We Are Legion (We Are Bob)

Book 3: Chapter 20: Life

Book 3: Chapter 20: Life

Howard

June 2219

HIP 14101

Finally.

The drone flew through Odin’s upper-middle cloud layer, casual as you please, as if umpty-ump of its ancestors hadn’t gone down in screaming flames trying to achieve this milestone. Odin was slightly smaller than Saturn, but far more meteorologically active, due to being closer to its primary.

All of which made a difficult environment for adapting a SURGE-powered drone.

I watched readings carefully as the drone cruised through the atmosphere. While the chemistry wasn’t actually corrosive as such, it was definitely chemically active. The multiple possibilities for exothermic reactions made me hopeful that I would find something that I might be able to call life.

I had no idea if all this work would ultimately pay off, but it was certainly interesting. The view from the drone was incomparable. I could see hundreds of kilometers down through clear patches of atmosphere into the depths, where colored masses of organics formed massive floating clouds. The layering was pretty obvious—Odin’s atmosphere was heavily stratified both latitudinally and vertically.

Then I saw it—a group of dots, far ahead, seemingly flying in formation. I aimed the drone toward them. By the time I got to within a couple of kilometers, I was able to resolve the targets—giant blimps, with tentacles spread round them.

There was no question they were alive. They didn’t quite resemble zeppelins, and they didn’t quite resemble jellyfish, and they didn’t quite resemble squid. They were some weird mashup of all three. Perhaps fifty meters long, with tentacles—the exact number varied between individuals. They moved as a flock.

The flock didn’t react defensively to the drone, which was probably far too small to present as a threat. I circled them a dozen times, each individual following my trajectory with something that might have been an eye on a stalk.

The drone’s readings finally moved far enough into the red, and I had to stop and bring it back—post-mortem examinations were still a large part of my development effort, and this one had been wildly successful. As the drone flew up to my location in orbit, I played the video records again and again.

Finally, I turned off the playback and stared into space, a smile forming on my face. Bridget would love this. No biologist could possibly resist.

* * *

“But, that’s—incredible!” Bridget seemed to have become permanently bug-eyed as she scanned through the videos. “They are absolutely alive. Are they carbon-based? DNA-based?”

“Probably, and who knows?” I grinned at her from an inset window on her tablet. I hadn’t wanted to take the time to deploy Manny, so I’d just phoned.

“My God, Howard. And you have forever to study them…”

“You could, too, Bridget.”

“Howard…” Bridget gave me the stink-eye.

“Sorry Bridge. I know, I promised. It just slipped out.”

She responded with one of her patented nuclear smiles, then turned back to the videos. “I would love to see them.”

“Wish granted. I’ll be right over.”

Bridget raised an eyebrow. “Howard, you are oddly well-prepared. Am I being set up?”

I grinned and winked at her as I disconnected.

* * *

Bridget looked at the device in her hands—a light helmet-shaped frame, with embedded sensors, integrated goggles, and headphones. On the coffee table in front of her lay a pair of very techie-looking gloves. R??????s?

“And what happens when I put this stuff on?” She asked, one eyebrow raised.

“Well, this was the state of the art in video game gear, just before FAITH stomped on that particular industry. Full-immersion VR, or the twenty-first-century version of it, anyway. I found the plans in the libraries, and printed this up.”

“And what happens when I put this stuff on?” Bridget repeated.

“You get to visit me at my place. And get a better look at the Odin wildlife.”

She nodded, slipped on the gloves, and donned the helmet.

And popped into my VR.

I put Manny on standby and returned to VR. I was sitting in my beach chair, grinning at her as she slowly turned to take in the scene. I’d made Bridget’s avatar from images taken when I first met her, and it was an almost physical jolt to see her standing there, young again.

I stood up and walked over. “This is a very limited interface, of course. You can’t fully interact—although you can pick up objects or feel me holding your hands—” I took her hands in mine. “—and you can move around using the game interface.”

“All right. So, show me.”

I activated the videos and data files that I’d accumulated on the native Odin life. Bridget gasped and stared at the images. She walked over to them and began paging and swiping through the data. I felt a moment of pleasure that our user interface was so obviously intuitive. But, of course, the Bobs had been living it and tweaking it for around a hundred years, now.

“I’ve been cataloguing things,” I said. “There’s an incredibly diverse ecosystem. It has plant-equivalents that build organics from sunlight and raw materials; and animals, which eat plants or other animals.”

Bridget took a moment to smile at me, then went back to the videos and files. She muttered constantly, a specialist immersed in her chosen field.

I sat down and watched her work, a glow of joy battling with a vaguely guilty feeling. This wasn’t really about the Odin native life. I could have emailed those files to her. I’d promised Bridget that I wouldn’t hassle her about replication. Well, I was as capable of lawyering as the next person. I couldn’t say anything, but non-verbal persuasions were fair game.

Eventually, Bridget noticed her hands. She stopped, examined them closely. Then she grabbed a handful of her hair and pulled it into view. She turned to me with a hurt look. “Howard, really? This is a dirty trick.”

“Hey, fair’s fair. I’m perpetually thirty-one in here. And that is how I see you. Always will. I’m not trying to be underhanded.”

“You are an evil, evil man. And a lawyer.” Her tone was disapproving, but she couldn’t suppress a small smile.

“But you repeat yourself…”

Bridget laughed, then gestured around her. “And the tropical beach thing is totally coincidental as well, right?”

“Hey, I have to have something. You should see Marvin’s VRs. Now there’s a man with too much time on his hands.”

Bridget gazed at me with an expression that I had trouble categorizing. Amusement? Longing? Affection? At least the hurt look was gone.

“You have a nice world here, Howard. But when I go back to the other one, I’ve still got gray hair.” She waved at the videos. “Those could have been displayed on my wall monitor. I understand your arguments, but this isn’t something I want.” She reached up to her head, and disappeared from VR.

I quickly activated Manny. I ‘woke up’ in Bridget’s living room, standing at parade rest. Bridget was just removing the gloves.

Before I could begin apologizing, she came over and put her arms around me and rested her head on my shoulder. I wrapped her in a hug, and everything else stopped mattering.