Bridget laughed, then gestured around her. “And the tropical beach thing is totally coincidental as well, right?”
“Hey, I have to have something. You should see Marvin’s VRs. Now there’s a man with too much time on his hands.”
Bridget gazed at me with an expression that I had trouble categorizing. Amusement? Longing? Affection? At least the hurt look was gone.
“You have a nice world here, Howard. But when I go back to the other one, I’ve still got gray hair.” She waved at the videos. “Those could have been displayed on my wall monitor. I understand your arguments, but this isn’t something I want.” She reached up to her head, and disappeared from VR.
I quickly activated Manny. I ‘woke up’ in Bridget’s living room, standing at parade rest. Bridget was just removing the gloves.
Before I could begin apologizing, she came over and put her arms around me and rested her head on my shoulder. I wrapped her in a hug, and everything else stopped mattering.
The Return
Bill
June 2223
82 Eridani
I was visiting Mack at 82 Eridani. I tried to stay on top of things at the different sites, and to be honest, I needed a break. The Others had just finished ‘harvesting’ the Pav homeworld, and several years of observing their technique hadn’t blunted the emotional turmoil.
I sat in one of Mack’s lawn chairs, blowing on a coffee to cool it down. Turned out Mack liked the ritual involved in cooling the coffee until it was drinkable. I could have just adjusted it, but that would be rude.
Mack took a sip of his own coffee, then continued his report. “Things are looking good. The Canadian colony on Asgard is doing well—much better, now, actually, since the vampire mosquitoes are being brought under control.”
“Super Vampire Power Mosquitoes,” I corrected.
“Mutant Super Vampire Power Mosquitoes,” he quipped. “Honestly, Bill, Original Bob would have run screaming from the place. You remember how our skin reacted to even itty-bitty mosquito bites?”
“Yup. Fine, Nordic skin.” I grinned at him. “Why do you think I haven’t asked for pictures?”
Mack nodded, still grinning. “Anyway, the mosquito killers are one of the more popular pieces of automation in New Vancouver. I just have to say ‘mosquito killers’ and I can get anything approved on the printer schedule.”
“And speaking of inconveniences, how is the Japanese colony doing with their unique problem?”
Mack laughed. “You are, of course, carefully not referring to the elephant in the room? The very stinky elephant?” He waggled his eyebrows. “Or maybe it’s just what the elephant left behind?”
“Yeah, that one,” I said, chuckling. “Seriously, they can’t get used to it?”
“It’s seasonal, Bill, and affected by wind and weather. It turns out to be a common plant in the ubiquitous swamps. Sort of a local version of skunk cabbage, but much more potent.”
“And what are they going to do about it?”
“Nuking has been suggested,” Mack said, deadpan.
“Seriously?”
“I don’t think they were serious, Bill, but it was brought up. I checked it out with the android, once, to see for myself, figuratively speaking. Lemme tell you, it’s bad. I disabled olfactory input after that.”
“So, on a more realistic note, what can they do?”
He shrugged. “Draining the swamps, developing something to kill off the plants, breed a less smelly version of the plants that will outcompete the wild version…and nuking.”
I shook my head. “Don’t get involved. Just…don’t.”
“Works for me.” Mack grinned back. “Anyway, I’m too busy with the space-based industry. Verne collected a lot of raw materials into the Lagrange points, but between two large colonies and all the equipment on Valhalla for the terraforming…” He shrugged. “Yeah, I’m going through it pretty fast. I’ve got drones and roamers flying around the system, looking for more—”
Right in the middle of Mack’s sentence, I found myself back in my own VR. “Guppy, what happened?”
[Interface with other vessel was terminated abruptly. No shutdown handshake.]
What the hell?
I attempted to ping Mack, but got nothing. “Guppy, try every option you have. Try to get any comms going at all with Mack or anything in the area.”
[Aye.]
I waited for several intolerable milliseconds. What could have taken Mack out like that? Or was it just a communications issue of some kind?
[SCUT Link relay has been acquired to several onboard roamers. Vessel is heavily damaged, replicant is offline.]
“What? Give me a connection to one of them.”
Guppy handed me a connection and I entered the roamer.
I stared, shocked, at a view of empty space through a huge rent in the side of Mack’s vessel. Shards of metal and pieces of equipment floated around and caromed off of walls and other flotsam.
What the hell caused this?
I thought immediately of the Others. Could they have sent an expedition here to learn more about us? No, that didn’t make sense. They didn’t know about this system.
Then, movement. An outline shifted against the starry backdrop. I ran image analysis against several frames from the roamer’s video, and was able to extract a silhouette.
Medeiros.
The bastard must have coasted up to Mack’s location and hit him with a missile from short range.
There was no time to deal with the rage, though. I left the roamer for a moment, jacked myself up to maximum frame-rate, and pondered the situation.
Two milliseconds later, I returned to normal time, and sent an all-Bobs text at high priority. Medeiros in 82 Eridani. Mack taken out. Need Bobs to locate and connect with all available AMIs. Coordinate with my Guppy.
“Guppy, inspect and inventory. Get me a report on the state of Mack’s vessel.”
[Aye]
Without waiting for a response, I returned to my roamer. Medeiros’ exact plans were unknown, but there were several possibilities, all of which had to be blocked.
Several texts came in from Other Bobs who had connected with other roamers on board or out by the autofactories. I began giving orders.
Bobs on board: protect replicant matrix, sequester or destroy any SCUT, SUDDAR or weapon tech. Check reactor for possibility of self-destruct. If anyone can get a roamer onto Medeiros’ ship, do so. We need him tagged.
Bobs at autofactories: Gather and inventory printers. We have to be prepared to keep them out of his hands.
Any other Bobs, check in.
I returned my attention to the Brazilian craft, which was edging up to Mack’s ship. At that moment, Medeiros performed a SUDDAR scan on us. I froze, as did every roamer on board. No sense showing him what was still active. The scan lasted less than a second, and the Brazilian kept edging in. The safest thing would have been for him to blow us up. Either he was hoarding his missiles, or he wanted the Heaven vessel as intact as possible.
A text from Thor came in. Mack’s cube is intact.
The image that Thor had sent with the text left no doubt. Mack’s cube had escaped the zone of destruction. That was both good and bad. Good, because we hadn’t permanently lost a Bob. Bad because it was one of the items that Medeiros might be going for. A cube could be put up on a cradle and either infected with something, as Homer had been, or even tortured.
Thor, get the cube out of here. Just jump. If it looks like you’ll be captured, destroy it.
Thor responded immediately. Ten four.
Who’s got eyes on the reactor? I asked.
Oliver responded. It’s toast. No possibility of a self-destruct.
Damn. That meant this would have to be done the hard way. It also meant we were running on power cells. At some point, the SCUT transceiver would give out, and that would be it for our access to 82 Eridani.
I didn’t have time to ponder the alternatives. Okay, guys. Disassemble all tech
, start flinging pieces. Nothing survives. Oliver, can you gather the SCUT and a few power cells?
Will do.
Movement from the Brazilian attracted my attention. The cargo doors opened, and a number of roamers jumped in the direction of Mack’s ship.
I sent a general alert. Prepare to repel boarders.
In moments, a half-dozen roamers joined me at the rent in Mack’s hull.
There were twice as many of them, so I had no real illusions about winning the battle. Our roamers had no particular advantage in this situation. The best we could do was to hold them off until the sabotage crew could get it done.
The enemy roamers came straight in, no finesse, no feints. And why shouldn’t they? Straight numerical advantage was a strategy all its own.
The battle lasted almost two minutes. Roamers are very tough devices—they’re specifically designed to be able to operate with up to half their legs missing. The plasma cutters were the weapon of choice on both sides. The battle resembled, no kidding, one of those old Errol Flynn swordfight melee scenes, as long as you imagined giant spiders instead of actors in tights. Roamers parried and riposted all over the cargo bay, the occasional errant leg floating through the mix.
Finally, though, they took us out. The last roamer, crewed by Jacques, put up a great fight, wedged into the axial corridor so that no one could get by. But an attack from two opponents at once took out his cutter limb, and that was it. In moments, he was scrap.
How did we do? I group-texted. The situation was far too volatile for any kind of VR meetup, and in fact, I imagined everyone had given up VR for the duration.
Mack is well out of here. Two roamers in attendance, Thor responded. We’ll slice and dice if necessary.
All remaining onboard SUDDAR and SCUT tech is toothpicks, someone else added.
Except for the transceiver, Oliver said. And I’ll destroy that if it looks like it’ll be taken.
I thought for a moment. Okay guys, let’s do as much damage to this asshole as possible. Let him have the hulk; instead, let’s go for his vessel.
There were acknowledgements, and I watched from a piggyback feed as the five surviving roamers still on-board leaped across space toward the Brazilian.
Unfortunately, Medeiros was ready for us. A half-dozen roamers leaped out of his hold to intercept. Another cutter-fight ensued, this one in free-fall between the ships. Roamers had small compressed-air nozzles for free-fall maneuvering, but those wouldn’t last long. Our roamers attempted to get feet on metal as quickly as possible, with the opponents attempting to block us or toss us off.
Less than a minute later, we found to our surprise that we’d won the fight. Two of our roamers still survived, one only barely. But on a last man standing basis, it was enough.
Medeiros apparently thought so as well, because his ship backed rapidly away from the area before we could land on his hull. I had a pretty good idea what was coming. A few seconds later, my suspicions were confirmed, as a missile appeared from the distance.
Looks like we’re done, guys.
The missile arrived, and once again, I was back in my VR.
“Guppy, what do we have?”
[Replicant matrix is on a ballistic trajectory with two roamers attending. Four drones with SCUT comms have been located, attending the autofactories. One is on the way to retrieve the matrix. HIC71683-8 is in control. Eight more groups in the outer system are several days away at full acceleration.]
I smiled despite myself at Guppy’s response. For some reason, Guppy refused to identify any Bob by name. It was their serial number or nothing. I kept promising myself I’d look into it, someday, but I knew I wouldn’t.
This particular replicant, Isaac, was one of Bart’s early clones, senior even to Oliver. He had connected with one of the attendant drones and was racing to pick up Mack’s matrix, along with the two roamers.
Okay, everyone. I broadcast. Emergency moot in the pub. Video attendance for those of you currently controlling devices.
I popped over to the Moot VR and configured the pub. Within moments, a half-dozen video images and a dozen more Bobs had popped in.
I looked around, doing a quick evaluation from metadata. “Thanks for your quick response, guys. So, here’s what we have: a Brazilian vessel seems to have managed to sneak into 82 Eridani and take out Mack. Unfortunately, he’s the only Bob in-system, and he didn’t have any clones going.”
“Where’s he from, d’you think?” asked Oliver.
I shook my head. “I couldn’t get a good enough look—”
“I did,” Loki interjected. “I was in the group fighting out between the ships, and I got a better angle on the vessel. It’s the one from Alpha Centauri. Definitely a different series from the Medeiri that we took down in 82 Eridani.”
“Well, that’s interesting.” I rubbed my chin. “Is Calvin or Goku here?” I looked around for a moment, but no joy. “I guess not. Anyway, I remember that they were pretty sure the Medeiros they chased out of Alpha Centauri wasn’t complete.”
“Didn’t have his autofactory tech loaded, yet,” Oliver added.
“Right, which makes his strategy pretty obvious. Take out the resident Bob, then take over the autofactories.” I thought for a moment. “Can we protect the autofactories?”
“Not a chance.” Loki shrugged. “Four—well, three for now—drones and some miscellaneous roamers and mining equipment? Not much to work with. Mack had everything geared for a developing colony. He wasn’t even working on a cohort.”
“Should we just destroy them?” asked Isaac.
“I’d prefer not to. Otherwise they are dead in the water until another Bob gets there. And who is closest, anyway?”
I looked up in thought. “Hank’s at P Eridani, a little under eleven light years; Tau Ceti and Vulcan are about twelve; and of course Epsilon Eridani at twelve point five. At least a decade for any help, no matter how you look at it.”
“That’s way too long to have a Brazilian wandering around the system, making nasty.”
“But what’s he going to do?” Loki looked around, palms up in an imploring gesture. “He can’t make more of him, he can’t make movers to drop rocks on our colonies, he can’t make weapons…”
“I don’t want to find out,” I replied. “Maybe he has a printer in his cargo hold. Maybe he gets hold of one of ours. Maybe he has plenty, and he just wanted to get rid of Mack, and I’m wrong about the other stuff.”
“Well, that’s the interesting thing,” Isaac said. “The missile that finally took out Mack’s ship wasn’t military grade, not by a long shot. And if the first missile had been military grade, there wouldn’t have been anything left in the first place. I think Medeiros has, or had, some kind of factory set up somewhere, and made some home-brew explosive systems.”
I nodded in thought. “We keep dismissing him as not an engineer, but that’s probably facile. Brazil would have uploaded a lot of military knowledge, and improvising explosives is not a huge leap. He could have produced something like busters, but with a payload at the front end. It wouldn’t have to be terrifically efficient.”
“So we can’t say how many missiles or whatever that he has onboard.” Isaac rubbed his chin. “Although he’d have to go back to his factory to restock, assuming it’s in-system.”
“My feeling is that it’s not. Calvin and Goku took out Alpha Centauri back in 2163. That’s sixty years ago. It’s only nineteen lightyears from 82 Eridani, so where’s he been all this time? In-system, skulking around?”
“Nope,” Loki replied. “We took 82 Eridani in 2195. He’d have been here by then, and we did a thorough scan of the system.”
I sighed, and rubbed my forehead. “Okay, so it’s likely that he stopped at some other system for a couple of decades and built up some manufacturing capability. Probably not a lot, or he’d have proper missiles. He loaded up, then continued to here, which presumably he knew was a target system for Brazil.”
“That still doesn’t sound
quite right, Bill.”
“I agree, Isaac. But there’s only so much we can deduce from what we know, and we’re probably over the line into speculation, now.” I looked around. “Who’s controlling the roamers that are with Mack?”
“Well, no one, now,” Oliver replied. “As soon as Medeiros blew up Mack’s vessel, we lost SCUT comms. Any surviving roamers will be operating autonomously on the last orders we gave them.”
“Can we link up to roamers through drone SCUT?” Loki asked.
“Sure,” Will responded. “We’ve been doing it for years in Sol, when dealing with things in the outer system. It’s too much trouble to set up a separate comms station.”
I turned to Will and grinned. “Glad to have you here. How much of this did you catch?” He hadn’t been here when we started, so I knew he was late to the party.
Will nodded to me. “I jacked and played back the session recording. I’m up to date.” Turning to Loki, he said, “It’s just a small software patch. I’ll post it for you.”
Loki nodded. “So, we have four drones, which means we have four loci of control in the system. Not that we have that much to control. The stuff in the outer system will take longer to get back, and I’m not sure if we should be bringing them in-system unless we have a plan.”
Oliver cut in. “Guys, I calculate that we have at most three hours before Medeiros gets to the nearest Lagrange factory. Can we deal with the printers first?”
There was silence all around, and I nodded. “Okay, separate the printers from the print heads. Send each item off in a separate trajectory, to eventually end up at one or the other colony. No beacons, we’ll have to find them by dead-reckoning, so make sure you have the orbital parameters carefully recorded.” I looked around at all the other Bobs. “Do we have anything explosive?”
I got several head shakes by way of response.
“We don’t like explodey stuff,” Oliver said.
“Yeah, and look where that’s gotten us.”
Will waved a hand to get us back on track. “Is there anything else we can do?”
I thought for a moment. “We’ll have to advise the colonies. We can also get an inventory from them of anything they have in the way of automation. They may have explosives, maybe even some small printers. Someone needs to go over Mack’s blog with a fine-tooth comb, looking for anything at all that might be useful. Let’s get started on all of that, then we’ll regroup and see what we’ve come up with.”
All These Worlds (Bobiverse Book 3) Page 8