[twenty-six]
“That’s what I thought.” I was scared to ask how many total TO-DOs I had stacked up. Not for the first time, I considered building a couple dozen Bobs and attacking the list until it was under control. And as usual, I couldn’t think of any items on the autofactory list that I could bump to make room.
I’m sick of this. “Guppy, I want the buster count up to fifty, then I want you to pull one printer group and set it to building more printers. It’s time to bootstrap.”
[Printer group duplication is time and resource intensive and will impact operations over and above the immediate loss of manufacturing output]
“I know. Short term pain, long term gain. If we’d done this in the first place, we’d be breaking even now. It’s time to get ahead of things.”
I turned to Marvin. “I’m seriously considering constructing explosive armaments.”
His eyes went wide. “Wow. That’s a helluva concession. We hate explosives.”
“I know. Plus there’s a risk of blowing up the printer with each unit built. I’m thinking of building them the old-fashioned way. I’ll build a chemistry lab, assign some roamers to it, and use industrial methods to build warheads.”
“You’re talking about significant lead time.” Marvin shook his head, doubt written all over his face.
“Yeah, but I have a bad feeling that we’re going to be facing gorilloids for a long time. Run the numbers and calculate what the average population density has to be in order for them to be able to gather that many gorilloids together in so short a time. I think this side of the pass is gorilloid central.”
Marvin stared into space for a millisecond or so, then nodded. “I see what you mean. This is going to be a war of extermination.”
***
“After coming all this way, you want us to stop here?” The elder’s ears were sticking straight down in the Deltan equivalent of an incredulous stare. I looked around the tribal circle and saw the same expression on most of the faces.
I sighed. The drone was not a great way to have a conversation. It might be impressive to a primitive people, but the lack of body language was really hampering me.
I tried again. “It’s only temporary. I destroyed most of my busters”—the translation program rendered that as flying rocks—“in that attack. I need to build more. At least here, we’ve thinned out the gorilloids, and put a scare into the surviving ones.”
Arnold, who was now a member of the circle, nodded in agreement.
“It is true. The beasts will not attack again soon. They lost three for every person they took, and we got most of those back.”
Sadly, although the gorilloids hadn’t done well in terms of stealing a meal, they had managed to kill almost twenty Deltans during the attack. That was an unsupportable level of attrition. A few more attacks, and we’d be back down below the numbers at the start of the migration.
“How long?” The elder wasn’t conceding, he was asking for clarification. I wasn’t anywhere near done here, yet.
“Five days. I have more busters on their way, and I want another set on hand before taking on more risk. After that, I’ll be bringing in more as fast as I can make them.”
Arnold stepped in again. “This is not going to be over in a hand or two of days. For this many gorilloids to have shown up so fast, there must be many of them.”
I spared a moment to be impressed by this observation. I looked at Marvin, whose eyebrows were climbing his forehead. “I guess that’s a reminder,” I said to him, “that big doesn’t mean stupid. This guy is sharp!”
I returned my attention to the drone. “Correct. I’m running my flying rocks through the forests, counting up the gorilloids. Then we’ll have a better idea of what we’re up against. And maybe we can avoid the biggest concentrations.”
“Can you not just kill them before we get to them?”
It was a reasonable question. “I would be using up my busters killing gorilloids that might never bother us. Better to concentrate our energies on those who show up. I will, however, give more warning in the future.”
The elders nodded. They understood scarcity of resources.
Orders were given, and people started to set up a more long-term camp. Arnold organized hunting parties. And I went looking for Archimedes to talk about tent poles.
***
“It seems like a lot of work for not much benefit.” Archimedes examined his first attempt at a tent. Really, it was barely a lean-to.
“Your blanket isn’t big enough to supply much coverage. With a larger blanket, you could make it tall enough to walk in and out, and you’d have sides to keep the rain and wind out.”
Archimedes walked around it. “Hard to pack and carry. Hard to set up. It seems like something that would be more useful in a permanent camp.”
Marvin laughed at the look on my face. “Take that, oh great sky god!”
“Shaddap.”
I set aside the tent project and changed the subject to straightening spears. This was something that both Archimedes and Arnold were both enthusiastic about. They’d seen the difference that simply picking straighter spear shafts could make. The idea of taking almost any shaft and straightening it was a revelation to them.
We talked for a while about how to steam the crooked piece of wood and how to build bending jigs. Arnold and Archimedes left to look for construction materials, the axe hanging casually across Arnold’s shoulder.
I rotated the drone to look over the camp. So many things to do. I might have forever, but these people, not so much.
Bill – January 2174 – Epsilon Eridani
[Message received from Milo]
I looked up, momentarily irritated by the interruption. I’d been going over growth projections for the mosses, lichens, and grasses that I was cultivating. I’d built one of Homer’s farm donuts to grow as much base stock as I could manage before introducing it to the surface of Ragnarök.
“He went to… 82 Eridani, right?”
[Correct]
“So…”
[Message contains a description of a very positive potential colonization destination. Message also contains a record of the destruction of the Heaven vessel]
“What?!”
I filed my work, cleared my desk, and pulled up the message from the in-queue. I could hear Milo’s enthusiasm as he described the early survey of the system. And his fear as he relayed the information about the approaching missiles. There was a differential backup attached, but I had a bad feeling…
“Guppy, any chance on that backup?”
[Negative. The transmitted backup was cut off before completion]
“Damn.” There was a lot of information on this in the libraries. If I attempted to kludge something anyway—to forcibly restore him, basically—there was a very good chance that the result would be insane or simply non-viable. As sad as I was to lose one of us, I had no desire to see myself in that condition.
“Okay, Guppy. Archive the backup, mark it In Memorium. We’ve got four version-3 Bobs being built right now, correct?” At Guppy’s nod, I continued. “Start another four as soon as physically possible. Give all of them extra busters. We’re going to extract payment for Milo.”
[Aye]
This Medeiros character was really turning into a thorn. First Epsilon Eridani, then Alpha Centauri, now this. Time to take out the trash.
Riker – January 2168 – Sol
I popped into Homer’s VR. “Hey, number three.”
Homer grinned back at me. “You know that’ll never be as funny as number two, right?”
“Meh.” I shrugged. “Now that you’ve gone all establishment, you need a nickname.” I popped up the list he’d sent me earlier. “You’re really going for this ranch donut, aren’t you?”
“Why not? We way over-engineered Farm-1, to the point of embarrassment, honestly. We’ve learned enough that I think we can give a half-gee at the rim without coming anywhere close to failure. And now that we’ve figured
out atmosphere controls…” He raised his eyebrows knowingly at me.
In fact, the first couple of months of Farm-1 had been a nightmare. Every aspect of the environment kept going into positive feedback loops. We’d ended up putting four full-time AMIs on the job until we were able to figure out how to dampen the resonances.
“Okay, General Bullmoose. Just remember the little people, okay?”
Homer laughed, and I called up a coffee. Things were looking up.
The donuts, as we’d taken to calling them, looked like fat bicycle wheels. Carbon-fiber cables ran from the hub to the rim, providing most of the structural support. Three thicker spokes provided elevator access from rim to hub. The donut was oriented perpendicular to the sun, and mirrors between the rim and hub reflected sunlight into the interior through the transparent roof of the rim. Everything was designed as simply as possible, to minimize construction time and material requirements.
I sipped my coffee in silence for a few moments. “What I’m really liking is that VEHEMENT can’t get at these things. Sabotage-proof.”
“Unless they develop ground-to-space capability,” Homer replied in an off-hand tone.
I glanced at him, but I don’t think he was suggesting it as a serious possibility. There had been more attacks on food supplies Earthside, and we’d been shifting supply schedules to compensate. The new farm would hopefully take the pressure off.
Farm-1 was delivering raw kudzu on a regular basis, allocated by population and by need. I had been assured by Julia that no amount of inventive spicing could make kudzu anything other than, well, kudzu. Plus it had digestive consequences similar to beans. Hmm. Good time to be a replicant. Homer had come up with endless variations on the Beans, Beans song, some of which had caught on Earthside.
The second space farm would be going into production in a week, and my calculations indicated that it would bring us into a comfortable food surplus situation for the next three years. After that, falling Earthside production would again become a significant issue.
The third station, which was still about half finished, would be a mix of crops, both for dietary variety and nutritional health. Homer was talking about establishing ranching on the fourth one—cattle, pigs, and chickens. Sheep, if the New Zealanders didn’t eat all the stock first. There was genetic material in the Svalbard vault, but we would have to build the artificial wombs if we wanted to use that.
Homer had turned into an industrial tycoon. He was understandably proud that his idea had worked, and so well, and it had become an all-consuming pet project for him.
I finished my coffee and stood up. “Back to the salt mines, I guess. Try not to blow anything up, okay?”
Homer saluted me with one finger as I popped out.
Bob – June 2166 – Delta Eridani
The Deltans were attacked again before we pulled up camp, but not by gorilloids. I had become so obsessed with the gorilloid/Deltan struggle that I’d forgotten that this planet had a full-on ecosystem, as diverse and rich as anything Earth had ever produced.
And that included more than one apex predator.
In this case, the attackers were something that filled the same niche as a leopard or other jungle cat. Except that this species hunted in small packs. They took down a hunter who had stepped a few paces too far from the group. The rest of the Deltans jumped to his aid and laid into the predators with spears. It was over in moments.
Fortunately for the intended victim, I guess, the leopard-analogues (I was not going to call them leopardoids) didn’t kill their prey instantly. Like many big cats, their strategy was to get a death grip and suffocate the victim. The bad news was that the hunter was left with some pretty significant wounds. As they helped him back to the camp, one of the other hunters joked that he’d be entitled to one of the carcasses for being such good bait.
“I really like these people,” I said into the air.
Marvin turned to glance at me. “Damned good thing too. Otherwise you’d have to work up a fire and brimstone routine.”
“Hmm, yeah. Brings up a point. I’m going to hang around and help them for a generation or so, but I’d better let myself fade into legend after that. I really can’t afford to let them become dependent on me.”
“Right. And that’s probably when I’ll take off.” Marvin pulled up a star chart of the space around Delta Eridani. “Places to go, species to meet…”
In the silence that followed, I reflected again on how little I looked forward to Marvin leaving. We’d diverged since he was created, into two distinct people. But we got along, which wasn’t a sure thing. I smiled to myself as I remembered one of Bill’s transmissions detailing some of the fireworks of Riker and Homer’s early days. Wish I’d been there for that. It sounded like a great show.
With the arrival of the latest batch of busters, we were sufficiently up to strength to be able to risk resuming the march. I announced this to the circle of elders but was careful to phrase it as information rather than as an order. I didn’t want to fall into the trap of putting myself in charge of their fates, and I certainly didn’t want the political fallout among the Bobs from creating that kind of situation.
The elders discussed things, then announced we’d be leaving the next morning.
***
Departure went without a hitch. The Deltans had benefited from a week or so of rest. Most of the wounded were now mobile enough to keep up, and they had built up their supplies during the stop. I had doubled the overnight guard and had every single available buster in the air, ready for so much as a butterfly to twitch. Maybe the gorilloids felt the bad karma, because they were nowhere to be seen.
The going was slower than the first half of the migration. The land was a little rougher, and the forest verged on being jungle. We were on the south side of the mountain range, and the climate reflected the slightly more tropical latitude. On the minus side, between that and the enforced stopover, we would arrive well behind estimates. On the plus side, it really didn’t look like the approaching winter would be much of a concern on this side of the mountain pass. I decided to be philosophical about it.
As the Deltans walked, I floated along beside Archimedes. He had recently become quite attached to one of the females from his cohort, whom I had named Diana. She was obviously afraid of me but didn’t want to look bad in front of Archimedes. She stuck as close to him as she could, while trying to stay as far from my drone as possible. It was a little comical, but I didn’t give in to my more immature urges.
At the moment we were discussing medical knowledge and procedures. The Deltans were in the potion-and-poultice stage, and while I had no doubt that some of their concoctions had some medicinal value, I was pretty sure that some root wasn’t going to fix a broken leg.
“Yes, I understand, Bawbe. You’ve brought enough new ideas that have worked. I’m willing to take your word for it.” Archimedes shrugged. “But the medicine woman has been doing things her way all her life. I’m not going to go head-to-head with her.”
“Okay, point taken. How about you introduce me to her, then?”
Archimedes nodded, then turned to Diana, who was somehow managing to look even more alarmed. “You don’t have to come,” he said.
“I want to,” she answered. “Maybe she’ll kill him.”
Wow. Maybe I’d line up a buster or two for the meeting.
***
We endured three more attacks before we arrived at the flint site. None of them were as big as the first attack, and we only lost a couple of people overall. On the other hand, gorilloid losses were extensive, a fact that made me very happy.
“We’re going to hunt them out?” Marvin looked shocked.
“Hell yes. Take out gorilloids for miles around.” I waved at the relief map. “Thin them down to the point that the Deltans can handle them.”
“Mm, and what about when they repopulate? It’ll just be the same thing all over again. You’d be better off to kill the ones that attack and leave the others
alone. Eventually, you’ll breed a type of gorilloid that doesn’t like attacking Deltans.”
I thought about that for a moment. “You have a point. Well, we’ll see how bad it is when we get to the site. It may need some up-front thinning just so the Deltans have time to sit down and eat in peace.”
“I hear that.”
Riker – October 2170 – Sol
Final assembly. Two magical words that sent a thrill through me. Homer, Charles, Ralph, and I drifted a half-kilometer from the two ships. We’d all agreed that it was pointless to be physically present when a video feed from a drone was every bit as good. But we’d done the agreeing while rushing to be here in time for the event. So much for logic. Even Colonel Butterworth had talked about taking one of the shuttles up to watch, but he’d eventually regained his senses.
As the ships had approached completion, we’d deliberately adjusted construction resources to bring their status into sync. Both ships were now complete except for the final connection of the drive rings to the hull.
“Damn, dude. We’ve actually done it.” Homer’s voice was filled with the sense of awe that we all shared. For someone who grew up in the twentieth and twenty-first century, this was by far the largest single engineering project ever undertaken. I couldn’t help thinking of the Utopia Planitia scenes in the Star Trek movies when a starship was being constructed. This had much of the same flavor.
I looked over at the summary window. Every UN delegate was online, streaming the video. The UN had had a rare rush of common sense to the head and decided not to make speeches. I suspected that the fact that every single one of them would want to make a speech had figured into that. It would have worked out to about eight hours of speeches. Kill me.
And finally, the construction AMI reported that all connections were successful. The two colony ships, officially Exodus-1 and Exodus-2, were complete. I was surprised to find myself tearing up. Okay, maybe not all that surprised.
We Are Legion (We Are Bob) (Bobiverse Book 1) Page 26
