All These Worlds (Bobiverse Book 3)

by Dennis E. Taylor

  I gave Rosie a blank, cold look. “I knew your mother and father. I loved and respected them both. Right now, I can’t understand how you could be related to them.”

  She opened her mouth to say something, and I turned and walked away.

  Travelling

  Herschel

  September 2236

  Interstellar Space

  “I’m serious, Herschel, it’s not coming back up.” Neil’s voice took on a little bit of a whine when he got really frustrated. The sound set my teeth on edge, and it was one of the only times I didn’t want to be around him.

  “Have you jim-jammed the frammistan?”

  “Oh, funny guy. How about you hang up the comedy act for a second and give me a hand. And if you start clapping, I will busterize you.”

  I chuckled and activated one of my inside drones. We kept a set of spares in bay 446, which was about as central as you could get in the Bellerophon. The drone flew out the open bay doors, into the ship’s main axial corridor. Five klicks of straight flight took less than a minute, then a right turn, and I was in the power room. “Room” was a funny word to use for an open area a quarter kilometer on a side, but we’d gotten used to thinking of the ship as normal sized and ourselves as bugs.

  Neil had three drones and a dozen roamers swarming the power core’s control area. For some reason, when Neil got frustrated, he made the roamers tap their feet. I’d never asked if it was on purpose. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

  “I’ve done everything!” he exclaimed as soon as he saw my drone. “It’s dead. Inert.”

  “It works fine, he says. As dependable as one of our own, he says.”

  “Fine, Herschel. Get it out of your system. Make fun. Then, when you’re done, maybe we can work on fixing this friggin’ thing!”

  I considered milking it for a few more moments, but why get greedy? As sure as entropy, I’d have another chance sooner or later. “Neil, I can see from here that the anodes are saturated. You can do a bleed, which will take about an hour, or you can do a full restart in twenty minutes.”

  “Oh, God, no.”

  “I’ll help, okay? We can’t afford to be down like this all the time.”

  I called up some more drones and roamers, and we started the long and finicky restart process. A bleed would take longer, but didn’t require a lot of effort, so it was Neil’s go-to response.

  Once we had the roamers and drones set up, I turned to Neil. “Why don’t you have an AMI set up to monitor this stuff? It’s a freakin’ rote task, dude!”

  “I know, I keep meaning to…”

  “So, you’re doing things the hard way, because you’re too lazy to figure out how to do them the easy way? Neil, you are truly a putz.”

  Neil grinned at me, unoffended. “A lazy putz, thank you very much. Okay, Hersch, point taken. I’ll get on it.”

  I smiled, leaned back, and stretched. Just another damned day at the office.

  * * *

  The cargo vessels weren’t just big empty barns. In some ways, that would have been convenient, but it would have required us to build something to anchor our various projects. I imagined the Others went though some vaguely similar logic. The vessels were large cylinders, organized radially—a central corridor a hundred meters in diameter stretched from the nose to the tail of the ship. A huge cargo door at either end allowed entry and egress. Storage bays were arranged internally in rings around the central corridor, eight bays per ring by default, and each bay sported a massive double door. The A.I. controller and drive system were located in the middle ring, and the power core was at the rear of the craft.

  Neil and I spent many hours touring the inside of the Bellerophon, trying to figure out the reasoning behind some of the design choices. In particular, Neil didn’t see why they needed bays at all.

  “Look, Hersch, we’ve got the video from Mario’s discovery on Beta Hydri. The ingots they were producing weren’t that big. Like the size of a car. Why not just stack them in a big central area?”

  “You just answered your own question, Neil. You really want ingots the size of Chevies banging around inside a spaceship?”

  “Chrissake, dude, they tie them down…”

  “To what? Now you need stanchions of some kind, at least. You can’t tie it down to one single connection point, either, because that’s a disaster waiting to happen. Besides, who says metal harvesting is the only thing they used these ships for?”

  “Hmm, good point. They do have power connections in every bay. That would make sense if they used them for other stuff, like maybe manufacturing areas.”

  “Yeah, uh…” I hesitated, and Neil looked over at me, curious. “Well, I have a theory, based on this ship…”

  Neil made a rolling motion with his hand for me to continue.

  “Look, Neil, we do our manufacturing out in space, because we don’t give a crap and it’s convenient. But given what we know of the Others and the way they huddle in their death asteroids—well, what if they’re an underground species? Maybe they’re deeply agoraphobic. Maybe they do all their manufacturing inside one of these things because if they had to supervise something outside, it would scare the crap out of them.”

  Neil bobbed his head back and forth. “Not unreasonable. Total speculation, of course. Hey, you could always go ask them.” He grinned at me.

  [Mover Plates are offline.]

  “The hell?” We both looked up at Guppy. “What happened?” I asked.

  [Plate AMIs have lost synchronization.]

  Neil looked at me. “Third time this month. About ready to concede yet?”

  “Crud.” I rubbed the bridge of my nose. “Okay, I give. Guppy, take them through restart, let me know when the drive is up again. And we’re going to make eight more plates and try to even out the field.”

  The problem wasn’t really too few plates. Bill’s calculations had been right—24 plates would fly the Bellerophon, all things being equal. But all things were not equal. We had a couple of Bobs—us—constantly flying around in the ship under our own SURGE fields, moving and shifting mass around in the ship, and restarting the power core a couple of times a month. We were our own worst enemy. We needed some wiggle room, in the form of a little extra field strength to absorb the glitches.

  I watched Neil do the I told you so dance for a few moments. “When you’re done being an ass, let’s see where we can set this up. Maybe a free bay toward the front.”

  Neil grunted. “You know, there was a time, when we were pondscum, and we just flew around a lot and minded our own business.”

  “Ah, the good old days,” I replied. “When things were simpler, kids were more respectful, and we had to walk to school through six feet of snow.”

  “Barefoot.”

  “Uphill.”

  “Both ways.”

  Retirement

  Marcus

  February 2218

  Poseidon

  I sat in a lawn chair, soaking in the warm afternoon sun. I hardly ever thought about the fact that I was inhabiting an android any more. Howard and Bob kept improving the model, and Bill seemed happy with the delegation of responsibility. Couldn’t really blame him, I supposed. He had other things on his mind.

  Around me, children played, couples walked hand-in-hand, and people did their jobs either through tablets or tele-presence. If this wasn’t utopia, I’d be damned if I could figure out what was missing.

  Especially for me. Rather than take back control of the autofactories after the revolution, I’d aggressively created the means for the population of Poseidon to take over the responsibility. Now, three years later, I had absolutely no duties in this system.

  As promised, Gina had me voted out on my ear. To her chagrin, she found herself voted in as Chairperson. The new Council was still arguing about what to put in as a permanent government, but that was certainly nothing new.

  I got up and walked along the path toward the nearest food kiosk. That particular lawn chair might or might not be
occupied if I returned, but there’d be another. Or I could just park my butt on the grass.

  The problem I had run into was perhaps not totally unexpected. Bob had always been a driven, workaholic personality. Great for when you were defending the galaxy from the rampaging hordes; maybe not so good when you’d just arranged to have yourself made redundant.

  Poseidon society had been fundamentally changed, and the change looked to be permanent. Fewer and fewer people were living on the mats, or even working on them for longer than necessary. The floating cities—the aquatic ones, that is—were being converted entirely to industrial use. Humans were now an aerial species on this world.

  I grabbed a chocolate shake—nothing had ever been invented or discovered that beat chocolate—and headed over to the edge of the city. Looking down through the dome, I could see wispy clouds, drifting mats, sparkling blue water right out to the horizon, and the occasional huge shadowy silhouette gliding just under the surface. The krakens, hydrae, and leviathans weren’t the only large predators, or even the biggest. We kept discovering new beasties, often the hard way. There wasn’t really a concerted effort, yet, to catalog everything under the surface. Maybe because of the danger.

  “So, how’s life as a retiree?”

  I turned to find Kal grinning at me.

  “Huh. I’m pretty sure I had my location turned off. How’d you find me?”

  Kal rolled his eyes. “C’mon, Marcus. You’re kind of famous. There’ve been three social media posts with your image in the last fifteen minutes. If you want anonymity, you’re going to have to modify that mug of yours.”

  I nodded and turned back to the dome wall. “Or disappear entirely.”

  “What’s going on, Marcus?” Kal stepped closer, frowning.

  “Oh, hey, that came out more dramatic than intended.” I gave Kal an apologetic smile and waved at the view. “I’m just thinking about a new career. Oceanography.”

  Kal raised an eyebrow.

  “I think there’s an opportunity here. You’ve seen videos of Garfield’s pterosaur-like android? Bob-1 has definitely gone non-human. Why even stick to bipedal?”

  Kal looked out at the ocean below. “You mean…”

  “I wonder how an android dolphin would fare on this world.”

  Recovery

  Bob

  January 2225

  Delta Eridani

  I paused to stretch, then pulled a tent flap aside and peeked outside. Wow. Good day to stay indoors. The rain, in drops almost as big as marbles in this heavy atmosphere, came in more horizontally than otherwise.

  These tropical storms were surprisingly rare in this part of Eden, fortunately. I wondered how the Deltans would have handled them before my introduction of tents. Probably huddled under blankets made from skins. I remembered that storm they’d endured during the exodus from the old village. That hadn’t been as bad as this, but it had still put me onto the tent idea.

  I glanced around the village. No one was in sight, not surprisingly. Behind me, I heard stirring.

  “Are you going to keep that thing open forever? You’re letting the cold in.”

  I grunted and released the flap. Belinda wasn’t big on cold.

  I returned to my spot, lay down, and put my hands behind my head. Archimedes was awake, turning a piece of flint in his hands. I could see that it was the spear-head from Fred’s spear.

  Archimedes looked in my direction. “I’ve got an idea for getting the flint teaching thing going.” He waved the spear-head like a wand. “It’s worth it if it ends the fighting.”

  “Sure, Archimedes. I’ve got your back, whatever you want to do.”

  “Good. I’ll have to make a half-dozen or so spear-heads and knife blades, first. Belinda won’t let me work inside, so I hope this storm ends soon.”

  “My bones tell me it’ll clear up around noon.” I twisted my ears in amusement, and Archimedes returned the expression.

  I had earned a reputation as an accurate forecaster of weather, crediting aches in my bones for being able to feel the change. In fact, I simply looked down from orbit at the prevailing weather patterns. Sure, it was cheating. So what?

  The storm blew itself out by early afternoon, so we headed out to Archimedes’ favorite flint-working spot. I was impressed by the amount of flint flakes lying discarded on the ground. Someone pushed them into a pile occasionally, when they started to become an irritant, so there was an even larger heap of flakes a few feet away. Children would often pick through the pile, looking for flakes that could be made into arrow-heads. Archimedes didn’t mind—he made more than enough product to trade for everything he and his family could want.

  Archimedes endured a coughing fit as he sat down. He still hadn’t completely recovered from the kidnapping. I waited, ready to go back for water if he needed it.

  Over the course of the afternoon, Archimedes roughed out a dozen blanks. I took the opportunity to go on a quick hunting trip, during which I checked surveillance for any Caerleon activity. I found nothing, which led me to hope that the incident had cooled any desire by the other village to take us on again.

  I dropped off a turkey-equivalent with Belinda, received a smile in return, and returned to Archimedes’ work area.

  “I’ll be a few days getting these ready, Robert,” he said to me as I sat down. “Then we have to figure out how to offer them without getting killed.”

  “Sooner the better, buddy. I’ll talk to Donald.”

  Archimedes resumed his work, and I settled back to enjoy the sunshine.

  Resurrection

  Howard

  October 2220

  HIP 14101

  I reached out, for the umpteenth time, to flip the switch. And pulled my hand back, yet again. Oh, my freakin’ God, what was wrong with me? I had Bridget’s scan—finally, after months of court battles. I had a matrix and a ship built for her. Her VR was set up, her firewall was set up, I had accounts set up for her on BobNet…

  What the hell?

  In desperation, I sent a text off to Bill. Am I doing the right thing?

  The answer came back almost immediately. Oh, hell, no.

  Well, nothing like a little bit of support from your friends. Chuckling, I flipped the switch.

  Bridget appeared in the middle of my VR—twenty-eight years old, thick red hair, dimples, lab coat—just like the first day I’d met her.

  I stared, slack-jawed. I couldn’t help it. I was completely, utterly, frozen.

  Bridget turned a full circle, then smiled uncertainly at me. “Howard?”

  I wordlessly got up, rushed to her, and wrapped her in my arms. She hugged me, put her head on my shoulder, and we simply existed, for what could have been forever.

  Finally, she stepped back and looked at me searchingly. “I guess this means I’m dead?”

  “Original Bridget is dead. You are very much alive.”

  “Okay, Howard, I’ll toe the official line. I know you’ve always been sensitive about the difference.”

  “It’s important to get an image of yourself as a unique person, Bridge. You aren’t just a copy. You’re you, and you’ll become more you as time goes on.”

  I took her hand and led her to the couch. I had copied the couch from her apartment, in the hope that it would reassure her. She looked at it and chuckled, no doubt fully aware of my intent.

  “We’ve got hundreds of Bobs now. Every one of us is different. Some are a little different, some are a lot. There’s no feeling of us just being ‘Bob clones’. And you aren’t just a ‘Bridget clone’.”

  Bridget’s lips pressed together for a moment. Then she looked me in the eyes. “Got it. If I believe my Catholic upbringing, Original Bridget is now in either Heaven or Hell. You know the Catholic Church was never able to come up with a coherent policy on replicants, right?”

  I chuckled. “They didn’t have a whole lot of time, before Armageddon distracted everyone.”

  Bridget blew out a deep breath and looked around. “What happ
ened to the beach?”

  “I can bring that back if you want. But this is my normal indoor VR. I’ve kind of settled on the default Bob library slash living room.”

  “Could we, please? I never actually experienced the ocean shore in real life on Earth.”

  I nodded, and the VR changed to my tropical paradise. A warm breeze ruffled our clothing, gulls squawked in the distance, and Jeeves stood at attention with a couple of drinks with little umbrellas.

  Bridget giggled. She looked around, sighed, then patted the couch. “This could probably go.”

  “Your wish is my command.”

  The couch was replaced with a couple of comfortable lawn chairs—not the plasticky ones with cross-ways straps, but the good ones, with a fitted cushion. No geese here to worry about.

  Bridget lay back in the chair and took a deep breath. “Okay, this is not bad. I might still have a panic attack at some point, but then maybe not. So, let’s bring me up to date. I died?”

  “Yes.” I hesitated, looking at her. “Heart failure. You hadn’t told me that you’d changed your will. Apparently it was a surprise to a lot of people.”

  She looked at me intently. “How did it go over with the children?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Good thing you set aside that defense fund. I’ve got all the court documents and such, still. You can look them over whenever you want. Suffice it to say, though, that we are no longer on speaking terms.”

  Bridget looked down with an expression of deep sadness. “I guess I’m probably not going to be their favorite person, either. Nevertheless, I should make the attempt.”

  “Start with Howie.”

  She nodded, thoughtfully, then looked around. “Um, so what do I do?”

  “Oh, boy. I guess we should start with lessons. Replicant VR 101.”

  * * *

  I received a text from Bridget, indicating that she was finished with her phone calls. I popped into her VR right away, to find her sitting on her couch and quietly crying. I sat down beside her and without saying a word, took her hand.