Julia sighed and smiled at me. “Before you arrived, there was a general feeling that we might be the last generation of humanity. Some people were saying it was selfish to have more children. I’m glad it didn’t turn out that way.” She hugged her son, Justin, one of the newest members of Clan Bob, sitting on her lap.
Justin had no idea what was going on. But the pictures were pretty, and he loved his uncle William. I made a face at him and he laughed. Justin Hendriks, Space Cadet.
Bob – July 2166 – Delta Eridani
The day finally arrived when we reached the area of the flint site. The former camp was at the top of a rise that stuck up out of the general forest level. On Earth, a castle would have been built there. From my earlier survey, I knew that it commanded a view of the forest for miles in every direction, right out to mountains and hills on the horizon. The site was rocky and bare but had a depression at the base of a rock shelf that formed a natural sheltered area. Several rock pools formed natural reservoirs, filled by the frequent rains. A central mesa rose from the shelf like the conning tower of a submarine.
It was in fact, such a naturally ideal site that conversations kept coming around to why it had been abandoned.
“Don’t know,” was all we got from most of the elders. Moses commented that he only remembered his parents being very scared. He thought—and it seemed likely—that the place had been overrun by gorilloids. One of the other elders, I noticed, didn’t seem comfortable with that explanation. I resolved to talk to him later.
I directed the drones to do a quick survey to a mile in radius, looking for gorilloids. The results were chilling. This appeared to be a gorilloid preserve or something. The damned things were everywhere. But why? With no Deltans to eat, this felt like a badly laid out D&D scenario.
The answer wasn’t long in coming. I hadn’t really done much in the way of biological analysis or investigation since I’d discovered the Deltans, and I guess this was my comeuppance for that oversight. The gorilloids were omnivores. The vegetation on this side included a tree with nutritious seedpods, the gorilloid’s primary staple. The pods were tough to get to and tough to open, which explained the size and strength of the animals.
And if the biochemistry of Eden followed that of Earth, the pods would be incomplete protein sources. So what has lots of protein? Deltans, of course.
That looked like the explanation. The seedpods were more than plentiful enough to supply a large population of gorilloids, but the beasts would be crazy attracted to protein sources. And I’d just marched a couple of hundred bundles of protein right into the middle of them. Great.
But there was still something about the gorilloid population that didn’t add up…
Without warning, a couple of loud booms reverberated through the forest.
[Two gorilloids approached within proscribed distance and were neutralized]
“Thanks, Guppy. Good job.”
I didn’t want any surprises, so I’d instructed Guppy to busterize any gorilloid that strayed within a hundred meters of the Deltans. The Deltans were quite used to the sonic booms now and only looked up to check for more gorilloids. But drone sensors showed gorilloids leaving the area in a hurry.
“Arnold, we need to get into a defensible position.”
Arnold nodded to the drone, then turned and started yelling orders. Deltans moved with alacrity toward the bluff. Outriders on guard brandished the biggest and best spears.
***
The Deltans settled in without difficulty. There were old firepits, cleared-off sleeping areas, and even piled up rocks usable for building small walls. Arnold set up sentries immediately and asked me about the distribution of local gorilloids. He didn’t look like he liked my answer. Couldn’t really blame him.
The moment their luggage hit the ground, Archimedes and Moses headed off for an area that Moses pointed to. The ACME Axe and Spearhead Manufacturing Company Unincorporated was about to be launched. I assigned a drone and a couple of busters to shadow them.
“Well, are we going to do a culling?” Marvin’s expression indicated pretty clearly what he thought of the idea.
“Naw. You’re right. We need a long-term solution, which involves gorilloids learning to avoid this area, and teaching their young to avoid it as well. I’ll keep the buster AMIs on sentry duty, and we’ll just take out any gorilloid that comes too close. They’ll eventually make the connection.”
“And the tribe will learn to expect the protection of the bawbe.” Marvin laughed, but I sensed an edge to his humor. I directed a raised eyebrow his way.
“Have a look, boss-man,” he said and pulled up video output from one of the drones.
In a corner of the flint site, some Deltans had carefully arranged pieces of a buster and had placed small torches around them.
My eyes widened. “That’s…”
“An altar. Yep. All hail the bawbe!”
Bill - March 2167 - Epsilon Eridani
The orbital schematic display laid it all out, and I didn’t like the message.
I looked over at Guppy. No help there. Admiral Ackbar stared back at me, blank fishy expression revealing nothing.
“Can we still save the iceberg?”
[Probability greater than 50%. However, we may not be able to save the asteroid-moving equipment]
I rubbed my forehead, and tried not to swear. “Okay, Guppy. You take care of the course corrections. I’ll set up a script for the drones for retrieval of the drive. Maybe we can cut some corners.”
The iceberg coming up on Ragnar?k was one of the biggest we’d found so far in the Kuiper Belt. This particular piece of ice had come in a little off course, and we were going to have to run the asteroid drive at maximum until the very last moment to get it into the proper trajectory. I didn’t want to fumble it and have the berg sail off into the sun. Or worse, impact the planet at speed.
Guppy began applying course corrections, with the changes registering on the schematic in real time. I watched the display absently, while I weighed my options. If necessary, I was prepared to let the drive go down with the iceberg and just build a new one. For a smaller chunk of ice, I’d have just shrugged and let it sail on past the planet, but this baby was huge. I could lose every other incoming chunk for the next six months while I built a new drive, and still come out ahead.
But if I lost the drive, I’d have no control over the pieces following this one. If one came in dead center, I would have to watch it go splat.
We were shepherding chunks of ice from the Kuiper belt, spaced about a week apart. Garfield found them and sent them inwards using his asteroid-moving drive, and I caught them at this end with mine. In another ten years, we would have dropped enough ice on Ragnar?k to connect its small seas into actual oceans. My long-term plan was to make the planet fit for humanity to colonize.
[Coming up on alignment. Two minutes to shutdown]
“Thanks, Guppy. How much time will I have to get the drive off the berg?”
[650 seconds]