We Are Legion (We Are Bob)

Book 2: Chapter 60: Arrival

Book 2: Chapter 60: Arrival

ClaudeNôv(el)B\\jnn

May 2205

Gamma Pavonis

Gamma Pavonis was an F8V class of star, which made it slightly bigger and barely hotter than Sol. The effect was a system with a comfort zone slightly farther out, but a sun that would look virtually indistinguishable from ours.

I paradoxically found myself hoping that I wouldn’t find anything in the comfort zone. The whole dialog with Bill had left me freaked out and ambivalent about what I might find. I would actually feel better if there was nothing in this system worth defending.

Well, you have to know that Murphy is listening for just exactly that kind of wish, so he can give you the shaft.

The planet sat at just over a hundred million miles out. A gorgeous, shining, blue and green marble with bands and swirls of white, orbited by one larger moon and three smaller ones. Damn.

The drones took up polar orbits for a couple of passes, then swooped into atmosphere to check out interesting items.

“And that’s the problem. It is a great planet. Great system. And if you’re right, due to be ‘harvested’ sometime in the next, what, hundred years?”

Bill looked down for a moment. “Mario has been getting reports back from Bobs hitting surrounding systems. Combined with his own observations in Zeta Tucanae and Beta Hydri, we’re able to make a rough estimate of a system every ten to twenty years.”

“So they’ve only been at this maybe a hundred years?”

“We don’t know how long they were working only within their system. It might have taken them a hundred years to get started. Maybe the first out-system harvest taught them a lot. Anyway, the point is, there are a lot of unknowns before they started regularly harvesting.”

Bill had popped up a star chart while he was talking, the various star systems flashing a tooltip as he mentioned them.

“Jacques will be arriving at Delta Pavonis in eighteen months. The positions of Delta Pavonis and GL 877 are about the same distance from you, so if we see the Others head your way, anything he launches from Delta will arrive here at the same time. So hopefully you’ll have reinforcements.”

I nodded. That was something, anyway.