So, I found myself reluctant to commit to anything that might put me in danger until the day the interstellar relay station came online. It'd taken a little longer than expected for the Delta Eridani autofactory to construct and deploy the station, and the delay was maddening. But finally, the day arrived when the new station signaled readiness and came online. I mothballed the kludgy drone relay station, checked my bandwidth, and perform the long-overdue backup to Bill's monster Epsilon Eridani archive: Ultima Thule.
I held off on updating my blog. I wanted to have something dramatic to post first. I'd been doing some light astronomy while waiting for the autofactory to build things and for the drones to find things. I had already identified six planets, the second of which was in the habitable zone. I’d also identified a gap between the second and third planets which was where the infrared signature was coming from. I couldn't resolve anything in that zone, and the signature was coming from all the way around the star, so my money was on some kind of swarm - possibly the beginnings of a Dyson swarm, but concentrated in the ecliptic. If I was the case, and the swarm consisted of something in the order of O'Neil cylinders, it would make sense that I wouldn’t be able to make out any detail yet.
The planet in the habitable zone, planet 2, didn't appear to be inhabited or least there wasn't any kind of radio signature. Nevertheless, I was getting something sporadic from the system in general, like chirps. Very short-lived and seemingly random noise, except for the narrow transmission spectrum, which was exactly what I'd expect to see if someone was encrypting and compressing their communications. So, something was alive.
It might be time to rejoin the Bobiverse… I could use some other perspectives on this.
The blat of the air horn was answered by the traditional booing as the audience expressed their love. Bill grinned back from the podium. “Yeah yeah okay. Today's meet includes an update from Bob-1.” Bill was forced to wait for a wave of catcalls and cheers to die down. “On the subject of Bender and the situation in Eta Leporos.” This produced a silence far more profound than the earlier noise. Bender's disappearance had become the Bobiverse’s version of the Flying Dutchman legend. I waved my hand in the air and smiled as heads turned to look at me, but I was perplexed. The Bobs have always been irreverent and disrespectful, and I was no stranger to jeers and insults at moots, but this time it hadn't been just good fun. There had been a discernible undertone of rancor. Keeping my expression neutral, I stepped up onto the podium and scanned the crowd. Undertone or not, everyone was paying attention.
“I'm sure most of what I'm about to tell you is already circulating a scuttlebutt so keep it brief, then answer questions.” I gave them the same capsule summary that I’d already shared with Bill, then asked for questions. Hands went up everywhere and I pointed at random.
“Are you just go barreling in without any thought of consequences?”
My eyebrows went up in surprise. The tone and the words were deliberately confrontational. I took a second to look at the speaker to make sure he wasn't a non-Bob replicant, but no such luck. I found myself more irritated than I would be of some random person had challenged me. This felt like a betrayal.
“Have you ever known a Bob to go barreling in without any planning? Have you met us?” I glared at him daring him to argue.
“If this does turn out to be a native civilization you could be interfering in their development. Will you confirm that you’ll back off to avoid doing that?”
“Wow,” I replied. “Nice use of a prejudicial term. To answer the actual question rather than the accusation, that will depend on circumstances. Signing onto a blanket policy at this point would be ridiculous. At one end of the scale this putative civilization might have deliberately shot Bender down. At the other end they might only have noticed the flash as his reactor exploded. Those two scenarios require different responses.”
“Or you could just leave them alone. Prime Directive, dude.”
I squinted at the Bob, trying to pick up his metadata. Okay, ‘squints’ isn't the right word in VR, but it feels the same. Strangely, he'd set his info to private, which struck me as intolerably rude. And that produced a moment of bemusement. Why would I do something to me that I would consider rude? I glanced at Bill who just shrugged.
I turned back to the speaker. “Even if we have laws, dude - which we don't - the Prime Directive wouldn't be one of them. That was a plot device and unrealistic.”
“Don't be too sure of that. Some of us are rethinking your attitude.”
“It’s original Bob's attitude,” I retorted. I found myself getting more and more irritated with this pissant, and made a concerted effort to calm down. “You have the right to whatever opinion you want.” I pointedly turned to another hand and motioned.
“How far will you take the search if you don't find anything in the system? Will you ask for volunteers to help look further?”
“As far as necessary, and yes he's one of us for god’s sake.”
“So it's gonna be another crusade mandated by the senior Bobs, and the rest of us are supposed to just go along.”
I turned my head and sure enough it was Pissant. I decided it was