If you start with one hundred planets, remove the Jovians, remove the frozen Plutos, the blistering rcurys, the too-small Marses, too-large super-Earths and the baking Venuses, rule out the dwarf stars, giants, variables, close binaries, and classes of stars that won’t live long enough to allow life to develop, you’re down to ten or so planets.
Now the bad news. Our sun is bigger than 80% of stars. Most of the stuff out there is type K and M stars, which are considerably smaller and dimr than Sol. The comfort zone for those would be so close to the star that the planet would almost certainly be tidally locked. Maybe livable, but not ideal. Maybe three in a hundred planets even has a chance of being habitable, overall. And I think that’s optimistic.
… Dr. Stepan Solokov, from the Convention panel Exploring the Galaxy
There was sothing special about the Solar System. The schematic in the holotank didn’t do it justice, but even the schematic made feel nostalgic.
It had only been about nine years’ personal ti since I’d left Earth as Bob, but twenty-six years would have passed for most of humanity. A lot could have changed in that ti. That the war was still raging was unlikely. Just the sa, I wasn’t going to parade into the system with my high beams on, honking my horn. The version-2 Heaven vessels had better reactor shielding, and mine and Hor’s were beefed up even more. I didn’t want anyone to know we were here until we decided to show ourselves. The decoy was coasting in the Oort on minimal power, until we established a vector for it. anwhile, we flew powered orbits through the outer reaches of the system—close enough to pick up standard reactor signatures, but not close enough to let them detect ours.
It took several weeks, but we were eventually able to build up a picture of the inner system. Such as it was.
Hor popped up a video chat. I noted in passing that he had given up on the cartoon avatar and gone back to standard Bob. I guess limiting our chats to audio only had finally sunk in. Chances are he’d be getting revenge in other ways, though.
I found it incredibly annoying that Bob-6 had decided on that particular avatar. Original Bob had always found the cartoon character grating. No Bobs were identical, but Hor seed to be way out there in left field. Quantum effects? Subtle differences in the hardware? Another item for the ever-expanding TO-DO. The practical effect, though, was that talking to the various Bobs felt more like talking to other people and less like muttering to oneself.
Hor popped up so arrows in the system schematic. “High levels of radiation at all these locations. Nukes, I guess. Long-range imaging of Earth looks bad, too.”
“Yes, I’d say they did a pretty good job of wiping themselves out…” I sat back and ran a hand through my hair—a nervous habit that, even as a replicant, I couldn’t get rid of. “… or so close to it that we can’t tell the difference. There’s just that one group of reactor signatures system-wide. I can’t even assu that those indicate humans. Could be robotic systems that haven’t gotten the mo yet.”
“We’ll get better definition on this pass,” Hor replied. “Then we can work out a plan.”
I examined the grouping closely—not that I expected to extract any more information by glaring at it. A small group of reactor signatures, more than two but less than ten, were flying a slow orbit that looked like it would intersect Earth in a couple of months. It certainly didn’t seem to be a military trajectory. It was far too leisurely—interception by opposing forces would be ridiculously easy. If any opposing forces still existed.
With a wave, I dismissed the schematic. “We’re speculating in advance of information. This is pointless. If you want to slow your fra-rate through the next week, that’s fine. I’ll work on my models.”
Hor snickered. “Got your glue and your paint? Or are these the anatomical kind? Woo woo!”
With a grimace, I disconnected. I found it hard to believe that there was anything in Bob’s personality that could have produced such an irritating ass. If Hor had displayed the slightest reluctance to accompany back to Earth, I would have cut him loose and tried again. But, no such luck.
I activated my physics simulation and popped up my whiteboard. Bill and I seed to be the only Bobs that were really captivated by this whole subspace thing. I would love to make a breakthrough before Bill, and I would include a neener neener with the announcent. Realistically, though, this was a sideline for . Bill had nothing else to do, and didn’t have to spend years at relativistic speeds.
***
We coasted out of the system until we felt it was safe to reactivate drive systems, then turned into a vector that would intercept the decoy. Communications with the AMI pilot indicated no news, not that we expected anything this far out.
The close-up on our last fly-by had indicated six signatures. The next step would be to see if they were military, if they were manned or automated, and if they were friendly.
It was ti to use the decoy.
***
I put my feet up on the console and played with the armchair controls. The view on the bridge view screen showed the trajectory of the Heaven-2A as it crossed the orbit of Jupiter. I paused to take a sip of coffee, then turned to Guppy. “Approach vector looks nominal.”
Guppy looked good in the Federation uniform. Well, good for a bipedal fish. I’d finally decided that Star Wars and Star Trek shouldn’t mix, and replaced his white outfit. I doubt he even noticed.
[Vessel will arrive in Jupiter orbit at zero relative velocity, in 35 hours]
“Any indication of pursuit or interception?”
[Two reactor signatures, vector indicates interception course]
“Excellent. Steady as she goes, then.”
Thirty-five hours to a replicant lasted as long or as short a ti as we needed it to. I knew that Hor played with his fra rate to fit the situation, but I felt a sort of stubborn pride in staying in real-ti. In any case, I had the sum of human knowledge to study in the libraries that ca with the ship. And my subspace models, of course. ȑＡNỐ𝐁Еś
The Bobs never ceased to be surprised at the pace of scientific progress—or lack of it, to be more accurate—in the hundred-odd years since Original Bob had died in Las Vegas. There had been advances in what could only be referred to as “practical” engineering, but theoretical work had all but stopped with the advent of FAITH. We still weren’t sure why the USE, at least, hadn’t continued to pursue theoretical research. After all, they were the ho of CERN, the LHC, and so of the best and most original thinkers in history. Political pressure from FAITH might have had sothing to do with it, although the global economic depression caused by Handel and his cronies probably figured prominently as well.
Sadly, the libraries were very weak in accurate historical data. The few references to that ti period were so blatantly propagandized as to be laughable.
But enough woolgathering. Today, now, we had to deal with the situation in front of us.
The Heaven-2A was now within SUDDAR range of the approaching ships, and the bridge view screen was becoming too crowded. I abandoned VR consistency and popped up a holographic display in front of . The SUDDAR pings couldn’t pick up fine detail at that distance, but it was already obvious that these were Brazilian probes, similar to the Serra do Mar. And therefore probably controlled by deiros clones.
Per our plan, at the point where the Heaven-2A would reasonably have detected the incoming opponents, it changed course and fled, accelerating at 2.5 g. Right on schedule, the incoming ships matched course and launched missiles. It took a while, but the missiles eventually found their target. The decoy relayed a brief image and SUDDAR scan of the missiles approaching at great speed, then the signal cut off.
I accepted the incoming chat from Hor. He opened the conversation. “Well, that was illuminating.”
“Sure was,” I replied. “Did you notice that the missiles have SURGE drives now?”
“Yeah, that’s a problem. I was hoping that deiros would have just stuck with sa-old-sa-old. He’s a military man, not an engineer.”
I took a few monts to review part of the transmission from the decoy. “The probes themselves seem to be unchanged. Sa acceleration capability, sa size. No surprises there. They could have gotten the missiles from a local supply. That would at least limit the quantity to whatever was on-hand.”
Hor shrugged. “Doesn’t do us any good unless we have specifics. We have to assu they’re all carrying nothing but the new missiles. Speaking of, did you look at the long range teletry from the decoy?”
“Yes.” I flipped through the teletry until I found the right section. “Four more identical fusion signatures, and four very faint signatures that are probably equipnt of so kind on standby. Looks like we have a minimum of six Brazilians to deal with.”
“Yeah, there’s that, but have you taken a look at where the other four are?”
I frowned. I didn’t like being bested by Hor Simpson. I examined the teletry record and realized that the four probe signatures were in a line pointing directly to Earth. And each probe had one of the faint signatures associated with it. Though moving at an inexplicably low velocity, they appeared to be staggered so that they would each arrive at Earth twenty-four hours apart.
“The hell? They’re practically coasting. And those are orbital speeds. About the sa velocity as a cot would…” I felt my eyes widen with shock. “No! They can’t be—”
“I think they are, number two.” Hor grimaced. “The decoy was too far for a SUDDAR reading, but I did a quick analysis of the albedo from the visual. There’s sothing a lot bigger than a ship at each location.”
“And each one will arrive just as China is lined up.” I shook my head in disgust. “Son of a bitch. They’re dropping asteroids on the Earth.”
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