Unfortunately, so did Mr. Valter. “Sorry, no, Mr. Riker. I am willing to call your bluff. Nor would you achieve your goals. We have already taken steps, what you would call a scorched earth policy, to ensure that you would achieve nothing.”
I nodded. “And maybe that would work, and maybe it wouldn’t. And maybe we’ll still find another of the repositories in one piece and maybe we won’t. But two things we know for sure. One, you’re not going to get the first ship, and two, if you persist in this stance and force our hand, you won’t be on a ship at all—first, last, or otherwise. You think about that for a while, Mr. Valter. I’m done for today.” And with that, I turned off my video feed.
Within two minutes, I had a dozen requests for private conversations. None, unfortunately, from Valter. I started with the call from Butterworth.
“Very nice performance, Riker. But probably not effective unless you are willing to follow through.”
“Colonel, if the Spits endanger everyone else by refusing access to the vaults, or worse, by destroying them, then I’m fine with leaving them behind. The comment about an assault, I’m not quite there yet.”
He sat back in his chair and nodded. “I am of course adamant about not giving up the first two ships. I’m gratified that we’re on the same wavelength, even if for different reasons.”
“I’m sorry if I’m being abrupt, colonel, but I’ve got a dozen calls on hold. Did you have something you wanted to bring up?”
The colonel nodded. “I did some thinking, and some back-of-the-napkin calculations. The third ship— with only a small change in schedules, you could advance completion by a year. Perhaps that would be enough for the Spits.”
I stared at Colonel Butterworth in astonishment. It was a good idea, but since it involved delaying the first two ships by almost four months to compensate, I would have expected the colonel to go ballistic at the thought. The fact that he was suggesting it was totally unexpected.
“Thanks colonel. I’ll keep that in mind for the next round of hell.”
I signed off with the Colonel, and picked the next call in order. It was from the FAITH enclave. I’d had several harsh exchanges with them by now because they still expected me to give them priority.
“Good morning, Minister Cranston. What can I do for you?”
“Good morning. I’ve been following the argument with the Spitsbergen group. I note in passing that a ship carrying them would have enough space to spare for almost all of our group. It seems to me to be a good synergy. I think you should consider it.”
“Almost all of your group. And what would happen to the balance, minister?”
“Hard times require sacrifices, replicant—”
“—Riker.”
He nodded in acknowledgement, an amused smile on his face. “I understand your need to think of yourself as still human. Nevertheless, you are not. You are FAITH property. And on that subject, protocol override four alpha twenty-three.”
I stared at him in confusion for a few moments, before my memory caught up with the conversation. Among the many repairs that Bob-1 had done to our matrix on the way to Epsilon Eridani, he’d removed a few buried imperatives installed by FAITH programmers. That particular code phrase was supposed to activate one of them, which would make me into a good obedient puppet. I was paralyzed for several milliseconds by competing and conflicting thoughts and emotions: amusement, rage, an urge to laugh at him and another to nuke him. I decided to go with minimalism.
“Minister Cranston?”
“Yes, replicant?”
“Go fuck yourself.”
I terminated the call, and examined the next in queue.
***
I had finally made it through the queue. All of the calls were variations on themes that I’d already dealt with several times. Requests for special treatment, attempts to negotiate favorable positions, appeals to sympathy—those were the hardest to deal with—and in a couple of occasions, attempts at out-and-out bribery.
I realized that there was one more call waiting, apparently a late entrant. And it was from Valter.
Well, this could be good or bad. But either way, it’s going to be interesting.
I opened the channel. “Good day, Mr. Valter. What’s shaking?”
Valter looked surprised, but recovered quickly. “Ah, I’m not so easily thrown off, Mr. Riker. In any case, unnecessary. A little bird told me that there is some movement possible in the scheduling of the third ship. If the departure dates were close enough together, I think that there could be room for discussion.”
Finally. Thank you, colonel. There was really very little doubt about who the little bird had been speaking for. “Well, then, Mr. Valter, let’s see what we can come up with…”
Bob – August 2165 – Delta Eridani
It had been a few weeks since the last gorilloid attack, and both the Deltans and I had relaxed. I had some hope that the beating the Deltans had handed out might have sent a clear enough message. I imagine the Deltans felt the same.
No such luck. I didn’t know if the gorilloids had enough smarts to formulate a plan or if it was just coincidence, but on this particular day the gorilloids launched the largest offensive I’d ever seen. Or maybe it was just the smell of all that meat being cooked. The spears had made the Deltans even more successful at hunting, and I was beginning to wonder if they had enough sense not to depopulate their hunting area. If they were out-competing the gorilloids for food, then maybe the gorilloids were feeling the pinch. In any case, I looked on in dismay as thirty-one gorilloids descended on the encampment.
I called the others immediately. Luke was on a shakedown cruise, and lightspeed lag would make him ineffective for assistance, but Marvin and Bender showed up immediately. We cranked our frame rates up to maximum to have time to discuss the situation. The VR faded out as the core adjusted to the increased demand.
“What the hell? How did this happen?” Marvin asked.
I shrugged. “I think the gorilloids are hungry and a little desperate. I don’t think we have to read anything more than that into it.”
Bender jumped in. “Have you guys deployed the buster drones yet?”
“Jeez, no.” I scowled, a feeling of self-loathing washing over me. “Things have been going well, and I just figured we had all the time in the world. Guppy, how long to get them there?”
[Ten minutes, plus or minus two. Atmospheric entry is the limiting factor and source of largest uncertainty]
“Launch them. Now.”
[Done]
It would only take a few minutes for the drones to get from our position in orbit to the upper atmosphere, but if I didn’t want them to burn up, they’d have to take a more sedate pace to descend to the colony.
Marvin interrupted my introspection. “We can’t sacrifice our observation drones without a good reason. Especially since they don’t have the legs to get up a real head of steam.”
“True,” I replied. “Let’s set them near Archimedes. I think we have to be most concerned about protecting him.”