Bobiverse 2: For We Are Many

by Dennis E. Taylor

  “I hope the medicine people can handle the number of patients,” Marvin said.

  “They’ll have to, Marv. I couldn’t do anything with drones, even if I could take the chance on exposing myself.”

  Marvin sighed. “I guess I understand why you’re always going on about Bill’s androids. It’d be great to have one available right now.”

  “Yeah, I know, but he’s just not to that point yet. I keep bugging him, though.”

  We sat down and I called up the video recordings for the last couple of hours. Marvin and I spent several full seconds reviewing them.

  Finally, we sat back and Marvin shook his head. “Remember when we thought the Deltans were smart?”

  “Yeah, no kidding,” I said. “The stupid. It burns.”

  The whole thing—the riot, the injuries, the deaths—had been started by an argument over how to divvy up a small prey animal. Unbelievable.

  We stared into space for a few more moments, getting over the shock. Finally, I found my voice. “I’m going to go with the idea of population pressure as a trigger, unless something better presents itself. And I’m going to have a talk with Archimedes.”

  * * *

  The drone sat on the ground in front of Archimedes, looking very much like a rock. Archimedes slowly turned a flint core over in his hands, pretending to examine it. Anyone observing him would assume he was working on his flint.

  “I think you’re right, bawbe,” Archimedes said in a low voice. “Things seem to be the most tense when everyone is home. When hunters are out, it’s more peaceful.”

  “Not a surprise, Archimedes. We’ve known for a long time that animals can be more stressed when things get crowded—even animals that like to live in groups.”

  “So what do we do? Kick a bunch of people out of the village?”

  I laughed. “Archimedes, let me introduce you to something called marketing. You don’t tell them they have to do it; you convince them that they want to do it, and that you don’t want them to. Works especially well with teenagers.”

  Archimedes looked thoughtful for a few seconds, then smiled back. “I think I see where you’re going. So how do we do this?”

  I thought for a moment. “Okay, here’s what we need to do…”

  “Reverse psychology,” I said. The translation routine rendered that as “backwards trickery,” and Archimedes looked confused.

  I sighed and tried again. “Okay, here’s a story from my home. A great leader wanted to introduce potatoes to his people, because they were a good thing to grow. He made announcements, he visited villages, but no one was interested or wanted to change. So he grew some himself and passed a law that potatoes were just for leaders, and villagers weren’t allowed to eat them. Within a couple of hands of days, all his potatoes had been stolen and people were growing them.” I watched Archimedes, trying to guess if he’d got the point.

  Archimedes frowned. “Wait, they grew the tubers? Like, told the plants where to grow? Why not just go out and pick them?”

  I sighed—a very human expression, but one that Archimedes had grown to understand. He grinned at my frustration.

  “We’ve talked about farming, Archimedes. You can grow a lot of something in a small space if you’re organized about it. But the point…” I glared at him, but of course he couldn’t see that. “…is that he got people to do something by telling them that they couldn’t. Maybe your people aren’t stubborn that way—”

  Archimedes interrupted me with a laugh. “Yeah, we are. Do you remember Buster when he was young?”

  We shared a chuckle over the memories. Headstrong didn’t begin to cover it.

  “Okay bawbe, I get it. So we just tell the gangs they can’t go to a new village?”

  “Er, no, that won’t really do it. We don’t tell them anything at all. We start talking among ourselves about repopulating the other village sites, and doing it before the gangs get the same idea. And we talk loudly, and we do it where they might overhear.” I paused to let him consider what I was saying. “Get some of the council involved, to make it seem credible. Really, just pretend we’re actually thinking about something like that, and start making plans.”

  “And this will work?” Archimedes shook his head. “I really wonder about your people.”

  “Want to place a bet?”

  Archimedes grinned and shook his head.

  42. Business

  Howard

  March 2193

  Vulcan

  The Enniscorthy Distillery Company was doing well. I looked over the spreadsheet. We were just barely keeping up with orders. And we insisted on C.O.D., so no receivables issues.

  After some discussion, we’d decided we needed a planetbound distillery, and we brought Stéphane in to set that up.

  Bridget slapped the cover closed on her tablet, then set it on the desk. She worked her shoulder and spine a few times before leaning back in the chair.

  Stéphane frowned in her direction. “Backache again? You should see the doctor.”

  Bridget answered with a noncommittal smile, then looked towards my image on the phone. “I guess you don’t get backaches, right?”

  “Not unless I want to. We Bobs try to keep things as realistic as possible, most of the time, though. I don’t need to let my muscles go stiff, but stretching them out feels good.”

  She nodded, staring into space. “You’re effectively immortal, aren’t you? How old are you personally, Howard?”

  “Well, I’ve only existed for eight years’ subjective time as Howard. But my memories go back to Original Bob’s earliest memories as a child, maybe around two years old. So I remember around twenty-nine years as Original Bob, then four years as Bob-1 before he built his first set of clones; four years as Riker; fifteen years as Charles, who was one of Riker’s first clones; and eight years since Charles cloned me. That’s subjective time, as I said. There’s a lot of relativistic time dilation in there. So, I’ve experienced sixty years of life.”

  She made a face at me. “That sounds complicated. Do you share thoughts?”

  “With the other Bobs? No. When a Bob is cloned, he wakes up with the same memories as his parent at the moment the backup was made. After that, though, we each go our own way.”

  “Wow. I’m not sure I could handle that. Life is complicated enough.”

  “Well, what about as an afterlife?” I smiled at her. “Original Bob had to die first, before he became a replicant. Not much future in death, I’m told.”

  “On the other hand, your relatives stop calling.”

  “We do have one non-Bob, you know. Henry Roberts is the Australian probe replicant.”

  She made a moue of something, maybe disapproval. “Yeah, word is he’s not fully bolted down.”

  “Mm, well, Henry had some issues with sensory deprivation early on. We know how to handle it now. Any new replicants would probably be fine.” I looked at her sideways. “You thinking of applying?”

  “No, just curious.”

  Stéphane added, one eyebrow arched, “Immortality sounds good, though.”

  43. An Exchange of Words

  Riker

  March 2178

  Sol

  “Hello, Mr. Vickers.”

  The man at the other end of the call looked briefly surprised, but recovered quickly. “Well, I’m impressed. There was some question about whether you’d ever manage to figure things out. I guess it was too much to hope for that you’d just destroy each other, instead.”

  I smiled at him—the kind of smile a cat shows to a bird. Just teeth. “Uh huh. You’ve been a busy little beaver. We’ve determined that the attacks on Brazil were also your work. I assume the idea was to try to foment another war, maybe knock off a few more people. So those deaths are also on you.”

  Vickers waved a hand dismissively. “They had the chance to go voluntarily. It’s our duty to help them along. I don’t expect you to understand.”

  �
�I doubt if you even care if anyone understands. My guess is, your ‘announcements’ are more about ego than any desire to help or inform.”

  Vickers grinned at me. “Already descending to personal insults? I expected a little bit more from you.”

  “You flatter yourself. This isn’t a duel of words. You aren’t important enough. I’m satisfying my curiosity, nothing more.” I carefully kept my face neutral. I didn’t want to give this guy any satisfaction. “And on that subject, this whole VEHEMENT thing seems more like a vehicle for you than a cause. People like you aren’t joiners, unless you think the organization can benefit you. So what’s your ultimate goal?”

  A flash of anger crossed Vickers’ face. “If you must know, replicant, I’m your maker. I invented the replicant systems that you inhabit. The systems that FAITH stole without as much as a nod. You don’t deserve to exist, you shouldn’t be alive. VEHEMENT is a suitable tool for achieving that goal.”

  “I doubt that the members of VEHEMENT will feel good about finding out they’ve been used.”

  “Don’t be naïve, replicant. They know I have my own motivations. They use me, I use them. Everyone gets what they want.”

  “And what does Ambassador Gerrold get out of it?”

  “Gerrold was working with me on the replicant systems in Australia. When you stole from me, you stole from him. He was a little more interested in the fiduciary rewards—typical small mind—but his hate is useful.”

  I nodded. I had about everything I needed. Except the one last item. Permission.

  “Homer committed suicide, you know. Couldn’t live with what you’d made him do.”

  “Good. It’s no more than he, and all of you, deserve.”

  Permission received.

  “And the people you killed, in Brazil and elsewhere? Do you care about them?”

  “I think I’ve already answered that question. Is there anything else that you wanted to say that might actually interest me? Before I continue the task of ending your existence? You can’t stop me, you know. You’re simply not good enough.” Vickers gave me a condescending smile.

  “Hmm, well, before I called you, I stenciled your name on a ship-buster. It should be there in about twenty seconds. Let’s see if that’s good enough.”

  Vickers shook his head, the smile never wavering. “And you’ll have missed. You’ll take out VEHEMENT headquarters, but not me.”

  I cocked my head sideways. “Oh, you misunderstand. There’s a buster heading there, too. But the one I’m talking about is coming in on your position, fifty-five kilometers north and two kilometers east of the VEHEMENT base. Little red farmhouse, to all outside appearances.”

  The smile left Vickers’ face. His eyes went wide and he turned towards the window. The window that had allowed the drones to verify his actual location. Nobody thinks of everything.

  “If you have some variation on a god, asshole, you might want to have a very quick conversation with him. And fuck you to hell!”

  Vickers leaped from his chair just as the buster arrived. One thousand pounds of high-tensile steel impacted the ground at planetary escape velocity. It wouldn’t quite match the Barringer crater, but it was good enough for pest control. The video cut off as the entire area was vaporized. At the same moment, another impact fifty-odd kilometers south created a matching crater. New Zealand would have a couple of new lakes, by and by.

  From a video window off to the side, Bill began a slow clap, echoed by Charles and Ralph.

  * * *

  “After all your talk, you’re not above pummeling the Earth when it’s convenient.” Gerrold glared out of the video window at me. I had preempted today’s UN session to announce the effective end of VEHEMENT.

  I couldn’t decide if Gerrold was trying to bluff his way through this, or if he thought his connection with VEHEMENT was still unknown. In any case, I wasn’t in the mood.

  I stood up, placed my hands on my desk, and leaned into the camera. As I opened my mouth to speak, I realized I was too enraged even to form words. At that moment, if I’d had a ship-buster in position, Gerrold would have died.

  I frame-jacked slightly, and took a few deep breaths. Just barely in control, I glared at him. “Listen, you putrid, self-inflated bag of air. A good friend of mine is dead, driven to suicide by your friend and former co-worker with your full knowledge and cooperation. People in Brazil are dead for no other reason than to fulfill his sick political goals and to allay your butt-hurt. Again, with your knowledge and approval. And most of the rest of humanity is on starvation rations at the moment. So I am not in the mood to put up with your hypocritical yammering, and the only question right now is whether I let your own countrymen impeach and hopefully lynch you, or whether I come and get you myself, take you upstairs, and push you out an airlock. Why don’t you mouth me off just one more time, you festering pile of crap. Go ahead. Just one more word!” I glared out the video window at him. In the entire UN gathering, there was not so much as a cough. I held the moment for another heartbeat, then sneered at him. “If you show up tomorrow, I’m going with plan B. I’m just sayin’.”

  With a flourish, I cut the connection.

  Charles grinned at me. “Say, you’re kind of scary when you get riled.”

  I was too upset to smile back, but I did give him a shrug. “That’s for Homer.”

  44. Baseball

  Bill

  March 2189

  Epsilon Eridani

  “Hey, batter batter, heeeeeeeeeeey, batter.”

  Howard grinned at the outfield. “Has that ever worked?”

  Bob yelled back, “It’s traditional. Just go with it.”

  I sailed a perfect underhand toss across the plate. Howard swung and totally whiffed.

  “That’s three. Everyone advance.”

  Howard shrugged, materialized a glove, and jogged to the outfield. We were generally able to field a pretty full Scrub game these days, but we couldn’t depend on enough people for two teams. Original Bob had never been much of a team player anyway; we all preferred Scrub. More of a personal goals thing.

  Some of us could even hit the ball.

  I moved to the catcher position, and Loki took over as pitcher. Everyone else shuffled forward into the next position. As soon as we were all ready, Marvin came up to bat. Loki wound up and threw the ball right over the plate.

  About ten feet over the plate.

  There were boos from the outfield. I stood up. “Yeah, you’ve been practicing, my ass. That’s with practice?”

  “At least it’s going in the right direction now.”

  “Uh huh. In the interest of not walking every batter for the next half hour, I’m going to allow some Guppy intervention. Put it across at people height, okay?” I nodded to Marvin.

  On the next pitch, Marvin knocked it into the outfield, between center and right. Howard and Dopey looked at each other, each waiting for the other to move. Marvin, no dummy, was closing in on second before the two stooges decided who should make an effort. By the time they had the ball into the infield, Marvin was at third. He took a moment to grin and thumb his nose.

  We were all fairly evenly matched in sports prowess, for obvious reasons. It came down to who was paying attention and who was letting their mind drift. We played for a subjective half hour, the agreed-upon duration, then retired to the pub.

  The pub was hosted in the same matrix that handled Bob-moots, so it had more than enough processor power to handle all the Bobs and all the beer. And Hungry’s coffee, of course.

  As always, we ended up talking shop.

  I had a group encircling me that wanted to talk about Bullwinkle.

  “Bullwinkle? Really?”

  “Hey, why not?” I grinned at Thor. “The thing needed an external antenna array because of the required bandwidth. I just played with the aesthetics a bit. You’ve seen the pictures.”

  Howard chuckled. “It would be hard not to think of a moose. I think you
r sense of proportion was a little off when you built that thing.”

  There were answering laughs from several people, plus some perplexed expressions from those who hadn’t seen the pictures.

  “So what’s the long game, Bill?”

  I shrugged. “Nothing dramatic, Mario. It’s an interesting project, and could be useful—”

  “—It would give us a physical presence,” Howard interjected. “I remember Riker being frustrated sometimes, working with the enclaves. And it’s even more so for me. We have all this interaction with the ephemerals—”

  “Please don’t use that word, Howard.” I gave him the stink-eye, and he looked embarrassed for a moment.

  “It’s not intended to be derogatory, Bill. It’s just—”

  “Then just say humans. Sure, it’s not derogatory, but it is dismissive. And it will eventually shape an attitude that their lives matter less.”

  Howard gave me a blank look, then shrugged. “Anyway, the point is that I could be so much more effective if I could, you know, ‘walk among them’. Flying around, looking like a giant pill-bug, and giving orders through a speaker is just incredibly limiting.”

  “Politicians did it for centuries,” someone muttered.

  I grinned and said, “That’s pill, not pill-bug.”

  “There are even better words…”

  “Anatomical…”

  “Scatological…”

  I glared around the group. “If you guys break out into Gilbert and Sullivan, I’m leaving!”

  We all laughed and the tension was broken. But I was still left with a weird twinge of foreboding.

  Eventually, the moose groupies broke up and joined different conversations. I wandered around the pub, listening in but not engaging. Topics ranged from the impending arrival of the latest colony ships to Omicron2 Eridani, the chances of a colony being successful on Klown Kar Planet, wildlife on Vulcan, speculation on the Others, and my asteroid-mover project. I moved in to listen on the last item.

  Mario stopped what he was saying and turned to me. “Bill, we were just wondering about the capacity of the mover plates. How big can you go?”