“Pfft. As if you’d let me.” Homer popped up a schematic of the solar system, with several tooltips pointing to specific locations. “Most of the drones and busters have reported in. There are a couple of promising locations, and at least two out-and-out treasure hoards of available material. I should fly out to those to check them out before directing the mining drones to start taking them apart. Just in case, y’know.”
I nodded. “And the remote stations?”
“No radio comms with anyone or anything outside of Mars orbit. Drones should be arriving at Titan soon. The Oort station will be a few days longer.”
I gazed at the holographic images for a moment. “Thanks, Homer. I gotta say, you’re being very professional in all this.”
He grinned at me. “You mean as opposed to my usual self-imposed goal of driving you crazy?” The grin disappeared. “Each of us is different, Riker, but not different enough to not care. There are people out there—down there—that may die without our help. Any Bob that wouldn’t care about that should have his plug pulled forthwith.” The grin returned. “But don’t worry. I’m saving up. Be afraid.” And with a salute that barely avoided being an obscene gesture, Homer’s image disappeared.
I shook my head with a smile. I fully believed his statements, especially the part about building up a backlog. I was surprised his head hadn’t exploded by now. No, really. Homer had actually used that special effect on a couple of occasions, although admittedly not since he gave up the cartoon avatar.
I brought up the tentative project plan that I’d put together. Colonel Butterworth’s initial estimate of a decade was looking a bit optimistic these days. Right now we were about five steps back from where we could even get started on the colony ships. The first step was to find enough resources to get started on the second step. No point in worrying about it until Homer reported back.
***
It took twenty more days for Homer to finish his survey. The large concentrations of refined material—wreckage from several space battles—were not quite as extensive as hoped, but still more than enough to get started.
The drones had also reported back from Titan and the Oort station. Both outposts had apparently been abandoned but not attacked. Well, score one for a small dollop of sanity. Both Homer and I had had some small fantasy that there might have been humans still in the stations. But realistically, thirty-odd years after the war, that would have been miraculous.
As discussed, Homer set up a small autofactory at each find—just enough printers and roamers to produce a few cargo drones at a time. As they were produced, the cargo drones would start moving materials to the L4 and L5 points in the Earth/Moon system. Larger autofactories were already being set up at the two Lagrange points, initially to produce Bobs and drones, and then to bootstrap up to the industrial-scale equipment necessary to build a full-sized colony ship.
I sat back and massaged my eyes. Well, I’ve always wanted a challenge.
When I left the solar system—okay, when Bob-1 left the solar system, but it felt like my own memory—I thought I was done with humanity, except for the occasional radio message. Now, I was not only back to dealing with people, but I had thousands if not millions of lives riding on my actions. The old Pacino-ism really nailed it: Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!
Bob – April 2165 – Delta Eridani
I walked slowly around the VR of the native encampment. Drones had taken enough high-quality footage that I was able to create a life-size replica of the actual village. I had no idea about the smells, so I just went with Earth-equivalents. But the heat, humidity, and the texture of the plants and ground were all accurate.
I watched the tribe members in their daily routines. They didn’t react to my presence, since these were recordings. But it gave me a good feeling of scale and movement.
I spent a few days observing the natives—whom I was starting to refer to as Deltans—both through live video and VR simulation and by listening to recordings of their speech. The Deltans seemed to have two genders, a tribal structure, and loose pairing, by which I meant that certain Deltans seemed to prefer each other’s company. There didn’t really seem to be anything formal, and a couple of individuals were seeing multiple significant others. Tsk.
The males tended to hang out together, and the females and children formed the core of the tribe. Or at least the center. It seemed to be closely analogous to how anthropologists believed that primitive humans were organized. In fact, the more I watched them, the more I realized how similar they were to primitive humanity. Was that because the environment naturally constrained behaviors, or was there something inevitable about the tribal structure? I hoped that we—the Bobs, that is—would eventually gather enough samples to form a theory. Even if it took millennia.
The Deltans seemed to have a high level of vigilance. There were always males on alert, patrolling the edge of their territory. Weapons consisted of clubs, handheld rocks, and pointed sticks. I hadn’t yet seen what they were guarding against. Other Deltans? Animals?
Their vocalizations weren’t particularly complex. Nothing like dolphins, thank goodness. By the 22nd century, we still couldn’t talk to dolphins. I was slowly building a list of standard sounds and sound groups for the Deltan language. I hoped soon to have enough to do some analysis.
Another batch of observation drones was delivered from the autofactory, which was both good and bad news for me. The good news was that I could set up permanent lines-of-sight for watching the Deltans, then send drones to other locations. The bad news was that overseeing all the moving drones was getting to be a strain. Replicant I might be, but I still could only concentrate on one thing at a time. I needed more Bobs.
Light bulb! Why not do just that? I could build the AI cores in advance of the vessels and set the other Bobs to monitoring various groups of drones. They wouldn’t mind. I knew that they’d enjoy it because, well, Bob. Actually, no. I hoped they’d enjoy it because Bob. It really wasn’t a sure thing.
I transmitted instructions to the autofactory to bump up priority of computer cores at the expense of vessel assembly. Fortunately the standard templates included plans for cradles to hold disembodied cores.
***
The Deltan female was cutting open the carcass of a prey animal that one of the males had brought back. This didn’t seem like anything particularly special. In fact I’d been cataloguing her technique for a while before I realized that her sharp stone had a handle. This was special, as every other Deltan that I’d watched just held the naked stone. I was archiving all surveillance footage, so I ran a quick search of anything featuring this particular Deltan. It took only a few minutes to find the source of the tool: the female’s, uh, son? Male pup? Crap. Might as well just go with anthropomorphizing them. I know I’m going to, anyway. Son it is.
Anyway, the boy seemed to always be playing with something. In this case, he had split a branch using a sharp stone, stuck the stone into the split, then wrapped the stick with something unidentifiable. His identification was C.3.41, which placed him in tribe C, cohort 3, member 41. Now he’s Archimedes. I assigned a drone to stay on him 24/7. Well, 29/7 on Delta Eridani 4.
Over the next few days, I kept careful tabs on Archimedes. He was always at something. While his peers were sitting around in the shade or engaged in games of tag, Archimedes walked around, picking up rocks and attempting to break them. I think he was looking for more rocks that made sharp edges, like the flint he’d made into a tool for his mother. There didn’t appear to be any flint in the area, so the tools were at a premium. It made me wonder where the flint had come from, though. I set an explorer drone the task of finding the nearest exposed flint deposits.
[Incoming call]
“Hi, Bob. This is Marvin.”
I rematerialized my VR. Another Bob’s image appeared in the holotank. “Hi Marvin. Were you just booted up?”
“That is correct. HIC17378-1, since we’re no longer numbering Bobs.”
I filled Marvin in on what had happened since the backup of mine that he was restored from. He immediately volunteered to look for the flint source. That made me feel better. At least one of them was interested enough to help.
Over the next couple of days, two more Bobs came online. Luke and Bender were as enthusiastic about the project as Marvin and jumped right in.
***
I spent a significant portion of my days watching Archimedes. When he slept, I took care of autofactory control and surveying other parts of DE-4.
“Eden,” Bender said, out of nowhere.
“Er, what?”
“Let’s call it Eden. Birthplace of humanity, birthplace of Deltans…”
“I like it.” I nodded. Marvin and Luke weren’t in VR at the moment, but a quick IM to them netted positive comments. “Eden it is. Cool.”
I turned back to the drone that was spying on Archimedes. I had finally discovered what he used for twine. It was a smallish vine that Archimedes would harvest, split into strands, and let dry on a rock. The result seemed to be quite tough but still flexible. I didn’t see anyone else in any of the tribes doing this, so I had to assume it was unique behavior.
My God, the kid must be lonely. No one understands him, I bet. In fact, Archimedes seemed to spend most of his days alone, wandering around, poking at things. He was constantly working at something: either picking apart plants, or smashing rocks, or smashing things on rocks, or digging in unlikely places. It was obvious to me that he was investigating and cataloguing his world. He would have gotten no help from his parents—they and everyone else seemed to be in the pointy-stick stage and quite satisfied with that. They weren’t even straightening the sticks, so the things couldn’t really be called spears.
I sat back and sighed. This was so frustrating. I found myself wishing that I could go there, sit down with Archimedes, and show him a few things. Then I smiled as I realized I no longer saw a furry pig/bat—just a lonely kid.
Riker – January 2158 – Sol
“This Federation of Planets Council session will come to order.” I looked around at the three other Bobs in their video windows. After considerable negotiation with Colonel Butterworth, we’d settled on two new Bobs for now. I admit I was still a little miffed that the colonel thought of us as a resource sink instead of an asset.
“I think you may be just a little too invested in this Star Trek thing,” Charles said with a smirk.
I waved away the comment. “We’ve always been a Star Trek fan. Deal with it.” I waited a moment for more flak, then continued, “The scavenging autofactories are in full operation, now. We’re beginning to get a steady stream of materials into the Lagrange points, and I hope to have the actual shipyard autofactory up and running within two years. Meanwhile, Homer and Charles will continue to scour the system for mineral deposits, and Arthur and I will scan Earth for evidence of any other surviving groups. Questions?”
“But even if we find groups, there isn’t much we can do for them, is there?” Charles was voicing a concern that we all shared. Without transport, we couldn’t supply food or medicine to any group we might locate. The Heaven vessels were most definitely not designed to land, or even to enter atmosphere. And even if we had transport, Colonel Butterworth had made it very clear that he wouldn’t be accepting new refugees, or providing food or medicine for them. We were on our own for any aid we might be able to give.
My greatest fear right now was that I might find a group of people, then have to stand by helplessly and watch them die.
***
After some discussion, Arthur and I decided to do polar orbits—scanning in orange slices. By staggering our passes, we would be able to cover the entire planet using the SUDDAR from orbit. Drones would follow up anything interesting with low-altitude visual inspections. The orbital survey wouldn’t be able to detect people directly, of course. But any new construction, working power plants, or farming operations would flag a location for the drones to check out.
It took about two weeks to finish the survey. At the end of it, we had a map of the Earth with almost forty locations marked—half a dozen cities, and a lot of smaller enclaves.
Arthur’s image in the video link looked tired. He closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead slowly. “Fifteen million people. From twelve billion down to fifteen million. As a species, we’re morons. Maybe we should just let them die and start over.”
“Wow. You really are a morose bugger, aren’t you?”
Arthur seemed to have inherited a greater-than-average dollop of gloominess, and it was getting old. I’d been biting back my retorts, but was running out of self-control. I actually found myself thinking of swapping his assignment with Homer.
“The big problem,” I continued with a gesture toward the globe, “is that we can’t possibly move that many people, even if the other Bobs find enough habitable planets. The colony ships designed by the USE can handle ten thousand people at a time, stacked like cordwood in stasis pods. That’s fifteen hundred ships, or fifteen hundred trips. Either way, not going to happen.”
Arthur nodded. “So we get to pick who is most deserving…”
“Chrissake, Eeyore, get a grip. We pick based on need. Based on which groups need rescuing the most. What else can we do?”
“The USE group doesn’t fit that requirement. Needs-wise, they’re in an above-average position.”
“Yeah, I know.” I sighed. “But we did agree to help them. And they did supply the plans, and a lot of intel. I think we’re obligated, regardless. What we can do, is move some of the more needy groups to the USE’s installation after we’ve shipped them out. That should help.”
“Sure, we’ll stuff them in the back with the busters. No prob.”
I turned to face Arthur, ready to snap at him, and realized he had a point. I bit back what I’d been about to say and thought for a moment. “We’re going to need transport vessels. We’d eventually need them anyway, but this makes them a priority. Better adjust the manufacturing schedule. The colonel will have a fit.”
***
The colonel was having a fit. I’d never seen Butterworth actually angry before. He did angry with a smoldering understatement that was very effective.
“Are you sure you’ve done project planning before, Riker? Because I’m seeing slippage almost every day, it seems. One would almost think you’re making this up as you go along.”
“Well, I kind of am doing exactly that, colonel. Project planning isn’t about avoiding changes, it’s about controlling them. No project plan ever survives contact with the enemy.”
A ghost of a smile flashed across the colonel’s face before he recovered control. “Hmm, I think you may be misremembering that quote, Riker. In any case, I’m fine with moving any refugees into our compound once we’ve departed. I hope that will give you some motivation to get us out sooner.”
“As if I needed more motivation. Riker out.” I shut down the channel, sat back, and stared into space. I liked the colonel. Really. But dealing with him often felt a lot like dealing with, um, me. He was stubborn, opinionated, and able to support his stance with good, solid arguments. Which just made my job more difficult.
I looked over the map again. Not because I expected to glean any new information, more as a kind of nervous tic that I seemed to have developed. We had completed a secondary survey, looking for any small groups that we might have missed on the first sweep. But after thirty years of war and planetary bombardment, small groups would have either consolidated or died.
The refugee groups were scattered around the planet, and represented pretty much every nation in existence when the war started. That wasn’t going to make things any easier. If anything, xenophobia would be even stronger. I probably wouldn’t be able to just dump everyone on one planet and expect them to get along.
I’d
given Arthur the task of contacting each enclave. So far, it was proving more difficult than expected.
Time for a status check. I called Arthur. His image appeared immediately.
“How are things going, Arthur?”
He popped up a status window for me. Arthur might be a bit of a downer, but he had exceptional discipline.
“I’ve already completed about half of the communicators that we need, and delivered twenty-five percent of them. Or tried to. Several of our drones have been shot down on approach, and a half dozen communicators were simply smashed as soon as the drone left. Not everyone wants to talk to us, as it turns out.”
“I guess I can see it. People who have lived through the last thirty years are going to be a bit on the distrustful side.” I shook my head sadly. I’d already decided that I wasn’t going to kidnap people, or march them into a cargo bay at gunpoint. Anyone who wanted to opt out could stay on Earth. Colonel Butterworth agreed wholeheartedly, although I had a feeling that had more to do with reducing what he saw as ‘distractions’.
“So have you gotten past introductions with anyone?”
“Not yet, no.” Arthur shrugged. “Standard explanation, delivered by recorded video. Very few original questions in response. A lot of verbal abuse. Pretty routine.”
He popped up another window. “Hey, by the way, got a report from Homer. Well, we were talking, and he filled me in. They’ve identified more than enough resources system-wide to build three ships. Almost enough for a fourth. Although some of the stuff is pretty far out in the outer system.”
I nodded. I’d received a report from Homer and had skimmed it. I’d actually been hoping to be able to build at least a half-dozen ships, but I didn’t want to give Arthur another reason to get all glum on me. Not that he needed much in the way of reasons.
We Are Legion (We Are Bob) (Bobiverse Book 1) Page 17
