“Assuming they haven’t already.”
There was dead silence in the moot, as we all turned to look at Neil. He was frowning; Herschel was blushing a perfect shade of tomato.
“Explain, please,” I said to him.
Neil looked down for a moment. “Remember when the Others started cleaning house around their system, then stopped? Why did they stop? Maybe because they’d done what they wanted, which was to launch something through a blind spot. And we did the predictable thing—we moved our surviving drones to the near side.”
Garfield and I looked at each other in consternation. “If what you’re saying is true,” Garfield finally said, “then they’re circling around, rather than going directly toward Sol.”
“And space is big. We’d never detect them except by accident,” I added.
Will looked at me. “We’d better run some models.”
*
“Yeah, space is big. Bigger than I thought.” I looked at the spreadsheet in dismay.
“Um. A circle of twelve square light years. That’s what we have to monitor.” Garfield rubbed his forehead wearily. “Almost eighty thousand drones.”
“Which will cut into the stasis pod construction.” I said.
“And the bomb construction, the Bob construction, the colony ship construction, and all the other maintenance stuff we still have to support.” Will looked up at the ceiling and silently mouthed an f-bomb. “It never stops.”
“We have no choice, though. If the Others come swooping in with no warning, we’re dead.” I thought for a moment. “At least we don’t have to produce them all at once. The most direct path from GL 877 has to be covered first, and we can work outward to cover more circuitous trajectories.”
Will stood up with a groan. “Right. I’ll talk to Oliver, see if he can contribute. We still have a few decades before the earliest that the Others could get here. Deliveries from Alpha Centauri would arrive in plenty of time.”
“Good idea, Will.” I looked around at the other Bobs. “It looks like, as usual, we will be living in interesting times. Woo!”
“Hah!”
Waiting
Riker
February 2252
Sol
“Well, that’s it, Will. They’re now completely dependent on us.”
I turned to look at Charles, slumped in his chair. The weariness was psychological, of course. VR avatars didn’t get tired, unless we wanted to. But if ever there was a reason to just give up, even for a few moments, this was it.
The report had just come in, and was sitting in my holotank. The last viable large-scale farming operation had failed. Almost complete loss of the crop, not nearly enough saved to make up seed stock for the next year, even if nothing was allocated to consumption.
“Right.” I sighed. “So, do we reallocate our dwindling supply of metal to make more farming donuts to keep them fed?”
“Or more colony ships to get them off-planet?” Charles knew the routine, and slid smoothly into the mantra.
“Or stasis pods to put some people on ice to reduce the pressure on supplies?” I finished the litany without emotion.
It was old news. Geometric progression sounded great on paper, but it assumed you had infinite resources to draw upon, and no external pressures. The reality was less forgiving.
“So, what now, Will?”
“Well, the good news, if you can call it that, is that without any more farming requirements, we can start moving enclaves underground.”
“Yeehah.”
“This will be a fun session. You want to join?”
Charles shook his head. “Not even on a bet. Let me know how it goes.” And with that, he popped out.
I grimaced. Yeehah, indeed.
*
The UN meeting was quiet, even by recent standards. Everyone present understood that the event, although small in itself, represented a watershed moment for humanity.
Minister Sabrina Scott currently had the floor. She gazed into the camera for a moment. “Mr. Riker has provided his projections based on each option moving forward. None are attractive. All have risks. We face some hard choices over the next several sessions, and we no longer have the luxury of interminable debate. I am therefore going to ask for a non-binding vote at the end of each and every session. The first time that we get more than fifty percent for one of the options, I will move for a binding vote.”
Scott relinquished the floor, and I noted that it was several seconds before anyone asked to be recognized. In the old days, it would have been a free-for-all.
Not for the first time, especially recently, I recognized a feeling of despondency. I would have to get that under control. The last thing they needed was to see me giving up hope.
And there was still the Bellerophon. They had enough material to build stasis pods for every single human being on the planet, once they arrived and we could get our considerable manufacturing capability focused on the task.
The question, of course, would be whether we’d have time to do that before the Others showed up. Assuming they showed up. And if they showed up late to the party, would they be content to just cook the planet and be done? Or would they come after us?
This was a well-worn groove, and I couldn’t afford the time to keep tracing it.
Back to work.
Protection
Bill
August 2230
Gamma Pavonis
Claude gave me an unbelieving look. “Come on, Bill. Do you seriously think we’ll just leave?”
I sighed and rubbed my eyes with thumb and forefinger. VR or not, it still felt good.
I was visiting Claude’s VR, which was currently a beach scene, complete with gulls, sand, and deck chairs. I was impressed with the level of detail. The breeze felt cool and smelled salty, and the sand was warm on my bare feet. The overall effect was seductive. With an effort of will, I brought myself back on task.
“I’m not trying to order you to, Claude. It’s not like I have any authority. But you were at the moot. Neil is probably right, and the Others are probably heading for Earth. We need—”
“That’s a lot of probablys.”
“With a large downside if the statement turns out to be right.” Claude was beginning to get my goat, and I delivered this statement with a glare.
He must have picked up on it, because Claude held up his hands in a fending-off pose. “Hey, no offense, big guy, but there’s some significant downside here as well. Gamma Pavonis 3 is an ideal colonization target for humans, and the system is probably high on the list of targets for the Others. This isn’t clear-cut.”
“I know, Claude, and it would be a major downer if the Others harvested this system. But I don’t think you’re being entirely rational. Gamma Pavonis is a colonization candidate, but at the moment that’s all it is. There’s no one here. Other than you and the other Bobs, I mean. No one would die if the Others show up—no humans, no non-human intelligences. On the other hand, if they’re heading for Earth…”