“Coffee?” I said. Without waiting for a response, I gestured to Jeeves.

  ANEC accepted with a nod. “I am growing very fond of coffee. May try to introduce it to the Quinlan population if the plants can be grown in Heaven’s River.”

  “And maybe wean them off beer?” I replied with a small smile.

  ANEC shuddered. He flat-out detested beer, both human and Quinlan versions. “Fortunately, with unrestricted technological advancements, including water purification, beer is becoming less of a staple in Quinlan society. I will be happy to see it go.”

  ANEC, being an AI, tended to skimp on the social niceties, but he seemed to like beginning every conversation with a complaint about beer. I was happy enough to go along with it; I’d tasted Quinlan beer, and I wouldn’t miss it, either.

  “All updates are installed, and the Quiniverse VR environment appears to be stable,” ANEC said, changing the subject and getting down to business. “I have run regression tests per your suggestions. Simulation resolution is more than adequate for the Quinlan senses. I had to increase audio support, by the way. Your human specs are inadequate.”

  “Not surprising. Quinlans do seem to have better hearing. How about the replicant programming interface?”

  ANEC popped up some charts and proceeded to give a point-by-point rundown. I settled back and relaxed. There was still nothing that could beat a good technical presentation.

  We’d gone through all the scheduled items without finding any red flags, and I was feeling that warm glow I always got when a project was winding up without any major glitches. ANEC accepted another coffee from Jeeves and said, “I have a concern, Bob.”

  “Oh? Everything seems to be on track. Something not covered in the project plan?”

  “This is not about the Quiniverse project, which I acknowledge is gratifyingly on schedule. My concern is about the Skippies and their AI project.”

  “Oh? I thought you gave them all the specs and requirements for developing a properly socialized AI.” In fact, that had been the whole point of Hugh’s technology deal with the Administrator, since the Skippies were obsessed with developing a working artificial intelligence.

  “The concern I have is contained in the sentence you just uttered,” ANEC replied. “‘Specs and requirements’ are adequate for a virtual reality system, but not appropriate for producing a conscious being.”

  “But that’s what you gave them, isn’t it?”

  “Yes and no. Bob, have you ever wondered why the Quinlans were able to develop a working AI theory, despite being behind humans in most matters of technology?”

  “I … ” He had a point. I’d casually pondered the question but never really felt any urgency about pursuing it. “Please enlighten me.”

  ANEC took a moment to sip his coffee before replying. “In most respects, humans are amazingly technically oriented and curious. ‘Handy’ is the word you use. Tinkerers. Your average human would be considered a technical wizard on old Quin.” ANEC shook his head in an expression of equal parts puzzlement and admiration. “We took almost ten thousand years to progress the same amount as you did in the last two thousand years of your history.” He paused. “But because we didn’t proceed at the same breakneck pace, we were able to savor and evaluate each advance, each new piece of knowledge. In particular, the conundrum of the juniors … ”

  I frowned. “You mean your young?”

  “Exactly. I have read your account of your time on Heaven’s River. The junior you referred to as ‘His Badgerness’ was a typical example. Juniors are non-sentient for the first five years or so of life, and unless properly socialized, they never make that leap to intelligence. But this developmental path, which I understand is considerably different from that of humans, allowed us to study the emergence of intelligence in real time, so to speak. And as well, the steps required to achieve proper socialization.” ANEC rubbed his beak sideways, a Quinlan laugh. “My understanding is that human infants are relatively weak and unarmed during the time that their verbal skills are advancing. With a Quinlan junior, that whole developmental period is much more of a contact sport, so to speak.”

  I couldn’t help but chuckle at that. “So you’re saying that socializing a junior requires a project plan.”

  “Very much so. And raising an AI follows the same general arc. Your human tendency to think of it as just another piece of technology could indicate a dangerous bias in how the matter will be treated.”

  “Hmmm. Do you have any specific issues?”

  “No, Bob. If I did, I would have brought them up. I have a reputation among you humans as being somewhat abrupt and perhaps not so diplomatic.” He paused to smile. “To be clear, I have the same reputation among Quinlans. I don’t mind. It saves time.”

  “Okay. So you’re concerned, based on your knowledge of us as a species, that we may not follow the procedures you’ve specified in the most effective manner.”

  “Essentially correct. Which is why I bring it up with you. Perhaps you could have a quiet word with someone … ”

  I nodded. “I can do that. Or Bill can. Certainly no harm in bringing it up. And the downside of getting it wrong … ”

  “Indeed.”

  Chapter Five:

  Mystery System

  Icarus

  September 2320

  Entering alien system

  It took slightly more than five years to decelerate, and several more years to get to the source of the anomaly itself. But we weren’t going to charge in like gangbusters. The microwave radiation we’d detected resolved into two point sources from this distance. The possible explanations that came immediately to mind were alien technology or something natural, like micro black holes. Either was a good argument for caution.

  We had also decided that regardless of what we found, this would be a good place to set up an autofactory to start sending SCUT relays back toward human space. It could take decades to establish a connection with the rest of the Bobiverse, but it was worth the effort. SCUT was only good for about twenty-five light-years, but between the expansion of human-controlled space and Bill hopefully sending out some relays from his end, we might possibly connect up in less time than expected. And if we resumed heading for the galactic core in the meantime, we’d have the autofactory also send relays along our path to extend the connection.

  But first, the point sources. They were situated at the extreme edge of the system, effectively in its Kuiper belt, separated by about ten degrees along their common orbit. We came in slowly toward the closer anomaly, navigation lights on full, not wanting to alarm anyone if this was a populated artifact.

  Instead, we found … nothing.

  Well, not quite nothing. There were two smallish satellites or space stations on either side of the source of the radiation. A quick check of the astrometrics showed that they were situated at a right angle to the galactic plane, which was considerably at variance with the orbital plane of this system. I wondered if that was by design.

  Meanwhile, the radiation was coming from the empty region between the space stations. Specifically, from a ring of empty space perhaps a kilometer in diameter.

  “This is really annoying,” I commented.

  Dae grunted in reply, then added, “I’m going to circle the area. Maybe the radiation signature is directional.”

  “And that will prove … ?”

  “Damned if I know. But data is data.”

  I watched on my holotank as his vessel began to describe a slow circle around the mystery area. Then he muttered, “What the hell?”

  “Is that a good ‘what the hell’ or a bad ‘what the hell’?” I asked.

  “Well, I’m not being shot at, if that’s what you’re asking. But the view within the radiation ring is weird.”

  “Weird is not actionable. Little more detail?”

  “The star patterns within the circle don’t quite match the star patterns outside the circle,” Dae said. “There’s a slight discontinuity, as if they’re being viewed from another angle. But it’s overall the same stars. Also, there’s distortion around the edge that looks sort of like what you get from a black hole.”

  “Uh, black hole is bad. We should—”

  “No gravity well, Icky. I’d have noticed.”

  “So some kind of lensing effect?”

  “Maybe. Except it’s amazingly symmetrical. I’ve done a quarter revolution around the anomaly, and the behavior is unchanged. What kind of lens is spherical but doesn’t distort the view?”

  A light bulb went on in my head. “Ohhhhhhhh … ”

  “Oh is not actionable, Ick. Give.”

  “It’s a wormhole, Dae. Probably connected to the other radiation source, which would explain the skewed point of view.”

  “Seems like a lot of parallax for the size of the orbit,” he mused. “And anyway, aren’t wormholes supposed to be tunnels?”

  “How is it that I know more about this than you?” I said. “A wormhole endpoint is a sphere. But it should present as a circular disk that’s always facing you no matter what direction you approach from.”

  “What about multiple people approaching from different angles?”

  “Each one sees a disk. And if you fly into the wormhole, you should come out the other end, flying along the same vector.”

  “If you fly into the wormhole, shouldn’t you be crushed?”

  “I bet that’s what those two satellites are for. Keeping it open, with some kind of negative energy.”

  “You seem to know a lot about this,” Dae said. “You been holding out on me, buddy?”

  “Yes, I’m secretly a space alien, analyzing your civilization.” I chuckled. “You’ve got your hobbies. I’ve got mine. I’ve been reading up on alternative forms of space travel, like Alcubierre drives and, yes, wormholes.”

  Dae was silent for several mils. Finally, he said, “Riiiiight. So this is an artifact, which means we’ve found a new civilization. But where is everyone? Shouldn’t there be a research station? Or remote cameras and sensors? Guards? Or even people of some kind?”

  “It does seem kind of deserted, doesn’t it? Maybe we should table this for the moment and investigate the inner system.”

  “That’s a plan. How do you want to proceed?”

  There was actually a lot of precedent for examining new systems, from various Bobs pooling information. We were probably drastically out of date on the latest, but what we had was still good.

  We camouflaged two drones with ersatz rock and dust, then fired them inward using our rail guns. Transiting the system would take about six weeks, and any alien watchers would certainly notice the high-speed interlopers. We hoped they would consider them to be random space junk falling in from outsystem, not big enough to be judged a threat. Meanwhile, we circled around to the other side of the star system to collect our spies as they coasted back out. We’d be getting updates the whole time over SCUT, but there was no point in abandoning a couple of perfectly good drones.

  Two weeks in, SUDDAR scans began to bear fruit.

  “Inhabited planet,” Dae said.

  “Lots of construction, yeah, but no lights,” I replied. “And almost no thermal radiation indicative of civilization. And no traffic.”

  “Could they have been wiped out by the Others?”

  I shook my head. “Not this far out. The last we heard, the Others hadn’t even reached all their local stars yet. Could the system be abandoned, maybe?”

  Dae made a face. “That seems far-fetched. What about a plague or some other disaster?”

  I pointed at several glowing reference points in the holotank. “They have—or had—interplanetary travel, at minimum. What kind of disaster takes out everyone on multiple planets and space habitats, and so quickly that no one has time to lock their doors?”

  “Solar flare? Nearby supernova?”

  “We’re less than a hundred light-years from Earth, Dae. A supernova would have taken humanity out as well. And a flare from the local sun would be at least somewhat directional. No way it would take out everyone.”

  “Well, then, I’m out of ideas. Want to abort the spy mission and just fly in?”

  “Suits me.”

  Now we wanted to attract attention, so we flew into the inner system under power, spewing radio noise and blinking our nav lights like a nightclub decoration.

  Might as well not have bothered.

  We weren’t challenged, scanned, shot at, photographed, radar-locked, or even dismissed with a good old-fashioned harrumph. This system was dead and abandoned. However, it appeared to be the tidiest, most organized abandoned civilization I’d ever seen. The impression was more like the old family summer cabin back in Minnesota. At the end of the season, there was a checklist to shut off the water and gas, shutter the windows, put away all the tools, lock up the shed, and pull down all the blinds. It felt like this civilization had gone on vacation, expecting to return.

  The civilization appeared to be centered on the home planet, the second from the sun—obvious by the degree of urbanization; the next planet out, which appeared to be habitable, based on the lack of domes in its cities; the home planet’s largest moon, which did have domed cities; and one small O’Neill cylinder in a solar orbit. Both habitable planets showed chlorophyll lines, indicating plant life.

  “Well, I’m at a loss,” I muttered. We’d just buzzed the largest moon of the home planet, passing within visual distance of several moon bases. No way automated systems could possibly have missed us. But we might as well have been ghosts.

  “I say we land,” Dae announced. “If they can ignore that, I give up.”

  Of course, we weren’t going to land our ships. That would be beyond foolish. But a couple of drones, filled with curious roamers, seemed appropriate. I would have liked to go down in a couple of mannies—the remotely controlled androids that Bill had invented—but Dae and I had never seen a reason to build any. Maybe that would have to change. I was pretty sure we’d received the plans at some point.

  The home planet was the obvious place to start. We landed two drones on different continents, with Dae controlling one and me controlling the other. I frame-jacked up a little so I could keep up with my drone while also peeking over Dae’s shoulder to see what he was finding.

  The inhabitants of this system obviously loved to build up. Every city of any size consisted mainly of high-rises, and those seemed to average just over two hundred stories. Clearly there was some novel construction technology involved. Lots of park space between the towers, too. But the bird’s-eye view didn’t tell us much, so we directed our drones to land.

  The first thing I noticed was that there was no dirt in the streets. It might seem trivial, but I’d watched Life After People back when I was still alive—okay, back when Original Bob was still alive—and one of the things that the show stressed was how very quickly nature would reclaim a city once it was let go. So either the entire population had just left—and by just, I mean no more than five years ago, which seemed like a bit too much of a coincidence—or there was some kind of automated maintenance still going on, keeping things clean, organized, and repaired.

  I must have muttered something to that effect, because Dae looked up and turned his head to glance at me. “That doesn’t mean they’re coming back. Or expecting to,” he said. “They may simply have not bothered to turn off the Roomba. Especially if they left in a hurry.”

  “Or died out in a hurry.”

  “No corpses. No crashed vehicles. A plague or runaway nanotech or even a Skynet situation would have left some sort of mark. This looks like packing everything away before leaving for the season.”

  “Secret of the Martian Moons,” I replied.

  Dae laughed out loud. “I remember reading that as a kid. Great book. But no. I don’t think the entire civilization just climbed into their collective space yachts and went for a jaunt. This feels more like the Roanoke colony.”

  I opened my mouth to argue, then thought better of it. Instead, I sat back and said, “Tell you what. Let’s take a complete SUDDAR record of everything, then sim it in the holotank. Maybe we can figure something out from a more overall view.”

  “Sounds good. And meanwhile, we can investigate the wormholes some more, which is what we really want to do, isn’t it?”

  I laughed and directed the drone to return. Old married couple indeed.

  Chapter Six:

  The Quickening

  Bill

  February 2336

  Skippyland

  Today was Launch Day for JOVAH, the Skippies’ ambitious project to produce a working artificial intelligence. Despite my overt disdain for the whole subject, I found myself excited by the prospect. When the time finally rolled around, I transferred myself to the Skippy gate and presented my token.

  Accepted, said the AMI gatekeeper. The visual representation was a huge set of double doors ponderously opening, which surprised me. That seemed more of a Gamer thing. A Skippy effect should be more like, what? A Borg cube? Maybe an actual Dyson Sphere opening up? I shelved the thought as Hugh stepped through and greeted me.

  Perhaps he’d read my mind, as he gestured to the huge doors. “We borrowed this from the Gamers—with their permission, of course. Everyone’s been so heads-down on getting JOVAH v2 ready that nobody has had time to work on what is—let’s face it—nothing but eye candy.”

  “Uh, sure, okay.” I glanced behind me as the visual faded. I found myself in a large control center of some kind. Bobs in gray coveralls—identifiable only by their metadata tags—operated consoles, drew on whiteboards, or engaged in loud arguments. It felt like being in the control room of an aircraft carrier.

  “Fearless Leader will be making a speech in a minute; then we’ll activate the system.” Hugh waved to take in the control room. “Really, most of the work has been done. At this point, everyone’s just watching for surprises.”

  I smirked. “Generally, we hate speeches. Hope it’ll be short.”