Bill
August 2188
Epsilon Eridani
I hadn’t called the eting to order yet. Forty-three Bobs milled around the banquet hall. Knots of people argued, discussed, or just hugged and got caught up. Bob-1 ford the center of a dense cluster of Bobs, describing his Deltans to a rapt audience. It was interesting to watch. Bobs more than a generation or two removed from him seed to treat him with reverence, as though they were eting the pope.
I looked around the room. These were all the Bobs that had upgraded to SCUTs, and so of them were physically up to thirty light-years away. I grinned at the heady feeling from that knowledge.
A dozen Jeeveses circulated, supplying beer, wine, coffee, and food of every kind I could think of. Virtual, of course. But still.
I’d adjusted the acoustics several tis to keep the background noise down. That was cheating a little and generally frowned upon when hosting a VR. But this wasn’t really a social event, despite appearances.
The latest data from Hal had caused a firestorm of debate.
The weapon that the Others used was in fact so kind of gamma ray emitter. Theories about how it worked had been bouncing around BobNet ever since.
It was ti to get this show on the road. I held an air horn above my head and tooted it twice. As expected, it got everyone’s attention. And a round of boo’s. We Bobs don’t really respect each other all that much.
“Okay, hold your love. It’s ti for this eting to co to order. We have about as much information as we’re going to get without so more concerted—and overt—investigation of the Others.”
An undercurrent of growls greeted the ntion of the Others. deiros had long since disappeared off the radar as our number-one enemy. The Others might not be aware of us, but we’d already declared war.
“Thor, you—” I waited as the laughter died down. Yeah, Thor. I guess it was inevitable that soone would eventually go in that direction, but we still all got a kick out of it. At least Thor hadn’t altered his physiology to match or started carrying around a hamr.
“Ahem. You have the best thesis on the Others’ weapon. Can you give us a capsule summary, please?”
Thor stepped up. “Okay, we’re positive that it’s so extrely high-energy electromagnetic beam in the gamma-ray range. It has incredible penetrative power, and would be imdiately fatal to biological life. I have no doubt that’s what they use to kill planetary ecosystems. They probably employ multiple devices for full coverage.”
Thor called up a particle diagram. “Damage to electronics cos not from the gamma radiation per se, but from the secondary ionization induced in the structure. My proposed solution is two layers of depleted uranium alternating with two layers of electrostatic shielding to take out the charged particles. This, on top of so extra hardening of our electronics, should allow us to survive a zapping.”
“You first!” ca a shout from the back of the room.
When the chuckles died down, I said, “Fortunately it won’t be necessary to bell the cat ourselves. I’ve given the summary and a set of Thor’s diagrams to Mario, and he’s going to send one of his Bobs to test it out with a couple of probes. I think Hal has volunteered. He wants to get back at them for killing him.”
This was t with cheers of approval and a truncated rendition of “Bicycle Built for Two.” I waited until relative quiet returned, then turned to Garfield. “Care to give us your theory on the weapon itself?”
Garfield stepped up and bowed to the audience with a grin. “The size of their Death Star wannabe—I’ve been calling it the Death Asteroid—says it all, I think. That thing is probably all fusion reactors and accumulators of so kind. Through all the chases of the various Bobs and drones and scouts, they’ve never fired one twice in the sa encounter. That indicates to that discharging it is expensive in so way. My guess is that they have to charge up the accumulators for so ridiculous amount of ti before they can fire. So one strategy in a dogfight would be to get them to fire at a decoy. We just have to have sothing that looks dangerous enough.”
Garfield’s presentation was t with quiet nods and thoughtful looks—the ultimate complint in a Bob-moot.
“Resources?” I looked over at Hungry. Yeah, Hungry had happened to pick a direction that brought him in line with one of my transmissions.
He started to answer, but was interrupted by Wally.
“Hold on a minute!” Wally stepped forward. “Have we decided on war already? I an, yeah, we have to do sothing, but have we decided how much yet?”
There were scattered groans and a few catcalls, but it was a good question.
I nodded to Wally, then said, “I’ve been operating under the assumption that we’re going for all-out war. But really, are we prepared to wipe out an entire intelligent species? Even one that has done the sa to others?”
Soone at the back yelled, “Hell, yes!”
“Yeah, okay. We’ll probably vote on that at so point, but—”
Thor interrupted . “I think a better question is, can we wipe them out? The mining vessel wreck that Mario found had superior tech, so of which we’re still trying to figure out. They have the Death Asteroid. They have better SURGE drives than us. They can beam power through SUDDAR…” Ꞧ𝒶Ｎo͍฿ÈꞨ
“And they’re building a friggin’ Dyson sphere,” Wally added.
“Here’s the thing,” Thor said, trying to regain the floor. “Right now, all we’ve done is make so random incursions around the edges. No real damage or anything. We’ll get exactly one chance for a surprise attack of so kind. After that, it’ll be toe-to-toe punch-ups and hit-and-run attacks on both sides. The million-dollar question is, can we win that war?”
Dead silence. Every Bob present understood the ramifications. If we picked a fight and lost, the damage would impact more than just our egos. Bob-1’s Deltans, human colonists, and any other intelligent species in the area might be drawn into the conflict, or at least exposed to future attack. It was a daunting responsibility. We had to be sure we could win before we went in swinging.
“And if we don’t do anything,” Garfield pointed out, “they’ll keep on raiding other systems to build their damned sphere. Hal calculated that they’ll have to clean out another hundred systems or so to finish that thing.”
“Plus or minus fifty,” Hungry added.
“Yeah, okay, the error bars are huge. But fifty to a hundred and fifty systems ans maybe five to fifteen systems with life, based on our admittedly limited experience. And at least a couple will have intelligent life.”
“Yes, because that couple will include Deltans, Earth, and the colonists. A hundred systems requires them to go out at least thirty to forty light years, after you discount the systems with little to no tallicity. That covers the complete Bobiverse, as far as I know.”
I looked around at the audience for any other comnts. No one seed inclined to volunteer an opinion. “Okay, guys, ti to wrap up the town hall part of this soiree, although you’re all welco to stay as long as you want and discuss things with each other.” I waited a mont for any objections. “Our big issue seems to be the risk involved in going to war with a species that appears to be more advanced than we are and probably outnumbers us. Let’s et in a week and see if we have anything new on that front.”
People imdiately ford into small groups, and the Jeeveses began circulating again with food and drink.
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