We Are Legion (We Are Bob)

Book 2: Chapter 25: Rabbits

Book 2: Chapter 25: Rabbits

Howard

November 2189

Vulcan

There was a call on my queue from one of the biologists. I was a little surprised. Normally I talked only to Butterworth—not there was a rule or anything. Still… curious, I dialed the call.

“Sheehy.” A woman appeared on screen for a moment, then disappeared off frame. I got an impression of thick red hair, tied into a ponytail.

“Dr. Sheehy? This is Howard Johansson, returning your call.”

Her disembodied voice drifted back to the phone. “Oh, thanks for getting back to me. Colonel Butterworth wanted me to call you if we had news. We have news.”

I waited for a moment. “And…”

She returned and grinned into the video. “Sorry. I love the drama. Anyway, we have a possible treatment for the vine.”

“Bunnies.”

“I’m going to drop a rock on you.”

Dr. Sheehy laughed. I couldn’t help noticing that she had a great laugh. Also freckles, dimples when she laughed… I mentally slapped myself. This could go exactly nowhere.

She disappeared again, then returned holding a small section of plant. “Turns out rabbits not only are able to eat the vine, they seem to be attracted to it. I think the toxin is just added flavoring to them. Bad for the vine. Good for us.”

“Right, but we still have to expend a lot of effort to harvest the vine and get it to the rabbits. Could just as easily incinerate it.”

“No, no.” Dr. Sheehy shook her head. “Rabbits are self-replicating. Aggressively so. You may have heard…” She grinned at me. “And they make great stew.”

I smiled back at her. There was a certain poetry in the solution. Granted, we’d be unleashing a Terran scourge, even if a fluffy one, on an unsuspecting planet. But Vulcan attacked first. “Have you asked Butterworth about it?”

“He says council will have to approve. But they’re feeling a little humble these days. He thinks he can ram it through.”

“Well, all righty then.”

Dr. Sheehy paused for a moment before continuing. “You heard about the bronto attack yesterday?”

“Well, attack is not the right word. They tried to eat the fence again.”

“Yes, and we had to kill one that had figured out that he could just avoid the electrical wires. That’s one smart bronto. IQ up in the two, maybe three range.” Dr. Sheehy smiled at her own joke. “Anyway, before they airlifted the carcass away from the clearing, someone got the bright idea to cut off a big hunk of meat. It passed toxicology tests, and it passed the barbeque test. So now bronto is on the menu. You may find your kudzu sales dropping.”

“Whoa! You were not supposed to be hunting for sustenance until the impact studies are completed. Is the council good with this?”

Dr. Sheehy gave me an unbelieving look. “Try to picture the council telling twenty thousand people that they have to eat kudzu instead of steak, when steak is lumbering around in plain view every day. Can you say lynching?” ???????

“Yeah, okay, point taken. Well, I still have the Romulan colony market. They don’t have bronto.”

Dr. Sheehy grinned and shrugged, then disconnected.

To be honest, this was good news from my point of view. The more the colonies could do themselves, the less I had to do. I could even conceivably take off in a decade or so.

And on that subject, the GUPPI-controlled surveillance system wasn’t going to build itself. Back to work.