We Are Legion (We Are Bob) (Bobiverse Book 1)

by Dennis E. Taylor

  But it was progress.

  Bill – October 2158 – Epsilon Eridani

  [Communication received from Milo]

  “Right on time.” I grinned at Guppy. Predictably, he returned a fishy poker face. “I wonder if he found Vulcans.”

  [Not quite]

  I raised an eyebrow. That was a far cry from the flat “no” that I’d normally expect from Guppy. If he responded at all. Now my curiosity was way up.

  I’d been deep into one of my pet projects—creating realistic artificial bodies. The ultimate problem was producing a muscle analog that worked, looked, and generally acted similar enough to the natural thing. Gears, pistons, and cables would never produce a workable android.

  I forced myself to close the project folder, invoked a coffee, kicked off a goose that had settled into my lawn chair, and sat down. Spike ambled over, ignoring the angry goose, and set up shop in my lap.

  “Okay, Guppy. Let’s see it.”

  Milo’s report spread before me in mid-air. System schematics, close-ups of the twin planets—two habitable planets!—and biological analyses. I chuckled at his insistence on naming them. I’d have done the same. Probably would have picked the same names, come to that.

  I sat back, staring into space, so preoccupied that I stopped patting Spike. I was reminded of my primary duty by a furry head butting against my chin.

  “Sorry, your highness.” I smiled at the cat and resumed justifying my existence.

  Two planets. In a system that was generally considered a marginal candidate for any habitable planets. Were the astrophysicists wrong? Granted, so far we only had three data points, including Earth. But that’s three out of three, if you were willing to be generous with Ragnarök.

  Well, first things first. I queued up the report to be forwarded to Earth, just in case Milo hadn’t sent a copy that way. Hopefully, Riker would be listening.

  That left the million-dollar question, which was whether there was anyone left back at Sol to take advantage of this. I was periodically transmitting the plans for the SCUT to every system within thirty light-years, just in case there was a Bob there at some point. But the first transmission to Sol wouldn’t arrive for another nine years or so. I was going to be chewing my nails for a while, looked like.

  I pinged Garfield. “Hey, Gar, have you read the latest from Milo?”

  He popped into my VR and pointed at his face. “Does this look boggled enough?”

  We shared a laugh, and he continued, “It’s awesome. We have a place to put people. Assuming there are still people.” Garfield grimaced. “That would be just the kind of sick joke the universe likes to play. Let’s hope not this time.”

  I nodded. “Yeppers. You know, it’s funny. When I left Earth, I just wanted to get away from humanity. Now I find myself acting like some kind of, I dunno, shepherd or something.”

  “How does the old joke go? I like people in the abstract but not in the concrete?”

  “Hmm, well, we’ll know in a few years. Meanwhile, how’s the Kuiper mapping going?”

  Garfield popped up a schematic. Because of the time required to get a chunk of ice from the Kuiper to Ragnarök, we were taking the time to look for the biggest chunks. The extra effort up front would pay off later. Most chunks seemed to be too small to bother with, but Gar had found a couple of good icebergs and dropped beacons on them. I still hadn’t quite decided how I was going to get them moving in the right direction.

  Riker – March 2158 – Sol

  Final count, fifteen million people. The entire human species, represented in a two-page list. That was definitely a downer, and Arthur was not letting the opportunity pass him by.

  “We’re not going to be able to get them all off-planet, you know.” Arthur shook his head, eyes downcast.

  I wondered if he was really sad, or reveling in the irony. I sat back, put an arm over the back of my chair, and gazed at him in silence until he stopped.

  “Arthur…”

  “Yes?”

  “Please shut the hell up.”

  Arthur gave me a half-grin and a shrug by way of response. “You know I’m right.”

  “Yes, and you were right the last twenty-five times you said it. Are you keeping score?”

  Arthur shrugged and, without another word, popped up the latest Construction Status report. Ah, blessed silence, at last.

  Just the same, I couldn’t really blame him.

  We’d accounted for every group of people larger than about a hundred on the planet, with very high confidence. It seemed very likely that groups smaller than that simply couldn’t survive, or had seen the advantages of joining larger groups. There’d definitely been consolidation. A few locations actually had a higher population now than they had pre-war.

  About half of the global population was currently living in New Zealand, Madagascar, and, strangely, Florianópolis, Brazil. The two island nations made sense. They hadn’t really been part of any conflict, and didn’t represent strategic targets. Their populations were way down, but their climates were still mild enough to maintain the current numbers.

  Florianópolis was a weird one. Most of South America was a blasted, jagged moonscape. Between Brazil pounding their neighbors, and China pounding Brazil, there was very little livable land left. But for some reason, the southern tip of Brazil had been spared. It was likely that the population had been augmented by refugees coming in from other areas.

  The rest of the global population was scattered around the planet. A lot of people had ended up in island clusters, such as the Maldives, French Polynesia, Marshal Islands, and so forth. Again, probably not prime targets, and their climates would be comfortable for the longest.

  Then there were the marginal locations, such as Spitsbergen island, San Diego, Okinawa, and the USE enclave outside Augsburg, Germany. It seemed likely that a lot of the current populations had migrated there over time. And mortality must have been significant for the first couple of years.

  It would be our job to keep them alive. I hadn’t discussed it yet with the others, but I’m sure it had occurred to them… Fifteen million people couldn’t be moved off-planet in any reasonable time, even if we had a destination. Most of these people would have to be kept alive on Earth.

  And according to the colonel, over the last decade or so the climate had begun to degrade significantly. Each year had less sunlight, lower temperatures, more snow. The ice caps and glaciers were growing again, for the first time since the 1600’s. Spitsbergen in particular probably didn’t have more than five years left, even given their innovative adaptations. Our current projections, admittedly rough, showed the Earth completely encased in glaciers within fifty to a hundred years.

  I looked over at Eeyore, I mean Arthur. He knew what I was thinking, and he didn’t have to say anything. At least he had the decency to not gloat.

  “Okay, Arthur. I get it. We have to organize these groups, and try to get some cooperation. How are you doing with communication?”

  Arthur gave one of his rare smiles. “The drive-in-movie-sized holographic presentation helped a whole bunch. People couldn’t turn it off or smash it, so they had to listen. The next time we dropped off a communicator, we got almost no breakages or assaults. I think we still only have five places that won’t accept contact, and they’re not big.”

  “And they’ll probably join once they find out everyone else has. Good. Let me know when everything is tested and ready, and we’ll issue invitations to the first meeting of the new United Nations.”

  ***

  I don’t know what could possibly have made me think this was a good idea. I sat with my elbow on the armrest, forehead in my hand, while the delegates displayed complete contempt for Robert’s Rules of Order. At any moment, at least a half-dozen people were yelling into their cameras, trying to drown out the others. Thirty-eight different video windows, displaying miniature, gesticulating, yelling dervishes, floated in the air before me. It would be funny if the fate of the world wasn’t rest
ing on this group. Every candidate had the same view as myself; and yet not one was cringing with embarrassment.

  Oh, there was some consensus, so it wasn’t a complete loss. For instance, many groups hated the idea that the USE enclave would be getting off-planet first, even though the USE had been the first to contact us and supplied the plans for the colony ships. Even more groups were incensed at the Spitsbergen group’s demand that they be given priority because of their tenuous situation.

  And everybody was beyond apoplectic that the Brazil group was even allowed in. Brazil was generally considered to have started the war, and everyone was holding a grudge. Couldn’t say I entirely disagreed, but most of the people in Florianópolis were under the age of ten when the war started, if they had been born at all. Nevertheless, Brazil.

  I looked over at Homer’s video feed. He had fallen over, laughing. I spared him a small smile. Over the last little while, I’d started to understand where Homer’s humor was coming from. He was laughing less at the people themselves than the utter ridiculousness of the situation. When push came to shove, he’d give his all to help.

  I decided I’d given them enough rope. Time to rein things in. I pressed the override button. Immediately, every delegate’s microphone was cut off, every communicator emitted a loud air-horn sound, and every video feed switched to an image of me.

  “Ladies and Gentlemen, and I use those terms loosely, we’re done for the day. We’ll be signing in tomorrow, at the same time, but with shiny new rules. Your microphones will only be active when the chairperson—that’s me for the moment—recognizes you. If you’d like the other members to watch you having a fit in pantomime, that’s fine too. Let me say up front that I don’t care if you don’t like it. Good night.”

  I hit the end button and all sessions were closed.

  I leaned back in my chair with a groan, while Homer climbed back into his and tried to catch his breath.

  “Wow, number two, that was intense. Those are some thoroughly pissed-off people.”

  I waved a hand in dismissal. “On the one hand, Homer, these are people fighting to get into a lifeboat while the ship sinks. I can sympathize. On the other hand, their behavior is not helping things along.”

  “They’re just passengers, Riker,” Homer said in a serious tone. “They feel helpless, they feel like their fate is being decided by someone else without their input. You need to give them something to do, some way to contribute. Some way to feel like they’re controlling their destiny, at least a little bit.”

  Huh. That was actually very perceptive, and my opinion of Homer took another small ratchet upwards. My handling of the situation, truthfully, had probably been less than ideal, but this didn’t resemble any job description I’d ever had.

  Homer began to pace, something I don’t think I’d ever seen. “Look, Riker, you have to ease up on them. These people are scared, and you aren’t giving them any reason to believe that you care about their concerns. You aren’t actually the Star Trek character, you know. You need to loosen up a little.

  “Chrissake, Homer, you actually think fifteen million people are going ballistic because I don’t smile enough? I get it about them being scared, but their reactions are their responsibility, not mine. You want to do a comedy routine, feel free. Bring back your cartoon avatar. That should be good for some laughs. Or not. When you’re done, they’ll still be at each other’s throats, and maybe we can go back to trying to actually fix things.”

  Homer stared at me for a few moments, then shook his head and disappeared. Okay, maybe I’d laid it on a little thick, and I probably owed him an apology, but I just didn’t have time for this.

  ***

  “The chair recognizes the delegate from Maldives.”

  A green light came on over the delegate’s image, and she visibly made an effort not to adjust her clothing. “Mr. Riker, we do not appreciate your high-handed actions yesterday…”

  She berated me for several minutes. Typical politician. Never use ten words when a thousand will do. I waited patiently until she was done, then took the floor.

  “Representative Sharma, I didn’t enjoy shutting you down yesterday any more than I enjoy chairing these meetings in general. I’d like the delegates to self-police. But at the same time, there are decisions that must be made in a timely manner. You don’t have the luxury of a free-for-all. So, here’s the thing. I want you—as in the assembly—to decide how a chairperson will be picked, whether they’ll have control over the microphones, and so on. Once that’s done, I will sit back and be just another delegate. How does that sound?”

  There was stunned silence for a moment, then everyone started talking at once. Then another moment of stunned silence as they realized I’d turned on all the microphones, followed by general laughter.

  When order had been restored, the delegate from the Maldives, still smiling, said, “Point well taken, Mr. Riker. Leave it to us. We’ll hammer something out.”

  I nodded to her and took myself offline.

  ***

  I looked at my call queue. A dozen calls from various delegates awaited me. Wonderful.

  The first was from the FAITH enclave in San Diego. I really didn’t know what to expect. It was generally known that I was a FAITH interstellar probe, but I’d been going to great lengths to make it clear that I was a sentient, independent entity. Well, only one way to find out.

  “Good day, Minister Cranston. What can I do for you?”

  “Good day, replicant. I wanted to talk to you about your duty.”

  “It’s Riker, and I’m very aware of my duty. I have fifteen million people depending on me. That’s never very far from my mind.”

  “You have a duty to FAITH, over and above that. You were built by us, you owe your existence to us. I expect to see our group get a more favorable treatment in the future.”

  Wow. Dude was blunt, anyway. I hadn’t been looking forward to the typical dancing-around-the-point conversation that people called ‘diplomacy’. I guess this was better. Sort of.

  “Not going to happen, minister.”

  “That’s not your decision, replicant.”

  “Well, actually it is. That’s what comes from being an independent sentient entity. And you might want to work on your social skills. Good day, minister.”

  Before he could respond, I cut off the connection.

  The next one was from the leader of the Spitsbergen island refuge. This would be a difficult conversation. The Spits enclave would very likely be the first place to become uninhabitable.

  “Good day, Mr. Valter.”

  Gudmund Valter blinked owlishly at the video. Ex-military, he had an abrupt style that would have sunk him in traditional politics but that was well-suited for this post-apocalyptic world.

  “Good day, Mr. Riker. I, of course, am calling to press the case for my people. You have hopefully by now received our food production projections for the winter upcoming. It is not well, not well at all.”

  “I know, Mr. Valter. And I reiterate that I will not let people starve. However, bumping your group up in the emigration queue isn’t the answer. That’s still maybe a decade off. We should be concentrating on more short-term solutions.”

  “Hope is part of that short-term solution, sir. We can hold on if we know there is an end in the sight. At the moment, most of my people expect to be dead, one way or another, before our turn comes.”

  I pinched the bridge of my nose and sighed. The Spits were a relatively small group—perhaps four thousand people—who had managed to survive on the island of Spitsbergen. Their techniques were impressive, involving intensive agriculture during the arctic summers, combined with seal-hunting and reindeer herding to provide enough calories. But the deteriorating climate was making their job harder every year. They might have another decade or two, at most, before it became impossible.

  “Mr. Riker, have you knowledge of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault and the Svalbard Global Genetic Diversity Vault?”

  The n
ame was familiar. I did a quick library dive. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault had been built in 2008, which was why I’d heard of it. It was intended as a backup seed bank for other national seed banks. According to the library, in 2025 the Svalbard Trust had expanded the mandate of the Seed Vault to include all species of plant, domesticated or not, from dandelions to sequoias. They’d also established the Genetic Diversity Vault to store animal genetic material.

  I was stunned, and sat frozen for almost a hundred milliseconds. This was huge, and Valter knew it. The viability of a colony would increase tremendously with even a fraction of what was in those vaults. Uh, assuming they were still there.

  Valter wouldn’t have noticed my hesitation at the human timescale. “Yes, I’m familiar with it from the historical records, sir. Is it still in existence?”

  “It is, sir, unlike I would imagine, most of the other vaults around the planet. We did not get rocks and nuclear weapons dropped on us.”

  “So…” I was pretty sure there was a punch line coming.

  “So, the utility is obvious for colonists. We have it, you need it. Unless you can find one of the other vaults. Think on that, Mr. Riker. Assume any implied threat you care to. We will discuss this further in a few days upcoming.”

  And with that, Mr. Valter nodded to me, reached forward out of frame, and ended the connection.

  Well, that was one fine pickle. I looked at the remaining calls still on hold. I couldn’t see any that needed immediate handling, so I instructed Guppy to take a message from each and to promise that I would phone them back. Guppy made an excellent secretary slash receptionist. His appearance was off-putting enough so that people didn’t stay online long, and he was absolutely unfazed by bullying, threats, bribery, or insults. Great poker face, too.

  I sent out a connection request to Colonel Butterworth. This was going to be one of those good news, bad news things.

  Homer – September 2158 – Sol