We Are Legion (We Are Bob)

Chapter 35: Bob – July 2165 – Delta Eridani

Chapter 35: Bob – July 2165 – Delta Eridani

“The Deltans are under attack!”

I looked up at the call from Marvin. I’d been checking in with the autofactory to make sure everything was on track. Quickly, I suspended the autofactory link and brought up all Deltan feeds to the foreground.

A group of what looked sort of like the natives was attacking one of the tribal hearths. Most of the males were off hunting, and the few that had been left to guard were having a hard time of it.

The attackers were similar to the Deltans the same way a gorilla is similar to a human, both in size and strength. They didn’t employ weapons at all—just teeth, claws, and overwhelming aggression. I watched in horror as one of the attackers ripped open the throat of a defender with its teeth.

The gorilloids concentrated on taking down individuals. They didn’t seem to be trying to take over the encampment or steal anything. As a Deltan was taken down, several gorilloids would drag the body away, fighting over it. I started to have a really bad feeling.

The attack was over in a couple of minutes. One gorilloid had been killed when enough Deltans managed to get pointed sticks into it. But six Deltans were gone. In a war of attrition, the gorilloids would win.

I ordered one of the drones to follow the gorilloids. They headed into the dense forest and split up, each group dragging a Deltan body. There didn’t seem to be any organization. In fact, the longer I watched them, the more certain I was that there was nothing more than animal intelligence there.

When the drone caught up with one of the groups, I found them tearing the body of the Deltan apart and eating it. I hadn’t felt that ill since I died.

I looked around in my VR. The other Bobs had been following the whole thing. I noticed that Marvin looked especially upset, and I raised my eyebrows at him.

He looked around at the rest of us and shrugged. “This kind of explains what I’ve found while I’ve been looking around. I’ve discovered a number of abandoned Deltan camps, and the farther they are from the current camp, the longer it’s been since they were abandoned. I think the gorilloids have been hunting the Deltans for a long time, and the gorilloids are winning.”

Luke piped up, “Bender and I have been venturing farther afield, and we haven’t found any other large tribes of Deltans. We’ve run into occasional small family groups, but they’re nomadic and inhabiting marginal territory.”

“So they’re being hunted to extinction,” I said.

There were several seconds of silence, before Bender spoke up, probably trying to be funny. “Remember the Prime Directive.”

Luke looked at him in disgust. “Right. When people show up in a hundred years, and we have to explain to them that they missed meeting the only other sentient race we’ve ever found by less than a century, I’m sure they’ll be mollified by the knowledge that we didn’t break a fictional law from a TV show.” Bender turned away, upset, and Luke seemed surprised at his outburst. “Sorry.”

Marvin looked over at me. “It’s a fair question, though. How much, exactly, are we going to interfere? Prime Directives notwithstanding, there are real examples from Earth history of cultural contamination and outright extinguishment.”

“I consider it a given that we’re not going to let them die out,” I answered, looking down at my hands. For some reason, I couldn’t keep them still. Anxiety? “I don’t have an answer beyond that, Marvin.”

“What are we going to do, though? Set up armed drones around the perimeter? Become some kind of sky god that protects them?” Marvin looked from one person to the next, waiting for an answer.

Luke spoke up before I could respond. “This is the type of environmental pressure that forces swift evolution. In fact, they may be becoming intelligent specifically because of the gorilloids. Maybe we have to let nature take its course.” ???????

I turned to Guppy, who as usual was standing at parade rest over to the side. I think I caught him by surprise, and I was positive that I had detected active interest in his expression and posture before he quickly went into fishy poker face.

“Guppy, what’s the total population of Deltans at the campfire sites?”

[412, allowing for today’s deaths]

I turned back to the group. “That’s down below estimates of the low point for humanity back in Africa. I don’t think we have any leeway to just let things go.”

“So we’re back to guarding them with drones,” Bender said. “They’re at the rock-and-pointy-stick stage. That’s not good enough to hold off the gorilloids.”

“Not all of them,” I countered. “You’ve seen Archimedes. That kid is smart.”

Marvin pulled up a map. “Speaking of which—sort of—I found the flint source. One of the old villages. And interestingly, there’s some worked flint there and in a couple of villages nearby. I think at least some of the Deltans have known what to do with it, so Archimedes isn’t unique.” Marvin looked around at us to make sure we would get his next comment. “I think there’s a recessive gene for increased intelligence that’s spreading through the population. It just needs the opportunity to be expressed, in every sense of the word.”

I nodded. “Let’s give them that chance. Take a couple of drones, pick up some flint, and we’ll drop it in the area where Archimedes normally hangs out. Let’s see what happens.”

***

There was a lot of wailing and growling when the hunting parties came back to camp that evening. The Deltans obviously understood death. We didn’t know yet how they handled their dead, since the gorilloids had taken the bodies. One of the hunters seemed especially broken up, and was curled up on the ground, shaking. I checked the records, and yep, he spent a lot of his down-time with one of the Deltans that had been killed.

Mm, yeah, I’m definitely getting personally involved. Sue me.

I decided right there and then that I didn’t like the gorilloids.

“I’ve got something for you,” Marvin said, interrupting my thoughts. I looked up at the schematic floating in my holotank. It showed plans for an observation drone that had been reinforced internally and given twenty-pound steel caps at each end—a sort of personnel-buster. Even with the modest acceleration capabilities of the drones, they could probably deliver a punch equivalent to a cannonball. Whether the drone would survive was an unknown.

“I guess rail guns weren’t an option?” I asked.

“No, even ignoring the complexity of the loading system, the SURGE drive in the drones just can’t support enough acceleration to make a small-caliber missile dangerous.”

I sighed and, for the umpteenth time, wondered if I should reconsider my policy on explosives. And for the umpteenth time, I decided not to.

“I can produce a dozen of these in a few days if we bump all the other stuff,” Marvin added. “It’s not an ideal solution, but it is a quick one to implement.”

As senior Bob, decisions about manufacturing priorities were up to me. I thought about it for a few milliseconds, then nodded my head. We weren’t on a schedule for launching HEAVEN vessels, so screw it. I wasn’t going to let even one more Deltan get killed by the gorilloids if I could help it.

***

It took Archimedes a couple of days to find the flint. We had dropped the nodules where we figured he’d happen upon them, but it’s not as if he had a regular route. He wandered like any normal kid and was just as likely to walk in circles or sit on a rock for half a day, playing with something.

As soon as Archimedes saw the nodules, he jumped forward and picked them up. He then put them down, did a little jig, and searched the immediate area for any more. When he was satisfied that he had found all there were to find, he came back, grabbed them, and headed back toward his camp.

He got maybe fifty feet, then stopped and looked down at his load. Marvin and I glanced at each other, perplexed. After a few moments, Archimedes headed off at an angle toward an outcropping that was one of his favorite hangouts. Once there, he hid all of the nodules except one in a crevice, then covered it with dead branches.

“Eden, you said?” I laughed. “Looks like we’ve invented greed.”

Marvin grinned. “Or caution. I bet flint is valuable. He might be worried about being mugged.”

Taking a single flint nodule, Archimedes walked back to camp, and took a circuitous route to get to his mother. When he arrived, he set up with a couple of rocks to try to split the flint. We chuckled at the deliberate, studied casualness that he was trying to affect. It was so overdone that he might as well have been wearing a hat with a flashing red light. Before he’d even struck the first blow, several adult Deltans had come over. There was a loud exchange, and one of the adults tried to grab the nodule. Archimedes’ mother jumped in, and the discussion got heated. Within seconds, a dozen or so Deltans were involved. At least half of them were yelling at any time, and pointy sticks were being waved. However, the floor seemed to be about evenly divided between those who wanted to take the nodule and those who suggested it would be over someone’s dead body. Archimedes huddled at his mother’s feet, while she showed her teeth to anyone who got too close.

Finally, things calmed down. Deltans stood around eyeing each other while another individual was fetched. I could see that he was older—it looked like age was age, whatever planet you lived on. His fur was going gray, and he was stooped. His muscle tone was poor, so he moved slowly.

Another point for these people. They care for their elderly.

The elder unwrapped some tools from a leather skin, sat with Archimedes, and patiently showed him how to split the flint. Now that was interesting. There was existing flint technology that hadn’t been lost. This contraction of Deltan populations had to have been quick and recent.

Many of the Deltans who had been involved in the yelling match went running off. They soon came back with items such as extra pointy sticks, dead animals and chunks of meat, something that looked like some kind of tuber, and other less identifiable things. With a start, I realized they were prepared to trade for the flint. I put both hands to my face and started to laugh. We’d just made Archimedes rich.

***

The trading frenzy was over, and people had left with flints of various sizes. Archimedes’ mother was going over the spoils. She had an expression involving wide eyes and erect ears that I tentatively identified as a smile-analogue. Looks like they’ll be eating well for a few days.

Archimedes had a haul of his own. He’d gotten several pointy sticks, a flint knife that had lost its edge, and all the flint flakes that were too small to be usable. Most importantly, the elder had shown him how to knap the flint.

I watched him examine his treasures, and I could just hear the gears turning.

Archimedes spent most of the rest of the day trying to put a new edge on the flint knife he’d received in trade. From the look of it, he didn’t do a half-bad job. The kid was a quick learner, for sure. He took his prize to the elder, who I decided to name Moses for no good reason that I could think of. Moses looked at the result and nodded in approval. Okay, he actually did kind of a circle thing with his head, but it had the same meaning. He spent an hour showing Archimedes how to get the last bits sharpened.

The next day, Archimedes snuck out to his stash and pulled out one of the other flint nodules. He had the knapping tools that the elder had given him. He turned the nodule over and examined it for almost a half hour without actually doing anything with it. It was pretty obvious that he had something in mind and didn’t want to screw it up. I watched with great interest, and I sensed Marvin watching over my shoulder, VR-wise.

Finally, Archimedes got to work. It took maybe ten minutes before we could see what he was trying for. He had split the nodule left of center, then right of center on the bigger half. He was trying to extract the biggest flake he could. I decided he was probably going for a hand-axe.

Over the next several hours, Archimedes slowly and deliberately converted the large core into a quite workable hand axe. He then cleaned up his area, carefully hiding all the useful flint pieces in his stash, and headed off with his new tool.

It turned out the point of the axe was to cut more saplings for pointy sticks. It made sense, once I thought about it. Green wood, or whatever this stuff was, wouldn’t be easy to cut without something hard and sharp. It was beginning to look like the loss of their flint source had been a major blow for the Deltans, perhaps one they hadn’t thought about at the time, or they would have protected that site more aggressively.

While cutting the third sapling, Archimedes had a misfire and attempted to chop the tree with his hand instead of the axe. The hopping around and verbalizations were really very human-looking, and to my shame I laughed a little. Afterward, Archimedes kicked the tree and said something monosyllabic. I marked that as an F-Bomb-analogue, and I don’t mean maybe.

Archimedes finished cutting down the third sapling, but I could see that his heart wasn’t in it. His swings were tentative, and he hesitated on each one. As soon as he had it down, he took the three saplings back to his work area, set them down, and went back to camp.

The next day, he was back in his work area. He had brought some of his twine with him. I watched in fascination and mounting excitement as he proceeded to split one of the saplings and tie the hand-axe into it. Once he was done, he tried it out on a nearby tree.

The first attempt was spectacularly unsuccessful—the axe acted like one of those tennis ball launchers you buy to throw a ball for your dog, with the axe blade playing the part of the tennis ball. Archimedes threw the now-empty stick down, reinforced my conclusion about the F-Bomb-analogue, and stomped off to look for his blade.

I took a few moments to check with the autofactory AMIs.

There were no problems on that front. The vessels for Marvin, Luke, and Bender were almost complete. I felt a moment of anxiety. It was great having company, especially given the nature of our shared project. I half-hoped one or more of them would decide to hang around instead of taking off for the stars.

Archimedes had found the tennis ball, er, hand axe, and was reattaching it to the stick, grumbling away in Deltan. I carefully catalogued the monologue. Very likely there were a lot of scatological and sexual references in there, and learning to swear in any language is always interesting.

His second attempt was better, in that the axe blade didn’t take off for parts unknown. But the stick had been intended for a spear, well, a pointy stick, and was too thin to serve as an axe handle. It bounced, rebounded, and twisted in his hand with every swing. Muttering darkly, Archimedes lay down the hand axe and stalked off.

He came back in a few minutes with a more robust handle, sat down, and went through the whole mounting sequence. This time, when he tried it, the axe produced a very gratifying thunk, and wood chips flew. Archimedes gave a whoop that needed no translation and finished cutting down the sapling.

He spent the rest of the afternoon gathering suitable specimens. I noticed that his selections were considerably straighter than most of the weapons used by the Deltans, and I wondered if this was because of greater discernment on his part, or if they’d simply been making do with what they could find.

In any case, Archimedes’ return to the camp caused a near-riot. Interestingly, Archimedes took a couple of token items in exchange, but mostly just gave away the pointy sticks to the biggest Deltans. This not only placed them in his debt but also ensured that the gorilloids would be given the warmest welcome possible on their next visit.

“Damn, that kid is smart.”

I jumped a little. I’d been so wrapped up in what Archimedes was doing that I’d forgotten all about Marvin.

“Yeah, he’s going to own the place by the time he’s full-grown,” I said. “And hopefully, he’ll have lots of opportunity to spread his genes.”

I can’t say that I looked forward to the next gorilloid attack, but I did look forward to the gorilloids maybe getting their asses kicked.

***

I noticed over the next week that the Deltans seemed to be eating better. Better cutting tools meant more tubers with less work, and better pointy sticks meant better hunting results.

The Deltans seemed to particularly favor something that I would consider a large wild-pig-analogue, with the same general feeding habits and sunny disposition. It took a half-dozen Deltans to bring one down, but the carcass would feed twenty or so Deltans for several days. Good return on effort.

Part of their strategy involved bracing the butt of the pointy stick against the ground or a rock or tree and letting the charging pigoid impale itself. Since the pigoids never seemed to learn, it was a dependable source of food. The new, straighter pointy sticks did a much better job and resulted in dinner with less effort overall.

Meanwhile, Archimedes had risen significantly in stature. He and his mother were now closer to the campfire, and the other juveniles were deferring to him. In fact, since Archimedes seemed to be pretty close to puberty, from what I could tell, some of the female juveniles were giving him a whole lot of attention. Way to go, kid.

***

Then came the day I’d been both looking forward to and dreading. Another gorilloid attack. By now, Archimedes had armed everyone with the good pointy sticks, and the improved hunting prospects meant more adult males stayed home to guard.

A small group of gorilloids appeared out of nowhere and attacked group E. The Deltan females and cubs scattered, and the gorilloids seemed to somehow agree on a couple of specific victims to concentrate on. The gorilloids chased their chosen prey in groups of three. I noted in passing that they had chosen adult females rather than cubs. Maybe because the cubs were quicker, or perhaps because they provided less meat.

One of the female targets ran right through a pack of approaching males, with the gorilloids hot on her heels. The Deltans stopped, rammed the butts of their pointy sticks in the ground, and stood fast with as much courage as any medieval pikeman facing a cavalry charge. The effect was every bit as dramatic as I could have hoped for. The two leading gorilloids each took a couple or three sticks right in the chest. They were lifted into the air as their momentum converted to leverage on the sticks. As they hung suspended in the air for a moment, the gorilloids let out ear-piercing screams of agony. They came down to earth as their momentum reversed and fell over, still screaming. Although their huge arms still made them dangerous, the gorilloids were obviously badly wounded and couldn’t get up. The Deltans fell upon them with pointy sticks, and within seconds, the screaming had stopped. The third gorilloid of the group got a rush of common sense to the head and made for the trees.

The other group of three gorilloids had caught their intended victim but stopped when their compatriots started to scream. Now the Deltans, flush with their victory, rushed headlong toward the second group of gorilloids, yelling what were probably battle cries. The gorilloids were momentarily frozen with beastly astonishment but finally managed to figure out that something was different. Dropping their victim, they sprinted for the forest, empty-handed, in full rout.

The Deltans followed them to the edge of the camp, screaming and yelling. Again, I made careful note of the verbalizations. Pretty sure there were variations of “your mamma” in there. The first official English/Deltan dictionary would not be suitable for all ages if I had a say in it.

One of the Deltans, in an excess of zeal, hauled off and threw his pointy stick at the fleeing gorilloids. In one of those moments that change the universe forever, the stick flew a trajectory that would make an Olympic decathlete proud and buried itself in the back of the neck of one of the targets. The animal fell over like it had been pole-axed, and skidded face-down to a full stop. The other two didn’t even miss a step.

The Deltan defense force fell silent, and I discovered that slack-jawed amazement was probably a universal expression. A dozen Deltans stared at the dead gorilloid for several beats, then a dozen Deltan heads turned as one to stare at the spear chucker. Oh, please shrug. Oh please, let a shrug be in their repertoire. No such luck. I catalogued the ear movement as a probable shrug-analogue, swallowed my disappointment, and watched as the Deltans moved as a group toward the downed gorilloid.

“What’d I miss?” Marvin said, as he appeared beside me.

“Just watch the replay. You will not believe this.”

The Deltan spear chucker pulled his pointy stick from the dead gorilloid and poked it a few times. Getting no reaction, he turned to his friends and grinned. Not literally, of course, but I was getting used to interpreting the Deltan expressions in human terms.

They all started talking at once, jabbing the carcass, and slapping and hugging each other. After a few minutes, they picked up the carcass and carried it back to camp.

“Well, fair’s fair,” Marvin observed.

I laughed. “Now that’s payback!”

The Deltans ate well for the next few days. And gorilloids could be converted into many useful items, from hide strips to bone tools.

The spear-chucking story was the hit of the campground. Deltans were just as prone as humans to act things out, and every retelling had a rapt audience. The spear chucker got the lion’s share of the gorilloid that he’d taken down, and an apparent large bump in status. He looked tired but very happy.

Archimedes was fascinated by the story as well. Any time he saw or heard a retelling, he would run over to join the audience. Like many of the Deltans, he began to experiment with this technological innovation. The Deltans already understood throwing, but it seemed they’d never considered applying it to anything other than rocks. It was getting quite dangerous around the camp, until some of the elders put their collective foot down. After much yelling and gesturing, the experimenters took their sticks outside the camp to practice.

Unfortunately, even very straight pointy sticks didn’t fly dependably true. The spear-chucker really had been lucky. Very few spears actually stuck into anything when thrown, and some of the Deltans had already given it up as a fad.

Archimedes wasn’t having any better luck with his spear-chucking, but unlike the others, he took his pointy stick, sat down, and stared at it.

I knew that look. I’d worn that look many times. He was working it out.

It only took a few hours for Archimedes to find a flake about the right size, split the end of the pointy stick, and tie the flake onto it. The difference in weight wasn’t much, but it moved the center of gravity forward of the grip point. That was all that was needed. The next time Archimedes threw the stick, it embedded itself in the ground in a most satisfactory manner. The other experimenters watched as Archimedes repeated the result twice more.

After the third toss, one of the adults grabbed the spear and examined it. This resulted in another raucous town hall meeting. After Archimedes got his spear back, there was some further discussion. Then Archimedes headed off toward his cache with half the encampment following him. By this point, I was grinning like a fool. You go, boy!

There was a lot more gabbling when Archimedes brought out his two remaining flint nodules. I think some people were angry with him for holding out. There was some pushing and shoving, and I readied the drone to bash some heads if necessary. We hadn’t deployed the buster drones yet, but I was quite prepared to sacrifice one of the light-duty units. I was certain that it would only take one to clear the room.

Fortunately, it wasn’t necessary. The Deltans that Archimedes had given the first, good pointy sticks to—the largest members of the tribe—were firmly on his side, and the others seemed understandably reluctant to challenge them.

One of the support group was a particularly impressive specimen that I had named Arnold. When Arnold leaned over an opponent and started yelling, there was generally very little further debate.

Arnold made a gesture and said something that included “get” and the name that the Deltans used for Moses. Several Deltans ran off, and a few minutes later, Moses was escorted over. It looked like he was being hustled along a bit more quickly than he really found comfortable. I could pick up a few words, and I’m pretty sure Moses compared the members of his escort to pigoid droppings. Smelly ones.

To the extent I was able to follow the discussion, it sounded like Archimedes would volunteer his nodules to make spear points for everyone, and in return he would get part of every kill from then on. Moses said something in an angry tone, and the agreement was amended to include him. I’m positive that I heard a comment to the effect that that wouldn’t be for long anyway. Moses looked offended but seemed otherwise satisfied. He and Archimedes set to work on the nodules, with half the camp watching.