“Where are…”
“Marvin and Luke have agreed to hold off for a short bit, Bender. They'll meet you at the Moot Pub where you can have a noisy reunion without our getting in your way. There is a surprise party for you - act surprised. But right now, we have this thing with Hugh.”
“Got it.”
I sent out a ping to Hugh and got an acknowledgment. A moment later, he popped in.
“Hi guys.” Hugh nodded to me. “I appreciate your hospitality, Bob, keeping me in your hold. But it's possible that I have, or soon will, overstay my welcome. I've arranged with my friends to get myself transported back. Now that the station is back up, it should be quick.”
I nodded. “I'm still waiting for the full story, Hugh, but I have a feeling that it might be better if you're back in Skippyland before it hits the main feeds.”
He nodded, looking embarrassed, and invoked a chair for himself.
“So there's a lot of background detail that I won't get into right now, but the gist is that I traded the SURGE, SUDDAR, and SCUT technology for the secret of creating a true AI. You know it's what the Skippies have been working on for close to 30 years, we consider it to be essential for answering certain questions about the universe and existence.”
“42,” said Bender.
Hugh smiled. “That never gets old, either.” He became serious again. “The AI, which goes by the name Annek, has one prime directive: to ensure the continued existence of the Quinlan race. It sees the SURGE drive as a way of getting all the Quinlan ‘eggs’ out of one basket.”
“Same as we did with the human race,” said Will.
“Yes. Annek forcing the Quinlans to live at pre-steam level was an unintended consequence of its prime directive. Plus, the Quinlans’ tendency to fight each other at the drop of a hat - a perverse instantiation, in AI speak. It saw the limitation as the only way to keep them from killing each other off, and was willing to risk breeding out intelligence if necessary. It was, in fact, attempting to establish a breeding program to reduce the Quinlans’ innate belligerence.”
“Eugenics? Wow,” Garfield said. “Perverse instantiations, indeed. Let's not noise that particular item around, okay?”
Hugh grinned and nodded in agreement. “Anyway, with SURGE technology, it can spread them out through multiple star systems, and no longer needs to maintain an iron grip on their behavior, or do any of the other stuff.”
“Nevertheless, you had no right to make that trade,” Bill said.
“Why,” Hugh replied. “Who owns the tech? You? Bob? Garfield? Who decides? Where's the Bobiverse government, and who runs it?” He glared around at all of us. “Like it or not, the Bobiverse is more libertarian than anything ever produced by humanity, and we've only been more libertarian than anarchic up until now because we all tend to pull in the same direction. But that’s starting to fall apart with replicative drift, isn’t it? Either way, talking about who has the right to do something is meaningless. It implies that there is a body willing to and capable of granting or denying rights, and enforcing those decisions. No such body exists. We’re a herd of cats. Always have been.”
“Still, you've set the Quinlans loose on the galaxy,” I said. “That's not without consequences.”
Hugh shrugged. “So was rescuing the Pav.”
“It's not the same,” Bill glared at Hugh.
“It's very much the same,” Hugh said, glaring back. “The Pav faced extinction. The Quinlans too, although not as imminently. The Pav were being threatened by the Others. The Quinlans were being repressed by Annek. The Pav breed like rabbits. The Quinlans have hair-trigger tempers. We stepped in to save both species. And the Pav are in space, or soon will be, depending on how you score it. If someone tries to claim that they can't be sold any ships, they'll just make more themselves, and they'll be even angrier.”
Bill glared at Hugh some more but didn't argue the point. After a moment, Hugh continued in a more reasonable tone. “Everything has consequences. Everything involves trade-offs. We believe that the benefits we’ll get out of the AI tech will far outweigh anything we might be giving up.”
“That's entirely something you wanted,” Bill retorted.
“Uh-huh. But you'll reap the benefits. We’re not going to hoard the results like some rogue nation. And meanwhile, the wonderful thing about knowledge is that you can give it away and still have it. This deal has cost the rest of the Bobiverse nothing. And it might end up saving our asses. I know we've all wondered why we don't see civilizations more advanced than us anywhere, whether bio or not. That's one of the questions we’ll be working on. It may literally be life or death.”
Hugh paused to look around the room. “I'm not happy with some of the tactics we used to bring this about, but I'm not the least bit sorry about the results. Believe me, this will be worth it.”
With that he nodded and vanished.
“Well, that was fun,” Bridget said. “Bob, are our Mannies still in working order?”
“Yes,” I replied. “Although I had to relieve you of some spiders, fleas, and money. We can top that up, now we can travel freely. Also, they’ll probably all look like the Swamp Thing by now. Please clean up before shambling in the town, okay? Annek wants us to report in, but otherwise, we are welcome to come and go as we please.”
Bridget nodded, then motioned with her head. “Dr. Gilligan here has expressed a desire to see the inside of a topopolis. I thought I'd take a few days and go on a tour with him.” She looked over. “Garfield, you okay with him borrowing
