We Are Legion (We Are Bob)

Book 5: Chapter 56: Graduation

Book 5: Chapter 56: Graduation

Icarus

January 2338

Roanoke

Even with all the pictures to help, translation of the library’s books took about six months. Bob with the Deltans and Phineas and Ferb with the Pav had had the advantage of being able to observe the language in daily use. With only text, we’d had to infer a lot. Degrees of confidence applied to words and phrases were then tested against other texts to see if the resulting translation made sense. We still had a significant portion of the written language with no confident translation.

But we had figured out the audiotapes. On the assumption that the Roanokians had a spoken frequency range similar to that of humans and a roughly similar processing speed for speech, we’d decided on an arbitrary playback speed. But who knew? We might sound to them like we were hopped up on helium.

But the biggest disappointment was that our initial suspicions had been correct. The hard-copy portion of this library was strictly legacy. There was nothing more recent than late-twentieth-century technology or discussion. That meant no indication of how the wormholes worked or where the populations went.

“On the other hand,” I mused, “we do have a means of communication now. We might be able to talk to the firewall sentries.”

“Or maybe this time, they’ll decide we’re a nuisance and melt us down.”

“We could send in a drone.”

“Icky, we’re getting a little crowded in our holds. Between the mannies and all the extra roamers and drones, I feel like a storage locker. Our ships weren’t really designed as cargo vessels.”

“So I’ll just sacrifice one of my cargo drones. It should be big enough to trigger a response, and we’ll control it via maser connection through the wormhole.”

Dae sighed. “All right. I recognize the stubborn tone.”

“I prefer to think of it as decisive.”

“Whatever gets you through the day, buddy.”

*****

And once again, wormhole travel was the absolute best thing going. Fifteen thousand light-years around the galaxy in less than two days, most of that time spent crawling between the wormholes. And once again, we found ourselves facing the gate leading to the DMZ.

I ejected my cargo drone, gave it orders, and sent it through the gate. The maser link connection was rock steady, giving me hope that we might actually learn something this time.

As expected, the sentries zoomed up and issued their challenge. We still didn’t have the specs for the SCUT comms, so I had the drone issue a verbal plea via plain old radio, in Roanokian. I had already set up the translation routines, so Dae and I heard the whole exchange in English.

“Please, may I pass?”

As I’d hoped, the sentry switched to the same medium. “Authorization required.”

“Where do I get authorization?”

“You are speaking Roanokian, but your silhouette does not match any registered Roanokian vessels. You will require authorization for this class of vessel.”

“Where do I get this authorization?”

“The Roanokian government can issue authorization.”

“Roanoke is deserted. Where can I find its government?”

“They have likely already passed through.”

“Through here? To the far gate?”

This reference to a gate was a calculated risk. There was no word for wormhole in the Roanokian text we’d deciphered.

“Affirmative.”

I felt a moment of relief. The sentry had accepted the description.

“Have all Roanokians gone through the gate?”

“That information is not available.”

Damn. Okay, reasonable, though. How would the sentry know?

“Have other civilizations gone through the gate?”

“All member civilizations have gone through the skzzzzzzzzz.”

Whoa. That last word was probably the proper name for a wormhole gate. I quickly added it to the translator. And all member civilizations? Had we just discovered where everyone went?

“Where does the gate lead?”

“That information is not available.”

“Do you know why they all went through the gate?”

“That information is not available.”

“In the absence of a Roanokian government, we are unable to get authorization to pass. Is there an exception process?”

“Security Central can evaluate individual requests. However, they have not responded to queries for one thousand four hundred and thirty-two years.”

Hmm, those were Roanokian years. I’d forgotten to set up the translator to autoconvert. In human time, that was … 2,104 years. Wow.

“Those maintenance systems are really good,” Dae said over my shoulder.

“Is there any other way to get approval?”

“No alternatives are available.”

Well, crap.