We Are Legion (We Are Bob)

Book 2: Chapter 9: Something is Out There

Book 2: Chapter 9: Something is Out There

Bob

September 2169

Delta Eridani

Marvin popped in and started to speak several times, without success. I couldn’t identify the expression on his face, but it reminded me of a fish that had just eaten a lemon. Something was definitely up.

I’d been going over the autofactory schedule with Guppy. I turned back to him. “It doesn’t look like there are any surprises. Make the changes I’ve listed, and let me know if anything goes off-schedule.”

[Aye]. Guppy blinked huge fish eyes once and disappeared.

Marvin was still doing a pretty good imitation of a fish himself. I grinned at him. “Come on, Marv, spit it out. You know you wanna...”

He took a deep breath. “Something, and by ‘something’ I mean damned if I know what, hunted the Deltans almost to extinction at their original location.”

“I found a number of disarticulated Deltan remains. In different places, so it wasn’t just a one-time thing. The damage was not indicative of gorilloids. We’ve seen their work. They’re lazy. They strip the meat, not even thoroughly, then go back for a new victim. Whatever this was, it did the full workup. And chew marks on the bones indicate something much bigger than a gorilloid.”

Finally, I turned back to Marvin, who had refused to give up his La-Z-Boy. He was reclining, drinking a coffee, right in the middle of a group of Deltans who were skinning a pigoid. I laughed and he grinned back.

“Okay, Marvin. Let’s get going on that search. Guppy?”

Guppy popped into existence. [You rang?]

Cute. I suspected that Marvin was feeding lines to Guppy just to bug me. “Printer schedule change, Guppy. Print up four more complete squads of exploration drones. Looks like we’re going snipe hunting.”

Guppy’s huge fish eyes blinked. [This will result in another delay to the armaments project. I remind you that you have assigned that project high priority]

“That’s fine. I think we’re ahead of the curve with the gorilloids. Attempted attacks are down to almost zero. We’ve got enough spare busters to bash their heads if they try any kind of large-scale attack.”

Guppy nodded and disappeared.

Marvin stood up and waved the chair away. “I’ll get started on the full survey as soon as they’re ready. Meanwhile, I’ll map out some search strategies.”

We gave each other a wave and he disappeared. I closed the village VR and brought back my library.