We Are Legion (We Are Bob)

Book 2: Chapter 74: Observing the Process

Book 2: Chapter 74: Observing the Process

Bill

May 2217

Delta Pavonis

The Others ignored us.

I wasn’t sure if they knew we had nothing left, or if they were simply not interested unless we attacked again. But either way, they didn’t chase us out of the system or attempt to sweep it for drones.

We had a dozen or so stealth drones still in service, so we deployed them to record the harvesting process. This would be the hardest thing I’d ever done, but we needed as much information as possible.

The Others took a week to set up around Delta Pavonis 4. Then the death asteroids started a series of sweeps that eventually covered the entire planet. We couldn’t get close enough for a visual, but we knew what was happening. Up to a billion sentient beings were being slaughtered, to serve as food and to clear the way for efficient mining operations.

Over the next several weeks the Others deployed massive printer operations. It was too early to tell for sure, but it looked like at least some of them would be building new cargo vessels.

I closed the windows and instructed Guppy to let me know if anything needed my attention. I pinged Jacques, and received an invitation to visit.

Jacques had had ten years to prepare for the arrival of the Others, and he’d planned accordingly. He had built two colony ships adapted for Pav passengers. They now contained twenty thousand Pav in stasis. We could keep them in that state for as long as necessary. Eventually, the Others would leave. We would attempt to restart the ecology, then we’d decant the Pav. I didn’t look forward to that conversation.

Jacques had also built several spare matrices and housed them in the colony ships, ready for any casualties of the attack. He probably hadn’t counted on being one of those. Now he was a passenger, with no ship of his own.

Still, with the state of our VR tech and SCUT communications, it wasn’t a huge disability. More of an inconvenience.

I popped in. “Hi Jacques. How’s the life of a passenger?”

He shrugged. “Meh. I’m more of an administrator right now. Trying to clean up and organize the surviving Bobs and equipment, and do inventory. Nothing unaccounted for, so we don’t have to worry about the Others getting SCUT or something similar.”

I waved that away. “I already checked up on that. I’m more worried about the Pav. Should we consider moving them to another system?”

“I know what you mean, Bill. Here, they’ll be going back to a dead planet. Psychologically, that’s going to be devastating. I’ve got enough seed stock and such to rebuild a basic ecology, but ninety percent of the planetary diversity is gone for good.”

“So, why not another system? Besides the psychological issues, by the time the Others are done with it, there’ll be no metal left.”

“Erm, the Others aren’t that thorough. They take like 95% of it, but they don’t scrabble for every last gram. Still, it will be a problem if the Pav want to rebuild an industrial society. Could we bring in resources from out-system?”

I sighed and shook my head. “Theoretically, sure. But then we’ve got another race depending on us. Another client race. Do you really want to become an overlord?”

“Crap.” Jacques sat back and rubbed his forehead. “Whatever happened to heading off into the cosmos and exploring? I distinctly remember that was the plan when Bob-1 was heading for Epsilon Eridani in the first place.”

“I know. No one to answer to, no responsibility except to ourself. Maybe we’ll get back to that eventually. Right now, though, we’ve got all these problems, and we can’t just walk away.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Jacques gave me a wry look, with one eyebrow raised. “Still, Pacino just keeps looking smarter and smarter.”

“Mm. Look, all this is on the agenda for the next moot. It’s not going to be a fun meeting.”

* * *

It was not a fun meeting.

We had just witnessed the death of somewhere between half a billion and a billion people. We Bobs are generally upbeat and optimistic, but this had really kicked the stuffing out of us.

“I keep telling myself that this isn’t the first species that they’ve wiped out,” Howard said, to the room in general. “But it doesn’t help.”

“This is the first one that we’ve witnessed,” Tony responded. “It’s just more real, somehow.”

There were nods, followed by a long silence.

From the back, a voice muttered, “They need to be exterminated.”

The crowd muttered agreement. I looked in the general direction of the voice. “That’s a significant decision. Nevertheless, I’m not inclined to argue. Let’s wait a couple of days to let our emotions die down, then take a vote.”

“Leaving outstanding,” Thor said, “the small detail of exactly how we’re going to do that.”

This comment produced another long silence. No one was really in the mood for deep thought. We’d save this subject for another day.

* * *

I orbited over Ragnarök, watching listlessly through my forward camera as the planet turned beneath me. After the moot, I’d had some idea of working on my current android, but I couldn’t even get up the energy to do that. Funny, since Bob-1 had woken up in New Handeltown all those years ago, we’d always seemed to be on top of things. Yeah, there were dangers, there were scary times. I remembered being unsure of whether I’d come out alive in the encounter with Medeiros. And I also remembered being almost unsurprised when he went down.

This was the first time that we had completely, unutterably failed at something. This was a total rout. There was no way to wring a moral victory out of it. And worse, I didn’t see any way to turn it around.

I watched Bullseye slide across my view as I passed that section of the planet. The crater was now a freshwater sea, with a central island. Okay, that was kind of a failure, too.

The Others had brushed us aside like fleas. They’d stated their intention to hit Earth, and if we tried to stop that, they’d probably just brush us aside again. There was no way that Will was going to be able to get everyone off Earth before the Others arrived. Not even a significant fraction.

We might, if we threw everything into it, be able to get a couple million out of the way. But no more. And that would only delay the inevitable. The Others were coming, and coming to all the possible homes of humanity. We were an endangered species, as long as they continued to exist.

Garfield popped in, and we exchanged a few words. He wasn’t in any better mood. There would be no cheering up happening here today, not by anyone. He sat and watched the video window with me.

The time passed, almost unfelt. Eventually, Bullseye came around and slid across my view again, mocking me with this visible reminder of my fallibility. Nothing like a couple hundred thousand tons of ice to make a dent in a planet.

Nothing like a couple hundred thousand tons… I sat up, abruptly, frowning. Garfield glanced sideways at my unexpected movement. Maybe we’d been looking at this all wrong.