All These Worlds (Bobiverse Book 3)

by Dennis E. Taylor

  I had a vague worry that I was going over the edge into some kind of obsession. Being an immortal, insane computer would be a Very Bad Thing, with capital letters. Hoping to get some perspective, I pinged Marvin, and received an invitation.

  I popped into his VR and looked around. Marvin was continuing his self-imposed task of replicating every environment in every book and movie we’d ever read or seen. It had become a contest between us, where I’d try to identify the scene with as few hints as possible.

  This one had me flummoxed, though. As near as I could tell, it was just a small town. I stood outside a small café, and I could see Marvin inside, grinning at me through the display window. I turned to survey the scene. Normal people, doing normal things, normal businesses for the early 21st century. But horses and carriages instead of cars. Hmm.

  I shrugged and walked into the café. I sat across from Marvin, and Jeeves placed a coffee in front of me.

  “Jeeves is a waiter in a beanery now?” I raised an eyebrow at him.

  Marvin grinned and shrugged. “It’s not relevant, in case you’re wondering.”

  I nodded, and let a few milliseconds of silence pass. Then, leaning forward, I began to talk.

  Marvin, bless his cloned heart, listened without commenting, even when tears started to course down my cheeks. When I was done, I leaned back and wiped my face with a napkin.

  “Jeez, Bob. A friend that you’ve known for almost seventy years just died. What were you expecting? To just shrug and move on? This is life, dude. The sucky part, anyway.”

  “We’re not alive.”

  “Yeah, we are. We’re not biological any more, but we’re still alive. We make friends, we grieve, we apparently still fall in love… Let it happen. Mourn. And don’t get all bent out of shape when other people don’t mourn as deeply. They have their own lives.”

  I sat back and nodded. Marvin was right, of course. But something about this still bugged me. Suddenly, I had it.

  “Y’know, Marvin, we kid Howard about his lifestyle choices, but at least he’s evolving. I think my problem is I stuck myself back into a rut first chance I got, and I’ve been there for seventy years. Still trying to be human, still trying to deny reality.”

  Marvin grinned at me. “Say, you’re pretty perceptive today.”

  “Nyuk, nyuk. Anyway, Archimedes’ death provides a clean break—and the emotional jolt to take advantage of it. I’m a post-human computerized starship, and maybe it’s about time I started acting like it.”

  I finished my coffee and stood up. “Thanks for the talk, Marv. I’ll be in touch. By the way, the town—Nantucket, right? Stirling?”

  Marvin grinned and nodded. We still couldn’t fool one another.

  * * *

  I walked slowly through Camelot. More of an amble, really. I had no particular destination or goal in mind.

  I’d modified Charlie the android, changing the fur pattern, head shape, and height. Robert was gone, and this nondescript Deltan wouldn’t be around long enough to make friends or engage in more than casual conversation.

  I wanted to have one last opportunity to experience Archimedes’ world, to feel the life that he’d lived. This was my goodbye to Eden. I spent time touching things, watching children at play, listening to the give and take of village life. I walked past Buster’s tent, careful not to loiter, enjoying the sight, sound, and odor of family.

  And when I had had my fill, I walked out of the village for the last time.

  Moot

  Bill

  January 2258

  BobNet

  I gave the usual blaat with the air horn, and waited for the standard well-wishes to die down. This was the largest moot we’d ever held, by a considerable margin—even with about half of our Bobs still just backups, and half of the active ones still in cradles, waiting for a ship to be built.

  I would have preferred to wait until everyone was active again, but a growing background of discontent in the Bobiverse had me worried. Best to get it out in the open. I looked at Thor, who seemed to be the de facto spokesman for what I was privately starting to think of as the dissidents. I didn’t want to overstate it—it wasn’t like we were going to start shooting at each other. After all, despite the differences of opinion, we were still all Bob at the core.

  Thor looked around, gauging the mood of the audience. Then he faced me. “Bill, it’s really simple. For the last hundred-plus years, we’ve been essentially in the service of the humans. We all remember the first meeting with you, Riker, Mario, Milo, and Bob. We all remember each person’s decision to explore, settle, and so on. But most of us have, one way or another, ended up spending most of our existences shepherding humans, guarding humans, transporting humans, and arguing with humans. It’s tiring.”

  A growl of approval greeted this last statement. I looked around and realized that, to a greater or lesser extent, most of the Bobs present agreed. Even many of the earlier-generation Bobs.

  “I hear what you’re saying, Thor. I’ve not been in that grind, as much, because I’ve been in Epsilon Eridani the whole time, playing mad scientist. I’m a little perplexed, though. Are you calling for a vote on something?”

  Thor grinned at me. “Naw. There’s no rules as such in the Bobiverse. Everyone is free to do what they want. I think we’re just trying to come to an understanding of the situation.”

  Garfield stepped forward. “Bill, remember that discussion we had about us being Homo sideria?”

  I mock-glared at him. “Et tu, Garfield?”

  “Not really. But I understand what Thor is saying, and I agree with a lot of it. We are Homo sideria, now. We’re something more than just people in software.” Garfield looked around. “How many here are still physically in cradles at the backup site or elsewhere?”

  A couple dozen hands went up. Garfield turned back to me. “These guys, physically, are glowing blue cubes sitting in a space station, in the Oort cloud outside Epsilon Eridani. But they can be anywhere that BobNet reaches. They can inhabit a Manny on Vulcan or Romulus and go shopping, or fly a drone or a manta through the atmosphere of Odin; they can observe the Deltans, or help with settling the Pav, or visit any of the other human settlements. Or they could even take a remote-controlled Heaven vessel to the stars, all without ever leaving Epsilon Eridani.”

  Thor took up the recitation. “Marcus got flying cities working on Poseidon and has completely altered their society. Howard and Bridget have built floating cities in the upper atmosphere of Big Top, and they live there full-time in android form. With a family of their own. Marcus has built dolphin-like androids to explore Poseidon underwater. Luke and Marvin are planning an expedition to go looking for Bender. Henry Roberts is trying to sail every large body of water on every planet of human space. Bridget is trying to catalog every species of life within her reach, and is arranging expeditions to explore icy moons and planets. Daedalus and Icarus are high-tailing it for the center of the galaxy.” Thor swept his hand to take in the crowd. “And we want to do all those things, but instead we’re playing taxi, or construction yard, or security patrol, or long haul service. And we’re a little tired of being robotic servants to the human race.”

  I nodded, and looked down for a moment, gathering my thoughts. I looked up, and swept the crowd with my gaze. “I by no means want to minimize your feelings on this. I do, however, think there’s a certain amount of burnout involved here. This has been a total crapper of a couple of decades…” Laughs from the crowd showed that I’d scored. “…and I think you’ll feel a little less, erm, militant about it after a chance to rest.”

  Thor looked at me, not conceding anything with his expression. “Maybe. And let’s face it, Bill, we’re not asking for—or threatening—anything irreversible or irrevocable. We just want the humans, and maybe the elder Bobs, to understand and accept that the species of Bob is not available as their collective workhorse. If individual Bobs want to help out, fine. But if the humans get themselves into another mess like the last on
e, I don’t think we’re going to all jump in and throw ourselves under the bus for them.”

  “Will you require a treaty?”

  Thor laughed. “Nothing that formal, Bill. Just the statement, and the understanding.”

  I looked around at the Bobs in the room. It seemed to be a majority opinion, from the expressions. Well, what the hell.

  “All right, Thor. I’ll put together a statement, get some input on it, then distribute it to the colonies.”

  “And some of them,” Garfield said, smiling, “will go ballistic.”

  “Oh, depend on it.”

  Pav Announcement

  Jacques

  April 2257

  HIP 84051

  The cargo doors opened and I stepped out. Not surprisingly, a squad of Pav militia awaited me, weapons held at ready. I sighed and shook my head. It was entirely possible that the Pav military would never warm to the Bobs.

  I couldn’t really blame them, of course. Every interaction reminded them of the technological gulf between us, and of their complete helplessness if we ever started making demands. Not a comfortable situation for a military mind.

  I walked up to the group, being careful not to appear aggressive. They probably wouldn’t haul off and shoot me, just because, but why take chances?

  The squad leader took a half step forward, and I addressed him. “Hazjiar is expecting me.”

  The sergeant, or whatever equivalent, looked like he wanted to frisk me. Or maybe handcuff me, or just give me a good beating. But I was obviously not carrying anything of a technical nature, so he settled for glaring at me and showing his teeth for a moment.

  I gave him a close-lipped smile in return and looked meaningfully in the direction of Hazjiar’s house.

  This whole performance could have gone on for a few more minutes, if Hazjiar hadn’t picked that moment to walk out onto her porch. She made a gesture to the soldiers, and they motioned to me with their weapons.

  I settled into a chair, bobbed my head to Hazjiar, and waited for her to speak.

  “You said you had news? Presumably it is about the Others?”

  “Yes,” I replied. “I wanted to deliver this news in person. The battle is over. We’ve won, although barely.”

  Hazjiar nodded, and stared at the horizon for a few moments. “This is good, of course. But will they not just regroup and return? For how long will we be safe?”

  “There will be no return, Hazjiar. We wiped them out.” I looked down for a moment, then met her eyes. “It wasn’t something we did casually, but they have obliterated so many sentients, and showed no interest in changing their behavior…”

  The soldiers exchanged glances. If they were concerned about the gulf between us before, this wouldn’t have helped. I spared them a quick look, then continued. “We will continue to watch for them, but it’s most likely that there are none left.”

  “I don’t understand your species, Jock.” Hazjiar paused, looking at me. “You have all this power, yet you seem reluctant to use it. You are so rich that you don’t even need money, yet you seem to have so little.”

  I looked up at the ceiling for a moment. She was, perhaps without realizing it, hitting very close to home with some of her comments. “Hazjiar, we—all the Bobs, I mean—don’t have any desire for power over others. Quite the opposite, in fact. We just want to be able to do our own thing. And we may finally be at the point where we can realize that desire.”

  I gestured to the soldiers. “You have power, in the ways that matter. You’re able to keep yourselves safe here. We’ll make sure nothing gets out of control up there.” I gestured to the sky. “Beyond that, unless you specifically need us for something, we’ll leave you alone. I think, as a group, the Bobs have finally figured out our place in the cosmos. So we’re going to be stepping back.”

  Hazjiar gazed at the soldiers for a moment, then smiled at me. “Some of us, I think, will be happy to hear that. I am not so sure. In any case, we will live.” She stood. “Thank you, Jock, for the news. I will inform the Council.”

  I stood and gave her the Pav head bob, and walked to the cargo drone. I stepped in and turned for a last look. As the doors were closing, I saw Hazjiar give me the Vulcan salute.

  * * *

  I popped into PRP. The Pav Reclamation Project had a dedicated VR, hosted in Bill’s Moot station. I looked around the room; a half-dozen Bobs watched video windows or operated drones on the planet’s surface. Ferb stood at the edge of the room, watching the activity.

  “Hey, Ferb.” I walked over to join him. “How’s it going?”

  “Slow but steady, Jacques. We’ve been able to produce at least a few of everything that we have samples for. Genetic diversity may be an issue for a while, but we should be able to bring back about seventy-five percent of the planet’s ecosystems, eventually.”

  I nodded, watching a few of the video windows. “And the other thing?”

  Ferb motioned toward a whiteboard with a number of items listed. “We’ve found some good candidate planetoids in nearby systems. Bill’s asteroid-movers will handle them easily.”

  I nodded, satisfied. “So, eventually we’ll be able to offer the Pav their home system back. With a supply of metals.”

  “Maybe a few decades, yet, buddy, but yeah. That’ll be good.”

  We watched the activity in the room, enjoying the moment. One less thing to feel guilty about.

  Rebuilding

  Herschel

  January 2259

  Sol

  Departure day. Two little words, but such a big meaning. Today would put humanity officially out of the Endangered Species category. Today, we would leave the Earth, looking a lot like a snowball, to its own devices for a few millennia. Hopefully, the planet would recover. If so, we had the genetic material to rebuild at least some of the ecosystems.

  With the extinction of the Others, Gamma Pavonis had become a viable colonization target. Several colony ships had returned to Earth since the Battle of Sol, and were now on their way with a load of humanity to settle there.

  And we now had enough stasis pods in the Bellerophon for the balance of the human race. Today, the remaining Earthlings were leaving for 82 Eridani, all snugged away in our cargo bays. By the time they arrived, Mack and the local crew would have built farm donuts and colony locations for them. Inevitably, some of the humans wouldn’t like the decisions. Tough.

  The debris from the Battle of Terra, at least that portion of it that hadn’t already gone down to Earth in meteor showers, was all gathered at the Earth/moon L5 point. Autofactories were still going full-bore to build new vessels for all the Bobs that had been destroyed in the battle. Bill’s offsite facility was showing its worth—only a few differentials had failed, and in those cases the Bobs were simply restored with the last few minutes missing.

  There still existed a general feeling amongst the Bobs that being restored wasn’t quite personal immortality, but most agreed that it sure beat the alternative. I decided I’d leave that particular philosophical debate until it became relevant.

  I looked over at Neil. “Ready for departure, Number One?”

  “Oh, bite me. And for the record, your Picard is terrible.”

  “Yeah, but we’re still in charge of this tub. Not bad for pondscum, eh?”

  Neil grinned. “Could do worse.”

  Singing the Accountancy Shanty at the top of our lungs, we set course for 82 Eridani.

  Pilgrimage

  Bob

  October 2263

  Earth

  Full circle.

  A couple hundred meters or so, straight down, a city named Las Vegas had once stood. Lost Wages. Sin City. The place where my first life ended.

  I turned slowly to survey the landscape. Icescape, I guess. The Earth was now in full snowball mode. Snow, once fallen, was not melting, and glaciers were closing in on the equator.

  Today was a beautiful bluebird day. The sun shone down on the ice, leaving the world awash in light. If I’d still
been biological, I’d be snow-blind by now.

  I had arranged with the current Bob-in-residence, a tenth-generation named Harvey, to have an android printed up from Howard’s most recent published set of plans. I could have done this visit remotely from Delta Eridani—or from anywhere in range of BobNet, really. But I wanted to actually come to Earth, to make the pilgrimage physically as well as emotionally. The Heaven-1B was currently in geosynchronous orbit, thirty-five thousand kilometers straight overhead.

  I raised my face into the breeze and closed my eyes. The air ruffled my hair and whistled thinly against my ears. Heads-up readings, visible even on the inside of my eyelids, indicated a balmy minus thirty Celsius—well within operating range for current android tech. The Earth was definitely done for, though. For a few millennia, anyway. There was some argument at moots about whether we should set up space mirrors to reheat the planet, or just let things run their course.

  Bobs had been working, the last couple of decades, to make sure that every possible living thing was represented in the Genetic Banks. These days, we didn’t even take samples—we simply grabbed a scan at the subatomic level. Bill had been busy, in his mad science lab in Epsilon Eridani. It wasn’t quite Star Trek-level replicator technology, but it was certainly getting damned close. Within a few more years, Bill expected to be able to rebuild plants and animals from nothing more than the scans.

  Pretty cool.

  I looked down once more in the direction of Las Vegas, and thought back to that last day as a human being. I remembered the conversation with my mother and Andrea—and felt a deep and abiding regret at not having had one last conversation with my father and with Alaina. There was that last meal with my employees, who—I now realized—were possibly my best friends on the planet at the time.