We Are Legion (We Are Bob)

Book 2: Chapter 8: Farming Satellites

Book 2: Chapter 8: Farming Satellites

Howard

April 2189

Vulcan

The holotank glowed with overlapping information windows, all competing for attention. Several nodes blinked red, demanding immediate input. I cranked up my framerate a little. Not enough to overload the VR hardware, just enough to be able to get ahead of all the demands on my attention.

“Guppy, you’ve got coordination of the drone mule-team, right?”

[Affirmative]

Good thing. I thought my head was about to explode.

We were about to spin up the third farm donut, which would increase our capacity just in time for the arrival of the third colony ship.

Farm-1 and Farm-2 were already in full operation, generating a comfortable .25 G in the rim. Riker and Homer had found through trial and error that crops didn’t do well below that level of gravity.

Specialized drones maintained the farm sections, which were producing all the kudzu you could eat. Yum. Of course, I didn’t have to eat it, what with being a computer and all, but the humans were not so lucky. Until the colonies were to the point of being self-sustaining, everyone’s daily calorie intake was up to fifty percent kudzu. And because of kudzu’s digestive side-effects, meals and other social gatherings tended to be outside. Or involve open windows.

One of the status windows dinged. Guppy was starting the spin-up of Farm-3. After a lot of debate filled with discussion of gyroscopes, compressed-air propulsion, and traditional JATO units, Homer had settled on a very old-school system for spinning up the orbital farms, which we were still using. We tethered four drones to the rim with cables, ninety degrees apart, and had them fly in circles until we achieved the proper RPM. Primitive, but effective.

I watched the status displays as Farm-3 came up to speed. No issues. And more importantly, no sabotage. It seemed that VEHEMENT was either still completely confined to the Sol system, or they hadn’t acquired any assets here. But we didn’t know how many members might have gone out with the various colony ships. We would have to be vigilant until humanity was well-enough established to survive its own craziness.

I shook my head. Enough daydreaming. I ran final checks on Farm-3, then directed Guppy to start planting operations. Farm-3 would grow regular crops. Vegetables, wheat, berries, stuff people actually wanted to eat. I really needed to get this right or there would be talk of lynching.

* * *

“Coming up on beacon. Fifty klicks and closing.” Sam’s image floated beside the system schematic. Exodus-3 was on track to merge neatly with the L4 point shared by the twin planets, Vulcan and Romulus. The Vulcan colony had declared a holiday, as it was unlikely anyone would be getting anything done anyway. I was transmitting my displays down to the Landing City network, which was broadcasting out to every TV in town.

Exodus-3 slid up beside the communication beacon without as much as a wobble. Sam ran through his shutdown checklist and changed status to station-keeping.

With the formalities out of the way, I popped over to his VR.

“Welcome, Howard. Pull up a chair.” Sam waved a coffee mug in the general direction of a Victorian wingback.

After a moment of awkward silence, Valter said, “Very well, we will trade some of our decanted livestock. If necessary, for future considerations. Howard, I am hoping you will act as adjudicator in such cases.”

“Absolutely, Mr. Valter. And thank you. Colonel, some breeding stock now will help you until we’ve finished force-growing the animals in the artificial wombs.” I turned to Cranston. “Minister, your repayment should consist of setting up and running a large batch of artificial wombs to take the pressure off the Spits. The both of you can pay them back with interest once your own stock is high enough.”

I looked around at the various windows. No one commented. With a sigh, I checked my agenda for the next discussion item.

* * *

“You show a lot more patience than Riker ever did.” Colonel Butterworth raised a glass of Jameson toward me.

“Thanks, Colonel. I think. We Bobs are definitely different as individuals. I wonder why they never picked up on that back on Earth, when they were working on the whole replicant thing.”

Butterworth shrugged. Science-y stuff like that didn’t interest him, except to the extent it affected his job.

He poked at a pile of paper on his desk. “This native vine that I mentioned before is turning into a significant problem. The level of invasiveness puts anything from Earth to shame, except possibly bamboo. If we don’t get ahead of it, we might end up expending all our energy just beating it back.”

“Hmm, the native ecosystem has the home court advantage, unfortunately. Doesn’t it serve as food for any native species?”

“As far as my scientists can tell, it contains a toxin of some kind that the native browsers find disagreeable. Even the brontos won’t eat it, and they are the un-pickiest herbivores I’ve ever seen.”

I laughed. The brontos would eat almost anything that provided net calories. They would eat all the leaves from a tree, then the twigs, then the bark from the main trunk and branches. What they left behind looked very sad. Fortunately, Vulcan trees could survive having their bark stripped.

The brontos had even started munching on the fence, when they could get close enough. A couple of strings of electrified wire had nipped that habit before it could catch on.

“How does it affect people?”

Butterworth shook his head. “The vine is not edible as such. However, the toxin doesn’t seem particularly effective against Terran biology. As soon as we have some livestock, we’ll see if they’ll eat it.”

I nodded silently. Colonizing an alien planet, as with everything else, was more complicated than TV and movies let on. Clearing the land and building houses was just the beginning. We had neither the resources nor the desire to commit planetary ecological genocide, and doing so would doom the colony anyway. But learning to live here was going to be a case of mutual accommodation.

Fortunately, so far no alien diseases had found humans compatible. I wasn’t really surprised. Even Terran viruses were generally specialized for a specific species or lifestyle. Eventually something would make the jump, but by then we would hopefully be ready for it.

The colonel brought up a few more minor items, then we signed off. So far so good, but my movie-conditioned mind was still waiting for the inevitable disaster.