Thor continued to point at items and describe the tactics. My mind wandered as I reviewed the last hundred years. A hundred years to the month since I’d stopped the Brazilians from destroying the Earth; a hundred years since I’d first spoken to Colonel Butterworth. I would never admit it publicly, but I’d missed him greatly since he had gone to Vulcan, and even more since his death. I was more grounded than most of the Bobs, since I was the primary contact with our family; but I could understand the feeling of alienation that many Bobs were starting to complain about.
I shook myself and brought my mind back to Thor’s presentation. He was just winding it up, and confirming assignments for various groups. I nodded when he referenced my task group, then went back to watching the other Bobs.
Original Bob had never been a warrior type. Even in D&D he had tended to stick to magic use. Now, we were the front line in a war that would decide the ultimate fate of the human race. Not really where I’d expected my life to go.
I sighed, annoyed with myself for my lack of focus, and popped out with the others when Thor was done.
*
The Others had apparently considered the possibility of a sneak attack. Our scouts picked up picket drones outside their group at two light-minutes. Of course, they detected us as well, but we had two minutes more warning thanks to SCUT and instantaneous communications. We blasted their scouts and immediately changed course to be outside the zap cone when the Others inevitably reacted.
“Ah, crap.” Bill waved at the status board, where half of our bombs had just gone dead. “It would appear that they are better at predicting our moves than we are at predicting theirs.”
I looked at the board. “So they predicted that we’d scatter, and zapped at random.”
Bill nodded, but Garfield, leaning in, said, “No. Not randomly.” He put up a set of vectors on the board. “Look. See a pattern in those proportions?”
“Huh,” I said. “They seem to be very much in love with the Golden Mean.”
“Or they think we are. Isn’t it important in feng shui?”
“Yeah, the Magic Ratio. But…oh.” Bill slapped his head. “The Chinese probe. It was probably everywhere.”
“So they’re expecting us to act in a manner biased toward that ratio…fascinating.” I rubbed my chin in my best overacting style.
“Yeah, hey, Earth to stupids.” Thor glared at us. “We’re still down half our bombs. Can we get with the program, please?”
We all grinned at him and bent to our tasks. SCUT-controlled fusion bombs moved into the Others’ armada and detonated. A whoop went up from everyone at the nicely timed explosions.
It took several seconds for the area to clear enough to see the results. A couple of ultra-low-power wide-range SUDDAR pulses showed ten death asteroids destroyed or badly damaged, and twenty-two cargo carriers either missing entirely or drifting, offline.
Not a bad start at all.
Unfortunately, that took care of the element of surprise. Now the Others would go into—
And at that moment, the Others emitted the super-pulse that had so awed us in Delta Pavonis. With our greater understanding of the cargo vessels and the Casimir power generator, we were slightly less overwhelmed this time around. Just the same, the pulse lit up every significant mass within a couple of light hours, for a moment.
“Okay,” Bill said. “The sneak attack portion is over. Everyone move to main battle plan.”
The display walls changed graphics as we moved to phase II.
Foreshadowing
Bob September 2232
Delta Eridani Archimedes went into another coughing jag. Buster patted him on the back, looking worried. I grabbed the water skin and held it out. Eventually, Archimedes got the coughing under control and took the skin from me.
I turned away to give him some privacy and looked out at the rain falling gently in the village. The pergola—really, a tent with a frame and walls that could be tied open—kept us comfortably dry. I smiled to myself. Technology continued to advance in Camelot, and people’s lives continued to improve. It was a good legacy to leave behind.
Archimedes’ coughing fits had been coming more often lately, and I was getting very concerned. Talking about ephemerals and funerals in the abstract was one thing; now, someone I’d known and loved for fifty years could be in his final days. Plans ran through my mind—sneaking a drone in and doing a SUDDAR scan; synthesizing medicine or even anesthetics. It was all wish fulfillment, of course. There was no operation to cure old age, even if I’d had the required skills.
It forced me to think about my future here, though. I’d been part of the tribe for almost twenty years now, and I had lots of friends beside Archimedes. I could continue to live here, occasionally modifying the android to simulate aging. Hell, I could even come back as someone else in a few years. The question was whether I wanted to do so. Was there a point? Or should I just go with my original plan and fade away?
I sat down close to Archimedes, and he smiled weakly at me. “I may be joining Diana soon, Bawbe.”
“Hey, ixnay on the awbe-bay.” I wasn’t sure how the translation routine would handle Pig Latin, but Archimedes chuckled.
“Sorry, Robert.” He paused to breathe for a few moments. Even that seemed to be more effort. “It’s been great having you around for all these years. It’s been a most interesting, and a very good life. But I think I’m done.”
I put my hand on his arm. “Hang in there, buddy. There’s so much more to see.”
Belinda came over with a wooden bowl filled with stew. We made sure Archimedes was sitting comfortably and she placed it before him. Archimedes ate slowly, methodically, more as a chore that needed to be done than out of any sense of enjoyment. At that moment, I truly realized that he was just waiting to die. An overwhelming wave of sadness almost incapacitated me. I had to take deep breaths to keep from having a panic attack. Which, when I thought about it, was pretty silly. Computer, remember?
But however I parsed it, my friend was dying.
Life in the Clouds
Howard
February 2244
Epsilon Eridani
“Honey, I’m home!”
Bridget turned to me as I closed the apartment door. “And that never gets old.”
“Nope. Never will.” I grinned and gave her a hug and a kiss. “Where’s my martini?”
“It’s in the liquor bottles. Some assembly required. Make me one, too.” She smiled at me and turned back to the computer’s Canvas.
I sighed with contentment and went over to put together some actual drinks. Sadly, in real life, you couldn’t just materialize a martini. On the other hand, no matter how much I tweaked the VR, they still tasted better in Real than in Virt.
I handed Bridget her drink. She barely looked up from the Canvas but grunted thanks. I peeked over her shoulder. It looked like a species tree for some segment of native life on Quilt. Something with wings and a stinger. Which, some to think of it, didn’t narrow it down much.
The diagram took up the entire Canvas, except for the inset in the corner showing a picture of Howie, Angeline, and their three children. Bridget was a grandmother, and her complaints about how old it made her feel didn’t fool anyone. We visited regularly, using the Vulcan androids, and nana was a huge favorite.