“Not funny, Marv.”
Marvin shrugged. He knew that I’d been staying strictly out of sight since my banishment. I couldn’t take the chance of fallout from a bawbe sighting affecting Archimedes.
After a moment, he added, “On the other hand, Bob, the problems we’re seeing are a result of the Deltan population going up. As problems go, it’s a helluva lot better than the problem you first found them with.”
I smiled, as much at Marvin’s transparent attempt to make me feel better as anything. But he was right. When I found the Deltans, attrition had been slowly killing them off. A rising population was infinitely better, for all the issues it was causing.
“So what do we do?”
“Nothing. At least for the moment. I’m banished, remember?” I shrugged. “I suppose this is that point where I step away and let the Deltans make their own destiny. I talked about it in the past, but I guess I always expected it to be my choice. Not forced on me.” I gave Marvin a lopsided grin, and he laughed.
“I’m sure most parents feel that way at some point.”
34. Moose
Bill
June 2185
Epsilon Eridani
I could feel the wind on my face as I ran. This was nothing like VR. I controlled Bullwinkle directly—well, sort of—as he ran over the surface of Ragnar?k. I was easily holding seventy KPH, the android’s reflexes taking care of the limb coordination at that speed.
The system was still far from perfect. In order to make this work, I had two drones following the moose. Radio comms between Bullwinkle and the drones were relayed via SCUT to me. It was more a proof of concept than a practical solution. But ignoring the Rube Goldberg communications, I now had a physical presence on the surface of the planet.
I slowed down as I approached my target coordinates. As I jogged up to the patch of green, I marveled at the smooth feel of the muscles working under the skin. It occurred to me that the VR experience was missing this level of detail. I’d have to correct that. The VR was coming due for a patch release anyway.
I stopped at the edge of the green. I engaged close-up visual and examined the moss/lichen mix. It had taken some brutally heartless breeding to come up with a mix that could survive in this atmosphere. I’d probably had less than a 1% survival rate on each generation for a while. But the result, in front of me, was justification for all the effort.
The green area was taking in CO2 and putting out oxygen. Only during the day, granted, but I’d bred it to go into a deep dormancy at night, so it used up virtually no oxygen. The green could double in size every year, given enough available space, and I’d been careful to give the individual plantings enough room to grow. I would continue to start new plantings as well, so within ten years I expected to have half the global land surface covered. And within a decade after that, I should have an oxygen level that humans could tolerate.
There were still problems with the atmosphere. Too much CO2, not enough nitrogen, far too much methane and other organics. But I had projects on the go to ameliorate those issues as well.
I had recently seeded some of the seas with different forms of photosynthetic algae. I regretted that these imports would easily out-compete the native life that was just beginning to get a grip, but I knew that it wouldn’t have survived the introduction of Terran sea life anyway. Humanity was still drastically short of available new colonization targets, and that really was my number one priority.
Within another fifty years, I would have a planet people could walk around on without protection. It was good.
Meanwhile, Bullwinkle had the place to himself, the only quadruped on an empty planet. The seas hadn’t yet connected into oceans, although I wasn’t more than a couple of years away from that. Until then, I could go anywhere on foot, er, hoof. I picked my next inspection site and hit the gas.
*
“Okay, that was damned cool!” Garfield closed the recording of the moose session. “Can I try it?”
“That’s a little personal, don’t you think? You should build your own. Doesn’t have to be a moose, either.”
“Yeah, I was wondering about that, Bill. Why wouldn’t you just go for a human-analogue? Isn’t that the point?”
I waved a hand in the general direction of the video window. “Sure, but trying to handle bipedalism would have just cranked up the feedback requirements by an order of magnitude, while reducing the available space for processing hardware. I’ll get there, don’t you doubt it.”
Garfield nodded and rubbed his chin in thought. “Hmm, I’ve always wanted to fly…”
*
Ten new Bobs sat around the table, nursing whatever drink they’d ordered. I was now using the pub as my standard VR. I’d gotten tired of the park, and especially the stupid geese.
I raised a glass to them. “Here’s to taking 82 Eridani back.”
“Back?” Loki grinned at me. “Did we ever actually have it?”
“Just roll with it, Loki. This is rhetoric. It doesn’t have to make sense.”
There were chuckles, and the Bobs raised their glasses in response.
These Bobs were to be the second strike force for 82 Eridani. Our first attempt had ended up, more or less, as a draw. We’d killed all the Medeiri in that system, as far as we knew, but with only Khan left alive, we couldn’t hold the system against the automated weaponry. This time, two of the members of the attack force would drive cargo vessels—I’d loaded up a number of innovations and a crapton of extra busters. There would be no issue of being outnumbered this time around.
It wasn’t just a pride thing. Milo had identified not one but two habitable planets, before he was torpedoed. Medeiros, left to himself, would garrison the system in preparation for colonists from a country that didn’t exist anymore. We needed to take it back.
At Khan’s request, I had loaded his backup into one of the fresh matrices. It seemed this particular branch of the Bob tree liked villains, because he’d immediately named himself Loki. I looked forward to the shenanigans the next time Thor showed up to a Bob-moot.
I had also loaded Elmer’s backup into one of the new vessels. His first words were the standard Pacino-ism. I could sympathize, I guess. Like Tom Cruise, you keep going back in until you win.
We talked for a while, knocked back a few more, then it was time to go. They said their goodbyes, popped into their own group VR, and started the journey to 82 Eridani, to clean house.
*
I raised my arm above my head and pressed the button. Instead of the usual annoying blat, the air horn produced a Dixie melody.
The crowd of Bobs, who had been preparing to boo me, instead broke into laughter.