Read We Are Legion (We Are Bob) (Bobiverse Book 1) Online
Authors: Dennis E. Taylor
We Are Legion (We Are Bob) (Bobiverse Book 1) (13 page)
Even on Earth, cells aren’t all the same. We have prokaryotes, eukaryotes, bacteria, archaea, and viruses. So no, I doubt there’s anything inevitable about any particular cellular structure. But if you’re asking about edibility, remember that we don’t metabolize cells, we metabolize carbs, proteins, and fats. What matters is what the alien cells break down into when our stomachs are done with them.
… Dr. Steven Carlisle, from the Convention panel
Exploring the Galaxy
How does the human race survive past one generation? How do parents not just eat their children?
I watched the fusion signatures of Riker, Homer, and the decoy vessel disappear into the distance as they left the system. Riker and Homer would have to limit themselves to 2G to allow the version-1 vessel to keep up.
Homer and Garfield had been activated at the same time. Garfield, my clone, had agreed to stay and help me with what we were already starting to call the Skunk Works. Well, I was happy for the company and the help. I had a list of TO-DOs as long as my virtual arm. And I was looking forward to a little enthusiastic collaboration from someone other than a giant fish.
“I have a shot. I can take them out. Please?”
I turned to Garfield and laughed. “C’mon, Garfield, they’re gone now. Relax.”
Garfield released the experimental plasma weapon. I noted that he hadn’t actually charged it. But it’s the thought that counts…
“Maybe now we can get something done.” Garfield popped up the project list. He was up to date, since he’d come from one of my backups.
I couldn’t really disagree with him. As good a partner as Garfield had turned out, Homer had gone in the opposite direction. I don’t think Riker would have taken Homer if he’d been able to think of an excuse to reject his own progeny. But the trip to Sol was a priority and we hadn’t thought we could wait any longer. I just hoped Homer gave up the cartoon avatar and the incessant
Doh
’s before Riker decided to accidentally kill him.
“You know that we’re going to be building more cohorts, right? This is supposed to be a Bob factory.”
Garfield made a sound that could be interpreted as a grunt or a snarl. “
You’re
going to be building Bobs. I’ll watch from a distance.”
I sighed and shook my head. “Okay, Garfield. What’s first on the TO-DO?”
A list popped up in a window, with a small image of Garfield beside it, in full tuxedo and tails. “For your research and development pleasure today, we offer the following: completion of exploration drones, per Bob’s request; improvements to VR so we can interact more directly; continued work on the subspace transmission issue, which you’ve consigned to hell four times now; and artificial muscle-fiber analogues for constructing realistic robots slash androids.”
“The comedy routine isn’t going to become a habit, is it?” I glared at the mini-Garfield. “Because I’ve got primary control of the plasma cannon.”
Garfield grinned back at me. “Just imagine how Riker feels, with decades of Homer to look forward to.”
“Yeah, maybe we should have sent some spare Bobs along.” I reached over and expanded the list window. “Well, let’s get started, then…”
If you start with one hundred planets, remove the Jovians, remove the frozen Plutos, the blistering Mercurys, the too-small Marses, too-large super-Earths and the baking Venuses, rule out the dwarf stars, giants, variables, close binaries, and classes of stars that won’t live long enough to allow life to develop, you’re down to ten or so planets.
Now the bad news. Our sun is bigger than 80% of stars. Most of the stuff out there is type K and M stars, which are considerably smaller and dimmer than Sol. The comfort zone for those would be so close to the star that the planet would almost certainly be tidally locked. Maybe livable, but not ideal. Maybe three in a hundred planets even has a chance of being habitable, overall. And I think that’s optimistic.
… Dr. Stepan Solokov, from the Convention panel
Exploring the Galaxy
There was something special about the Solar System. The schematic in the holotank didn’t do it justice, but even the schematic made me feel nostalgic.
It had only been about nine years’ personal time since I’d left Earth as Bob, but twenty-six years would have passed for most of humanity. A lot could have changed in that time. That the war was still raging was unlikely. Just the same, I wasn’t going to parade into the system with my high beams on, honking my horn. The version-2 Heaven vessels had better reactor shielding, and mine and Homer’s were beefed up even more. I didn’t want anyone to know we were here until we decided to show ourselves. The decoy was coasting in the Oort on minimal power, until we established a vector for it. Meanwhile, we flew powered orbits through the outer reaches of the system—close enough to pick up standard reactor signatures, but not close enough to let them detect ours.
It took several weeks, but we were eventually able to build up a picture of the inner system. Such as it was.
Homer popped up a video chat. I noted in passing that he had given up on the cartoon avatar and gone back to standard Bob. I guess limiting our chats to audio only had finally sunk in. Chances are he’d be getting revenge in other ways, though.
I found it incredibly annoying that Bob-6 had decided on that particular avatar. Original Bob had always found the cartoon character grating. No Bobs were identical, but Homer seemed to be way out there in left field. Quantum effects? Subtle differences in the hardware? Another item for the ever-expanding TO-DO. The practical effect, though, was that talking to the various Bobs felt more like talking to other people and less like muttering to oneself.
Homer popped up some arrows in the system schematic. “High levels of radiation at all these locations. Nukes, I guess. Long-range imaging of Earth looks bad, too.”
“Yes, I’d say they did a pretty good job of wiping themselves out…” I sat back and ran a hand through my hair—a nervous habit that, even as a replicant, I couldn’t get rid of. “… or so close to it that we can’t tell the difference. There’s just that one group of reactor signatures system-wide. I can’t even assume that those indicate humans. Could be robotic systems that haven’t gotten the memo yet.”
“We’ll get better definition on this pass,” Homer replied. “Then we can work out a plan.”
I examined the grouping closely—not that I expected to extract any more information by glaring at it. A small group of reactor signatures, more than two but less than ten, were flying a slow orbit that looked like it would intersect Earth in a couple of months. It certainly didn’t seem to be a military trajectory. It was far too leisurely—interception by opposing forces would be ridiculously easy. If any opposing forces still existed.
With a wave, I dismissed the schematic. “We’re speculating in advance of information. This is pointless. If you want to slow your frame-rate through the next week, that’s fine. I’ll work on my models.”
Homer snickered. “Got your glue and your paint? Or are these the anatomical kind? Woo woo!”
With a grimace, I disconnected. I found it hard to believe that there was anything in Bob’s personality that could have produced such an irritating ass. If Homer had displayed the slightest reluctance to accompany me back to Earth, I would have cut him loose and tried again. But, no such luck.
I activated my physics simulation and popped up my whiteboard. Bill and I seemed to be the only Bobs that were really captivated by this whole subspace thing. I would love to make a breakthrough before Bill, and I would include a
neener neener
with the announcement. Realistically, though, this was a sideline for me. Bill had nothing else to do, and didn’t have to spend years at relativistic speeds.
***
We coasted out of the system until we felt it was safe to reactivate drive systems, then turned into a vector that would intercept the decoy. Communications with the AMI pilot indicated no news, not that we expected anything this far out.
The close-up on our last fly-by had indicated six signatures. The next step would be to see if they were military, if they were manned or automated, and if they were friendly.
It was time to use the decoy.
***
I put my feet up on the console and played with the armchair controls. The view on the bridge view screen showed the trajectory of the Heaven-2A as it crossed the orbit of Jupiter. I paused to take a sip of coffee, then turned to Guppy. “Approach vector looks nominal.”
Guppy looked good in the Federation uniform. Well, good for a bipedal fish. I’d finally decided that Star Wars and Star Trek shouldn’t mix, and replaced his white outfit. I doubt he even noticed.
[Vessel will arrive in Jupiter orbit at zero relative velocity, in 35 hours]
“Any indication of pursuit or interception?”
[Two reactor signatures, vector indicates interception course]
“Excellent. Steady as she goes, then.”
Thirty-five hours to a replicant lasted as long or as short a time as we needed it to. I knew that Homer played with his frame rate to fit the situation, but I felt a sort of stubborn pride in staying in real-time. In any case, I had the sum of human knowledge to study in the libraries that came with the ship. And my subspace models, of course.
The Bobs never ceased to be surprised at the pace of scientific progress—or lack of it, to be more accurate—in the hundred-odd years since Original Bob had died in Las Vegas. There had been advances in what could only be referred to as “practical” engineering, but theoretical work had all but stopped with the advent of FAITH. We still weren’t sure why the USE, at least, hadn’t continued to pursue theoretical research. After all, they were the home of CERN, the LHC, and some of the best and most original thinkers in history. Political pressure from FAITH might have had something to do with it, although the global economic depression caused by Handel and his cronies probably figured prominently as well.
Sadly, the libraries were very weak in accurate historical data. The few references to that time period were so blatantly propagandized as to be laughable.
But enough woolgathering. Today, now, we had to deal with the situation in front of us.
The Heaven-2A was now within SUDDAR range of the approaching ships, and the bridge view screen was becoming too crowded. I abandoned VR consistency and popped up a holographic display in front of me. The SUDDAR pings couldn’t pick up fine detail at that distance, but it was already obvious that these were Brazilian probes, similar to the
Serra do Mar.
And therefore probably controlled by Medeiros clones.
Per our plan, at the point where the Heaven-2A would reasonably have detected the incoming opponents, it changed course and fled, accelerating at 2.5 g. Right on schedule, the incoming ships matched course and launched missiles. It took a while, but the missiles eventually found their target. The decoy relayed a brief image and SUDDAR scan of the missiles approaching at great speed, then the signal cut off.
I accepted the incoming chat from Homer. He opened the conversation. “Well, that was illuminating.”
“Sure was,” I replied. “Did you notice that the missiles have SURGE drives now?”
“Yeah, that’s a problem. I was hoping that Medeiros would have just stuck with same-old-same-old. He’s a military man, not an engineer.”
I took a few moments to review part of the transmission from the decoy. “The probes themselves seem to be unchanged. Same acceleration capability, same size. No surprises there. They could have gotten the missiles from a local supply. That would at least limit the quantity to whatever was on-hand.”
Homer shrugged. “Doesn’t do us any good unless we have specifics. We have to assume they’re all carrying nothing but the new missiles. Speaking of, did you look at the long range telemetry from the decoy?”
“Yes.” I flipped through the telemetry until I found the right section. “Four more identical fusion signatures, and four very faint signatures that are probably equipment of some kind on standby. Looks like we have a minimum of six Brazilians to deal with.”
“Yeah, there’s that, but have you taken a look at where the other four are?”
I frowned. I didn’t like being bested by Homer Simpson. I examined the telemetry record and realized that the four probe signatures were in a line pointing directly to Earth. And each probe had one of the faint signatures associated with it. Though moving at an inexplicably low velocity, they appeared to be staggered so that they would each arrive at Earth twenty-four hours apart.
“The hell? They’re practically coasting. And those are orbital speeds. About the same velocity as a comet would…” I felt my eyes widen with shock. “No! They can’t be—”
“I think they are, number two.” Homer grimaced. “The decoy was too far for a SUDDAR reading, but I did a quick analysis of the albedo from the visual. There’s something a lot bigger than a ship at each location.”
“And each one will arrive just as China is lined up.” I shook my head in disgust. “Son of a bitch. They’re dropping asteroids on the Earth.”
Like bacteria, Von Neumann probes will multiply exponentially and eventually explore the entire galaxy. In the past, such claims have always gotten hung up on the question of exactly how they would build more of themselves. Most sci fi either ignored the details entirely or gave a hand-waving reference to nano-machines.
It has often been pointed out that the energy required to free metal from its parent ore and position the atoms properly in the crystal structure required by high-grade materials would be more than a typical microscopic machine could deliver. So nanites really aren’t a viable solution, at least not on their own.
… Eduard Guijpers, from the Convention panel
Designing a Von Neumann Probe
“Isn’t it sad when the kids leave home?” I grinned at Garfield.
He glared at me in utter disbelief. “Don’t do this again, okay? I’m noticing a pattern, and it ain’t good.”
“You exaggerate. A little. Maybe.” I shrugged. The holotank showed the fusion signatures of Calvin, Goku, and Linus as they left the system. Linus had been okay, with no notable twitchiness. But Calvin and Goku had been at each other’s throats since day one. Maybe that explained Linus wanting to go off on his own.
And yet, for all that they fought non-stop, Calvin and Goku seemed inseparable. They threatened each other constantly, but there’d never been any question of them splitting up.
I could sympathize with Garfield, but it was five years since Riker and Homer left, and I’d been running out of excuses. It seemed Bob’s reluctance to clone was contagious. We were turning out to be a pretty poor example of a Von Neumann probe, based on results so far.
I shook my head and cancelled the display. This cohort was the first using the version-3 ship design. Given Calvin and Goku’s destination, and the very high probability of their running into other probes, I had felt it necessary to beef up the ship specs.
Heaven-9 and Heaven-10 were equipped with massively oversized SURGE drives and reactors, giving them an unheard-of 10 g maximum acceleration. The ships also contained a second, smaller, and very well shielded reactor, which would allow them to coast through a system with the main reactor turned off, undetectable except at very close range.
On the matter of weapons, they were equipped with twice the normal number of busters, several scouts, as well as rail guns powered with the oversized SURGE drives and steel-jacketed lead cannonballs for ammunition.
And finally, I had added what I hoped would be effective SUDDAR-jamming. Twin emitters, powered by oversized reactors, should overwhelm any SUDDAR detectors in range with white noise.
There had been a lot of discussion and debate about investigating the Alpha Centauri system. It was the obvious first stop for a space probe, and it was likely that at least one of the other superpowers had chosen it as their first destination out from Sol.
FAITH had, in fact, decided against Alpha Centauri for exactly that reason. The subjective elapsed time for colonists would only be about six months different for a trip of 4 light years or 10.
I had no idea how a Chinese or USE encounter might play out, but we were unanimous on Medeiros: No warning, no quarter, no discussion.