Bill and I both nodded. Immortality had sounded like a great idea back on Earth, but there were costs, especially when you became attached to ephemerals. I glanced quickly at Bill as I had that thought. I knew Bill was touchy about the use of that term. But no, he couldn’t read my mind. I hoped I didn’t have a guilty expression.
Probably a good time to change the subject. “We’re ahead of schedule overall. We’ll probably be finished decanting the settlers from Exodus-3 this week. Riker will be happy to get back in touch with our relatives.”
Bill and Bob both nodded. Bob said, “I enjoy watching the exchanges, but I have to admit that it would be too painful for me to talk to them. I’m glad Riker is up for it. I keep seeing the resemblance to my sisters in people’s faces, and it’s gut-wrenching.”
I smiled slightly. I don’t think anyone had ever come out and said it to him, but the common feeling was that Bob-1 had gotten an extra dose of Original Bob’s anxiety. He tended to get wound up about stuff like that.
I said to Bill, “Before I forget, I need to contact Riker. I want to find out if he can locate some oak and scan it for me.”
“Oak?” Bill raised an eyebrow at me.
“If Riker can get a good enough scan, I should be able to print some real oak barrels.”
“It’ll take forever to print something biological, you know.”
“I know, Bill. It’s more a proof of concept at this stage. I’ll have a printer doing nothing but making staves until I have enough.”
Bill looked confused for a moment, then grinned. “Going into business?”
“No, just doing my part to maintain morale.”
We talked for a few more milliseconds about miscellaneous items, then they signed off. And Guppy popped in with my next TODO.
Oh. That one. I’d been putting that off…
* * *
Butterworth was livid. This was no mere cow he was having, this was the whole herd. I listened, jaw agape, as he carpet-bombed his tirade with expletives. I hadn’t even been aware he knew the f-word. Turned out he was an expert in its use as a verb, noun, adjective, adverb, article, and several forms of punctuation. I made sure I was recording.
Finally, he calmed down. Relatively. Sort of.
“So these, these… Others—moronic name, by the way—are going around depopulating planets? Just because?”
“Well, according to Mario...” I noted that Butterworth couldn’t quite suppress an eye-roll. He didn’t think much of our naming choices. “…they kill all the life on any planets in the system, then extract all the metals and rare elements.”
“And we’re parked out here like a juicy target!”
I looked down and took the time to rein in my tendency to sarcasm before answering. “Colonel, it’s not like you’d have been any safer on Earth. If anything, Vulcan is slightly farther away from where they appear to be operating. And Earth has been advertising its presence for a couple of centuries with radio pollution.”
The colonel nodded, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. I felt for him. He had no doubt thought that the worst was over with the landing on Vulcan. Now we were all back in the frying pan.
“So what plans do the Bobs have, Howard?”
Now I was on more neutral ground. “Mario has built a bunch of scout-Bobs, and they’re checking nearby systems. He’s going to keep building cohorts, and they’re going to keep spreading out until they’ve mapped the Others’ depredations. Then we’ll take it from there. Bill has turned his attention to methods of destruction. Unfortunately, the Others are probably ahead of us technologically. We have some bootstrapping to do.”
“Keep me informed, please.” He wandered over and sat at his desk, rubbing his forehead. I enjoyed the few seconds of silence as he reviewed his notes.
“Farm donuts.” He said, looking up at me. “Those appear to be exceeding expectations.”
“Yes, Colonel. Bill came up with a lot of engineering improvements while breeding up the plant stock for release on Ragnarök. He has something called free time. I hope to experience it someday.”
Butterworth snorted and gave me a wry smile. We were both going full-bore, getting the colony up and running. The fact that replicants didn’t need to eat or sleep just meant that I was available seven days a week, twenty-two hours and thirteen minutes a day. Or thirty-one forty-nine, on Romulus. Scheduling was g
oing to be a headache once the Romulan colony was up and running. Funny, I couldn’t remember any science-fiction stories that actually dealt with how you’d handle timekeeping on a new planet.
“And that means,” Butterworth continued, “that we’ll be able to set up the Spits and FAITH colonies on an accelerated schedule. I expect you’re looking forward to your descendants coming out of stasis.”
“No one more than Riker.” I grinned. “I have to admit it’s been a pretty popular program in BobNet.”
Butterworth grimaced. “BobNet. Seven billion people on Earth in the early twenty-first century, and FAITH decided to replicate a nerd-slash-engineer with a Star Trek fixation.” He grinned at me to take the sting out of the comment and reached for the disconnect button. “Until tomorrow, then…”
17. We’ve Lost a Drone
Bob
May 2171
Delta Eridani
The conversation with Bill had been both awesome and depressing. The idea that humanity was down to fifteen million people was devastating. On the other hand, it sounded like that number had come close to dropping to a big fat zero.
On the plus side, I wasn’t surprised that he’d cracked the subspace problem, but I was impressed by how quickly he’d done it. It left a small, nagging question in the back of my mind as to whether I could have pulled that off. How different from me was Bill?
Meh. No matter. The problem had been solved, Bill and I were working on merging the VR source from our two independent development branches, and real-time communications between Bobs was now a reality, at least in principle. I grinned to myself at the idea of a galactic internet. There still weren’t a lot of Bobs online, but that would change as Bill’s message spread through the local sphere at the speed of light.
I was overjoyed to find out that I had the official First Contact position sewn up. But I doubted I would be the only one.
Luke and Bender hadn’t come online yet. I hoped they would eventually intercept Bill’s transmissions so we could get caught up. Just in case, I instructed the local space station to periodically retransmit the SCUT plans along their flight paths. One way or another, they’d eventually receive the plans.
The lack of significant progress on Bill’s Android project was a little disappointing. A lot of the basic tech was being developed back on Earth when Original Bob was still alive. But it was proving difficult to put all the concepts together into an artificial body that could operate like a complete organism. Oh, well. Sooner or later, Bill would make some breakthroughs. Meanwhile, I had my own projects.
Marvin had taken delivery of the exploration squads and was deploying them into his search grid covering the Deltans’ original territory. At the level of detail we were trying for, he expected to be finished in three months or so.
* * *
“I just lost a drone.” Marvin popped into my VR unannounced. He had a perplexed expression on his face.
“Define lost.”
“Have a look.” He popped up a video window. It showed a panoramic view of Eden from several hundred meters in the air. The drone was flying a search pattern, looking for clearings that could be potential former villages. Suddenly, the image began corkscrewing wildly and breaking up. After about half a second of this, the image disappeared.
“The hell,” I muttered. “I’m assuming that was an attack from above?”
“It would appear so. I did a frame-by-frame, and this was the best I could come up with.” He popped up a still image. It was out of focus and broken up by video interference lines, but there was an impression of something biting or chewing on the drone.
“I ran some filters and cleanup routines on it. The result is partly extrapolated.” He switched to a second image. This one was still grainy and lacking in detail, but I could make out what appeared to be a large beak or muzzle, filled with teeth.
“Wow,” I said. “I would sure hate for that to be the last thing I saw.”
“Guppy, are we getting any telemetry at all from the drone?” Marvin asked.
[Negative. Attack likely took out the power system]
“Hmm, well, I want to take a look at the wreckage. I’ll set up a SUDDAR search. Highly refined metal should stand out like a lamp in a cave.” Marvin stood up, gave me a salute, and disappeared.
* * *
The wreckage of the drone rotated slowly in the holotank. Marvin had found the destroyed unit several kilometers south of its last known location and had taken a full-detail SUDDAR scan.
The drone was bitten almost in half, and had two parallel claw marks dug into the shell. The units were designed to be lightweight—unlike the busters, there was no armor. Still, anything that could dent metal like that had to be dangerous. And whatever it was, it was airborne. Scary.
“Then there’s this.” Marvin popped up a couple of images. One was a closeup of the damage to the drone, and the other was a close-up of some bones.
“Interesting…” I reached out and pointed to a spot on the picture. “That looks a lot like the bite impression on the drone.”
“Yeah, I’ve got a number of similar examples. Whatever this is, it used to snack on Deltans.”
“Could that be why the Deltans migrated out of their original area?” My eyes got wide at the thought. “They weren’t moving to a more dangerous territory. The gorilloids were the lesser evil.”
“Or they didn’t know, or care, about the gorilloids.” Marvin’s voice was hushed.
“Then the gorilloids chased them over the mountain range to the location where we found them.”
We sat in silence for several milliseconds.
Marvin finally broke the silence. “I still don’t have enough information to narrow the search.”
“Well, we know they’re big enough to eat a Deltan.”
“Or pull a drone out of the sky.”
I did not like this. Not a bit.
18. It’s Getting Worse
Riker
Sept 2172
Sol
A crowd stood outside the police lines. Hopeless faces, some crying; parents holding children by the hand, couples holding each other, wearing stricken looks. People who would be better off almost anywhere but here.
Sixty-three confirmed dead, so far. The apartment building, a run-down six-floor concrete structure with no balconies, now had a huge bite taken out of it at ground level. That it would have to be condemned was a given. I was more worried that it might fall over any moment, crushing everything nearby.
This wasn’t a great neighborhood. By almost any pre-war standards, it would be a slum. Buildings all had their own power systems since the invention of dependable fusion, but the streets were dirty, unlit, and covered with graffiti. Windows and doors at ground level had long since been reinforced or completely covered over. Stains ran down the sides of the structures from weather, deteriorating paint, and contributions from birds.
The people living in this favela hadn’t been significant in any way. They weren’t government, or military, or anything that would justify making them a target. Just people, probably unemployed, living on the edge of poverty. Most of them likely had no hope, no future, other than the possibility of eventual emigration to another star system.
What was the point? What could possibly justify this? The perpetrators had attacked people with next to nothing, and taken even that. Sometimes it shamed me to think that I used to be human.
I accepted a call from the Brazilian minister.
“This is the third attack this month, Riker. And there has been no progress in catching the perpetrators. What assurances can you give me that something will be done?” Minister Benedito looked more spooked than angry. Very probably he was worried about his job. Still, this wasn’t the time to get my back up.
“Minister, I’m not in charge of the investigation. Really, I’m not in charge of anything except the global emigration effort. I’m here as, well, a consultant. I will help out the investi
gation any way I can. But you have to look to your internal security forces to get this resolved. Plus whatever the UN can do, of course.” I could see from Benedito’s face that he didn’t think much of my response. But it was all I had.
I made mining drones available to the emergency personnel, to help locate and extract bodies or survivors. I set up surveillance drones around the perimeter, in case the terrorists tried to send in a follow-up attack. And I made sure that those in charge had a direct line to me. And mostly, I waited.
This was, as the minister had said, the third attack this month. This was terrorism, pure and simple. And not even for any political end, as far as I could tell. There had been no announcements, no demands. Someone simply seemed to be out to get Brazil. Since Florianópolis was pretty much all that was left of the former empire, this was the natural target.
Fifteen hundred ships, or fifteen hundred trips. The inexorable logic of mathematics mocked me.
* * *
Minister Gerrold, the representative from New Zealand, was holding forth again on my shortcomings, both real and imagined. He really hated me, for some reason, and had since day one. Not that I cared—the man was a putz—but my orderly mind liked to have a link between cause and effect. Plus, if I was going to create this kind of reaction in someone, I would rather have an end-game. Fighting some random idiot was a waste of energy.
Today’s rant was about the sabotage and our inability to deal with it. I let my public avatar display alert interest, while I rolled my eyes in my VR.
He finally ran down, and I prepared to offer a response, but the minister from the Maldives beat me to it. And beating a computer to the punch was an impressive feat. I wondered if I should do a systems check.
The chair recognized Minister Sharma and she stood up. “I’d like to thank the minister for giving us a summary of his speech from last session. Which, if I recall, was also a summary from a previous speech. I’d be even more appreciative if it had been a prelude to some new information. Or at least witty. Minister Gerrold, you’ve obviously got a problem with the replicants. I’d like to ask you to take it offline, so we can get on with actual business.”
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