We Are Legion (We Are Bob)

Book 2: Chapter 4: Water Planet

Book 2: Chapter 4: Water Planet

Mulder

October 2170

Eta Cassiopeiae

Eta Cassiopeiae was a long-period binary. The brightest of the pair, Eta Cassiopeiae A, was class G3V, only slightly larger and more luminous than Sol. At 19.5 light years from Epsilon Eridani, it was a bit of a hike. But all of the closer good candidates were spoken for. As part of Bill’s third cohort, I had to take potluck, I guess. Most stars are K and M class, and I just didn’t see a tidally locked planet sitting practically inside the chromosphere of its parent star as being a desirable vacation getaway. So, here I was, twenty-odd years later. By now, Homer and Riker would have gotten to Sol, and whatever situation they found would be resolved one way or another.

I chuckled, remembering the early days back at Epsilon Eridani. Homer was a real card. I think he picked his name at least as much because it bugged the other Bobs as anything else. I wondered if Riker would kill Homer himself in a “friendly fire” incident. That made me laugh out loud, and Guppy looked at me with fishy concern.

I lifted Spike off my lap and put her on the desk, then got up and stepped outside into the sun. My VR was a tropical location, with open-air huts, reminiscent of Gilligan’s Island. It would be totally impractical in the real world, of course, but in VR you could do anything.

Guppy followed me out. [Results are in. We have found no Jovians]

“None?” I frowned. “I wonder if that’s good or bad.”

[Insufficient information]

I took a minute to enjoy the sun on my face and listen to the surf. I suppose I might eventually get tired of this scene, but not any time soon. It made me regret that I’d never taken the time for this kind of vacation when I was alive.

Taking a deep breath, I stepped past Guppy and back into the hut. The holotank showed the layout of the star system with about 95% confidence at this point. There might be a few smaller bodies floating around that we’d missed, but I doubted they’d be major players.

The companion star, Eta Cassiopeiae B, had a closest approach of 36 AU at periastron, which meant planets were unlikely outside of about 9 AU of EC-A. It also meant that the Oort and Kuiper objects had been disturbed many times. Any planets in this system would have taken more than one good pelting. The good news was there was probably very little left out there to send inward.

“That one,” I pointed to the third planet. “Is right smack in the Comfort Zone. Any indication of size?”

[No. But spectroscopic analysis is showing oxygen and water lines]

“Oh, that’s excellent.”

[There is also indication of a wobble, which would indicate a satellite]

“Better and better. Okay, Guppy, plot a course to planet three.”

[Deploy mining and survey drones?]

“Naw, let’s see if this system is worth hanging around in, first.”

Guppy somehow managed to look disappointed, although if pressed, I couldn’t for the life of me describe what a disappointed fish looked like.

I stared in thought at the image floating in front of me. We’d detected four other rocky planets, two inside and two outside the Comfort Zone, but no Jovian planets. That worried me a little, as Jovians tended to keep the inner system relatively safe by perturbing anything coming straight in from the outer system.

Of more concern was the lack of a significant asteroid belt. The general plan for the HEAVEN project was to use the mineral wealth of asteroid belts to build the space station and future Bobs. No asteroid belt could spell trouble.

Meh. One thing at a time.

It took a few days to get there. I spent that time doing fine scans of the system for any sparse asteroid belts that I might have missed. No such luck. This system really had been swept clean. I had five planets, and whatever moons they might have, to work with. Planetary mining would require a lot of re-think. ???o???§

I also got a bead on the moons of planet three. There were two bigger ones, one about half the size of Earth’s moon, and one about a fifth the size; and two smaller ones, closer in, really not much more than big rocks. The planet itself was a little smaller than Earth, with a .87 surface gravity and a 26-hour rotation. The atmosphere was delightfully Earth-like, maybe a little more oxygen-rich.

I inserted myself into a polar orbit and started deep scans. The planet had a lot of cloud, just like Earth. That was good, since it indicated robust weather patterns. It also had a lot of water. In fact, so far, all I’d seen was water.

“Have we detected land, yet?”

[Negative]

“Well, that’s… irritating. Alert me as soon as we find something.”

[Aye]

* * *

[Scans are complete]

“But you were supposed to alert me—oh.”

I examined the scans and started to laugh. Honest to God, a good belly laugh still feels good, even in VR.

The planet had water, all right. Oh, did it have water! What didn’t it have? Land. None. Nada. Not so much as an atoll. This was just one big ball of ocean. Not even any freakin’ ice caps to stand on.

Which raised the question of what exactly was creating the oxygen. On Earth, that would be green plants. But plants, not to put too fine a point on it, tended to require dirt. Excuse me, soil.

“Guppy, are you sure about the chlorophyll?”

[Affirmative]

Huh. Weird. I was obviously missing something. This would require a closer look.

I’d gotten a message from Bill with plans for planetary exploration drones while I was still incoming, but with no raw materials to work with, I was pretty much S.O.L.

I sighed theatrically and turned to Guppy, who was standing at parade rest, as usual. “I guess we’d better survey the system. Set a course to take us past each planet. Let’s start with a flyby of this planet’s moons.”

[Aye]

It took a couple of weeks to hit all the other planets and their satellites. While I was buzzing around, I did manage to catalog a couple of asteroids with relatively eccentric orbits. I sat back in my beach chair, with a coffee in my hands, and reviewed the reports. There was lots of metal in this system. It appeared to be a little richer than Sol, in fact. But everything was planetside. It looked like the space junk that normally infests a system had virtually all become an impactor at some point. I could only guess that the effect of the binary partner, combined with the lack of a Jovian, had resulted in some weird chain of events that cleared the system. I’m sure an astrophysicist would have an explanation at the ready, and I promised myself I’d give that a think when I had the time.

I flew out to the fourth planet, the second moon of which had good ore deposits close to the surface. I set up the autofactory in orbit and fed several of my drones and roamers into it to use as construction material. A week later, the autofactory had built a couple of small cargo vessels. I loaded them up with mining drones and sent the whole crew down to the moon’s surface.

While I waited, I re-examined the scans of planet three and pondered. I remembered reading that all of Earth’s water could have been supplied by a single icy comet about 1000 km in diameter. Given the amount of material in Sol’s Oort cloud, that was barely a sneeze. Since this system seemed to have had its cloud cleared, it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to think that the planets got pounded early on.

While the mining drones slaved away, I pondered the question of whether this world was even worth reporting as a colonization candidate. Oh, it had oxygen, and it had water, but the amount of effort required to build any kind of base would be incredible. I knew from the libraries that Earth in the twenty-second century had started building and populating floating cities, but they operated only with the support of land-bound industries.

Well, not my decision. I would just send in a report and let the powers that be hash it out. If there still were any powers that be, that is. The war could have wiped out humanity entirely, for all I knew, which would make this whole exercise moot.

Still, eventually, Riker would report back to Bill, and Bill would transmit the news in one of his regular blogs. Until I heard different, I was going to continue to play Von Neumann probe. I owed that to Dr. Landers.

* * *

[Construction AMI controller is now online]

“Cool, thanks, Guppy. Order it to start on a couple of Bobs, then the space station.”

[Aye]

The Artificial Machine Intelligence could handle routine construction using standard plans, and would contact me if it ran into any issues that were beyond its programming.

The various construction tasks would take months, so I flew back to the third planet with a couple of exploration drones to look around. I started with a deep scan of the ocean. And got my money’s worth. I had to retune three times before I was able to detect ocean bottom. Eight hundred kilometers deep. That was just nuts. I’d had some thought of artificial islands, but unless there was a Mount Lookitthat down there somewhere, there wasn’t going to be anything close enough to anchor to or build up.

I stared at the result in disbelief, then turned to Guppy. “Start a detailed mapping survey of the ocean floor, using the current SUDDAR settings. Let me know when you have a complete globe.”

[Aye]

Telescopic surveys indicated some kind of green patches on the ocean, so I sent some drones down to investigate. It didn’t take long to discover the source of the atmospheric oxygen. Plants had discovered that by sitting on top of the water, they could get much better light. The plants formed large mats—and by large, I mean literally kilometers in diameter. I dispatched a biology drone to take samples.

The drones couldn’t go underwater. That would just screw up the SURGE drive something fierce. Even atmosphere required careful tuning to avoid futzing up the field. But SUDDAR scans from in close revealed that the underwater ecosystem was rich beyond belief.

“Well, this is looking not so bad, suddenly. Assuming any of this is edible, people could live here and work upstairs.” I looked at Guppy for a reaction. I might as well not have bothered.

The biological drone spent weeks surveying the mats and immediate area. The mats actually seemed to be comprised of multiple species of plant in symbiotic relationships. The animals had found the free ride, and there was a thriving commensal zoological ecosystem in and on the mats.

At the end of two months, I took the completed survey results and reviewed them.

Biocompatible. And according to the report, exceptionally so. In fact, other than a few amino acids and vitamins, it looked like humans could go native on the mats, barring anything poisonous.

I formatted a complete report and handed it off to the space station AMI, to be transmitted to Bill once the station was completed. The autofactory had completed a couple of computer matrices and cradles, so I did a backup and restored it into the matrices. HIC3821-1 and HIC3821-2 came online.

I expanded my VR to make room for company and invited them in.

Two Bobs popped into existence across the desk from me. I offered them beach chairs, and Jeeves brought coffee.

I smiled at them. “I guess you’re wondering why I’ve gathered you here.”

H-1 rolled his eyes. “Funny, I knew you were going to say that.”

That got a chuckle from me. And wasn’t what I’d expected, so my clones were already diverging from me. “So, got ideas for names?”

H-1 piped up, “Skinner for me.”

I made a moue of appreciation. “Keeping to the theme. I’m touched.”

“I’m more of a Jonny Quest type,” H-2 said.

Skinner and I chuckled dutifully.

After a polite pause, I pulled up the system schematic with the autofactory area magnified in a cutaway view. “Okay, you guys are going to be helping out around here until your hulls are ready to go. After that, it’s up to you, of course.”

Both Bobs nodded. Jonny said, “No prob with the helping out, but I’m blowing this podunk system as soon as my vessel is ready.” He turned to Skinner. “It’s up to you whether you want to stay or not. Personally, I’d rather go look for something a little more interesting.”

Well, that was a bit harsh. But, his choice, of course. Skinner simply shrugged.

I pointed to the image of the space station. “The station is almost done. When it sends the report Bill-ward, we set the mining drones to automatic collection, and that really ends our responsibility here. Questions?”

Both Bobs shook their heads.

“I might stay for a while and do another round of Bobs,” I continued. “I’m curious about the life on Three. Hmm, Poseidon would be a good name, I think,”

“Ooh, naming it and everything. You are a sentimental sort.”

Jonny was definitely a sarcastic S.O.B. I decided he couldn’t leave soon enough for my tastes.

Skinner seemed to agree with me, as he was looking askance at Jonny. This seemed like Mario or Milo all over again. I remembered Bob-1 wondering what he’d do if he found he didn’t like any particular clone. Turned out it didn’t matter. It’s a big galaxy.