“Works for me.” She glanced up as the cargo drone descended from the sky. It settled to the ground, and we climbed in.
I placed myself on the rack beside her. “Okay then, let's park this baby and go home.”
Bill flipped through the video window. “Looks pretty good. Couple of glitchy items, but those are all software. I'd say the androids are good to go.” He tapped the window. “Only one other concern, and that's how the androids will handle vacuum. The new circulatory system might be subject to boiling under low-pressure. Or worse, rupture.”
“No problem,” Bridget said. “Simple to test. Take one upstairs and open the cargo door, contamination isn't an issue in that scenario.”
“Good enough.” Bill turned to Garfield. “Can you take care that?”
“Yes… master…”
Bill snorted. “We can call in some Skippy help if you prefer. Or your Gamer buddies.”
“Nah, that’s okay. Gives me a chance to use the android, anyway.”
“On that subject,” Bridget interjected, “Will, if you want to practice using the androids on Quinn, there's lots of planet to explore, and I'm sure lots to learn yet.
Will visibly brightened. “Hey, great idea! I can do that.”
“And go for a swim, it's unbelievable,” I added.
“Are we good on the sociology front?” Bridget asked.
“The Skippies say they've extracted is much as they can from the current data set. They’re spreading out as the spy drones move farther afield, but diminishing returns is probably rearing its ugly head. There's not much more to learn from simple observation.”
Bill closed the window. “The Gamers have the entrance tunnel all dug, and they've widened the hatch from the foyer to accommodate the Mannies. There's no indication that we've been detected so far.”
“Think about it,” Will said. “A billion miles of megastructure? How many cameras would you have to be monitoring to cover everything? And they’ve got mechanical sensors on equipment to detect most issues, so why bother? As long as we don’t break something or turn something on, were golden.”
“Don't break something,” I smiled. “An excellent motto for any age.”
“Do we have anything else outstanding, besides Garfield's vacuum test?”
“Not really, Will. As soon as that's done, we’re ready to start building the production models.”
“Anyone want to make a speech?”
“We hate speeches,” said Garfield.
“Well, okay then.”
16. Human Replicant Reserve
Will
May 2334
Virt, Vulcan Post-Life Archaeology
I was outside the virtual door of one Professor Stephen Gilligan - a former department chair at the University of Landing on Vulcan with a list of letters after his name that could choke a horse. Professor Gilligan had been an expert in many things when he was alive, but of most importance to myself and Bob, was that he specialized in artificial environments. Of even more interest to me personally, was the fact that he continued to lecture at the university - although as a guest lecturer these days, and he did so in a Manny custom made for him. So, it wasn't just us Bob's anymore.
I’d done some research at Bob's request, and the professor's name came up… a lot. I’d finally received an invitation to visit at the Vulcan Post-Life Archaeology. The archaeology was physically located in a large space station, orbiting Omicron2 Eridani, just inside the Oort cloud. It currently had a membership of about 200, mostly rich and famous people who haven't felt like waiting for medicine to catch up with them. I found myself unexpectedly unsettled. I’d been living in real in a Manny for so long that virt have become a foreign experience. At the same time, I'd been away from human society for so long that I was noticeably behind the times. I resolved to give the situation a good think when I had some time.
The door opened and professor Gilligan beamed at me. He was short, balding, and slight of build, which surprised me since I virt he could look like anything he wanted.
“Ah, Mr. Riker! Or is Johansson? Come in please.”
I replied with a small laugh. “I run into the lot, professor. As the only Bob to take a last name is my moniker, I kind of broke the conventions. These days I answer to either. Or just Will.”
“And you can call me Stephen. Please, have a seat.” He waved to his living room area, which featured a large picture window in which floated the image of a ring-shaped habitat. As with most personal VRs, the setting was comfortable and spacious, but not ostentatious. Fancy layouts and gilding lost their impact when they were free but for the wave of a hand.
I motioned to the view as I sat. “Ring world?”
“That is Bishop ring, actually. This image is intended to be 2000 miles in diameter and 100 miles across - more than 600,000 square miles of prime real estate.”
“Still theoretical though.”
Stephen replied with a shrug. “Of course. Technically, it's just an engineering problem, but the real roadblocks have always been economic and political. When you're settling a new system, you have to choose to either sit in your ship for however many decades it takes to build the megastructure, or choose to populate the habitable planet essentially immediately. The latter option always wins.”
“Then it’s not really just an engineering problem, is it?” I said.
“It is, in that we have all the technology required to build one, just not the knowledge. For instance, no one has ever been able to keep a closed ecology going for more than a year. At least on research scales.”
“And having your ecosystem collapse on a megastructure would be…” I grinned at him. “… suboptimal?”
Stephen laughed. “Keeping an ecosystem going would not be a trivial task. You can’t have actual bedrock, or a water table, or even very deep soil, at least not without major engineering challenges, so you’d have to pump water up to stream heads, and you'd have to be constantly transporting topsoil uphill to replace whatever gets washed downstream. Trees would
