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

by Dennis E. Taylor

  The Deltans were distraught, and had a burial ceremony that evening. But interestingly, there was no talk of the migration being a mistake. If this had been humans, I was pretty sure there would have been all kinds of second guessing and recrimination. But the Deltans just took it in stride. I couldn’t decide if they were being philosophical or fatalistic.

  “You know, that’s going to happen a lot more as we go on,” Marvin said to me.

  “The gorilloids? Yeah, I know. Not a lot we can do during the day though. Infrared is useless. Everyone is moving—at different speeds, most of the time—and the area we have to cover is just too large.”

  Marvin sighed. “I know. It’s just that, even with the last round of births, this is still a small gene pool.”

  I nodded and thought about the problem. “Hey, didn’t you mention at one point that there were small isolated groups scattered about? Maybe we should try to amalgamate them.”

  “Not a bad idea. Good for both groups. Tell you what, I’ll send up a high-altitude survey every night to look for other fires. If we find any, we’ll send in the bawbe to convince them to move.”

  I grinned at him. My reputation as a godling wasn’t getting me a whole lot of local respect, even from myselves.

  ***

  The migration had grown. Not only had we found several small groups and convinced them to link up, but apparently the parade was enough of a disturbance to be detectable for miles around. By the end of the first month, we had one or more groups join up almost every day. While there were often negotiation issues as different Deltans attempted to assert priority, those incidents generally ended without more than harsh words being exchanged. I had a feeling that the flint-tipped spears and Arnold with his big-assed axe contributed to that.

  Marvin and I tried to keep the drones out of sight, especially when there were noobs around. We didn’t want to take a chance on scaring anyone off. Sooner or later, though, the topic would come up, or we’d have to fly in close for one reason or another. The results were usually pretty comical. Deltans didn’t react any better to UFOs than humans would.

  The migration was up to well over five hundred individuals. A very large portion of that consisted of females and juveniles. So Marvin and I heaved twin sighs of relief when the Deltans made it to the foot of the mountain pass.

  This part of the migration had its own dangers. The Deltans would be going well above the altitude of their preferred climate, so it would be colder than they were used to. They had no protection from either the weather or predators, and little or no available prey as they pushed forward.

  Before they started the climb, I made sure they re-inventoried their preserves. They would face a week or two without any other source of food. This was not the time to get sloppy.

  They started the climb first thing in the morning in order to get the maximum distance. I knew that they would slow down significantly through the days that the climb would take. They needed the best start possible.

  It took four days to get to the top of the pass. We’d budgeted for six, so that was huge. The wind was godawful there, though, so no one wanted to stop. They stretched that march well into the evening in order to get out of the wind tunnel at the apex.

  ***

  The trip down went faster, for obvious reasons. Three days later, the migration streamed into forest again with some stored food left over. As a celebration, they camped for an extra day just at the edge of the forest. They took a break and feasted on the extra food. From here on in, they’d be able to forage and hunt.

  It took two more days for disaster to strike.

  Riker – May 2166 – Sol

  [Firewall has blocked breach attempt]

  I stiffened and turned to Guppy, the UN meeting forgotten. “What? Someone’s trying to hack us?”

  [Affirmative. Source appears to be the video feed from the UN meeting]

  “Ongoing danger?”

  By way of reply, Guppy threw up a stack trace. I examined the listings. It appeared that the hacker was basing his attack on the basic Heaven design. The original Heaven vessels had no firewalling, relying instead on all communications being encrypted. However, it looked like the encryption routines had a back door. Someone had injected some packets, which had run right into Bob-1’s firewall.

  I made sure the UN communications system was logging all traffic. I would try the hack on sandbox Bob later. There was little doubt in my mind that the attempt originated from the FAITH enclave, but I needed some kind of documentation before I made accusations. And there was the question of what could be done about it. It’s not like there was a planetary police force to complain to.

  The UN meeting seemed to be all about routine matters today, so I decided to get an early start on the day’s administrivia.

  The first item was a message from Homer, just one phrase, “Space Station!” Complete with exclamation mark. I couldn’t see what he could add to the idea that would make it viable, but I would talk to him when I had a few moments.

  I glanced back at the video feed of the UN meeting, but still nothing noteworthy was happening.

  There was a message from Julia, fairly long, talking about family history. She seemed to have adopted me as a relative with no qualms. I was a little choked up about that, and I hoped she didn’t send it just on Cranston’s orders.

  [Source is New Zealand]

  Guppy had traced the packets back to their originating stream. But New Zealand? That made no sense. It also meant that I wasn’t going to have the proof I needed to really make Cranston’s life difficult. Maybe I could bluff.

  Meanwhile, the hack attempt wasn’t going to get anywhere, so I might as well just let the perp keep at it.

  I did a test ping at Homer, and he indicated he was free to talk. I took a moment to feel awe at being able to talk to him halfway across the solar system without any delay. We no longer had to worry about light-speed lag.

  I popped into Homer’s VR. “Space Station?”

  Homer minimized the window he’d been looking at, and turned to face me. “The answer to our problems,” he said with a grin.

  “Not unless you have something new.”

  “Just a new perspective,” Homer replied. “We’ve been thinking of space stations in terms of housing people. Of course that won’t work. Got to get the air right, the gravity right, extra shielding for radiation, extra armor for micrometeors, construction for living quarters, feed them, entertain them, yadda, yadda, yadda. But the engineering is a lot easier if we don’t try to house people.” Homer looked at me expectantly.

  “Okay, Homer, I give up. We’re going to raise cattle? Or…” My eyes went wide.

  “And the penny drops,” he said, pointing his index finger at me. “Farming. You just need enough spin to establish an up and down, so the structural strain you have to engineer for is reduced. The interior can just be one big cavern, and sunlight is available twenty-four-seven. Some equipment to make sure the air mix stays correct and the temps stay in range, and we’re golden.”

  I thought about it. “Plants take CO2 and produce oxygen. Any kid with a match can reverse that. But we need to produce calories in as dense a manner as possible. Got anything specific in mind?”

  He gave me a thumbs-up. “Damn right. Remember that library entry about gene-engineered kudzu? Improved nutritional content, simplified growth environment, human-digestible…”

  “And high sunlight requirements, and optimum temps in the 20 degrees Celsius range. Where are we going to find those conditions? Oh, wait…” I grinned.

  “Yeah. And since we have access to the Svalbard vaults now, we can pick the cultivar that best matches the environment we end up with.” Homer hesitated and held up his index finger. “But kudzu needs a lot of water, so we’ll have to constantly truck a supply up, unless we bring in some icebergs from Saturn—”

  “—Using the asteroid movers.” I was becoming enthusiastic about this idea as we worked through the details. “Which we can also
use to bring in regolith for soil. Fertilizer will have to come up, but that’s small potatoes, volume-wise. Especially once the operation gets going.”

  “And the best part,” Homer finished, “is that the work can be done with my printers, the same ones that are building Arthur’s replacement right now.”

  Homer’s last comment made me think of Colonel Butterworth, and I groaned. The colonel very likely wouldn’t be mollified by that line of reasoning. To him, any equipment that could do something else could also work on his colony ships.

  “Butterworth is still going to have kittens.”

  Homer bounced up out of his chair. “This will be fun. Can I watch?”

  ***

  Not only did Butterworth have kittens, but the UN assembly went ballistic. Everyone except the groups that were facing starvation was beyond apoplectic and well into incoherence. I sat there, jaw dropping, as people complained about criminal misuse (their words) of a resource that wasn’t even part of the construction equation. Finally, I’d had enough. I signaled for the floor.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, here’s the thing. People are about to starve, and I mean within six months to a year. Those of you with reserves have refused to consider sharing, so that leaves it to me to fix things. This is a viable option, and it doesn’t even affect the schedule. Yes, it affects future colony ships as we’re using scavenged materials for space stations instead of colony ships. However, I’m willing to trade future colony ships against current lives. And by the way, some of you here will be depending on our kudzu gardens by the time your turn comes around. So let’s not be too critical, okay?”

  I turned off my mike, which was the video equivalent of sitting down, and watched as the speaker was inundated with requests to speak. Unbelievable. This crap is universal.

  ***

  I was going through my daily round of calls, and naturally, one was Cranston. Outstanding. On the other hand, I did have this hacking thing to talk to him about. I rubbed my eyes, got myself a coffee, then activated the connection.

  “Good afternoon, minister. Anything in particular you wanted to talk to me about?”

  “In fact, there is, Mr. Riker. Today’s session, specifically. While we are not the richest enclave on the planet, we do have some surplus.” He nodded an acknowledgement. “As you’ve taken great pains to point out, on several occasions.”

  “And you’ve refused to give any of it up. Has something changed?”

  “In a manner of speaking. Since you have this kudzu idea, it seems that giving up some of our surplus would now be a temporary setback rather than a permanent crippling action…”

  I sat up straighter. Very likely there was a but in there somewhere, but the minister was at least sounding reasonable.

  “…Of course some quid pro quo would be in order as well. Since you’ve already decided to put the Spits in ship three, and the remaining space is just about right for our enclave—and without our surplus we’d be part of the have-nots—it seems to me that we would be a reasonable choice for the balance of the ship’s allocation.”

  The minister looked at me expectantly. I bristled at the implied request for favoritism, then had second thoughts. Everything he said was true. And while the FAITH enclave wasn’t a shoe-in to be next in line, they weren’t an unreasonable choice either. Especially with any surplus gone. And rewarding such an overt display of cooperation would send the right message.

  I stared into space for a few milliseconds. Interesting. I would actually be displaying a negative bias by dismissing his proposal out of hand.

  “Minister, that’s a surprisingly reasonable proposal. I’ll have to discuss it with my team, but it sounds like it’ll fly.”

  Minister Cranston managed to not look too smug. With a nod, he reached for the off switch.

  “One moment, minister. There’s a small matter that I need to discuss with you.” I filled him in on the hack attempt, leaving out any details of why it failed. “Any thoughts on this?”

  He was silent for several seconds—an eternity to me. When he spoke, he sounded uncharacteristically embarrassed. “I’m assuming, Mr. Riker, that the geographical source of the attempt is the only reason that you are asking instead of accusing.” He gave a small smile. “As it turns out, New Zealand makes sense. The fact is that our probe technology may not have been, ehm, entirely original FAITH research. Australia was working on the probe concept, and one of our agents may have, ehm, borrowed some ideas.”

  “Espionage? You stole their plans?”

  “Call it what you will, it’s very likely that the Australian Federation has, or had, some very good insights into your original design. And New Zealand is where most of the survivors would have ended up once Brazil started dropping rocks on Australia.” He looked at me with his head cocked, the implication clear.

  “Very interesting. And thank you for being frank about that, Minister Cranston.”

  We said our goodbyes, and I sent a quick IM to Charles and Homer.

  Charles’ response came back within moments. “I agree on the FAITH proposal. That also saves our relatives. I know you don’t want to make that part of the equation, but I’m less worried about being impartial.”

  And from Homer: “Agreed. And the Australian explanation sounds reasonable. Cranston very rarely sounds reasonable. I hope he didn’t sprain something.”

  I chuckled at that. Okay, looked like we had a deal.

  Bob – June 2166 – Delta Eridani

  In retrospect, I guess we should have expected it. There had to be a reason why the Deltans had abandoned this side of the divide, despite the better locations and resources. And there was, in the form of gorilloids.

  The Deltan migration was large, noisy, and spread out. Like a travelling smorgasbord, they proved an irresistible attractant.

  The gorilloid raid struck early in the morning, after first light, when the drone IR sensors had become useless. Of course, the gorilloids neither knew nor cared about that. They simply moved when they had enough light to see.

  The Deltans were half asleep, half organized, and totally unprepared. The number of attackers totally overwhelmed any defenses and even took Marvin and me by surprise.

  They attacked on several fronts at once in classic pack hunting style. They cut off individuals from the main group, while keeping the defenders busy with feints. A dozen Deltans, females and juveniles, had already been grabbed.

  Fortunately, we had the busters on standby as a matter of policy. It took less than ten seconds to bring them in. A dozen gorilloids disintegrated in claps of thunder. We had to select targets that weren’t too close to Deltans, so this did nothing to save the abductees. That posed a separate problem.

  “Guppy! Put a drone on each Deltan abductee. Stay with them, no matter what.”

  [Aye]

  The buster attack froze the gorilloids and rallied the Deltans. With the flint-tipped spears, the defenders had the upper hand in close-quarters fighting.

  “There are too many. We just don’t have enough busters.” Marvin looked to me with panic on his face.

  I turned to Guppy. “The busters at the autofactory…”

  [Are on their way. However, transit time will be almost a day at maximum acceleration]

  We had started with twenty-five busters. We’d used up half of them in the first rally, and almost fifty gorilloids remained. I found myself frozen for several milliseconds.

  Marvin snapped his fingers. “Let’s not use them all destructively. Hit the gorilloids at the speed of a thrown rock. A forty-pound steel ball will still slow them down, then the Deltans can finish the job.”

  “Do it.”

  We began hitting the gorilloids at low speed. Gorilloids were amazingly tough—a strike from a buster at that speed would kill a human outright, but the gorilloids were only stunned for a moment. In several cases I found myself bludgeoning the same gorilloids multiple times.

  We were still losing busters. A unit could handle up to a dozen strikes before some
thing malfunctioned. I made a mental note that we would have to figure out a way to collect the busters for repair. And quickly.

  “Guppy, start the autofactory on building more busters, top priority. And send a couple of transport drones to the migration location.”

  [Aye]

  Eventually, the Deltans’ defense gained the upper hand. The females and juveniles had packed into a dense mass in the middle, and the gorilloids couldn’t get close enough to break off any stragglers. The defenders moved in organized groups, and covered each other’s backs. We were down to six busters and had to be very careful about conserving them.

  “Okay, Marvin, it’s time to go after the abductees. Guppy, give us a rundown on locations and status.”

  Guppy popped up a relief map of the area with locations of Deltan victims and a tooltip beside each. It didn’t look good. Over half of them were already being eaten.

  We each took two busters and went after the gorilloid groups. We’d smack the gorilloids in the back of the head until they either gave up and ran away, or the victim got loose during the distraction. In the end, we saved maybe a third of the abductees.

  I flew a drone over to Arnold. “There are people who are injured and can’t make their way back to the tribe. You’ll need to organize retrieval parties.”

  Arnold gazed at the drone for a few moments, then started pointing to individual Deltans and giving orders. I had to hand it to the Deltans, they were a decisive race. When action was required, there was no backtalk. In moments, they had organized rescue parties, who jogged off, following the drones.

  I expected all but one of the surviving abductees to pull through, although some of them would have permanent disabilities.

  I sighed and looked at Guppy. “How many TO-DOs do I have concerning teaching the Deltans some basic medical procedures?”