“Hmm.” I tapped my chin with a finger as I thought it through. A nervous tic that I seem to have developed all my own. Original Bob had never done that. Nor did any of my clones. “Well, you can't print liquids, and there's no point in emailing the recipe without having the actual ingredients available, so I guess physical exports are the only way.”
I raised my glass in salute. “Here's to Howard: the family entrepreneur.”
I glanced around the pub as I slowly sipped my beer. There seemed to be a lot more variation in dress and style these days, and the clumps of Bob's had a tendency to match as if we were self-filtering by fashion sense. I could swear that some of them were just short cosplay. Oh, there were no Klingons or Chewbaccai strutting around, but some of the clothing was reminiscent of TNG uniforms or Jedi robes. There was even a Bob in a suit and tie. Why in god's name would anyone voluntarily wear a suit and tie?!
I frowned and tilted my head in the direction of the suit, glancing at Marvin. He replied with a baffled smile and a shrug. “Don't ask me, Bob. Replicative drift seems to be accelerating. I think we’re approaching 15 to 20 generations and it's no longer just a matter of enhanced or suppressed attributes of original Bob. The differences are accumulating, and some clones are going in completely new directions.”
“Uh-huh. And the almost-cosplay outfits?”
Marvin's bemused expression didn't change. “Some of those are probably just for fun or making an ironic commentary, but the rest, well, I'm not sure if the clothes are influencing the attitudes or the other way around. The TNG guys are talking about forming an actual organization in the vein of Starfleet to monitor – that’s that words they’re using - the Bobiverse’s effect on biologicals.”
“Oh, good grief. And how are they going to do that? Pass laws, create a police force?”
“I think it's just discussion, Bob. No one is actually pushing for organizational changes. At least not yet.”
“Is this anything to do with Thor and his lobby group, after the war with the Others?”
“Not really, no. Thor and his group were stating their preferences - not trying to impose anything on the rest of us. This,” Marvin made a small gesture toward the TNG guys “has a more intrusive feel about it, if you get my drift.”
I shook my head, refusing to give the matter any more psychic energy. I raised a hand in Jeeves appeared with another beer.
I popped into my personal VR sporting a pleasant beer buzz and a not so pleasant feeling of foreboding. I dismissed the beer buzz, but couldn't do the same for the foreboding. Bill was right that I didn't go to moots often enough, but today's revelations hadn't been the kind of thing that would encourage me to do so. I'd recently added an outside patio to my library, complete with deck furniture. The weather was perpetually late summer or early fall with warm sun and a cool breeze. Loons called across the lake, competing with geese and other waterfowl.
Sighing with contentment, I settled into a lounge chair, then invoked Guppy. “Fire up Spike and Jeeves, please. Then update me on the course change.
Jeeves appeared at my elbow with a pot of coffee and some small sandwiches with no crusts. Spike appeared on my lap, right where she'd been when I suspended her program. I scratched the cat’s ear and should begin purring. Finally, sandwich in one hand and coffee in the other, I was ready for business. “Status?”
“En route to Eta Leporos. Travel time: approximately 35 years, including time required to change direction.”
“Wow, that's a hike. Will we be in SCUT range we get there?”
“Negative. It will be necessary to construct and deploy an intersystem relay station.”
Crap, more wasted time. Well, it couldn’t be helped. I wasn’t about to do a side hop to some nothing system just to build a communication station so I could still access BobNet. Of course, if Eta Leporos us had no suitable raw materials when I got there, I was going to look pretty foolish.
“All right, Guppy. Send orders to the trailing drones to adopt a minimum time flight plan to get to where we changed course. I want the whole area mapped in detail, looking for a Bussard trail.”
“Acknowledged. They will require approximately 24 months.”
“Noted. Let me know when they arrive and start mapping, and give me the completed report as soon as it's received.”
Guppy blinked huge fish eyes and disappeared. I settled back into my La-Z-Boy and put my hands behind my head. First problem: communications. I could maybe build a communications relay station when I reached Eta Leporos and send it back along my route to the halfway point. That was suboptimal though. Beside the uncertainty of materials availability at my destination, I’d be out of touch for years. More years, I mean.
Instead, I could direct the Delta Eridani factory to build a full-sized relay station with a surge drive and send it out. That would be faster, since I could get started immediately, but this option would still leave at least some gap during which I'd be incommunicado. To handle that gap, I could take one of the drones in my hold, modify it to act as a SCUT relay station, and drop it off en route with orders to decelerate to zero velocity. It wouldn’t be ideal - no repair or upgrade capability, for starters. And not a lot of bandwidth, with the size limitation. Well, I wouldn't be running any moots from Eta Leporos anyway. I could live with that. And I could stock it with some spare roamers in case of breakdowns. Anyway, it only had to operate for a couple of years, until the much larger and more powerful station from Delta Eridani was in position. And investment of equipment was minimal - I have enough spare drones and roamers
