“Already done. We’ve pulled about half the population out of the drink,” Kal responded. “Still scanning for more pods. At the moment, there are about a hundred and fifty people missing.”
I closed my eyes, feeling nauseated. We’d admitted the possibility of casualties, but the reality—even a potential reality, at the moment—was so much harder to take.
“Okay, Kal. Keep me updated.”
When I had time, I would have to do some soul-searching. Between the Poseidon revolution, the Sol System War, and the overthrow of New Jerusalem, my various incarnations seemed to always be in the thick of things.
How many deaths was I answerable for?
Repairs
Herschel
July 2227
Delta Pavonis
There’s no real reason for your Virtual Reality self to be tense. I knew that. It didn’t help. I found myself gritting my teeth so hard that my jaw began to ache.
After months of investigation and tinkering, Neil and I were ready to try activating the power core. We had the nuclear deterrent sitting in the middle of the central corridor, just in case. But truthfully, neither of us really thought it would be necessary. The wiring had eventually succumbed to our detective work, and we were confident that we would be able to power up the core without powering up the bays.
Which still left the question of activating the power core. Since we’d never seen this particular technology before, there was a lot of guesswork involved. Needless to say, guesswork and power cores did not go well together.
We weren’t total idiots—we were standing off more than a thousand klicks, while the roamers and drones ran through the final steps. I idly wondered, for a moment, if the AMIs ever got tired of wearing the red shirts. Probably not, or they’d have gone on strike by now.
“If this doesn’t work, we’re going to be in deep doo-doo.” Neil glanced sideways at me.
“Better than being a cloud of ionized gas. And even if it does work, there are going to be questions, Neil. We really should have announced the find on the first day.”
“You. But. I…” Neil glared at me, one side of his mouth up in a sneer of disbelief. “I hate you.”
I grinned at him. “Okay, joking aside, buddy. We’re eighth-generation Bobs. Pondscum. Star Trek security looks down their noses at us. I’d like to have something under my belt that I can stamp on my hull.”
Neil took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “Yeah. If everything goes well, all will be forgiven.”
“So…”
“Scanning started,” Neil responded, taking the hint. “We have an image. Okay, Herschel, any time.”
I gave the order, and the roamers started the activation procedure in Hulk-1. It took almost three minutes for the alien equipment to go through whatever startup sequence it needed. We could review the whole thing later via the recorded SUDDAR video.
And finally, pay dirt. Lights came on in the alien craft. Readings indicated rising power levels in engineering subsystems. We’d been careful to ensure that most of the vessel remained unpowered. We certainly didn’t want to activate a security system somewhere.
The roamers ran a few output tests, and reported the results. I whistled. “That’s just a stupid level of power generation. Assuming it’s linear.”
“Remember that scene in Forbidden Planet with the power meters?” Neil grinned at me. “This is just like that. We’re barely tilting the first meter.”
I nodded, eyes unfocussed. “I, uh, think it might be time to pay Bill a visit.”
*
“Well, there are no laws in the Bobiverse, of course…” Bill’s expression belied the casualness of his tone. Neil and I looked at each other nervously.
“But you guys are still morons.” Bill raised his hands in an I give up gesture. “If something had gone wrong and taken you out, we’d never have known about it.”
“We’ve been doing backups, Bill…”
“And how would we know to activate your backup? ESP?”
“Oh…” Yeah, there’s that. I looked down at my shoes.
Bill relented a little, seeing my expression. “Actually, Herschel, that’s another project I’m working on. The battle of Delta Pavonis made it clear that we need a more organized backup system.”
He waved us toward chairs and called in Jeeves. It looked like we wouldn’t be flayed, after all.
“Okay, fill me in.”
I sat down and accepted a coffee. I took a moment for a sip, to give me time to calm my nerves. Then I called up the diagrams and schematics, as well as video records. “You already know the basics. We found the hulks, got the power system working in one of them. The power core is not fusion-based. I’d almost swear it uses some variation on the Casimir Effect. There’s a separate analysis on that.”
I pushed one set of schematics aside, to bring up a larger-scale diagram. “Hulk-2 is scrap. We’ve been through it from one end to the other, and there’s nothing interesting. It’s basically a big ol’ pile of salvage. We’ve had our devices breaking it down into transportable chunks for a couple of months now. But here’s the thing…” I paused for effect. “Hulk-1 is a big, sort-of-hollow container with built-in power. The A.I. and drive systems are gone, of course, but so what?” I grinned at Bill.
Bill frowned, and I realized he hadn’t gotten it yet. I looked at Neil, suddenly uncertain. Had we missed something obvious? Were we about to paint ourselves as total twits?
Neil rolled his eyes, just the tiniest amount, then turned to Bill. “Put a set of mover plates around it, Bill, and it’s the biggest damn colony ship ever made. It just needs stasis pods.”
Bill’s eyes slowly grew wide as the penny dropped. “Holy—”
I grinned, confidence returning. “And you could move the entire remaining Earth population in one trip!”
Payback
Bob
April 2224
Eden
Caerleon was a busy area—almost frantic. Maybe it was the age of the residents, and the relative lack of family groups. Caerleon had been colonized by juveniles just into puberty and going through the adolescent rebellion stage. Marvin and I agreed that we’d created a baby boomer generation when we moved everyone to Camelot and the birth rate subsequently surged. All those teenagers, getting hormonal at the same time, had probably just egged each other on.
At any rate, it made sneaking up a difficult operation. I had the advantages of lack of scent and ability to stay completely still, of course. Plus some commando camouflage tricks that I looked up in the ship libraries. Still, it took almost five hours to maneuver into position. Original Bob would have been a single giant muscle cramp by that point, but android muscles didn’t get tired.
And I was now in position. Surveillance had shown that Fred had a preferred location for his bodily functions, and he was very much a creature of habit. I picked a spot where I could take him on the way back, and settled down to wait.
*
As Fred turned back to the trail, I slammed into him. Shoving him up against a tree, I placed the edge of my flint knife against his throat.
“Hello, Fred. Remember our last conversation?”