All These Worlds

Now their advantage was down to one, and we had Donald. Our guys grinned and started waving spear points.

Donald and I moved forward, and the other group stepped aside. As I passed Fred, he glared at me. I said, “Any time, kuzzi.” He didn’t respond, but then he was still trying to breathe.

There was a huge component of surrogate vengeance in my behavior, of course. I had a lot of years of being on the wrong end of bullying to look back on. But a rational part of my mind told me that I would have to watch out for Fred, now.

Donald slapped me on the back again. I made a point of staggering. I didn’t want him to decide we were competing.

We finished our hike to the village on high alert. No singing, no joking around. A couple of the guys took the kill to an agreed-upon fire pit to be divvied up. I turned to head back to Archimedes’ tent, but Donald put a hand on my shoulder and motioned me to come with him. I realized within moments that we were heading for the Council Circle.

One of the many universals that I’d discovered while studying the Deltans was that politicians and leaders always reserved the best for themselves. The Council Circle location got full sun first thing in the morning, and was in the shade by late afternoon. A few Council members were always at the circle, no doubt trying to look official and stay comfortable.

Donald walked up to Jeffrey, the current Council leader, and waited to be acknowledged. Jeffrey was a bit of a dick, and liked to keep people waiting, just to show how important he was. Donald accidentally stood in Jeffrey’s sun and began cleaning his spear while he waited, the dried pieces of blood and hide landing all around Jeffrey. I looked around and tried to keep a straight face.

Finally, Jeffrey accepted the fact that he was being out-ignored. He looked up and gestured for us to sit. We made ourselves comfortable and Donald explained about our encounter with the Caerleon gang.

When we were done, Jeffrey made a face. “That’s now almost a hand of encounters in the last three hands of days. A couple of people were stabbed when they refused to give up their kill. I’m going to have to bring this up with the full Council. Something has to be done.”

“All by people from Caerleon?” I asked.

“Yes, it looks that way. Leave it with me. I’ll get the Council started on it.”

Donald nodded to Jeffrey, and we got to our feet. As we walked away, I said to Donald, “Do you think it’s the one gang, or different ones?”

“Fred’s been mentioned more than once. There might be others involved, but it’s mostly him and his group.”

“And all lately? What’s changed?”

Donald stared into space for a moment. “Um, I don’t think it’s a case of something changing. It’s more likely that Fred just saw a way to take advantage of something that’s been brewing for a while. We’re just not sure what’s behind it.”

We walked in silence for a few moments while I thought through an idea. I looked up to Donald. “I have a plan. Can we get an extra dozen people or so? People who won’t mind some close-up action?”

Donald grinned. “Yeah, I think I can scrape that together.”

I grinned back. Time for some dirty tricks, Earth-style.

We’ve Lost

Howard

February 2217

Vulcan

Bridget opened the door, looking surprised. I hadn’t phoned ahead, and she wasn’t expecting me tonight.

She started to say, “Howard…what…” Then my expression must have registered.

“Howard, what’s wrong?” She grabbed my arm and dragged me into the apartment.

“We lost. We lost and now a billion sentients are going to die!” I collapsed onto her couch and leaned forward with my face in my hands.

“The Pav?”

I nodded, unwilling to trust my voice.

“My God, Howard. Does Butterworth know? Are the Bobs all right?”

I sighed, and tried for calm. “We lost a lot of Bobs, but there are backups. It’s not quite the same, of course.” I turned to Bridget and tried to smile reassuringly. “Riker let Dexter know, and Dexter will be passing the info along to Butterworth or whoever has taken over for him.”

“Are we in danger?”

“Not specifically, Bridget. The Others only know about Earth and Epsilon Eridani. But there are almost two hundred systems closer to GL 877 than us. All these worlds are ultimately in danger as long as the Others exist.”

“And the Pav? I’ve read some of Jacques’ blog entries. They sound like an interesting species. What happens to them?”

I closed my eyes for a moment, hoping maybe I’d be in a different universe when I opened them. No such luck.

“We’ve never seen the process, just the aftereffects. Now we’ll be getting a ringside view. The Others will kill off all life on the Pav home world using the Death Asteroids, then move in with ants and cargo carriers and strip the planet and the inner system of all metals. And they’ll collect all corpses and carcasses.”

I had to stop and take a few deep breaths. The android body didn’t need air, of course, but it was designed to react to emotion, and I was working myself up into a fine conniption.

“Jacques had a plan to rescue twenty thousand Pav, but the rest will be dead soon. And the Others will have wiped out another intelligent species, another entire planetary ecology.”

I turned on the couch to face her. “There will be a moot today, to try to figure out what we can do. I just wanted a few minutes…”

Bridget put her arms around me and pulled my head down to her shoulder. Soundlessly, I tried to cry without tear ducts.

Trouble Brewing

Marcus

November 2212

Poseidon

I rubbed the bridge of my nose with thumb and forefinger, shaking my head. Kal waited patiently at the other end of the call. I looked up to see Gina smirking at me. She smoothed her features out quickly, but come on—computer, remember? I gave her a quick smile in reply.

“Still not convinced, Marcus?” Kal cocked his head at me in the video window.

I sighed. “I guess I’ve been convinced for a while now, Kal. I just didn’t believe it, you know?”

Kal laughed. “Thus ending the myth that computers are logical.”

“Bite me. I was human once.” I sat back in my chair and considered my response. Spike picked that moment to jump into my lap for the obligatory chin-scritching. I gave her the proper adulation while I thought through my options. Kal and Gina wouldn’t even notice the millisecond pause in our conversation.

Kal was an Assistant Governor on Southern Mat Three, and Gina was a mid-level security officer. I’d become friends with both of them over the last couple of years. As we became more comfortable with each other, they’d each confided an increasing concern about the Council’s ongoing power grabs.

“Okay, so we’ll take it as a given that the Council is no longer even pretending that they’ll be instituting elections any time soon. Or at least not putting much effort into it. It’s not proof positive of a totalitarian government, but I’ll grant you it’s a pretty good indicator. Gina likes to shoot things at the first excuse, but Kal, you’re a lot more conservative. The fact that you’ve bought into this is what really scares me.”

Gina opened her mouth to retort, but Kal beat her to it. “Worst case, we’re a long way from crossing any kind of line. If the Council gets a sudden attack of sanity to the head, we’ll have done nothing indictable. Or even embarrassing. And yeah, Marcus, before we do anything that we can’t take back, I’ll want to take a good, long look at the situation.”

I nodded, mollified. The Poseidon Administrative Council was happy to make use of my services, but I had no real official position or authority. The moment I became a liability they could cut me loose. Not that I would be devastated by the snub. I wanted the colony to be self-sufficient, if for no other reason than so I could work on my projects in peace.

“What do you need from me, Kal?” I asked. “I’ve been steadily handing over functions to the administration for a decade now. If it came down to a showdown, I’m not sure I could even maintain control of the autofactories.”

“If it comes to that,” Kal responded, “you’re a wild card, and something the Council can’t control or interdict. At minimum, you’ll be a distraction. At best, you’ll be able to cause them significant stress.”

“Well, I always wanted to be a pain in the ass,” I replied.

“Mission accomplished.” Gina grinned at me. “But you’re also a public figure, and easy to track. We’ll have to be careful about what you’re seen doing.”

“Hmm.” I scratched my chin in thought. “There are a couple of things I can do about that, Gina. Let me work on it. And the public activity can be used as a red herring.” I grinned at her. “See, now you’ve got me doing it. Spies-R-Us. Jeez.”

We talked for a few more minutes, then ended the call. I sat back and stared into space, pondering my options. Like most nerds, I didn’t take naturally to intrigue and double-cross. But I could see some simple strategies that would make things a little more difficult for anyone trying to track me. Not to mention an opportunity to make my pet project relevant.

It might be time for a personal appearance. I leaned forward and placed a call to Howard.

Attitude

Howard

November 2217

Vulcan

I sat, slowly sipping my coffee, and watched the people go by. The mall was busy all the time, it seemed. But then, Landing didn’t have a whole lot of shopping malls. Okay, one. Original Bob had never had time for people-watching, and wouldn’t have been caught dead sitting around, doing nothing. Being immortal apparently put a different spin on things.

Clothing shops, electronics shops, specialty shops selling things like bath products; it all made me feel both at home and nostalgic for home. The familiarity kept bumping up against the simple fact that I was seventeen light-years from Sol, in a solar system that was originally the home of Mr. Spock. And on a planet that was destroyed in the movie reboot, but who’s counting?

Still, there was something about sitting at a table drinking coffee that made it all seem, well, mundane.

Bridget would be along soon. I’d elected to wait for her here rather than tag along to the office and be underfoot. Meanwhile, I was enjoying the sensation of being just some random Joe.

On my way now.

I smiled as I read the text in my heads-up. We’d made a point of not planning anything specific today. Lunch, walking around, no big deal.

Bridget showed up just as I finished the coffee. I stood, and we exchanged a quick kiss. She gave my hand a squeeze then sat down.

“I’m starved. Want to try the food court for lunch?”

“Food court?” My eyebrows rose. “A liquor baroness should have more refined tastes. Let’s splurge. How about the BrontoBurger? Or we could go for actual food.”

Bridget gave me the evil eye. “I happen to like bronto burgers, I’ll have you know.”

“Brontos, it is,” I declared. I stood, offered her my arm. Smiling, she stood and took it, doing a small curtsey.

As we aimed ourselves in the general direction of the desired eatery, I heard a comment from a few tables away. “Make sure you hold hands with mommy.” The comment was offered sotto voce, and may not have been intended for us to overhear, but the speaker, a zit-faced teenager, had miscalculated.

I dug in my heels and turned to glare at him, and Bridget put her other hand on my arm. “Howard, really? Consider the source.”

I looked at the twerp, who was grinning back at me. About 140 pounds soaking wet. Against an android with several times the reaction speed and strength of a human being. Not really a fair fight. I made a point of looking him up and down, then I laughed and turned away. I hoped he got the message.

Bridget, meanwhile, was dragging me by the hand. “Food. This way.”

“Right you are. Let us go forth and dine on the flesh of the alien bronto-like thing.”

We exchanged smiles and continued on our way, but the encounter bugged me. Bridget was now in her late fifties, biologically—the time spent in stasis during the voyage didn’t count. I, on the other hand, was built to look like Original Bob at thirty-one—his age when he died in a Las Vegas intersection. The mommy comment was, unfortunately, mathematically plausible.

But there was no way I would let Bridget be subjected to that kind of crap a second time.

* * *

Age hadn’t dulled Bridget’s appetite at all. She dove into her burger and fries as enthusiastically as any teenager. I ate at a more refined pace, enjoying the flavor but not needing the sustenance. Technically, it was a waste of food, but I did this so seldom, it hardly seemed worth worrying about.

“How are the kids?” I asked her, as much to slow down the carnage as out of a desire to know.

Bridget swallowed, wiped her mouth with a napkin, and glared at me. “You’re not fooling me, bucko. You always wait until I have a mouthful.” I grinned, unrepentant, and she continued. “Rosie is…well, you’ve met Rosie, you know what she’s like. She’s entitled to her opinion and you’re entitled to her opinion, as well.”

Bridget took another bite of bronto, frowning as she considered her next words. “I think it’s fair to say she doesn’t like our relationship. It’s not that she dislikes you personally, Howard. No more than she dislikes most people, I mean. But I think she’d prefer me to stay within my species. I’ve tried to talk to her about it, but, you know…”

I grinned at her. “There’s Rosie’s opinion, and then there’s…well, no, actually, there’s just Rosie’s opinion.”

“Yes, like that.” Bridget chuckled. “Well, I wanted my children to be self-reliant. Mission accomplished, I guess.”

“I’ve talked to Howie a couple of times, lately,” I replied, nibbling at my fries. “He’s a little more distant than he used to be, but I was ascribing that to him growing up and losing the hero worship.”

“There’s probably some of that, Howard, but there’s a lot more of Rosie. She won’t give it a rest.”

I shrugged. “Look, Bridget, I’ve made it clear any number of times that you come first. If I create problems for your personal life or your professional life or your family life, I’m gone.”

Bridget put down the pitiful remains of her burger and leaned forward. She looked me straight in the eyes, my cue to shut up and pay attention.

“Howard, my relationships are my business. No one else gets a vote. I loved Stéphane, and I’ve mourned him fully and properly. Now, I enjoy your company. And will continue to do so, despite a bitch of a daughter and some zit-faced mouthy mall-rat. Do you have something you’d like to add?”

“No, dear.” I grinned at her, and she rolled her eyes.

“Fine.” She cleaned up with the napkin and tossed it onto the mangled remains of her meal. “Then let’s go. I promised to get you some better clothes to drape on that android frame of yours.”

“Threatened.”

“What?”

“Threatened to get me better clothes.”

Bridget laughed and grabbed my hand to drag me off. Clothes shopping. Even death apparently wasn’t an escape.

Bushwhacked

Bob

March 2224

Delta Eridani

We hoisted the pigoid carcass up, suspended from spears, doing our best to act oblivious to the other group that we knew were watching us. I checked the monitor windows in my heads-up display. We definitely had a covert audience, and they outnumbered us twelve to six. I couldn’t tell my crew things I shouldn’t know, but I could be prepared in case the others did something unexpected.

As we started our march back to Camelot, I couldn’t help noticing that my crew were really, really terrible actors. Overly loud comments, uttered with exaggerated inflection, would have made a stage director up and quit on the spot.

I needn’t have worried, though. Fred and his gang probably weren’t listening anyway. They stepped out, front and rear, just like last time.

Fred looked at me, standing in lead spot, and smiled his nasty smile. “Well, Robert. I see you’ve caught my lunch for me. And you don’t have the big guy to protect you today. Why don’t you go ahead and put up a fight, this time? I’d like that.”

I cocked my head to the side. “Well, first, Fred, Donald didn’t need to protect me last time. You’re just not very good. And if it’s a fight you’re looking for, today’s your lucky day.”

And with that, eighteen Camelot hunters, including Donald, stepped out of the bush behind Fred’s gang. The Caerleon group went into a defensive crouch. Several of them tried to inch away and had to be poked with spear tips. In short order, we had them herded into a small group.

Fred sneered at me. “You think this is going to protect you? You won’t always have your friends around, kuzzi.”

“Neither will you, Fred.”

Fred jerked, taken aback. “What?”

“Just what I said. I can wait, and I can watch, and eventually you’ll go take a pee or something without your friends covering your ass.” I leaned in close. “And I’ll cut your throat before you even know I’m there.” I turned to the rest of the group. “This goes for all of you. You go to war with us, you’ll be watching your backs the rest of your lives. I never forget. And I never forgive.”

Fred laughed, a short sharp bark. “Nice talk. Nothing behind it, though.”

“Really?” I smiled at him, and before he could react, I jabbed him in the same place as last time. Down he went.

It wasn’t a fair fight, of course. I operated at computer speeds, and I was inhabiting an android body with electronic reflexes and several times the strength of a live Deltan. But a fair fight wasn’t the point. I wanted them to stop stalking Camelot hunting parties. I just needed to make their mortality clear to them.

I looked around at the Caerleon gang. They appeared a lot less defiant, now.

“Today, we’ll let you off with a warning. And without your spears. Next time, it’s going to hurt a lot more.” I signaled to a couple of the guys, and they began collecting spears. Fred’s gang was thoroughly cowed now, and didn’t put up any resistance.

We sent them off, then turned to head back to Camelot.

Donald walked beside me. “Damn, Robert, that was impressive. But I don’t think Fred is that easily dissuaded.”

“You’re right, Donald. But most of his followers will be. People like Fred need followers. I’m hoping this will pull his teeth.”

Donald nodded, then started up a marching chant, and everyone else joined in.

I wished I was as confident as I sounded.

Launch

Bill

January 2223

Epsilon Eridani

Garfield shook his head in awe. “It’s like those cartoon muscle cars when we were a kid—the ones that were all engine.”

The images in the video windows were indeed impressive. Epsilon Eridani 1, now in a completely new orbit around its sun, was surrounded by eight hundred mover plates. Trailing it by a million kilometers or so was one of the larger ex-moons of Epsilon Eridani 3, with a similar array of plates.

It had taken years to not only build all the equipment, but also to figure out how to control the assemblies. Forty supervisor AMIs were dedicated to maintaining and balancing the fields for each planet, in addition to the AMI in each plate.

And overseeing each planet would be my latest clones. They’d named themselves Daedalus and Icarus, which I privately thought was a little pretentious. But hey, it’s a free galaxy.

Garfield looked at me, his face flushed with excitement. “Short-range test complete. There’s a lot of room for error, but at minimum this setup is good for hundreds of Gs.”

I smiled and leaned back in my chair. “I guess we’re about ready, then.” A quick ping to Dae and Ick, and they popped into my VR.

“Okay, guys. Everything checks out. You’re clear that this is a Hail Mary, right?”

The two nodded. Daedalus replied, “Sure, but it’s worth trying. Worst case, we fail, and the Bobs are no worse off.”

“It’s a good opportunity to get some quiet time for some astrophysics work, too,” Icarus added with a smile.

I chuckled in reply. Icky had turned out very similar to me in temperament. Content to leave the exploration and fighting to others, he just wanted to work on his research.

I found myself a little ambivalent about Icarus and Daedalus. Cloning ourselves was always purposeful, of course. But I’d cloned these two for what could turn out to be a suicide mission. It felt unclean, somehow.

They knew exactly what I’d been thinking when I’d made the decision to go ahead. The pair gazed back at me with alert interest, no trace of blame or rancor on their faces. I decided I’d accept their judgment.

I hesitated, looking around the room. This was one of those moments that changed your life forever. Everything was ready to go. Time to fish or cut bait. “Okay, guys. The docking bays are ready for your ships. Connect up, hit the road, and Godspeed.”

Date

Howard

November 2217

Omicron2 Eridani

We walked out of the movie theater, arm in arm. Bridget looked as gorgeous as always. She turned and whispered in my ear, and as usual, my brain turned to mush.

“You look very dignified, Howard. But you really didn’t have to do that.”

I shrugged. Modifying the android’s appearance was a trivial operation. Avoiding a situation that might make Bridget uncomfortable was top priority. My apparent age now matched hers perfectly.

Changing the subject, I said, “That wasn’t bad. There might be a future in this movie theater fad.”

“Yes, civilization has finally reached Vulcan. Next up—discos.”

“No, please, no.”

There wasn’t exactly a booming movie industry, of course. Vulcan was very much a frontier planet, and the economy was still bootstrapping through the basic requirements. We’d be another couple of decades before leisure activities became a major market segment.

But Hollywood, and its various satellite locations and spiritual brethren, had produced thousands of movies of varying quality and popularity. And generally speaking, the holders of the copyrights were many light-years away, and almost certainly quite dead as well. Someone in Landing eventually had the bright idea to open a local theater and play themed double-bills. It was brilliant, as far as I was concerned. And the general population, who had spent most of their previous lives in isolated, claustrophobic enclaves, were taking to the new medium with enthusiasm.

Today’s fare, a couple of zombie movies, had been sold out. The audience was loud, opinionated, and mostly sneeringly amused. But no one left early.

I leaned close. “I feel a hankering for brains. Or sushi.”

Bridget laughed and opened her mouth to respond, but at that moment her phone buzzed. Two seconds later, I received an email. From the coroner’s office.

I read the email in my heads-up display, and stopped dead in my tracks. Bridget looked up from her phone, tears in her eyes. “Oh, Howard, no…”

* * *

“He left this note for you,” Dr. Onagi said. He pushed an envelope across the desk to me. Numbly, feeling like someone else was in control, I picked up the note and opened it. I held it so that Bridget could see.

Howard:

I recently had occasion to visit the doctor, as I’ve been having issues with my memory and cognition. The news was less than pleasing. It would seem that I have a particularly nasty form of neurological degenerative dementia, one that is not curable. The doctor informs me that the process is already significantly advanced.