Today, I was visiting Marvin. In Delta Eridani, as senior Bob, I generally played host. It was interesting that traditions and modes of behavior were developing even among a bunch of post-human computers. Generally, the senior Bob in any system was in charge, and played host to the other Bobs. It made sense to me, which meant it pretty much made sense to all the Bobs.
Marvin apparently had a bit of a luxury streak in him. His VR environment was an open-air patio and rancher-style house at the top of a low mountain, in a semi-tropical climate. The ocean stretched out in all directions, right out to the horizon.
It was a beautiful, if somewhat mundane scene, except for a couple of anomalies: the very close horizon, the low gravity, and the presence of Earth hanging in the middle of the sky.
“You know there’s no air on the moon, right?” I grinned at him.
Marvin shrugged. “I’m going through all the science fiction books I’ve read over the years and replicating the environments for a while. It’s interesting, and it’s good practice at VR programming.”
I nodded. It wasn’t really important. We were stalling, and we both knew it.
Finally, I brought up the elephant in the room. “My two newest clones, Pete and Victor, are almost ready to leave. Victor is willing to follow the trail of either Luke or Bender. Pete is not interested at all. We have to make a choice.”
Marvin took a moment to brush his hand through his hair. I remembered that habit from when I was Original Bob. Apparently death wasn’t enough to remove nervous tics.
“I guess Pete is adamant?” he asked.
“Yup. Like Milo with Earth. ‘This is the expression of not caring.’ He’s going off in whatever direction he decides on, and that’s that.”
Marvin chuckled. “A recurring theme. Great. Well, it’s a coin toss, then, isn’t it?”
“The thing is, Marv, what if something bad happened to both Luke and Bender? They were heading for different stars, but in the same general direction. What if they ran into something?”
“What, like the Borg? It just seems unlikely, Bob. What would be the motive?”
“Don’t know. Maybe another Medeiros. We don’t really have any information.” I shrugged, conceding the point. “Well, we’ll leave it up to Victor. He’ll transmit constantly over SCUT, so we’ll know if something happens to him.”
Marvin nodded, a worried look on his face.
25. Rabbits
Howard
November 2189
Vulcan
There was a call on my queue from one of the biologists. I was a little surprised. Normally I talked only to Butterworth—not there was a rule or anything. Still… curious, I dialed the call.
“Sheehy.” A woman appeared on screen for a moment, then disappeared off frame. I got an impression of thick red hair, tied into a ponytail.
“Dr. Sheehy? This is Howard Johansson, returning your call.”
Her disembodied voice drifted back to the phone. “Oh, thanks for getting back to me. Colonel Butterworth wanted me to call you if we had news. We have news.”
I waited for a moment. “And…”
She returned and grinned into the video. “Sorry. I love the drama. Anyway, we have a possible treatment for the vine.”
“Which is…” Honestly, Sheehy, keep this up and I’ll drop a rock on you.
“Bunnies.”
“I’m going to drop a rock on you.”
Dr. Sheehy laughed. I couldn’t help noticing that she had a great laugh. Also freckles, dimples when she laughed… I mentally slapped myself. This could go exactly nowhere.
She disappeared again, then returned holding a small section of plant. “Turns out rabbits not only are able to eat the vine, they seem to be attracted to it. I think the toxin is just added flavoring to them. Bad for the vine. Good for us.”
“Right, but we still have to expend a lot of effort to harvest the vine and get it to the rabbits. Could just as easily incinerate it.”
“No, no.” Dr. Sheehy shook her head. “Rabbits are self-replicating. Aggressively so. You may have heard…” She grinned at me. “And they make great stew.”
I smiled back at her. There was a certain poetry in the solution. Granted, we’d be unleashing a Terran scourge, even if a fluffy one, on an unsuspecting planet. But Vulcan attacked first. “Have you asked Butterworth about it?”
“He says council will have to approve. But they’re feeling a little humble these days. He thinks he can ram it through.”
“Well, all righty then.”
Dr. Sheehy paused for a moment before continuing. “You heard about the bronto attack yesterday?”
“Well, attack is not the right word. They tried to eat the fence again.”
“Yes, and we had to kill one that had figured out that he could just avoid the electrical wires. That’s one smart bronto. IQ up in the two, maybe three range.” Dr. Sheehy smiled at her own joke. “Anyway, before they airlifted the carcass away from the clearing, someone got the bright idea to cut off a big hunk of meat. It passed toxicology tests, and it passed the barbeque test. So now bronto is on the menu. You may find your kudzu sales dropping.”
“Whoa! You were not supposed to be hunting for sustenance until the impact studies are completed. Is the council good with this?”
Dr. Sheehy gave me an unbelieving look. “Try to picture the council telling twenty thousand people that they have to eat kudzu instead of steak, when steak is lumbering around in plain view every day. Can you say lynching?”
“Yeah, okay, point taken. Well, I still have the Romulan colony market. They don’t have bronto.”
Dr. Sheehy grinned and shrugged, then disconnected.
To be honest, this was good news from my point of view. The more the colonies could do themselves, the less I had to do. I could even conceivably take off in a decade or so.
And on that subject, the GUPPI-controlled surveillance system wasn’t going to build itself. Back to work.
26. Selling Poseidon
Riker
December 2175
Sol
“You seem incapable of preventing them from striking at will.” Ambassador Gerrold seemed to be enjoying the situation, which made his attempts at portraying anger unconvincing. I’d ignored his jibes in the past, but I was getting tired of it.
“And what have you been able to do, Ambassador? Found the source of those hacking attempts yet? Made any arrests? Got any suggestions? Anything besides endless carping?” I exchanged glares with the ambassador for a moment, then moved on. “We’re working on replacing the donut, but it’ll still be a few months. Plus whatever time it takes to get the farm regrown. There will be short rations for a while, but no starvation.” I had a sudden inspiration, one of those mid-action moments, and added, “VEHEMENT got lucky this time. We stop most of their attempts before they get anywhere. They aren’t really that smart.” It wasn’t true, but baiting them might force some kind of reaction. VEHEMENT depended on fear, and being publicly dissed might provoke a response.
Before anyone could comment, I turned off my audio, effectively giving up the floor. I turned to Guppy without moving my avatar. “Put everything we have on communications monitoring. I want to know who reacts to my words, and how. I want every byte accounted for.”