Negotiations were moving slowly. Colonel Butterworth necessarily had the welfare of his refugees as his top priority. But so of his demands did not sit well with —such as his insistence that we not waste ti searching for other pockets of humanity. Today’s discussion had, once again, devolved into an argunt about priorities.
“If there are other refuges out there, they will communicate with you, just as we did.” The colonel had his chin thrust out in what I’d co to recognize as his ‘not gonna move’ expression. His British accent was becoming more clipped as the argunt dragged on. “Why should we put effort into digging them out if they don’t want to be dug out? It’ll just slow us down.”
“Except that they may not have the equipnt you do, or the familiarity with the HEAVEN design, or they may not even be aware that we’re here. I have a problem with just writing them off sight unseen, colonel.” I thrust my own chin out in response, hoping he’d get the unspoken ssage. No such luck.
“It seems to that your priorities should be clear, Riker. We are the proverbial bird in the hand. It does not make sense to risk our safety for the sake of so putative group that you don’t yet even know exists.”
I sighed. And with that comnt, we’d co full circle. Ti to pull the plug. “Colonel, nothing has changed since last week when we had this sa argunt. Before I can build your colony ships, I have to build the shipyard. Before I can build the shipyard, I have to find the resources. Unfortunately, humans have mostly stripped the solar system bare, so there’s going to be a lot of scavenging involved. That ans I need more Bobs. So that’s the first thing I’m going to do.”
The colonel started to pace. I decided to do the sa. “Once the new Bobs have helped with the setup, they will have so spare ti to scan for other survivor groups. Yes, that will an building so drones, but seriously, on the scale we’re talking, that’s chicken feed.”
I stopped pacing and turned to face the screen squarely. “With all due respect, colonel, at one point, I did Project Managent for a living. There’s a critical path that gets us from here to completed colony ships, and the things you are so concerned about are not on the critical path. Looking for other survivors will not impact overall project duration.”
The colonel sighed heavily. “And as usual, I concede that I am hat in hand in this situation, Riker. But I will continue to advocate for my people.” And with a final nod, he cut the connection.
“Well, that was fun.” Hor’s grin had a little sympathy showing around the edges.
I looked at his video image and gave him a weak smile in return. “Any ti you want to take over negotiations…”
“Pfft. As if you’d let .” Hor popped up a schematic of the solar system, with several tooltips pointing to specific locations. “Most of the drones and busters have reported in. There are a couple of promising locations, and at least two out-and-out treasure hoards of available material. I should fly out to those to check them out before directing the mining drones to start taking them apart. Just in case, y’know.”
I nodded. “And the remote stations?”
“No radio comms with anyone or anything outside of Mars orbit. Drones should be arriving at Titan soon. The Oort station will be a few days longer.”
I gazed at the holographic images for a mont. “Thanks, Hor. I gotta say, you’re being very professional in all this.”
He grinned at . “You an as opposed to my usual self-imposed goal of driving you crazy?” The grin disappeared. “Each of us is different, Riker, but not different enough to not care. There are people out there—down there—that may die without our help. Any Bob that wouldn’t care about that should have his plug pulled forthwith.” The grin returned. “But don’t worry. I’m saving up. Be afraid.” And with a salute that barely avoided being an obscene gesture, Hor’s image disappeared.
I shook my head with a smile. I fully believed his statents, especially the part about building up a backlog. I was surprised his head hadn’t exploded by now. No, really. Hor had actually used that special effect on a couple of occasions, although admittedly not since he gave up the cartoon avatar.
I brought up the tentative project plan that I’d put together. Colonel Butterworth’s initial estimate of a decade was looking a bit optimistic these days. Right now we were about five steps back from where we could even get started on the colony ships. The first step was to find enough resources to get started on the second step. No point in worrying about it until Hor reported back.
***
It took twenty more days for Hor to finish his survey. The large concentrations of refined material—wreckage from several space battles—were not quite as extensive as hoped, but still more than enough to get started. ř𝘼₦ɵ𝐛Ë𝓢
The drones had also reported back from Titan and the Oort station. Both outposts had apparently been abandoned but not attacked. Well, score one for a small dollop of sanity. Both Hor and I had had so small fantasy that there might have been humans still in the stations. But realistically, thirty-odd years after the war, that would have been miraculous.
As discussed, Hor set up a small autofactory at each find—just enough printers and roars to produce a few cargo drones at a ti. As they were produced, the cargo drones would start moving materials to the L4 and L5 points in the Earth/Moon system. Larger autofactories were already being set up at the two Lagrange points, initially to produce Bobs and drones, and then to bootstrap up to the industrial-scale equipnt necessary to build a full-sized colony ship.
I sat back and massaged my eyes. Well, I’ve always wanted a challenge.
When I left the solar system—okay, when Bob-1 left the solar system, but it felt like my own mory—I thought I was done with humanity, except for the occasional radio ssage. Now, I was not only back to dealing with people, but I had thousands if not millions of lives riding on my actions. The old Pacino-ism really nailed it: Just when I thought I was out, they pull back in!
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