This part of the infiltration was almost routine, including the stair door that I'd previously jimmied. I went down one floor, which Will's plans indicated would lead me to the elevator up to the central cylinder. If there were security cameras, I would just have to hope that I looked enough like a Natasha to fool them. And then I'd find out how good a hacking job Bender had been doing.
13. Getting Busy
Herschel
July 2334
Bellerophon
I got ping from Will, and replied with an invitation. He popped in within a mil. It had been what, almost a century since Will had been aboard, even if only in virt?
I'd long since gotten tired of playing with virt layouts, and had reverted to the default library motif.
Will barely glanced around. “Hi Herschel, thanks for having me over.”
“Hi Will, long time no see. I hope this isn't going to be as dramatic as the last time.”
He snorted. “No. No intergalactic battles pending, that I know of anyway. Just the usual dull roar whenever humans are involved.”
I gestured to a chair and called Jeeves. He showed up with a coffee for me and a Coke for Will. “You know, your general dislike for humans seems incompatible with the amount of effort you're putting into Valhalla.”
Will paused to drink his Coke, taking long enough that it was probably a delaying tactic. “Honestly Herschel, it’s simply my version of Ragnarok. If things had gone just a bit different back in Epsilon Eridani, I might've been the one to stay there and start a skunk works instead of Bill. I regret that, sometimes. Dealing with humans has soured me a bit. … okay, a lot.”
I nodded slowly, trying to keep my eyebrows from climbing my head. Will was not usually this forthright. Something was up. “Okay. You have a solution?”
“Yes, something I've been working on for a while. The Ever-Onward society, which I understand you've been sniffing around. At least that's what my sources tell me, and you've been fairly public about looking for colony volunteers. I think we've been working in parallel on very similar plans, to the point where the urge to scream copyright infringement is almost overpowering.”
I raised a finger and opened my mouth to respond before I realized I was about to argue copyright law. Instead, I smiled at Will. “Okay, you got me reacting. Now give.”
“Going off on a tangent for a moment, you guys have published enough analyses of the Bellerophon so that we could replicate it if we wanted to, except with a working surge drive instead of plates. I, uh… I started building a slightly smaller version about 50 years ago.”
I goggled at him. “In the 82 Eridani system? And no one noticed? That's a lot of material.
He grinned in reply. “Well first, I’ve been very active with this Valhalla thing, and it takes a lot of effort and material to build all those fractionaters and so on. And the colonies have mostly been concentrating on planet-side improvement, so it's not like we’re getting in each other's way. Besides, the standard agreement between Bobs and colonies allows us to harvest such materials as may be necessary for activities relating to our original purpose, without compensation to the colony. I just never mentioned the side project.”
“Wow that's… lawyerish. And it still a lot of steel.”
“The standard agreement doesn't set any limits on how much we can take. It's never really come up.”
I rubbed my eyes and check metadata. Yep, definitely Will. “Okay this is a little mind-boggling, especially coming from you, but I still don't see the connection to us.”
“A couple of things, Herschel. First, your goal appears to be to place a colony far from current human space with no attempt to maintain communications. I get why you want to do that, but I don't think the part about severing communications is necessary. Second, your idea of sending AMI Heaven vessels ahead of you is a kludge forced on you by having a bunch of colonists in your belly. Even the original project designers on Earth were reluctant to trust AMIs with that level of executive control. Except China, of course, and look how that ended.”
Will paused, and I tilted my head and gave him the side eye. “Okay?”
“What I intend to do is spit out ready-made space stations as I pass by systems. The stations decelerate to place themselves in a solar orbit, and will have drones on board to do a system survey. AMIs can handle that. And in the event it turns out to be something at all interesting, the stations will include a blank replicant matrix, just ready for a Bob to download into and take over. And if not, we still have an AMI-controlled relay station at every system along my flightpath.”
I nodded slowly. “Bob seeds. And you never have to slow down. But again, why tell us?”
“If I lead and you follow,” Will replied, “then you'll know when I find a good colony target well before you reach that point. And once you've established a colony there, you'll still have a full hold of material, so from that point on, you can do what you were originally planning.”
“Or do your way.”
Will shrugged. “Sure, whatever.”
“Why, Will? What's with his urge to head for the edge of the Universe because this sounds like the same kind of thing Phineas and the others have been doing.”
“And you and Neil? What's your motivation for this?”
“I'm concerned about running into someone or something that can wipe out humanity. We found a lot of intelligent races for the small segment of the galaxy that we've explored. It's only a matter of time until we run into something
