The floor been handed to the representative from the Vulcan. I felt a sense of foreboding as I listened to his closing comments.
“If the Pav are not going to respect our boundaries, and assuming we don't intend to go to war with them, the next best step would be to claim all habitable planets in the area. We have surveys from the Bobs, yes? Let us launch colony vessels, sufficient to tie up all real estate. Leave them no reason to launch in the first place.”
Seriously, had that ever worked on Earth? Did he actually expect that the Pav would take that state of affairs philosophically? Sooner or later we would be going to war.
29. Panic Time
Bob
July 2334
Three Lagoons
This was simply not possible.
Even if some theoretical adversary managed to take out all three of my friends at the same time, it would only take out the Mannies, not the actual people. By now, Bill, Garfield, and Bridget should have reported in and warned me of whatever. Unless… unless it, whatever it was, had actually taken out Bill, Garfield, and Bridget. But they were physically separated by light-years, not only from me, but from each other. That… that made no sense.
I sent a quick text to Bill – well, tried to. I got a comm error for my trouble. That meant severed communications. My next step should be to narrow down the possibilities.
“Guppy, check integrity of communications with the rest of BobNet.”
“No connection.”
Oh, son of a bitch. With communications down, the three Mannies were running on AMI standby orders. I leaned on my elbows and put my head in my hands to look like I was resting my eyes. I gave my Manny’s AMI some simple instructions and popped back into VR. Guppy, as usual waited, at parade rest.
“Can you narrow down where the communications are severed?”
The Midway Relay Station is responding to pings, but is refusing connection requests.”
Huh. Not good, but I didn't have time to worry about that just now. I picked up Bridget's Manny's address and checked status. Sure enough, the AMI was operating in autonomous standby.
So, first things first: I had to get the Mannies out of town. I entered Bridget's Manny and found myself in the library. Or book repository. Or bookstore. Someplace with books. Anyway, I quickly gave the AMI some simple orders, waited for a moment to make sure it was responding, and popped out. The Manny would maneuver itself to the docks and submerge itself to below a Quinlan’s maximum depth. It would ping me if something happened on the way that was beyond its ability to handle.
It only took a few seconds to do the same with Garfield's and Bill's Mannies, then my own. I needed more than anything else to get the Mannies out of any possible danger. If they were damaged or captured, our expedition was over, and we might never find Bender.
I waited the few minutes while the four Mannies made their collective way to the river and dove in. Only when all four reported themselves in position did I relax. I put them all in low-power mode, then turned to Guppy.
“Okay Guppy, fill me in.”
“The local station is behaving within normal operational parameters. The midway station is actively refusing connections, other than basic diagnostic pings.”
That was the station I had ordered built in Delta Eridani and flown out to the midway point between that system and Eta Leporos. At least wasn't destroyed.
“A malfunction? Any information from diagnostics?”
“Negative. The station is refusing to execute diagnostic procedures.”
That was odd. The pings were handled at a much lower level and were serviced without any need for the AMI's attention, but any explicit commands would… I started to get a bad feeling, just the barest hint of a theory, and not a good one.
“Guppy, can you force a reset?”
“Negative.”
“Is the drone I set up as a temporary station still in working order?”
“Affirmative. It is in standby, but still potentially operational.”
“Boot it up, please.”
“Done.”
I pinged Bill as soon as I felt the SCUT connection come up. The comms protocol indicated a valid connection, but for several milliseconds I got no response. Then I had an audio only connection.
“We have a situation here, Bob. How are you doing? Where are our Mannies?”
“I put them all at the bottom of the river, they're safe. What's going on?”
“More than half of our space stations have shut down and are refusing connections. BobNet is attempting to reroute, but we still have a lot of locations off-line. I'm coordinating a response, but right now we're just trying to determine overall status.”
“Got it. Have you contacted Bridget?”
“No. Quilt is one of the nodes we can't reach. Garfield is busy mapping the network to see where we should concentrate our energy.”
“How about the Skippies?”
“Hugh has already contacted me,” Bill replied. “He was monitoring the expedition, then was abruptly kicked off. I told him I'd update him if I found out anything.”
“Okay, Bill. Let him know I'm back on, and keep me posted.”
“Hey, by the way, how are you able to communicate?”
“Remember that temporary SCUT relay I set up by dropping off a drone at the midway point? I reactivated it. It doesn't have enough bandwidth to maintain Manny or VR connections, so you're all still SOL until we get the main station back up, but at least we can talk.”
“Hmm. Handy. Is it anywhere near the midway station?”
“Of course, I aimed them both for the same… ah.”
Bill's intent became clear. The drone could fly over to the station and do a physical inspection. Maybe even some repairs, if necessary, since I'd supplied the drone with a roamer inventory out of habit.
Bill and I exchanged promises to keep each other updated, then I gave the necessary orders to Guppy to get the drone moving.
“Transit time, approximately six weeks.”
Well, considering the interstellar distances involved, that was practically a bull's-eye. I had literally ordered the two devices to the same location, halfway between systems. Only navigational inaccuracies
