Justin turned and smiled when he saw me. He raised a hand in greeting, and I smiled back. One of the entourage vacated a chair and I sat beside him. “Hey, Space Cadet. How are things?”
Justin grinned back at me. “That’s Admiral space cadet to you, whippersnapper.”
“That’s uncle whippersnapper to you, Admiral.”
We both chuckled at the exchange. I looked at Justin’s face. I could still see Julia in him, which of course meant I could see Andrea. I felt myself starting to tear up and clamped down on it. Instead, I took his hand. “Just as well you retired. There’s nowhere left to go from admiral.” I hesitated. “Justin, we talked a long time ago about replication…”
“The day my mom died. I remember. Nothing’s changed, Will. You guys are still doing chores, and now you’re stuck fighting some alien menace for us. It just doesn’t seem like much of an afterlife.” Justin tilted his head and looked at me with a small smile. “I know what you think of religion. But right or wrong, I’ll die in peace. And Pascal’s Wager works both ways, right?”
I nodded, returning his smile. “Yup. If you’re wrong, you won’t have the opportunity to regret it.”
Justin was silent for a few moments as he looked around the room. “Y’know, Uncle whippersnapper, a lot of the younger ones probably don’t even recognize you. You’ve made fewer and fewer appearances over the years. Is that on purpose, or just the Others thing?”
And there it was. The thing I’d been avoiding. But I owed it to Justin to not evade. “It’s a bit of both. I think it was your mother’s death that really got to me. People die. And I remember each and every one, as clear as the day it happened. Over time, that’s more and more unhappy memories to deal with. I think I’m trying to move toward thinking of my relatives more as a group and less as individuals.” I gave him a small smile to soften the message. “It distances me a little—well, a lot—but on balance I think it works out better.”
“So I’m the last one of our clan that you’ve been keeping in touch with?”
“Yeah. Bob-1 calls it ‘fading into legend’.”
“Well, I’m glad to have known you, Uncle Will. And it’s nice to know I’ll be remembered.”
I snorted. “Look around. I don’t think that’s an issue.”
We spoke for a few more minutes, then I excused myself and gave up my chair. Someone immediately sat down for their turn with the clan patriarch.
I raised my hand in a parting wave, and Justin smiled at me before turning to answer a question.
Family.
Offsite
Bill
December 2243
Epsilon Eridani
I looked down upon Ragnar?k, and it was good. I chuckled to myself, glad that I hadn’t said that out loud. Garfield would never let me live it down.
Still, it was hard not to feel a little god-like. The seas were finally connecting to form oceans. Atmospheric oxygen was up, noxious gasses were down. My moss/lichen mix had taken hold and was swiftly turning the orbital view from a rocky brown/gray to a muted green. I’d planted some conifers and grasses, and they hadn’t immediately grabbed their veggie throats and fallen over, dead.
Time to think about building the food chain, from plankton in the ocean on up.
I pinged Garfield, then popped in. “Hey, Gar. We haven’t done an in-person tour of Ragnar?k in a while. You up for one?”
Garfield shook his head. “Sorry, Bill, Rocky IV is not quite ready. I’ve pared down the wing size, but I don’t have enough supporting musculature. I’m adjusting it.”
I shrugged, but I was disappointed. Our races across the landscape of Ragnar?k, moose versus weird Rodan-like bat-thing, were highlights of my otherwise stressful life. Preparing for the possible arrival of the Others provided all the excitement and variety of the worst dead-end office job.
“How’s the backup site going?” Garfield asked.
I settled into a chair and invoked a coffee. “Almost done. Out past the Oort, not in line with the flight path between here and any nearby systems, and cloaked; it should be impossible to find except by accident.”
“Are you keeping up on capacity?”
“That’s an issue, all right.” I grinned at him. “We’re building new Bobs so fast, these days. What’re we up to, like five hundred of us?”
Garfield smiled sadly. “Yeah, weird that it takes a threat to our existence to get us to move our asses.”
“Or not so weird.” I snorted. “That’s kind of what Original Bob was like.”
Garfield grunted. “On that note, the latest batch of drones that Oliver sent to Sol will complete the coverage, once they get there and Will deploys them. From that point, we’ll get a few weeks’ warning if a convoy of Others is detected approaching Earth.”
“Still not great, but better than nothing.” I stood up. “Okay, Gar, let me know when Rocky’s ready. I could use the distraction.” Without waiting for a response, I popped out.
*
I took a deep breath through my nose. Ragnar?k had a definite odor to it; not quite Earth-like, but not quite alien. I started walking in a random direction, admiring the grass that grew between the trees, and the insect life that was maybe a little too profuse. I might need to introduce another insectivore or two.
The human android body felt good. I still used Bullwinkle occasionally, but I admitted to myself that human form was much more comfortable. And now that Ragnar?k had achieved livability, it felt much more natural.
All in all, the planet was looking good. Steady reintroduction of plants and animals from the Svalbard stocks would gradually turn Ragnar?k into something that a human being would recognize and feel at home in.
Unfortunately, with the looming Others’ threat, this wasn’t exactly a prime colonization target. As one of the two systems that the Others had threatened to harvest, it certainly wouldn’t be high on the list of places to move to.
If they carried through on that threat, this could end up being all for nothing. The thought made me frown. If they carried through on their threats, it would be a lot worse than just Ragnar?k.
If we succeeded in holding them off, though…
Maybe humanity didn’t need this one planet. Set it up as a preserve, instead. Let the flora and fauna evolve and repopulate without human interference.
That sounded good. I smiled and called over the cargo drone to collect me.
City In The Clouds
Howard
December 2226
Odin
Eight mover plates slowly lowered Rivendell into the Odin cloudscape. Marcus had run through the entire list of Barsoom city names, and many of the other science-fiction ones. It felt slightly cheesy resorting to LOTR names, but what choice did I have?
The city, whatever name we eventually settled on, was several times bigger than Marcus’ aerial cities. When using buoyancy for lift, bigger was better. Rivendell boasted actual buildings, too. Not that we had a huge need for them, but we wanted to do this as a proof of concept, so Bridget suggested we pretend we were live people. We’d even built kitchens, sanitary facilities, and infrastructure.