Of more immediate concern was the rush of proposed bills, restraining orders, and lawsuit filings intended to delay or block the sale and support of hueys. Huey LLC (yes, we picked that name) was already the subject of no fewer than fifty-two restraining orders, sixteen class-action suits, and four threatened government audits.

  Sighing, I called Hector. Not bothering to sit in front of a screen, I used my internal comms service and generated an avatar for my video image. He came up on a virtual window in my head’s-up.

  I opened the conversation. “I suppose you’re wondering why I’ve gathered you here.”

  Hector laughed. “Not the least bit. I sent you that report, Howard. Honestly, I expected a little more cursing. You must know what we’ve been up to.”

  Oh, that was interesting. Hector wasn’t acting at all like a CEO who was seeing his company crash and burn—more like someone relishing a fight. “Why don’t you just update me without making assumptions about what I do or do not know?” I said. Quite calmly, I thought.

  I must have been right, because he didn’t suddenly look concerned. “None of this is unexpected, Howard. We took a page from the Bobs. We’ve been filing injunctions, counter-injunctions, briefs; getting legal opinions; preparing and pre-filing countersuits; and so on for weeks now. The perpetrators of most of these legal actions will have to spend up to six months unraveling all the judicial balls of twine we’ve been winding before they’ll even be able to demand their first meeting with our lawyers. The threatened audits are already four layers deep in preemptive lawsuits and show-cause orders. Basically, we sowed the entire battlefield with caltrops before we even started.”

  “All legal?”

  “Nothing illegal.”

  I gave Hector the hairy eyeball. That sounded almost—

  “You’ve been talking to Will,” I exclaimed.

  “If you mean the Bob formerly known as Riker, I plead the Fifth.” Hector grinned. “But yes. He’s very cynical about humanity, which is helpful in this kind of fight. In any case”—Hector looked down and played with something, and another email popped into my inbox—“we have more than two hundred thousand firm orders with deposits, plus close to a million tentative orders queued up already, and every one of those customers could be convinced to join a class action if someone actually managed to delay us.”

  I was impressed. My initial take of Hector as an ass-kisser had wildly missed the mark. This guy was a serious pugilist.

  I thanked him and hung up. The hueys were just the tip of the iceberg, of course. Companies that rented mannies would expand to include generic hueys in their lineups, for people who only occasionally needed one. Companies that stored mannies for ex-human customers would expand to include huey storage for still-living clients. A new vacation industry would evolve as people realized they could visit other worlds using hueys instead of spending years in stasis. Or having to die first.

  And I owned most of those companies. Well, the Bobiverse did.

  There were also other, more salacious uses that we really didn’t want to advertise to the general public, but it was a dead certainty that a secondary industry would form within a day.

  Chapter Forty-Six:

  Moot Time

  Bob

  July 2344

  In Virt

  Isent a message to Theresa. Moot’s in a few mils. See you there?

  Already arrived, came back immediately. Move your tail.

  Heh. That had become Theresa’s favorite expression. For some reason, the Quinlans had never coined the phrase, despite actually having tails. But it had since become a meme both in the Quiniverse and among bio Quinlans.

  I popped over to the moot hall, to find Bill, beer in hand, sitting with Theresa in her human avatar. I eyed Theresa’s drink. She had, for some reason, become partial to hard cider. That was a recent addition to the moots and a bit of cultural contamination from the ex-human side, as no Bob would ever have suggested putting it on the menu. Original Bob had once gotten drunk on cider as a teenager. I shuddered at the memory.

  “Hey, Bill. Whassup?” I said, sitting across from Theresa.

  “Well, the world isn’t coming to an end or anything,” he replied. “I just thought we were due for a moot. I sent out a general invitation, but these days, if we get a few hundred attendees, it’s a good day.”

  “Yeah, one more thing to thank Starfleet for.”

  “Some minor bits of news, though. The Pav have mounted an expedition to their home world. No surprise to anyone, despite their earlier reluctance.”

  “I have yet to meet a Pav,” Theresa interjected. “I should like to, I think.”

  “We could do that. But you’d have to do it in a manny. The Pav are highly antagonistic to VR. I think it’s because they see it as a Bob thing.”

  “Whenever you can arrange it. Should I appear in Quinlan form or human?”

  I snorted. “I’m not sure which is less bad. On the one hand, they don’t like humans, but on the other, they might consider a Quinlan a prey animal. They are at least part-time carnivores.”

  “They’d get a very large surprise,” Theresa said. “We may look like large, fat beavers, but you’ll find our teeth and claws far more effective.”

  I smiled at her. “Hey, don’t look at me. I’m on your side.” Then to Bill, “So what else?”

  Bill glanced meaningfully at Theresa, then raised his eyebrows slightly. I got the message right away: no talk of wormholes in public. I gave him a small nod, and he replied casually, “I got an email from Ferb a few of months ago. Someone named George is sending back reports from a couple hundred light-years farther up the galactic axis. I’m waiting for updates. Oh, and I talked to Steven last week … ”

  “Professor Gilligan?”

  “Uh-huh. Someone in his consortium has suggested putting mover plates around an O’Neill cylinder and making it into a kind of generation ship.”

  “Cool. What for?”

  “I think mobility is just better than no mobility.”

  I laughed. “If they can finance it, why not?”

  Theresa spoke up. “I don’t think Anec has made this public yet, but we have a ship ready to depart for that system the Bobs earmarked for us, with ten thousand Quinlans in stasis. Anec is delirious with joy. Well, as delirious as he can get. He will finally have what he calls ‘locational redundancy.’ He’s cloned himself to run the ship and administer the colony.”

  “Wow. That is something,” I said.

  At that moment, official moot opening time arrived, and people began popping in. In a few mils, I was surrounded by Bobs and miscellaneous ex-humans.

  I leaned in toward Theresa. “By the way, I talked to a few people.”

  “Good for you,” she said, and linked her arm with mine. “I’m glad you’re making friends.”

  I turned to her in surprise to find her grinning at me. “Okay, you got me. Cute.”

  She dimpled. “I’m really beginning to enjoy being young again, Bob. I became very prim and proper as I moved into senior professorships, but it was never my natural bent. Now, I find I don’t care.”

  I chuckled. “Just take it easy on people. They might need their hair and skin.” I paused. “Anyway, I was talking about the issue of Quinlans turning themselves off.”

  Theresa was suddenly all business and removed her arm. “Oh?”

  “My contacts tell me that ex-humans are doing it, too. Not a lot of them. And the arcologies do keep it quiet. It doesn’t look good, and trying to explain it away looks even worse. There’s just no upside for the companies.”

  “Hmm, I don’t see Anec going that way.”

  I smiled. “No, he has even less patience for politics than the Bobs. But a couple of suicides have left notes. The consensus is that they’re looking at eternity in front of them, and they already find themselves running out of ways to keep themselves interested.”

  “What? That’s ridiculous. There are books to read, specialties to study—”

  “Preaching to the choir, Teach.”

  Theresa looked confused for a moment; then her translator must have provided context, so I continued. “The point, though, is that these seem to be people who have decided they don’t want eternal life, for whatever reason. I don’t want to sound callous or cold, but I think this is one of those cases where your responsibility to the individual only goes so far.”

  She sighed. “I have to agree, Enoki. Er, Bob. I’ve had students like that. They learn all the lessons, memorize all the facts, but their minds can’t make music from it.”

  Now it was my turn to be confused, until I realized it was a Quinlan expression. And pretty clear from context, really. “So keep doing what you’re doing,” I said. “Be sad when someone goes out like that, but in the end, it’s their choice.”

  She squeezed my arm and leaned against me for a moment. “Good advice, Bob. Thank you. Now”—she gestured to the dais where an argument was going full volume—“what are these idiots blathering on about?”

  Chapter Forty-Seven:

  Assimilation

  Howard

  April 2344

  Jabberwocky

  It took two days to get the Hunter over to the Alexandrian flotilla. To compare floaters to aerial barges would be an insult to barges. But they could be persuaded to tack, and even to swim slightly upwind using the keel as a sort of fin. I became curious enough about how this was done that I took a flight around our temporary home. It took no effort at all to convince Bridget to come along.

  I found a number of Alexandrian troops perched up around the base of the keel, occasionally prodding it with spears. “What are they doing?” I asked Bridget over the intercom.

  She thought for a moment. “My first guess would be that they’re using something like acupuncture to get the floater to behave how they want. Poke here and it turns left, poke there and it starts to swim, and so on.”

  Wow. The dragons were literally hanging upside down on the underside of the floater, digging in with their clawed feet. Dragons were not like bats; this wasn’t a normal lifestyle choice. That couldn’t be fun. Or comfortable.

  We circled around and landed back on the floater, then merged with the crowds. It was noteworthy that once the Alexandrians had taken over, they really didn’t change anything. The village elders were given a few instructions on what would or would not be allowed; workers were ordered to make some modifications to all equipment that contained fire. It soon became obvious why, as well. When the Hunter had been allowed to drift with the wind, the air currents on top had been minimal to nonexistent. Now that we were beating across the wind, there was a definite breeze, which made fires harder to control and more likely to flare up. The Alexandrians had obviously done this before.

  As we slowly pulled up to the flotilla, I got my first good look close up. It was impressive. The Hunter, large as it was, lost some perspective against a distant background. But up close with other floaters—some larger, some smaller—the scale of these behemoths became apparent.

  And I could see that the dragons had a solution to the bat-lifestyle problem. Scaffolding had been constructed around the base of the keel on the other floaters. On some, work was still in progress. And the floaters were tied together with multiple long lines.

  I could see out of the corner of my eye that Bridget was frowning. I turned and raised an eyebrow without saying anything. She returned my glance, then gave a small shrug. “This is very well planned, Howard. These modifications, the tie-offs, the way they’ve got all the floaters at the same altitude … it must be for something. They are deliberately turning all the individual floaters into some kind of super-floater, and they must have a reason. How do we find out?”

  “Uh, ask someone?”

  Bridget started to give me an irritated glare, then apparently thought better of it. “Well, why not?” she said. Wasting no time, she marched up to the nearest Alexandrian, as usual, easily identifiable by the bright-blue and white armband.

  I stood back, giving her room to work. I didn’t want the guard, or soldier, or whatever he was, to feel crowded or threatened. Plus, one on one seemed more casual and spontaneous and less nosy and spy-ish.

  Bridget pointed to the scaffolding, to the guylines, to the uniform altitude, and asked what it was all about. The guard—er, whatever he was—gave her a funny look and whistled. Two other soldiers double-timed over, and now I was certain of their occupation because they had their spears at port arms. Bridget tried to back away, looking alarmed, but the first soldier grabbed her arm. I saw—I actually saw—Bridget make the decision not to end him. Just as well.

  “What’s going on?” she cried, laying on the innocent and confused.

  The guard shook his head, which I thought was unnecessarily ambiguous, and said, “Go with these soldiers. You’ll get your answers.”

  Bridget glanced quickly in my direction and intercommed me. “Howard? Should I cooperate?”

  “Yes,” I replied. “I’ll follow. If they notice me, just say I’m your mate and I’m probably worried. It’s not even a lie. If we have to, we’ll bust out and come back later with different features.”

  She nodded in response, which the soldier took as acquiescence. He gestured, and the other two stepped aside to make room for Bridget in the middle. A moment later, all three were airborne, and two seconds after that, I followed.

  It soon became obvious that they were heading for a smaller floater in the middle of the fleet. I started to glide down to follow Bridget and her escort, but I was intercepted by a squad of five Alexandrians, spears at the ready. I briefly considered going through them, but the fact was that Bridget didn’t appear to be in real trouble, at least not yet. I veered off and landed on the next floater over, up in a tree where I could keep an eye on things.

  The squad hovered for a moment, then, concluding I’d gotten the message, they flew back to their post.

  I intercommed Bridget. “Keep me in the loop.” In response, she offered me a video stream of what she was seeing and hearing.

  An older dragon, presumably some kind of majordomo, came hobbling over within moments and exchanged muttered comments with the squad leader. Then he faced Bridget. “You seem to have an active mind. We keep our eyes open for smart people. You’ll find working for Alexander very rewarding, commensurate with your contributions.”

  “Assuming I want to work for Alexander,” Bridget said.

  The majordomo smiled and nodded to the squad leader. He casually pulled out a machete and tapped it into his other hand suggestively.

  “You’ll kill me?”

  The majordomo huffed in contempt. “Of course not. What use are you dead? We’ll clip your wings. You will be working for Alexander, one way or the other.”

  Bridget looked from one to the other. “Doing what? What’s so important that you need me, of all people?”

  “You have shown indications of being intelligent and probably educated. We need people like you for analyzing the records.”

  “You have written records? Why didn’t you open with that? I’m in.”

  Both dragons looked surprised. Apparently, Bridget’s reaction was not normal. “They have records,” she intercommed. “I have to see this. I can leave later.”

  “Gotcha,” I replied. “Keep me updated.”

  “Can you read?” the majordomo asked. “More than just common signs, I mean.”

  “Yes. I’m a little rusty. It’s been a few years.” Bridget was exaggerating a little, I knew. The Gamer analysis had included basic dragon writing, but there wasn’t a lot to read in general society except, as the majordomo had implied, business signage and such.

  “Can you do numbers?”

  “Yes, basic arithmetic.”

  “Then you have a place here for as long as you want it. Follow me, please.”

  Bridget was taken to a ground-level building that must have been grand for dragon construction—about the size of a barn, with multiple mezzanines. I watched through her eyes as she looked around. Perhaps two dozen dragons at tables were reading scrolls and occasionally writing notes. More dragons flew around, fetching and retrieving scrolls from racks. Some of the dragons at tables were missing wing feathers. Or in a couple of cases, wings.

  “This,” said the majordomo with an expansive wave of an arm, “is all the written knowledge of the continent of Atlantis. Alexander makes a point of copying all written records from other libraries.”

  “Or taking them,” I commented.

  “There’s a lot more going on here than they’re admitting to, Bridget replied. You noticed the mutilations?”

  “Uh-huh. Slaves? Prisoners?”

  The majordomo seemed to be waiting for a reaction. Bridget glanced at him, then back at the library. “I don’t remember anyone visiting my hometown and copying our library. How far east have you been?”

  “Hmmph. I’m sure we have the same information in here from other sources.”

  Ooh, Bridget had hit a nerve. I wondered how she’d play that.

  “Life cycle of the trout?” she said. “Interdependency with the floaters? It’s my field of study. It’s why I’ve been flying so far west with my mate.”

  Majordomo frowned. “Interdependency? How do you mean?”

  “The floaters spread fish eggs. In the process of dragging their tendrils through lakes, they pick up eggs, then deposit them in the next lake. That keeps the fish population distributed, even if one lake is getting overfished.” Bridget gave him a hard look. “Your habit of collecting all the floaters together is going to affect the fish population. Might already be doing so.”

  Majordomo took a step back, all bravura gone. “Wait here. Feel free to look around, talk to people.” He hurried off, waving his arms to someone offstage.

  “You sure know how to take the starch out of a stuffed shirt,” I said over the intercom.

  I could hear the amusement in her voice. “That was a bonus. The important thing is, I’ve stirred the pot. Maybe I can get some introductions to the higher-ups.”