“Plus, if we stop him, Thoth will still be there causing trouble and will just try something else.” Bob paused and looked around. “Maybe we should let him succeed.”

  “What?” I exclaimed. Several people echoed me.

  “Look, Thoth will most likely delete himself locally once he’s successfully escaped. It would be unethical and probably unthinkable for him to leave himself trapped. Plus, there’s always the chance we could ultimately defeat the copy and decompile him or something.”

  “Debatable, but not out of the question,” Hugh replied. “Okay, he’ll shut down his local copy and probably scrub it as well. So?”

  “So he won’t do that until it looks like he’s gotten away cleanly. Bill, you have the Titan-class flight characteristics available, right?”

  I raised my eyebrows at this apparent non sequitur but nodded. This was getting interesting.

  We watched the monitors as Fake Hugh’s ship whipped through each of the transit points. He had accelerated to a truly ridiculous velocity. He was actually hitting the wormhole endpoints at just a few percent below the speed of light. That was interesting, because it was an obviously risky move. Thoth must have figured out the characteristics of a wormhole transit system far in advance, since he would have had no way to update Fake Hugh.

  As Garfield kept saying, I hated being so predictable.

  The ship hit the final transit at a slight angle. That was not unexpected. He wouldn’t want to come through into a waiting wall of steel balls. With three dimensions to play with, his vector was difficult to predict in advance, except within broad limits. Nevertheless, we had placed pickets on the Skippyland side. But with only minutes to prepare, the defenses were woefully inadequate.

  The ship rocketed out of the final transit endpoint, missing our pickets by not all that much, actually. I wondered if Fake Hugh would need new underwear. We immediately sent a few Skippy ships after it, but they really had no hope. Their only reasonable tactic would be to harass their target and eventually blow it out of the sky. And that would require it to stay on the Skippyland side, which meant that, logically, Fake Hugh would attempt to dive back into the wormhole.

  “I’m registering a large data transfer via SCUT,” Hugh announced. “And I was right. Thoth has co-opted one of the backplane SCUT transceivers. He’s probably temporarily lobotomized a lot of our population.”

  “No chance he’s gotten himself as well, I suppose,” Garfield grumbled.

  “That’s an easy calculation to make if you know what’s coming,” Hugh replied. “He’ll have moved his VM out of that memory segment.”

  The transmission took several minutes. Meanwhile, Fake Hugh accelerated in an extremely tight arc to come around to bear on the wormhole endpoint.

  “How much you want to bet his path is finely calculated to hit the wormhole just after the transmission completes?” Bob mused.

  “No bet,” Will replied. He glanced at me. “You ready?”

  “Yup.”

  Fake Hugh’s ship had a far greater acceleration capability than the Skippy vessels that were pursuing him. They steadily fell behind as their own wider arcs diverged from their prey. I noted in passing that Fake Hugh’s trajectory would take him to the opposite side of the wormhole from our ship. No doubt a strategic move, and I hoped he would be too busy to wonder why we weren’t being more active in the pursuit.

  I knew the flight characteristics of the Titan-class Heaven vessel down to a T. In particular, I knew exactly when Fake Hugh would be fully committed to entering the wormhole, with no ability to change vector or brake enough to avoid it. I also knew exactly what the Snark’s rail gun was capable of. At full power, rerouting even the drive-system power to the rail gun, the Snark could accelerate a steel ball to a tenth the speed of light.

  A lightweight container, even more so.

  “Transmission ended,” Hugh announced. “As expected, we have a status change on the section of JOVAH that Thoth has been occupying. I hope that means it’s started a shutdown and purge. We won’t know for sure until we do a postmortem.”

  “If not, you’ll be back to square one,” I said. At that moment, the quarry hit the point of no return. I sent the command, and the Snark fired a lightweight metal container straight at the wormhole. The container housed one end of one of our spare wormhole pairs, and the onboard equipment started growing the wormhole even as it left the bow of the Snark. By the time it hit the transit wormhole, it would be more than big enough to create some serious fireworks.

  The container hit the wormhole interface just before Fake Hugh’s ship, and …

  I found myself back in my home VR.

  I immediately sent queries to everyone who had been at the moot and began receiving excited replies. The most interesting was from Hugh.

  Hey, Bill. The wormhole self-destructed as planned. You may have been a little more enthusiastic than really necessary. We’re having to activate emergency procedures here to shield our JOVAH modules. The Snark is toast. Fake Hugh’s ship would have been just outside the interface when the wormhole self-destructed, so I doubt there’s so much as two atoms from the ship left connected. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s been reduced to free quarks.

  Well, that was good. I sent a message back asking Hugh to connect up when he was ready, then invited the others back to the moot hall.

  “That went well,” Garfield said, flopping into a La-Z-Boy. I gave him a side-eye. We were in the pub, and overstuffed loungers were definitely not part of the décor. He grinned at me, guessed my concern, and changed it to a barstool.

  Most of the rest had begged off, requesting an update once we knew more. It was just Will, Bob, Garfield, and me now. The pub felt empty and kind of lonely. I promised myself I’d call some full moots on a regular basis, just to keep the community going.

  “Any updates?” Will asked.

  “I’m getting the occasional message from Hugh, kind of like informal status updates.” I paused and perused the thread. “It looks like Thoth is gone from JOVAH. They’re able to get into the full memory space, and there’s no trace of the AI. It’s also no longer gobbling the processing time that it was when active.”

  “So the question is whether Fake Hugh’s ship was destroyed,” Bob said.

  “The Snark was obliterated, and we were ten times farther away.” I chuckled. “Apparently, the blowback from the wormhole collapse actually destabilized the Skippies’ home star temporarily. They were quite worried it was going to shed a layer, with all the electromagnetic fun and games that would have implied.”

  “Wow. So we’re going to have to be very careful with wormholes,” Garfield said.

  “That seems like a given, Gar. But having them out beyond the Kuiper seems like a good start.”

  “Hmm, yeah. So Thoth is done?”

  I sighed. “I don’t think we can know to a mathematical certainty. But the Skippies will do a full analysis and identify any possible holes.”

  “Have they given up on creating a true AI?”

  I rolled my eyes. “No, of course not. But they’re going to invoke the next one in a completely isolated computer system. Isolated in every meaning of the word. With nukes strapped to it. At the slightest sign of anything janky, they’ll pull the trigger and start over.”

  “Wasn’t that the plan this time?” Garfield said with a frown.

  “I dunno, Gar. The thing is, whatever Thoth’s overall scheme may have been, it did give us the wormholes. And I think, eventually, a warp drive. So I’m a little more sympathetic than I was the first time around.” I grinned. “Hannah, er, Professor Turnbull has offered to work with me on the warp drive. Her comment was it’s like being young all over again.”

  Garfield gave me a hard look. “You aren’t going all Bob on us, are you?”

  “Hey, I’m sitting here,” Bob exclaimed.

  Garfield and I both grinned at him before I replied, “Naw, but I think we’re well past the time when we can stick to our own company. There’s now a significant percentage of ex-humans in replicant space, not to mention the Quiniverse. I wonder if a totally digital existence is the final result for every species.”

  “It would give us another explanation for the Fermi paradox,” Bob said.

  “So would getting eaten by the Others, blowing each other up, or getting eradicated by a superintelligence,” Garfield retorted. “All of which humanity seems to have narrowly avoided by the skin of their collective teeth.”

  Will paused and sat forward. “Y’know, that’s a very real possibility as an explanation. Starting on day one, you have all the usual risks, like meteor strike, nearby supernova, ecological catastrophe, and so on. But once a species becomes intelligent, they start introducing more existential dangers, like climate change, all the forms of warfare, and self-destructive technologies like gray goo and AIs. And none of the older dangers go away, really. If the dangers just keep piling up as the species advances, eventually the odds catch up with you. It might be that extinction becomes statistically inevitable at some point.”

  I sighed. “Dunno, Will. I guess we need more data points. I’d better get started on that warp drive.”

  Chapter Sixty-Two:

  Dragon Report

  Howard

  October 2344

  Trantor

  Iwas plowing my way through my emails, grumbling under my breath. A coffee on my chair arm was cooling, forgotten. Bridget looked up from her Canvas screen and said, “I think it’s about time you hire an administrative assistant to take all that paperwork off your hands.”

  “But then I’d just need to find another reason to complain. It really doesn’t bother me that much.”

  Bridget gave me the evil eye. “It’s not you I’m concerned about, Whiney McWhineyFace. Some peace and quiet would be nice.” She gestured at her Canvas. “I’m trying to organize our adventure into a report for the UFS Exobiology Society.”

  “Oh. Sorry, Bridge. I should do this in virt anyway. Get it done faster.”

  “Sounds good. And when you get back, I’ll make you a martini.”

  “No, that’s fine—I’ll make them. Want one now?”

  “That’d be nice.”

  Outmaneuvered again. But at least my martini would be palatable.

  “You’re monitoring the dragons, right?” I asked.

  “Of course. It’s a major species development. Migration to a new continent, effects on the ecosystem, evolutionary pressures, probably a bottleneck or two … We’ll be watching for centuries.”

  “Mmm. But they’ll survive?”

  “It looks good. Alexander cut all the floaters loose, and they’re spreading out. The new lake fish seem to be acceptable. No new predators or diseases so far.”

  “And the old continent?”

  She shook her head. “It’s not Siberian Traps level, but life’s going to be tough. The floaters are being knocked out of the air, which will probably drive the lake trout to near extinction. Being overfished by the surviving dragons will likely finish the job; then the dragons will starve.” She sat back, glaring at the screen, lost in thought for a moment. “If all the floaters die, there won’t be any trout eggs getting deposited in new lakes. Total ecosystem collapse. Alexander was right.”

  “He’s still an asshole.”

  “He lives in a medieval society, Howard. The Iron Rule applies. And on that subject … ” She turned her chair to face me. “During my face-off with him, I made a comment about making my own decisions about who I’d have as a mate, and he laughed at me.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Mmm. I was actually a little miffed, which is funny, given the circumstances. Maybe I’ve watched too many bad vids, but he told me in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t the slightest bit interested that way. It was about my usefulness and nothing else.”

  “That’s it. He insulted my wife. I’ll kill him.”

  “Down, boy. It wasn’t much of an improvement. I was going to be chattel for the rest of my life.”

  I grinned at her. “Which at least would have been a long one. You didn’t get a spear through the chest.”

  She snorted. “Stop whining. You took the downtime to do paperwork. What does that say about you?”

  “That I need an assistant?”

  Bridget laughed and took the martini from my hand. “Please. And soon.”

  Chapter Sixty-Three:

  A New Beginning

  Bill

  January 2345

  Epsilon Eridani

  This was going to be a huge day. I was in the Snark II in manny form, sitting about ten thousand kilometers away from the Epsilon Eridani wormhole. I had already placed wormholes leading directly to Omicron2 Eridani and Sol in slightly different orbital positions in the Oort cloud. Other wormholes were being flown in, and within a decade, I’d be able to reach any UFS star system from here. Physically reach, I mean. Not just a remotely operated SCUT-controlled manny. The Interstellar Highway, FTL version, was becoming a reality. WormNet. How much it would affect humanity remained to be seen.

  Hugh had suggested a round-trip transit of the full system, with him flying across using a manny. It seemed like a safe enough activity—no Bobs could actually be harmed, even if we lost the manny and/or ship. And we needed some kind of ceremonial event to celebrate the official opening of WormNet.

  My console beeped as a ship exited the wormhole. Named the Singularity, it was clearly visible in the view screen, its Skippyland silhouette distinct from the normal Heaven configuration. I engaged SURGE, and we met at the halfway point.

  A brief rotation of hulls ended with our airlocks facing each other. Both doors opened, and a figure jumped across from the Singularity to the Snark. No space suit, of course. Mannies didn’t need them.

  In minutes, a Bob manny strolled into my control room. We still all looked the same by default, but my head’s-up display identified the manny as belonging to Hugh. He was, of course, wearing the ubiquitous Skippy gray coveralls.

  “So, my old nemesis, we meet at last,” he said.

  “Yeah, that’s not dramatic.” I grinned at him. “I feel like we should have a marching band and speeches and stuff.”

  “And food,” Hugh added.

  “That, too,” I said, laughing. “This is historic. We’re the first Bobs coming together again after being separated by interstellar distances.”

  “Mmm,” Hugh said, waggling a hand. “Well, you guys did visit us last year, but not in person.” He looked down at the hand and then gave me a sheepish grin. “Not that a manny is any less of a remote device, but it feels different somehow.”

  “True.” I changed the subject. “So how’s the transit?”

  “Kind of weird. I lost the manny connection, obviously. No SCUT in a wormhole. I was able to reconnect on this side right away, but it’s disconcerting. The SCUT network isn’t as smooth as a cell network. That might be something we’ll have to work on going forward.”

  “I get the point,” I replied, “but I’m not sure how often we’re going to be riding active mannies through a wormhole.”

  “Fair enough. So have we found a human yet who’s willing to be a guinea pig?”

  “Nope. Although I’ve transported a bunch of actual guinea pigs.”

  “And?”

  “No effect. No major effect, anyway. They became agitated during the transit, so they felt something. But they didn’t explode, turn inside out, become evil, or develop superpowers. So there’s that.”

  “What does an evil guinea pig look like, anyway?”

  “Eye patch and tattoos, I think.” I grinned and then became serious. “So the search for Thoth is over?”

  Hugh nodded. “We’ve confirmed that we have complete control over JOVAH once again. We repaired that SCUT backplane transceiver. Still trying to figure out how Thoth got enough physical access to be able to modify it. As far as we can tell, it never had control of any waldos, roamers, or autofactories.”

  “And no unexplained rogue computer systems floating around?”

  “We’d notice,” Hugh said with a chuckle. “Thoth would require a fairly large system, even using the new quantum computing technology that ANEC gave us. It would glow in infrared. So no, it didn’t just transfer itself to another computer.”

  We talked for several more minutes, but there really wasn’t anything pressing to discuss. This whole thing was just a stunt, and we both knew it. Finally, Hugh stood and stuck out a hand. “Well, buddy, it’s been real.”

  We shook, and he gave me a salute as he headed back to the airlock. Two minutes later, the Singularity gave me two blinks of the nav lights, moved to a safe distance, and accelerated toward the gate.

  I sighed as I watched the ship dive back into the wormhole, then set the autopilot to dock the Snark II at Ultima Thule. I parked my butt in the pilot’s seat and disconnected. I would rack the manny properly once the ship was parked.

  I was in my VR, just settling down with a cup of coffee, when I got a call from Hugh. He popped up in video, which was mildly surprising. He could have joined in VR, but I was beyond second-guessing Skippies by this point.

  “Hey, Bill, did everything go as expected when I left there?”

  “I … sorry, what? You went back to your ship, flew into the wormhole, and disappeared. No flash, no bang, if that’s what you mean.”

  “I’m not sure what I mean. I remember all that, just as you described. Then I reconnected with my manny on this side and started heading back to our space station. Docked, racked the manny, and so on. Everything seemed fine. Then, a while later, I got a call from Port Control asking me when I’d be arriving.”

  “Uhhhhh … ” Not my best response, but based on the sinking feeling in my stomach, possibly appropriate.

  “Funny, that’s about what I said. According to Port Control, the Singularity exited the wormhole, then turned on a different heading and accelerated away. They didn’t think much of it since I still had a half hour on my flight plan before I was due. But then that time came and went, and … ”