A group of what looked sort of like the natives was attacking one of the tribal hearths. Most of the males were off hunting, and the few that had been left to guard were having a hard time of it.
The attackers were similar to the Deltans the same way a gorilla is similar to a human, both in size and strength. They didn’t employ weapons at all—just teeth, claws, and overwhelming aggression. I watched in horror as one of the attackers ripped open the throat of a defender with its teeth.
The gorilloids concentrated on taking down individuals. They didn’t seem to be trying to take over the encampment or steal anything. As a Deltan was taken down, several gorilloids would drag the body away, fighting over it. I started to have a really bad feeling.
The attack was over in a couple of minutes. One gorilloid had been killed when enough Deltans managed to get pointed sticks into it. But six Deltans were gone. In a war of attrition, the gorilloids would win.
I ordered one of the drones to follow the gorilloids. They headed into the dense forest and split up, each group dragging a Deltan body. There didn’t seem to be any organization. In fact, the longer I watched them, the more certain I was that there was nothing more than animal intelligence there.
When the drone caught up with one of the groups, I found them tearing the body of the Deltan apart and eating it. I hadn’t felt that ill since I died.
I looked around in my VR. The other Bobs had been following the whole thing. I noticed that Marvin looked especially upset, and I raised my eyebrows at him.
He looked around at the rest of us and shrugged. “This kind of explains what I’ve found while I’ve been looking around. I’ve discovered a number of abandoned Deltan camps, and the farther they are from the current camp, the longer it’s been since they were abandoned. I think the gorilloids have been hunting the Deltans for a long time, and the gorilloids are winning.”
Luke piped up, “Bender and I have been venturing farther afield, and we haven’t found any other large tribes of Deltans. We’ve run into occasional small family groups, but they’re nomadic and inhabiting marginal territory.”
“So they’re being hunted to extinction,” I said.
There were several seconds of silence, before Bender spoke up, probably trying to be funny. “Remember the Prime Directive.”
Luke looked at him in disgust. “Right. When people show up in a hundred years, and we have to explain to them that they missed meeting the only other sentient race we’ve ever found by less than a century, I’m sure they’ll be mollified by the knowledge that we didn’t break a fictional law from a TV show.” Bender turned away, upset, and Luke seemed surprised at his outburst. “Sorry.”
Marvin looked over at me. “It’s a fair question, though. How much, exactly, are we going to interfere? Prime Directives notwithstanding, there are real examples from Earth history of cultural contamination and outright extinguishment.”
“I consider it a given that we’re not going to let them die out,” I answered, looking down at my hands. For some reason, I couldn’t keep them still. Anxiety? “I don’t have an answer beyond that, Marvin.”
“What are we going to do, though? Set up armed drones around the perimeter? Become some kind of sky god that protects them?” Marvin looked from one person to the next, waiting for an answer.
Luke spoke up before I could respond. “This is the type of environmental pressure that forces swift evolution. In fact, they may be becoming intelligent specifically because of the gorilloids. Maybe we have to let nature take its course.”
I turned to Guppy, who as usual was standing at parade rest over to the side. I think I caught him by surprise, and I was positive that I had detected active interest in his expression and posture before he quickly went into fishy poker face.
“Guppy, what’s the total population of Deltans at the campfire sites?”
[412, allowing for today’s deaths]
I turned back to the group. “That’s down below estimates of the low point for humanity back in Africa. I don’t think we have any leeway to just let things go.”
“So we’re back to guarding them with drones,” Bender said. “They’re at the rock-and-pointy-stick stage. That’s not good enough to hold off the gorilloids.”
“Not all of them,” I countered. “You’ve seen Archimedes. That kid is smart.”
Marvin pulled up a map. “Speaking of which—sort of—I found the flint source. One of the old villages. And interestingly, there’s some worked flint there and in a couple of villages nearby. I think at least some of the Deltans have known what to do with it, so Archimedes isn’t unique.” Marvin looked around at us to make sure we would get his next comment. “I think there’s a recessive gene for increased intelligence that’s spreading through the population. It just needs the opportunity to be expressed, in every sense of the word.”
I nodded. “Let’s give them that chance. Take a couple of drones, pick up some flint, and we’ll drop it in the area where Archimedes normally hangs out. Let’s see what happens.”
***
There was a lot of wailing and growling when the hunting parties came back to camp that evening. The Deltans obviously understood death. We didn’t know yet how they handled their dead, since the gorilloids had taken the bodies. One of the hunters seemed especially broken up, and was curled up on the ground, shaking. I checked the records, and yep, he spent a lot of his down-time with one of the Deltans that had been killed.
Mm, yeah, I’m definitely getting personally involved. Sue me.
I decided right there and then that I didn’t like the gorilloids.
“I’ve got something for you,” Marvin said, interrupting my thoughts. I looked up at the schematic floating in my holotank. It showed plans for an observation drone that had been reinforced internally and given twenty-pound steel caps at each end—a sort of personnel-buster. Even with the modest acceleration capabilities of the drones, they could probably deliver a punch equivalent to a cannonball. Whether the drone would survive was an unknown.
“I guess rail guns weren’t an option?” I asked.
“No, even ignoring the complexity of the loading system, the SURGE drive in the drones just can’t support enough acceleration to make a small-caliber missile dangerous.”
I sighed and, for the umpteenth time, wondered if I should reconsider my policy on explosives. And for the umpteenth time, I decided not to.
“I can produce a dozen of these in a few days if we bump all the other stuff,” Marvin added. “It’s not an ideal solution, but it is a quick one to implement.”
As senior Bob, decisions about manufacturing priorities were up to me. I thought about it for a few milliseconds, then nodded my head. We weren’t on a schedule for launching HEAVEN vessels, so screw it. I wasn’t going to let even one more Deltan get killed by the gorilloids if I could help it.