I almost miscalculated it though. Turns out I don't like hiking either, and made the decision to turn eastward just a little too early. Only the sound of voices raised in argument stopped us before we blithely walked into a guard post. We froze, glanced at each other, then edged into the bushes. The voices rose and fell in volume and emotion. It sounded like a difference of opinion about some obscure rule of a popular dice game. The guards were apparently handling the boredom with a bit of gambling. Hugh grinned, but said nothing, and we changed our heading to go farther uphill.
It was two bedraggled, waterlogged, and cranky Quinlan Mannies who dragged their butts out of the water at the other end of the Scrubber.
“I am never going in water again, as long as I live,” I said into the air.
“As a chemical substance, it is vastly overrated.” Hugh agreed. “Let’s find a place to camp, and get out of these wet Mannies.”
It wasn't that we were physically tired - that wasn't an issue with Mannies. But the constant running in the pounding we'd taken from even the milder stretches of river were mentally taxing. Even a post-human computer could finally have had enough. We set up a nest, made sure we were not visible, and popped back into VR.
26. Winding Down
Bill
September 2334
Virt
I examined the star map in the holotank. Annotations attached to individual stellar systems indicated the current status of stations, autofactories, and public opinion. It wasn't good. A few comms stations had been recovered, but in the end, most had either successfully self-destructed or been nuked, probably out of frustration. Most autofactories had been recovered, but at the expense of significant downtime. The humans had put together their own software image, which they weren't sharing with us, and installed it on all human controlled autofactories. It appeared the divorce was all but complete.
Starfleet had succeeded in their goal, after a fashion. Or maybe exactly in the way they’d intended. We haven't ceased contact with humanity, but it would be through much more narrow interface in the future. We no longer owned or controlled any comms stations, and had very few autofactories anywhere in human-controlled space. This left the Bob-controlled systems, naturally, but there was precious little of that - Epsilon Eridani and Alpha Centauri being the biggest examples.
I remembered that one private conversation I'd had with Lenny. I hadn't discussed it with anyone, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to. It had been… disquieting, but without any kind of possible resolution. Just questions, no answers. At least not yet. I'd been doing some quiet poking around and I had perhaps the first inklings of a possible explanation, but…
My ruminations were interrupted by a ping from Will. I invited him over and he appeared a moment later.
“Hi Will. What's up?”
“You remember the suggestion from Cranston, that humans should claim and garrison all systems anywhere near New Pav?”
“Yes. And I hope your question isn't as ominous as it sounds.”
“Sorry, but yes. It's been approved by the UFS Council. They're going to start putting together expeditions to explore and claim as much as they can. It'll take a while, light speed being what it is, but…”
I frowned. “Listen, Will, wow many of those systems have been visited by Bobs?”
“Most of them. But since we've had to isolate all the comms stations from BobNet, the UFS has deemed those systems to be abandoned, and therefore fair game.
“Oh, ‘deemed’, have they? Will we go along with that?”
Will grinned in reply. “Funny you should ask. I've been talking to Oliver about it. He has a lot more free time than you, so I figured it would help to keep me off your back. Anyway, we can, with a little juggling, get nearby Bobs to most of those systems before the human expeditions, even if the humans were able to leave right away. And we’ll instruct them to build a large and impressive military presence, first thing, just in case the humans feel inclined to get pushy when they arrive.”
“Okay, so we claim the systems. Why?”
“At the moment, more as a blocking tactic, than anything.” Will shrugged. “We don't, generally speaking, need the systems ourselves, but the Pav might. If we have the claim, we can sell them to the Pav for some nominal amount, saving face all around while very probably preventing escalating tensions.”
“Huh. Not a bad idea. You and Oliver will head-man this?”
“Yeah, you seem busy enough.”
I laughed. “You ain’t wrong.”
“How’s it going?”
I hesitated before replying. “Well, the damage to human-replicant relations is pretty significant and probably long-term. And I guess Starfleet will consider that a victory. A lot of hardware has been taken down to get Starfleet out of our systems.”
“The bad news being that we are taking them down.”
“Yep. Lots of rebuilding our future. Or in the humans’ future. I don't get the impression we’ll be invited to help.”
“Peachy.” Will stood. “Off to my next date from hell. Have fun.”
“Yeah, that's what it is.”
27. We've Arrived
Bob
September 2334
Arcadia River System
The trip down the Arcadia was relatively uneventful. I attributed that partly to
