hotmtlnovel Book 3: Chapter 51: Moot
Book 3: Chapter 51: Moot
Book 3: Chapter 51: Moot
Bill
June 2230
Epsilon Eridani
I waited for the catcalls to die down. More than a hundred Bobs looked back at me, and this wasn’t close to all of us. The war effort was now producing a couple of dozen new Bobs per year, over several systems.
Herschel and Neil huddled together near the front of the crowd, whispering and preparing notes. They’d be giving one of their regular updates on the Bellerophon. The two Bobs were as inseparable as Calvin and Goku, except less quarrelsome. As a youth, I’d always wished for a brother. I wondered if some Bobs in the same cohort got into that mode for just that reason.
“Okay, everyone. We’ve got updates from Oliver, Will, myself, and Dexter on Bob production. I’ll be giving a summary. Herschel and Neil will give us an update on their excellent adventure. Garfield will give a report on weapons research, and on the Casimir power core. After that it’s open floor.”
There were a few clink sounds as Bobs dealt with coffees and beers, but everyone was all business now.
I went through the reports, projections, and graphs on replicant production. “Bottom line, folks, we expect to have close to five hundred dreadnaught-class vessels available for the defense of Earth. About half will be staffed by AMIs carrying H-bombs. We’ve already decided not to try to build a defense for Epsilon Eridani. If they show up there, I’ll just blow everything up and bail. And on that subject, Mario?”
Mario stepped forward. “We’ve rebuilt the surveillance and monitoring system around GL 877. The Others’ Delta Pavonis expedition is back home, but there’s been no other activity. We don’t know enough about their habits to know if that’s unusual. The quick sequence of sorties to GL 54, NN 4285, and Delta Pavonis might have been an exception. Or they might have enough material to keep them busy for a while.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Neil frowning and shaking his head. I resolved to ask him about it.
The questions quickly ran down on the military buildup. Herschel and Neil were up next.
Herschel stammered and blushed when their turn was announced, but soon got it under control.
“And space is big. We’d never detect them except by accident,” I added.
Will looked at me. “We’d better run some models.”
* * *
“Yeah, space is big. Bigger than I thought.” I looked at the spreadsheet in dismay.
“Um. A circle of twelve square light years. That’s what we have to monitor.” Garfield rubbed his forehead wearily. “Almost eighty thousand drones.”
“Which will cut into the stasis pod construction.” I said.
“And the bomb construction, the Bob construction, the colony ship construction, and all the other maintenance stuff we still have to support.” Will looked up at the ceiling and silently mouthed an f-bomb. “It never stops.”
“We have no choice, though. If the Others come swooping in with no warning, we’re dead.” I thought for a moment. “At least we don’t have to produce them all at once. The most direct path from GL 877 has to be covered first, and we can work outward to cover more circuitous trajectories.”
Will stood up with a groan. “Right. I’ll talk to Oliver, see if he can contribute. We still have a few decades before the earliest that the Others could get here. Deliveries from Alpha Centauri would arrive in plenty of time.”
“Good idea, Will.” I looked around at the other Bobs. “It looks like, as usual, we will be living in interesting times. Woo!”
“Hah!”