We Are Legion (We Are Bob)

I patted Spike as I watched the image of the planet slowly build in the holotank. To one side, a schematic of the entire system slowly cycled the planets through their orbits.

I couldn’t keep a grin off my face. Space exploration was fully living up to my nerd fantasies. Flying into a new star system, never before seen by humans, was a heady, almost godlike experience. I still couldn’t get over the idea that Bill was willing to sit in one system. On the other hand, he would get a chance to do physics and engineering full-time, and he’d be getting regular reports from everyone—albeit at light speed—so he would be participating at least vicariously. I hoped he’d forward any interesting news to the rest of us.

Delta Eridani was an orange star, cooler than Sol, but more than two and a half times as big. I had deliberately picked this system as my destination because of the high level of suitability. No binary companion, not a flare or variable star, exceptionally long living stellar type, low in UV emissions, wide potential habitable zone… The list went on and on.

The results fully lived up to expectations. I had identified ten planets, including one in the inner half of the Comfort Zone. The layout of this system paralleled the Sol System, to the point where I suspected there was some universal law at work. The inner planets were all rocky worlds, while the outer were all gas giants, and an asteroid belt divided the two groups. This system, though, contained five inner rocky planets, and two of the five outer gas giants had rings that rivalled Saturn’s. The biggest Jovian was just stupid big, at about six times the mass of Jupiter. I hadn’t yet counted all the moons it had collected.

And because of the size of their sun, the planets were more spread out, which might explain the large number of moons. Only the innermost planet was missing its own satellite.

I was too impatient to follow mission protocol and scan for resources first. I made a beeline for the habitable planet and did a quick survey from orbit. I would take the time to evaluate the results while I did the required but boring raw materials search.

Soon, I had completed the orbital scan. I did a quick flyby of the two moons, then with a sigh, I ordered Guppy to begin the survey of the asteroid belt.

***

“Status?”

“At only halfway around? That’s pretty good.”

[Significantly better than Epsilon Eridani or Sol]

I nodded, then turned back to one of my infrared images of the night side of Delta Eridani 4, taken during the orbital survey. “Hey, Guppy, look at this here.” I materialized an arrow and pointed it to a spot on the picture, where several points of light were recorded. “Do these look like fires to you?”

[Probability very high]

“You think they’re natural? Wildfires?”

[I am not programmed to have an opinion]

“Oh, good lord. Okay, then, analysis: list the possible explanations in order of likelihood.”

[Small local wildfires would be most likely. Except…]

“Yes?” Guppy was about to volunteer information. That was definitely a first.

[No indication of lightning storms in the area, and the fires do not appear to be spreading. Further investigation is required]

“Hah! No argument from me, there. Let’s get this survey out of the way.”

[And get the autofactory set up]

“Nag, nag.” I sat back, bemused, and stared at the slowly rotating planetary image.

***

The survey was soon finished. I flew back to the location of the biggest deposits and began to set up. I unshipped the manufacturing equipment, sent mining roamers to work on the most promising asteroids, and deployed transport drones.

I decided that defense was going to be a priority, starting with an early-warning system. Accordingly, I manufactured twelve observation drones and sent them to form an icosahedron around the system. With small, shielded reactors, they would spot any incoming craft long before it could possibly detect one of them.

Next came the communications station. That routine task could be left to the AMIs. I gave them instructions for construction of the station, and further instructions to get started on building Bobs. At some point, I would need to get involved again, but for now I could leave my devices to their own devices. Snickering at my own wordplay, I headed back to DE-4.

I dreaded building more Bobs, just a bit. The first cohort had been a surprise, and not a pleasant one. Milo’s self-centeredness had surprised all of us. And although I hadn’t said anything to anyone about it, Riker’s lack of a sense of humor had bothered me.

When I made more Bobs, would I end up with a psychopath? Okay, that was a little over the top. The differences between the Bobs weren’t that dramatic. My parents would probably have recognized me in any of them. Mario, for instance—when I was in a situation that I was impatient with, I clammed up just like that. Just maybe not to that extent.

All beside the point, though. Bill was right. I would, sooner or later, want company.

***

On the trip out from Epsilon Eridani, I had worked on designs for exploration drones. Bill said he would work on the concept, but I wanted something usable when I got here. If Bill sent along some plans at some point, I’d merge the best of both. Meanwhile, I was at least able to operate.

The observation drones were about the size of footballs. They came with remote cameras and microphones, as well as extendable limbs for gripping and perching. More than anything, they reminded me of very large pill bugs.

I started on the biological analysis drones as well. They were larger, about a meter in length. They had visual and auditory input optimized for more close-up work, and they had a far larger number of extendible appendages for varied tasks. I suppose I could have waited to deploy everything at once, but I simply didn’t have that level of patience.

The drones could change color to match the background, even to the extent of some limited pattern mimicry. When in the air, they would adjust their bottom half to match the sky, and their upper half to match the general terrain. This wasn’t out of any fear of getting shot down—more of a concern about some local wildlife attempting to make a meal out of one. The drones were pretty tough, but why borrow trouble?

I sent several observation drones to the general area of the fires.

As a city boy, I didn’t have a true appreciation of how big thousands of square miles of wilderness actually was. This area of the planet was temperate to sub-tropical forest. Well, I assumed it was forest. Whatever it was, it stretched from horizon to horizon, with occasional breaks for meadows and rocky bluffs. Truthfully, someone flying a small airplane over this wouldn’t have been able to tell they weren’t on Earth. I felt a momentary pang of homesickness.

I realized there was no way I could find anything with a random search. It was late afternoon in this area, so I sent one drone up a kilometer and instructed it to wait for nightfall and look for fires.

I sent the other drone down to examine the forest ecosystem close up.

The planet was slightly larger than Earth, but had a lower surface gravity, probably due to a smaller core. The gravity, combined with a somewhat denser atmosphere, made for an environment ideal for soaring flyers and tall tree-analogues. And the trees had taken advantage of this.

The drone landed in a tree, extended its legs, and began to slowly creep along the trunk. And, I realized with a start, it was really a tree. It was brown—well, brownish— tall, hard, and had branches and leafy things. It looked like a pretty clear case of convergent evolution. It was, in fact, the kind of tree that I loved to climb when I was young. Wide, horizontal branchings produced many convenient places to sit. Thick leaf canopies kept the sun off. And the sheer size of the trees was awe-inspiring. I wanted to hug one.

The canopy was awash with life. The drone, camouflaged to resemble the tree bark, could snoop on the local wildlife with impunity. I had done an intensive study of taxonomy and cladistics analysis during the voyage, and now found myself evaluating the images with a semi-professional eye.

Although the body plans varied wildly in their details, the creatures I was seeing did tend to fall into familiar patterns. Insect analogues were, so far, six-legged and exoskeletal, and seemed to hit a maximum size of slightly larger than a mouse. I found a small, furry mammal analogue that had six legs as well, except for one variant that had four legs and wings. I decided to name this particular animal a hippogriff, harkening back to my D&D days. This particular little beastie seemed to have limited ability to change color, to match its background. I watched with amazement as it blended into the tree branch and waited for prey to pass by.

I also catalogued many larger mammal analogues that had four limbs. They might be an evolutionary branch that had lost the third pair. And there were birds. Or, again, bird-analogues. The bird analogues had what looked very much like feathers. I found it fascinating that the bird things flew like birds, and the small furry things flew like bats. It seemed that aerodynamics had a lot to say about animal flight here just as on Earth.

There was even a snake equivalent, which interestingly seemed to be mammalian on this planet. It looked like the three-segment body plan had been multiplied to considerable length.

I found everything fascinating, and was paradoxically irritated when Guppy interrupted.

[Heat and light sources detected]

A schematic popped up in the holotank. “All right! Multiples. Have the drones set up as close as they can while remaining hidden. Let’s see what we’ve got.”

Deployment took about half an hour. The drones needed to be careful not to attract attention by rattling the vegetation or banging into things. They needed to find a good place of concealment using night vision, which was notoriously sub-par for detail work.

Eventually, though, the units were in position. Surveillance from several different vantage points showed groups of animals gathered around fires. No, not animals. Beings. Some of the beings were tending the fires, while others seemed to be handling small objects in purposeful ways. While it was far too soon to form any detailed conclusions, I was pretty certain that these were at minimum fire-users.

Well… That’s it for this planet as a colonization target, I guess. I held my fists in the air in triumph. I’d just discovered intelligent non-human life. Not technological yet, but so what? This was huge! I wondered if I had first first contact dibs. I would have to send a message off to Bill soonest.

The natives were not pretty from a human-centric perspective. I decided that the best description would be a bat/pig mashup. Limbs were longer than seemed reasonable, giving them a spiderish appearance. They had a light coat of fur, which varied in color from a light brownish-gray to an orangey tan. The faces and heads had varied color patterns, topped by a pair of very mobile and expressive ears. The rest of the body tended to be monochromatic.

I kept up a running stream of commentary for my reports to Bill. I smiled to myself as I pictured him as a spider, sitting in the center of his web, listening to the vibrations on the various strands.

“I can see a couple of infants nursing at an adult’s, uh, breast. I don’t want to make assumptions, but I guess if it’s for nursing, it’s a breast. I can’t assume it’s milk, either, although it’s a pretty safe bet that it’s for nourishment. I also can’t assume that the adult is a female or that it’s the child’s parent. I’m tentatively assigning tags to each individual, based on their fur patterns.”

I looked over at Guppy, who stood at the ready. While I wasn’t an expert on reading fish expressions, I thought I detected occasional interest in my observations. I hoped so. For all the joy of having the universe as my playground, I had to admit that it was lonely.

I took a deep breath and resumed my verbal annotations. “There are six groups, each of which maintains its own fire. They seem friendly, and there is frequent interaction between individual members, but the groups seem to remain distinct. I’ve instructed one of the drones to get in close enough to pick up sounds. I’m pretty sure they’re talking to each other.”

I turned to Guppy. “Any problem with sending roamers down?”

[ROAMers are not intended as exploration units]

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

Guppy rolled his eyes. Guppy actually rolled his eyes! Rolling eyes on a giant fish head were truly epic.

[ROAMers are not designed for exploration on planetary surfaces. Although they have the capability, they would not be maximally efficient. Cameras are small aperture and designed for close-in work. Auditory sensitivity is rudimentary. There is no infrared capability. They have no flight capability and would not be able to camouflage themselves]

Damn… Good answer. “Okay, Guppy. Thanks.”

[I exist to serve]

I laughed out loud. No one was going to convince me that wasn’t sarcasm. Great poker face, though.