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