I grinned at him. This was one of my favorite subjects. “Right now, we could probably apply a vector to something about half the size of Ceres. So, about five hundred kilometers in diameter. But it would be a tiny, tiny vector, in the range of a hundredth of a gee.” I thought for a moment. “How big can we go? Well, you keep adding plates to get more push. But that makes control of plate interactions more complex. It’s just an engineering problem, though. We’re learning how to tune the drive so that most of the energy goes into moving the payload instead of keeping the plates in position. There’s no theoretical maximum that I’ve been able to find.”
“So we could eventually move stars?” Mario grinned at me, obviously trolling.
I laughed. “Sure, in a million years or so. Theoretically possible doesn’t mean easy.”
I nodded to the group and moved on. Another group was discussing the expanding bubble of the Bobiverse. In principle, we should be approaching a forty-light-year radius by now. But reproduction tended to be uneven and spotty. It was generally accepted that we Bobs were only marginally enthusiastic about cloning more of ourselves. I shrugged. The Others might change that.
The moot continued for many objective minutes—hours in our time-sense. Eventually, though, Bobs started to pay their respects and pop out. It had been a good game. Okay, not really, but a good post-game wrap-up. I smiled to myself. That was really the point.
* * *
“I have something to show you.” Garfield was trying and mostly failing to keep a huge grin off his face. Well, okay, not bad news, then.
“All right, Gar, I’ll bite. What’cha got?”
“I give you my answer to Bullwinkle.” With a flourish, he popped up a video window. “Rocky!”
“That does not look like Rocky. More like Rodan.”
“Hey, if we’re going to get pedantic,” Garfield said, laughing, “the real Bullwinkle was bipedal.”
“If we’re going to get pedantic, the real Bullwinkle was a cartoon. So, does it fly?”
“In theory.” The android stood in the hold of a cargo drone, still attached to its support cradle. Metadata told me that the drone was parked on the surface of Ragnarök. Garfield opened the cargo bay door, revealing the bare rock of the planet’s surface. His avatar froze as he switched his consciousness to the android. Another window popped up, showing Rocky’s viewpoint.
Rocky detached itself from the cradle and waddled to the door and out into the Ragnarök wilderness. The communications relay drone stayed with it and provided another viewpoint.
The android was not graceful on foot. Not really surprising. The still relatively thin air of Ragnarök would require a lot of wing surface in order to lift off, even with the powerful artificial musculature. But walking wasn’t the point.
Garfield set himself, opened his massive wings, and launched. Several powerful flaps were sufficient to get off the ground, and he steadily gained altitude. The comms drone kept pace, keeping Rocky centered in the frame. The other window showed the view from Rocky’s eyes.
Honestly, it wasn’t impressive from any objective metric. Drones could fly faster, higher, with less energy, and were more maneuverable. But based on my experience with Bullwinkle, Garfield would be experiencing something entirely different from flying a drone.
Things went well for the first two minutes.
Then Garfield ran into some turbulence. Maybe a crosswind, maybe a downdraft, who knew? But Rocky went into a roll that approached ninety degrees. He attempted to correct, and rolled farther in the opposite direction. The motion kept reinforcing itself, and every attempt by Garfield to get it under control either made it worse or introduced pitch and yaw.
Finally, Garfield folded his wings and went into free fall. This stopped the harmonic cycle, but he was now rapidly losing altitude.
“Maybe time to start flying again, buddy.” I blushed as soon as the words left my mouth. Nothing like stating the obvious to help out.
“Thanks, Bill, I might just try that.”
Garfield was taking my foot-in-mouth moment with good grace. I resolved to try shutting the hell up as a strategy.
Garfield stuck out his wings just the smallest amount, trying to establish stability. It seemed to be working for a few moments. Then the rushing air snapped his wings out like a parachute opening up. Every status light went red, and Garfield screamed.
I pulled back to VR, to find Garfield sitting hunched forward, hugging himself, a wild look in his eyes. He took a few deep breaths, then glared at me.
“Um, I guess we did too good of a job of setting up the neural feedback. That hurt!”
I nodded. “In theory, that’s what we want. But maybe we should put a limiter on it.”
“Yeah, let’s do that.” Garfield stood and stretched carefully. “Where’s Rocky?”
“Still on his way down. Wings are snapped, though, as is his keel. I don’t think you want to be in there for the landing.” I pulled up the video feed from the trailing drone, which was still faithfully following the tumbling android. Rocky was definitely junk, and Garfield hadn’t thought to add a parachute.
I looked at Garfield, and he shrugged. “Well, it’s not the fall that kills you…” he said, with a rueful half-smile on his face.
We watched as Rocky hit the ground. Every status indicator went dead, and the trailing drone picked up the loud, hollow thump of impact.
I instructed the cargo drone to head for the impact site and pick up the pieces. I turned to Garfield.
“So, other than the unfortunate ending, how did it feel?”
“Incredible. I was flying. Actually flying, not just working a control panel. I think hang gliding might come close, but nothing else.”
I smiled at him. I could understand the feeling. “It’s a lot more real than VR.”
“Yeah, and what we’ve got here will allow Bobs to interact with the real world. As beings, I mean, not as floating cameras.”
“You’re right, Garfield. In an emergency, I think we could even use them with the comms drone hanging around, although that’s messy.”
Garfield gazed into space for a few moments. “I wonder if we’re missing the big picture. Take this to its logical conclusion and we could replace our HEAVEN hulls with bodies.”
“Like mechanical versions of van Vogt’s Silkies?” That was a mind-boggling thought.
“Yeah, like that. Bill, we may be the beginning of a new species. Homo siderea.”
“Hmm, the TODO just keeps getting longer and longer. Let’s see if we can get rid of the trailing communication drone first, okay?”
Garfield smiled and shrugged. “So, you know what comes now, right?”
“What?”
He grinned and held the beat. “Rocky II.”
“I hate you.”
45. Replication
Howard
August 2193
Vulcan
“You want what?” Riker frowned and leaned back in surprise.
I waited for him to finish overacting. “Any information on creating a replicant. We have the replicant hardware and all, but we’re a little light on the part where you start with a body and end up with a recording.”
“Why the fleeming hell would you want that?”
I shrugged. “No particular reason. I just think it’s a gap in our knowledge base. If we wanted to create a new replicant, right now we couldn’t. Basically, we’re it.”
Riker gave me the hairy eyeball, and a caption flashed below him, at waist height: ‘Not sure if joking or serious.’
I laughed. Will rarely attempted a joke, especially since Homer, but when he did, it was always funny.
“What’s really going on, Howard?”
“It’s nothing, really, Will. I’m not imminently intending to replicate someone, if that’s what you’re thinking. It’s just that we only have the one generation of humans to get the information from. After that, we’d be reduced to reverse-enginee
ring, with all the failures and false starts that implies.”
“It has nothing to do with Dr. Sheehy at all?”
I kept my face deadpan. “Not particularly.” It would seem there was no privacy at all in Bob-town. Anyway, we were just friends. “We’re just friends.”
Will looked at me, unmoving for a few more milliseconds, then nodded his head and looked away. “Okay, Howard, I’ll bring it up with the appropriate people at this end. I take it you’ve talked to Cranston already, about any info that FAITH might still have on the process?”
“Mm, yeah. He, of course, wanted a crapton of concessions in return, before I’d even find out if he had anything worthwhile.”
“Well, hell.” Will grinned at me. “Why didn’t you say so? Doing an end-run around Cranston is all the motivation I need.” He finished his coffee, gave me a nod, and vanished.
I figured that would work. Just needed to not sell it too hard, or he would have gotten suspicious.
I pulled up the medical report that I’d intercepted, labelled B. Sheehy. I examined the scan for the hundredth time, hoping maybe this time it would be different.
* * *
Cranston’s face glowed a most unhealthy shade of red in the video window. I tried not to smile.
“Dammit, your product is showing up in our territory. I’ve told you we’re not interested. I’ve forbade you from selling your devil’s brew here. I want it stopped.”
He was mad. Cursing and everything. Excellent.
“Minister Cranston—Oh, it’s President Cranston, now, isn’t it? Anyway, sir, I am not selling or even offering any of my alcohol-themed products in New Jerusalem. However, your attempt at controlling the supply has likely driven the price up high enough that it’s being brought in from Spitsbergen by unorthodox methods. I have to admit, their consumption does seem rather high…”
“Then put a stop to it!”
“Absolutely, sir. I’ll put a line on the label, ‘Not for resale in New Jerusalem’. That should do it. After all, smugglers and bootleggers are always law-abiding.”
Amazing. I wouldn’t have thought it possible for his face to get redder. Live and learn. But he wasn’t finished, apparently.
“And I will lodge an official protest at the idea of you using the colony equipment to engage in private enterprise. You are profiteering off of our backs.”
I shook my head in amazement. “First, I made all of those donuts and gave them to the colonies free of charge. Second, I’m not using one of those donuts. I made my own. And third, not that it’s actually relevant, but we’re gradually moving production planetside. Once that’s done, I’ll add the donut to the colony inventory.”
“Tread carefully, replicant. You might find access to your families restricted.”
That was not an unexpected tactic, but it didn’t make it any easier to take. I had my response ready. “Mr. President, you signed an agreement before we shipped you here that established certain inalienable rights for your citizens. You also entered into a personal agreement with Riker concerning specifics of our family. Start reneging on that, and this will escalate quickly.”
We spent several seconds in a stare-off before Cranston broke eye contact. “Very well. We will pursue the border options, for now. However, this is not over.” He reached out of frame and broke connection.
“Wow.”
I turned to the video window showing Riker’s image. “Wow, indeed, Will. Should we be setting up an escape plan for the family?”
“As one alternative.” Will stared into space for a few moments. “Another would be to just remove the irritant.”
My eyebrows rose. “The whiskey?”
“No, you twit. Cranston.”
Now that was a plan I could get behind.
46. Klown Kar Planet
Rudy
February 2190
Epsilon Indi
I did a test ping to Riker, to check my tau. I’d been doing this regularly for the last couple of days, waiting for it to drop to the point where I could maintain a VR connection. We’d been exchanging emails for a few weeks, but a tradition of sorts had developed where the moment when a travelling Bob could maintain a VR session with a stationary Bob was considered arrival. It was more significant than actual entry into the system.
I received a response, then Riker popped into VR.
“Hey, Rudy. Good to hear from you. Where’s Edwin?”
“Still not slowed down enough. I moved ahead so I could get a look at KKP. I’ll be there in about eight days, and Exodus-6 will be another week.”
Riker nodded. “Call me back when you’ve had a close look at KKP.”
* * *
The planet itself wasn’t particularly memorable. It had oceans, it had land. The day and night cycles, though, had imposed a certain chaos on the evolution of life. Based on Linus’ notes and what I could see from quick drone flyabouts, the planet had gone through something equivalent to the Cambrian Explosion, then kept every single branch. Both plants and animals came in a huge number of phyla. At first glance, it could appear to a non-scientist as if every individual plant and animal was its own species. Linus had theorized that the weird light cycles created a large number of niches and opportunities for competition.
This included several different versions of photosynthesis, optimized for different parts of the spectrum. Which resulted in what I suspected was the real reason for the name—the planet had more colors than a patchwork quilt. Even the oceans came in different hues, due to the different breeds of plankton.
Between the sun’s path through the sky over the course of the year, and the extra heat and light supplied by the Jovian primary, days, nights, and even seasons would be hard to differentiate. I chuckled, perusing the notes. Linus had tentatively named the Jovian Big Top. I doubted either name would survive the colony’s first general meeting, honestly. But it was fun while it lasted.
As had become habit with the Bobs, Linus had left some mining drones and an autofactory behind to process raw ore from asteroids into refined metals, and left them in orbit with a beacon attached. Epsilon Indi wasn’t a rich system, but the automation had still managed to accumulate several hundred thousand tons of material. It would be a good start.
I pinged Edwin. I received an invitation and popped into his VR.
“Hi, Rudy.”
“Edwin.” I sat down and accepted a coffee from Jeeves. Edwin’s VR was, in my opinion, one of the better ones. He’d created a living area with huge windows on one wall that looked out on whatever view was really available outside his vessel. That would have been a little boring during the trip, but now it showed Big Top as he approached orbital insertion. Edwin was still several million miles away, but this was a Jovian planet. It already dominated the sky.
“So, what do we have?” he asked.
“This planet is like that Harrison novel,” I answered. “What was it? Oh, yeah, Deathworld. Where everything was deadly.”
“That bad?”
I waved a hand. “Possibly I exaggerate. But the ecosystem is very, very competitive. I know they are making do with a fence on Vulcan, but for here, I’m leaning more towards domes. Not for atmosphere, but to keep out the ickies.”
Edwin laughed. “Yeah, there’s a technical term for you. Ickies.”
“No, it’s actually a species name.” I smirked in response. “Blame Linus. Ickies are a kind of flying leech with multiple suckers. I think the name is appropriate.”
Edwin started to look a little green. “Oh, lovely. I might just start a betting pool on whether the colonists take one look around and start screaming at me to take them back.”
“Mmm. But, you know, according to Howard, the Cupid bug is well on the way to being eradicated. Maybe a drone specifically designed as an ickie-killer will do the trick.”
“Jeez.” Edwin pinched the bridge of his nose. “On the plus side, once I unload, I get to go back to Earth.” He looked up at me a
nd grinned. “You, not so much.”
I responded with one finger.
47. New Village
Bob
September, 2182
Delta Eridani
The Deltan council, including Archimedes and Arnold, watched as almost a hundred Deltan adolescents marched away from camp, yelling insults and challenges at the onlookers. The council members did a creditable job of maintaining straight faces, some even managing to look upset.
When the tail end of the parade disappeared into the bush, Arnold slapped Archimedes on the back and said, “That was great.” He then leaned in close and said, in a low voice that only Archimedes and the spy drone could hear, “I’m sure bawbe had a hand in it.”
Archimedes’ eyes got wide and he looked very concerned, but Arnold just shook his head and said, “I don’t need to know. I’m just glad it worked.”
Other council members gave Archimedes a nod or a smile as they dispersed.
Marvin and I looked at each other, then began laughing. The worst troublemakers in Camelot, completely convinced that it was their idea, had just marched off to one of the old abandoned village sites to repopulate it. And Archimedes was getting the credit for thinking up and masterminding the plot. Reverse psychology… not just for humans.
Marvin lost his smile and got a worried expression. “Of course, it fixes the immediate problem, but everything we do seems to have side effects down the road. What if they go to war with Camelot in a few years?”
“Don’t borrow trouble, Marv.” I sighed and sat back. “Sure as hell, something will hit the fan, but let’s worry about it when it happens.”
But he was probably right.
48. Operation
Howard
September 2193
Vulcan
I texted Stéphane for the third time in the last hour. I couldn’t call him anymore, as he’d blocked voice calls from me after my last attempt.
His reply came back within a minute. “Still in surgery. Calm down. Aren’t you supposed to be a computer?”
Bobiverse 2: For We Are Many Page 18