But the downside was that the constant excitement could eventually make you numb. Seeing a planet covered with floating, domed cities and muttering “meh” was a warning sign for sure. I admit I was being at least a little self-mocking, but the idea that I’d start dismissing each new experience with a shrug left me profoundly disappointed in myself.

  By this point, we’d seen civilizations belonging to what had to be dozens of different species. Their urban philosophies ran the gamut, from skyscrapers to urban sprawl, to underground ant-like networks. And although most were in good shape, some were less so, ranging from encroaching decay all the way to total collapse. Dae had commented that the last group had probably turned off the maintenance systems, which might mean they didn’t plan on coming back. Or didn’t expect to.

  “Notice everything’s inhabited?” Dae said into the silence.

  “What?” I looked up from my video window, which had been showing the front view from a drone doing a flyby of the current planet.

  “Every system we’ve investigated has been more or less Sol-like. No Trappist systems, no systems with hot Jupiters, no supergiant suns, no real planetary weirdness. None of the stuff that early exoplanet searches were constantly turning up.”

  “Uh … ” I stopped, at a momentary loss for words. Then, “Well, it might be selection bias. Wormholes get established at systems with planets that are either inhabited or habitable. They might have a few connections to oddball systems, or they might even have an entirely separate network for those, accessible only for research purposes. I mean, who knows? But I’d bet it’s not an accidental omission.”

  “You may be right,” he replied. “Anyway, I’m just about done here. As soon as you’ve got enough video footage, we can move on to the next one.”

  Another day, yet another exploration.

  It took two days to actually reach the lone habitable planet, and we immediately released the usual complement of drones to do flybys. We’d long since given up on worrying about stealth or security and would have been overjoyed to have one of our drones shot out of the sky just to have someone to talk to.

  Then the images started to roll in.

  “Oooookay, this is a little different,” I muttered. Dae made a gesture, and I rotated the video window I’d been examining. The “city,” if you could call it that, seemed to consist of giant cables strung between mountainsides. There didn’t appear to be any organization; they weren’t arrayed in squares or anything like that. Large nodules looking something like coconuts hung from the cables at random locations, varying in diameter from twenty feet or so up to hundreds of feet.

  Somehow, despite the seeming chaos, there was also an impression of organization, as if the placement of the objects wasn’t actually random.

  “Is this some native animal?” Dae said.

  “Um … ” I sent an order to the drones, and they did a close-in SUDDAR scan. “Interesting. The cables are mostly organic, something like silk. But there’s a base structure of carbon-fiber nanotube-based cables, deliberately designed to look like the natural stuff, woven into the whole.” I paused, examining the scan more closely. “And there’s a lot of metal in those nodules. Refined metal, shaped. Artifacts. I think this is a city.”

  “So the dominant species is spiders?”

  “Or something like it. I’m being chauvinistic, but I’m kinda glad this particular civilization isn’t still around.”

  “We’re not arachnophobic, Icky.”

  “No, but that doesn’t mean I want to cuddle up to one. Tell you what, Dae, let’s finish this survey as quickly as possible and get out.”

  Dae gave me a funny look, then smiled. “Fine, Chicken Boy. I’ll launch some more drones.”

  The spider world survey had turned out to be extremely interesting, but I was still happy to be done with it. As Dae had said, Original Bob wasn’t arachnophobic, but I appeared to be. Replicative drift was a real thing, apparently.

  Regardless, we could only spend a limited time at any world if we wanted to get a report back to the Bobiverse in this millennium, so we reluctantly (at least in Dae’s case) packed it up and moved on.

  Now we were once again back at Hub Zero, and once again faced with a surfeit of choice. So another random number generated, gate selected, and we glided through.

  And were immediately accosted.

  Chapter Twenty-Five:

  Building the Quiniverse

  Bob

  October 2342

  Heaven’s River

  Anec and I stood behind Theresa, gazing down at the empty chaise. “Ready?” she said. Getting no response, she flipped the virtual switch, and a Quinlan appeared on the furniture.

  He opened his eyes and slowly turned his head, taking in his surroundings, ending with us. “Am I dead?” he asked.

  Theresa glanced back at me, and I nodded. “Original you is dead,” she said, sticking to the script. “You are very much alive in a digital form.”

  The Quinlan—Herbie, according to my translated notes—sat up. “I feel normal. Actually, I feel great.” He flexed an arm experimentally. “My arthritis has stopped paining me.”

  “Welcome to the Quiniverse,” Theresa responded, extending a hand.

  He took it and stood. “What now?”

  “Well, that’s a long story with some lessons to be learned.” She turned to us. “This is Bob, who you might know as the Bawbe, and this is Anec, who you would know as the Administrator. I am Theresa Sykorski, first citizen of the Quiniverse. Come, let us set you up with your own home, and I’ll teach you the basics.” She looked at Anec and me. “Gentlemen.”

  It was a dismissal. She was very good at that. Anec and I glanced at each other and popped out, to leave Theresa with her new pupil.

  It was a full hour later when I received a knock from Theresa and invited her in. She appeared in human form, sighed, and dropped into a beanbag chair. I couldn’t figure that out. I thought beanbags were okay, but for almost everyone else, they seemed to be the ultimate relaxation furniture. It even transcended species, apparently.

  “That was draining,” she said, exhaustion clear in her voice. She reached over and patted me absently on the arm. “Not physically, of course, but there’s just so much information to impart before the ex-Quinlans can do anything for themselves.”

  I nodded thoughtfully. “Really, we should be able to automate at least some of that. I’ll talk to Anec and see if he can instantiate an AI with enough awareness to be able to teach but not self-aware enough to be a philosophical or moral problem. There’s no reason for you to suffer through that every time someone transitions.”

  “Not to mention that the numbers would swiftly get out of hand.”

  “Let’s hope so.” I paused. “I should also check with the human post-life arcologies and see what they have in terms of indoctrination. It won’t be a full solution since those businesses allow a lot less capability for their clients, but it’ll be a start.”

  Theresa nodded, and we shared a few mils of silence. Then she said, “I’d like to try out one of the quinnies.”

  I raised my eyebrows, momentarily taken aback. But really, should I have been surprised? Theresa now understood on an intellectual level that my physical form in Heaven’s River was essentially a robot. It shouldn’t have come as any surprise that she’d be curious.

  “We can lend you Bridget’s unit. Longer term, you should have a custom unit made for you, with your features, for visiting your family.”

  “I’m not sure if I’m looking forward to that or not.”

  I laughed. “You could talk to Howard. He was the first of us to ‘go public’ in a manny. He’d understand your concerns, and I think his perspective would help you.”

  “I will do that. I’ve added it to my TODO list. I’m not sure if I should thank you or slap you for that little innovation, by the way.”

  I grinned back at her. “I can’t survive without it. Your mileage may vary.”

  She laughed and stood. “Then let us proceed. I understand I need a connection address?”

  I found myself in my Quinlan manny, in a dark room. Anec had arranged permanent storage for us, rent-free. Beside me, Bridget’s quinny was stirring.

  Theresa looked around. “Not the highest quality of residence, Bob. You can’t afford windows?”

  “Blame Anec. I don’t think he sees the point. Anyway, this is just storage space.” I opened the door and motioned her through. We found ourselves in the common area of a storage locker business. Like many things, the Quinlan equivalent wasn’t quite the same. Quinlans did need to store stuff, but they didn’t necessarily need a separate residence, being a mostly self-sufficient predator. These storage units allowed their clients to set up sleeping arrangements if they wanted. No cooking, though. Fire regulations were universal, it seemed.

  We walked out into a sunny, late-afternoon Heaven’s River day. It had been a while, and I was momentarily taken back to my first day here, just after we’d broken out of the transit station. The view was less spectacular, what with us being in town at the moment, but the sky was blue, the sun was warm, and the clouds were few. As Theresa looked around, I had a thought. “We should also visit Quin at some point. We left a couple of quinnies there, although one is a little the worse for wear, thanks to Howard.”

  “Mmm. Intellectually, I am fascinated. Emotionally, it’s somewhat terrifying, to be honest. I’ll work my way up to that.”

  I nodded, then pointed to a nearby pub. “Want to try some real squiz?”

  “I do love squiz.”

  “That makes one of us.”

  Theresa laughed. “I’ve gotten quite fond of spaghetti and meatballs, if it helps. Perhaps we can arrange some cross-cultural contamination.”

  “Now there’s a thought.”

  We reached the pub entrance and sauntered in, trying to blend with the crowds. I noticed changes immediately—like electric lights. And background music. What was it with drinking establishments and music, anyway? Quinlans had far better musical sense than humans, in my opinion, so the music wasn’t jarring, but it was still something you had to talk over, which meant everyone was talking too loud.

  The furniture hadn’t changed, though. Early modern picnic table. We picked a spot, and Theresa signaled a waitperson, who brought us menus. Huh. Another change. And an improvement, as far as I was concerned.

  Then came the real surprise. “Hamburgers.” I pointed at the menu. “They have hamburgers.”

  Theresa glanced at the menu item and made a noncommittal “mmm” sound.

  “What, you don’t find that surprising?”

  “Not really, Bob. The ground-up land meat is new. The bun is a little different, but we had sandwiches before. You do know we have access to human culture now, right?”

  “Ooh, sarcasm. I am devastated.” I smiled back at her. “It would be really great if they had French fries, though.”

  “We don’t really have a potato equivalent. Our starchy vegetables are too fibrous. Although I think someone has formed a company to try to grow Earth vegetables.”

  “Really?”

  “Mm-hmm. Not sure how well it will do. We’re not anywhere near as omnivorous as humans. Honestly, you’re like a bunch of garburators. Anything that can fit in goes in.”

  I laughed and signaled the waitperson again.

  After our meal, we went for a walk around the town. I noticed entire blocks being torn down and rebuilt, with the replacements obviously higher-tech. Theresa saw me staring and explained, “I’ve talked to Anec about this. He decided that towns should be upgraded a block at a time, with residents and businesses being shuffled into the new buildings as they’re completed.”

  “And people are okay with this?” I replied, disbelief in my voice. “I tend to think of Quinlans as being more hair-trigger belligerent than humans, and that’s saying a lot.”

  “No, Enoki, Quinlans are more polite overall, I think. But when we get angry, we don’t bother with the posturing and threats that humans seem to prefer as a first step. We jump straight to the fighting part.”

  “But the bluffing is a useful evolutionary development that prevents too much bloodshed.” I cut myself off and made a waving motion. “Never mind. The point is that Anec is arbitrarily making decisions and going ahead with them, and there doesn’t seem to be a lot of pushback.”

  “True,” Theresa said. “But of course, we’ve been putting up with him doing that for several hundred years. And so far, his decisions seem to be producing the results he says they will. Why would you fight against someone who is doing exactly what they promise?”

  “It’s … ” I frowned. “I’m not sure if it’s the fault of the auto-translator or what, but I tend to think of you as a short, furry human. But you’re not. And some of the Quinlan attitudes about things still catch me by surprise.”

  Theresa laughed and playfully shoulder-checked me. “Different biologies, Enoki. For instance, your lack of a mating season, as such, means you’re essentially always evaluating others for potential mating. It colors all your decisions.”

  “Wow, uh … ” I glanced sideways at her, something much easier to do in Quinlan form. “I guess so. It’s obvious now that you point it out. But that’s strictly a bio-human thing.”

  “Of course.” She winked at me. “And I’m old enough to be your grandmother, anyway.”

  I chuckled dutifully, but I was glad Garfield wasn’t around.

  Chapter Twenty-Six:

  Building Dragons

  Howard

  August 2342

  Trantor

  On the screen, a skeleton floated in an assembly pod, secured by tensor fields, while more fields carefully added layers of artificial muscle, tendon, nerves, and circulatory system. It was a finicky process, and one that couldn’t yet be simply printed from the bottom up in the manner of the very first printers. Components had to be constructed, then assembled to produce the end result.

  “It looks more like a bat right now,” I commented.

  Bridget ignored me, closely scrutinizing her notes. “This one should be good enough to pass inspection by a real dragon when it’s complete.” She put down her martini and pulled up a video window. A small drone, disguised as a local bird, was providing a feed from the surface of Jabberwocky and the village that we’d picked for observation.

  “Got a name yet?”

  “Nah, still calling them dragons.” She sat back. “I’ve been observing several villages. Interesting thing. There doesn’t seem to be a general name for the inhabitants. They all identify themselves by their village.”

  “Huh. So like, no word for human, but you’re a Bostonian or Seattleite or Angeleno?”

  Bridget frowned at me. “Those are cities from old Earth? If so, yes, like that. There’s some indication that dragons consider other villagers just barely above talking animals. That seems like it would create some tension.”

  “But they trade, right?”

  “FAITH trades with the Vulcan heathens, too.”

  I winced. “Yeah, okay. But this would tend to restrict travel. Don’t we want to roam around?”

  “I’m not sure if it’s a problem yet.” Bridget sighed and gazed absently into space. “There are some indications that dragons do travel around without too much trouble. I’m still working on it.”

  “How about a break? We could visit Takama.”

  “How about Newholme? I haven’t been there in a while.”

  “Sold!”

  The Bobs had always been careful planners, allowing for all sorts of contingencies, so it was no surprise that we’d managed to hide a good deal of our assets from local governments through various not-quite-illegal strategies. Several lawsuits had been launched on different colony worlds after the Starfleet War, but most of our holdings had been liquidated and siphoned offworld before the plaintiffs could get properly started. At least that’s what it looked like. In reality, most of our net worth hadn’t gone off-planet but had been converted to some other form of asset. The Bobiverse was still a collective billionaire on pretty much every colony world. It was just well hidden.

  But on Newholme, the Gamma Pavonis colony, things had taken an additional twist. The Newholme government had decided to implement facial recognition in all things, presumably to make it difficult for Bobs to operate anonymously. Public surveillance, personal account access, identification, and even applying for a job would require you to show your face to a scanner.

  This had been tried in some countries on old Earth, with varying levels of success. But the people who survived the Solar System War and lived to colonize the stars had developed an attitude of personal freedom and mistrust of government that made early-twenty-first-century America look like a hippie lovefest. And it didn’t help that the Newholme government had been showing some authoritarian leanings even before Starfleet.

  The public reaction had been a massive revolt. No violence, just the biggest collective spanner ever tossed into the works, and not just once. Holographic masks, makeup designed to mess up the reference marks used by facial recognition software, and even weird Groucho Marx glasses and fake noses. In one particular week, every single citizen had gone out wearing a mask of the Newholme president, Adrianne Hernandez, committing misdemeanors and public mischief—and attempting to access her accounts at every opportunity. So far, the government had not backed down on its policy, although it wasn’t marketing it with nearly as much vigor anymore.

  Our local Bob, who had named himself Xavier Charles, greeted us as we stepped out of the manny pods. Publicly, he was a freelance writer with no resemblance whatsoever to Bob Johannson, and he lived in a small house in the suburbs. Privately, the house had a few extra sublevels, courtesy of some careful excavation and construction by roamers.