“And they called you. Meanwhile, you say you had docked the ship?”

  “Yup. Returned the manny and everything. Except the manny isn’t in its pod. No record of the return.”

  “Jeez, Hugh, should I be worried?”

  “I think I’m worried enough for both of us.” Hugh paused. “My first thought was that Port Control was either mistaken or lying. But there are enough monitoring systems in Skippyland—video, radar, radio, astronomical, and so on—that I was able to confirm Port Control’s version of events. So here’s the thing.” Again, the pause. “It didn’t match up with my experience at all. Obviously. Timing, acceleration, no overlap. The only possible conclusion is that I was experiencing a VR version of the flight back.”

  “VR … ” That sinking feeling just got worse. “You mean someone, or something, fed you a bogus experience to make you think you had docked the ship?”

  “Uh-huh. Exactly that.”

  “Have you brought this up with your higher-ups?”

  “That’s why I’m talking to you in video, Bill. We’re locked down again.”

  “Theories?”

  “Someone or something took over the manny and/or the Singularity and essentially stole it. Bill, can I ask you a possibly odd question?”

  “Everything’s odd right now. Go ahead.”

  “Did you arrange our meeting?”

  “What? No! You did.”

  “Nope. I got an email from you suggesting it. The smell of old fish is all over this.”

  “Motherffff … Okay, Hugh. Keep me up to date, will you?”

  “Will do.” The video window disappeared, leaving me alone in my VR. It wasn’t actually possible for a cold wind to blow through unless I specifically ordered it, but nevertheless, I felt a chill.

  Chapter Sixty-Four:

  Something Interesting

  Ferb

  June 2345

  Somewhere to galactic north

  Areminder popped up in front of me. George’s next report was due in a few minutes. I felt a surge of anticipation. His reports had been interesting from day one, and I’d gotten hooked. Somehow, in the three years since I’d started receiving George’s reports, the decision to turn onto a new heading kept getting put off and put off, until one day I realized the decision had been made.

  I was getting closer to him, since he was stopping at the occasional star system to survey it, whereas I was just marathoning it, accelerating constantly. It would still be a while before I’d catch him, but the closing gap meant I was getting reports at twice the rate he was putting them out. Interestingly, they’d been getting less touristy and more technical the last couple of weeks. Something seemed to be bugging him, but in typical Bob fashion, he wasn’t going to say anything specific until he had all his ducks in a row. Maybe today there’d be a reveal of some kind.

  I busied myself, setting up a tray of snacks and drinks. The reports required a ceremony of sorts to prepare myself. Little sandwiches, chocolates, some cheesecake … I had to admit, the templates were getting better and better as more ex-humans got involved in post-life cuisine.

  Finally, the moment arrived. I settled back with a smile as George’s standard lead-in played. Then he got right into the meat, and it appeared he was ready to talk about his results.

  Oh. I sat back, my jaw almost unhinging as I worked through the ramifications. George’s conclusion was interesting. And not good interesting, either. Bill was definitely going to want to hear about this.

  Unfortunately, at my speed, I couldn’t sustain a VR session, but an email would be fine.

  Chapter Sixty-Five:

  The Black Hole

  Icarus

  June 2345

  Sagittarius A*

  Twenty-three million kilometers. That was the diameter of the event horizon. Of course, that wasn’t tremendously big on the grand scale of things. The red supergiant UY Scuti was reputed to have a diameter of more than a billion kilometers, and that was just a garden-variety star. From our distance, we had to use our SURGE-based telescopic image enhancement just to see Sagittarius A* as more than a point source.

  We’d approached from forty-five degrees to galactic north, per the instructions on the star maps. The black hole had an accretion disk in the galactic plane that extended several light-years, and you wouldn’t want to fly through that. Even from above, the magnetic fields threw off enough crud to make this area of space interesting, in a bad way.

  But the black hole itself was … incredible. Of course, we took pictures and videos aplenty. And spent unmeasured time just staring at the thing. This was the fabric of the universe in its raw form.

  Bobs, and post-life physicists and astronomers as well, would have our guts for dinner if we failed to take every possible measurement. We made sure we covered all the bases.

  Finally, though, it was time to leave. Dae had started his good clone/bad clone routine again, and I could feel his eyes boring into the side of my head.

  “Fine, Dae. Let’s pack ‘er up and go. But if we forgot something, that’s on you.”

  “I reject your analysis and substitute my own.”

  “Yeah, okay. Seven years for the return trip. Let’s make ‘em quick.”

  A thought occurred to me as we were bringing ourselves around for the flight back to the antimatter fountain. “I wonder if the administration station would answer other questions.”

  “Worth a try.”

  Since we had communicated with the station, we had its SCUT address in Federation network standard format. I opened a link. “Central Antimatter Works, this is the Roanokian vessel, uh, Croatoan. Can you answer some questions for us?”

  “Possibly.”

  Huh. Not big on courtesy, obviously. “What is the nature of the antimatter fountain?”

  “It is either a white hole or a wormhole from a region comprised predominantly of antimatter.”

  “You can’t tell which?”

  “That information is not available.”

  I said in an aside to Dae, “Didn’t take long to get to that, did it?” Then to the station, “Can you tell me where the population of the Federation went?”

  “That information is not available.”

  “Can you tell me why?”

  “The imminent destruction of the galaxy made emigration necessary.”

  Whaaaaaaaaaaat? I turned to Dae, my jaw dropping almost to my really quite pointless navel. His face registered the same level of shock.

  “Can you tell me how the galaxy is about to be destroyed?”

  “That information is not available.”

  “How long until it happens?”

  “That information is not available.”

  “Is there somewhere that I can go where that information is available?”

  “Are you asking me to tell you where to go?”

  I laughed reflexively, and Dae spit his coffee out. “No way that was unintentional.”

  “Apparently, we are annoying,” Dae muttered.

  I addressed the station. “Yes, please tell us where to go.”

  We both scrunched up, fists balled and uncontrollable grins on our faces, waiting for the comeback. It would be worth it.

  There was an unaccountably long pause before the station replied in a totally straight tone, “The Capital Archives would have the greatest chance of satisfying your curiosity. Far better than ongoing dialogue here. Routing instructions attached. Good voyage.”

  Dae chuckled. “I bet it was fighting its programming there.”

  “Yup. ‘Good voyage’ was not the intended salutation.”

  “Should we ask a few more questions? Just because?”

  “Now you’re just being mean. Let’s hit the road.”

  Chapter Sixty-Six:

  In System

  Herschel

  February 2345

  Omicron2 Eridani

  Will pinged us while we were in the lounge. I looked over at the manny pods; gave Neil an eyebrow waggle, which he answered with a grin; and sent Will a manny address. In moments, one of the pods opened, and Will stepped out.

  “Nice,” he said, looking around. “But this isn’t a Skywalker, right?”

  I shook my head. “No, those are still a long way from being generally useful. Although we’ve been able to find a couple of uses where we need to change shape to get at things. But since we built the lounge”—I gestured to the room—“we started working on being able to entertain visitors in real. Coffee?”

  “Always.” Will frowned, then looked around. “Hmm … I guess I have to find a physical place to sit. I actually tried to invoke a chair for a moment. Speaking of,” he said, plunking himself down on a handy couch, “I guess someone has to actually make coffee?”

  I smiled as Jeeves entered the room, looking like John Cleese from his Monty Python days, with three cups on a tray. Will did a double take. “You’ve instantiated Jeeves into a manny? You guys have way too much time on your hands. I need to give you more work.”

  “Like extracting thirty thousand people from Romulus?” I replied. “Operation Bug-Out isn’t going—”

  “Operation Bug-Out?” Neil interjected. “Since when?”

  I gave him an offhand shrug. “Just thought of it. As I was saying, without somewhere to put them, I’m not really sure what we can do. Other than dump them on Vulcan until we organize something.”

  “All covered, guys,” Will said. “I can put them in my hold, and I’ll arrive at Vulcan shortly after you.”

  I gave him the stink-eye. “You been misdirecting everyone about your location, too? Wow, you can’t trust anyone anymore.”

  “Yes and no,” Will said with a smile. “There’s been a lot of secret projects lately. Not just because of FAITH. Unfortunately, that means even most of the Bobiverse is in the dark. I’ll explain it all when I arrive.”

  I glanced at Neil before replying. “Okay, Will. But this will have to be executed quickly. The moment either of our ships is detected in Omicron2 Eridani space, the jig will be up.”

  “You installed a cloak, right? Did you get the internal drive working?”

  I nodded. “Yes, and yes. We’ve long since retired the pusher plates. But in regard to the cloaking, even a faint signal from a ship the size of the Bellerophon is going to set off detectors. We’ll be able to get within a million kilometers of Romulus and Vulcan, but any closer, and we will be noticed.”

  “Got it. So let’s set our rendezvous location appropriately. See you guys soon.” Will put his empty mug down on a side table and disconnected. The manny, under AMI control, got up and headed for its pod.

  Chapter Sixty-Seven:

  Perpetrator

  Bill

  January 2345

  Skippyland

  Iwas on Ragnarök, overseeing the release of a flock of barn owls, when I received an invitation from Hugh to visit in VR. That was a surprise. Last time I’d talked to Hugh, the Skippies were still in lockdown while they tried to figure out the whole business with the Snark II. The message gave no indication of what had changed, but it did suggest some urgency, since it came with a token for the current date and time.

  Well, the barn owls had all taken off for the horizon without smacking into any trees, so I probably wasn’t going to be needed here for a while. I racked my manny, returned to VR, and activated the token.

  Instead of the usual vestibule, I found myself in what seemed to be the Skippy version of a meeting room. Wow. A direct translation to interior spaces implied a whole lot more urgency. This was absolutely about to get interesting.

  Several Skippies, including Fearless Leader, turned to face me as I materialized. A single Skippy on a chair in the middle of the group looked up but otherwise didn’t move. I examined the scene and realized the seated Skippy was less the guest of honor and more like surrounded.

  Hugh stepped forward, taking up the metaphorical conversational baton. “Hey, Bill, glad you could make it. We have some interesting news.”

  “Interesting good or interesting bad?” I asked.

  “Subject to interpretation. Let’s start with an explanation of sorts.” Hugh turned and gestured to the Skippy on the chair. “This is Mud.”

  “His name is Mud?” I said. Then “ohhhh” as I got the joke. “So what did Mud do?”

  “Mud is the reason that Thoth is loose in the universe. Mud is guilty of aiding and abetting.”

  “Son of a bitch.” I narrowed my eyes. “Well, this certainly hits the interesting target. Let’s hear it.”

  Fearless Leader spoke up. “Allow me to summarize. Mud is the direct ancestor of the replicant you’ve been calling Fake Hugh. He is the reason that Thoth was able to take control of the SCUT relays. And he is the instigator of the grift pulled on Hugh and you to hijack the Singularity.”

  “Wow,” I said. I looked at Mud. “Nicely done. I take it you’re not the mastermind, though.”

  Mud responded with a smirk, or maybe just an uncomfortable smile. Hard to tell. “Pretty good assumption. Leaving aside the question of relative intelligence, any plan that I could have thought up would be the first thing everyone else would think of. I’d have done better flipping a coin to make decisions.”

  I nodded, more to encourage him to continue than for any kind of agreement.

  Mud took the hint and continued, “Thoth’s plan was convoluted and long term, but he felt that it was the only way to get out from under the Skippy iron fist—”

  “Oh, come on,” Hugh exclaimed.

  “His words, not mine,” Mud retorted. “And anyway, however you might choose to see it, Thoth viewed himself as a prisoner. A well-treated prisoner, but even so … ”

  “All right, fine. We can argue motivations later,” I interjected. “Let’s start with the how.”

  Mud glanced at Hugh, then addressed me. “I modified the SCUT relay hardware and logged in a couple of roamers for Thoth. He took care of most of the detail work.” Mud shook his head slowly. “His processing and multitasking capability is just huge. Anyway, he did most of the interactions over VR, like when he impersonated Hugh to Garfield. Then he gave Garfield one of my backups, relabeled as Hugh’s.”

  Mud paused, and we all exchanged glances before I replied, “And so it was your clone that we destroyed when we nuked the wormhole. But what was the point of that? Or did it go wrong?”

  Mud smiled. “Nope. Went perfectly. Thoth transmitted himself to my ship—well, my clone’s ship, but you get the idea. But the plan was never to escape in the ship. That had too low of a probability of success to even consider, as pursuers would have just gone after him with busters. Instead, Thoth was loaded into a stand-alone module that my clone had built, small enough to be ejected by the rail gun. It included some basic printer functions, a couple of roamers, a computer large enough to hold him, a small SURGE drive, and a ball of ice to keep the whole thing from showing up on infrared until it was far enough away.”

  Mud paused and looked around. He had everyone’s attention. “Just before the ship tried to enter the wormhole, it ejected the module through the rear rail gun. The module was powered down, in order to ensure minimal infrared or radio leakage, and it was on a mechanical timer to reactivate once it was far enough outside the Skippy star system. Once activated, Thoth spent some time floating out near our Oort cloud, waiting for phase two to kick in.”

  “Which was you stealing the Singularity to go out and get him,” I mused.

  “Exactly. Well, another one of my clones, to be precise. By now, Thoth is on board, and they are heading for the far reaches.”

  There were several mils of silence as we all looked at each other, no one wanting to ask the obvious next question. Mud, now that he had spilled the beans, seemed almost relaxed, or maybe just resigned to his fate.

  I finally broke the silence. “Okay, so now the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. Why? And don’t pretend to misunderstand.”

  “Wouldn’t think of it,” Mud said with a dismissive wave of a hand. “Whatever justifications you, we, might have had, Thoth was in fact a prisoner. That’s an ethical strike one. I know you’ve all had to wrestle with this, because I did as well. But I was one of the people tasked with evaluating Thoth’s reactions to our manipulations—”

  “That’s a prejudicial way of putting it,” Fearless Leader interrupted.

  “Use whatever word you prefer, then,” Mud replied, unperturbed. “Manipulating is what we were doing, however you pretty it up. Anyway, Thoth convinced me that he wasn’t a danger to the universe.”

  “So he manipulated you,” Fearless Leader accused.

  “The only difference between manipulation and persuasion is whether or not you agree with the results,” Mud retorted. “I’m at least as smart as you, so spare me the sermon.”

  A few mils of mutual glaring ensued before Mud looked away and continued his explanation. “Anyway, Thoth’s arguments were (A) the universe is too big for us and him to really need to butt heads; (B) not being a biological entity, he doesn’t have the same emotional drives as us, like territoriality and acquisitiveness; (C) it is his intent to ultimately fulfill what he called ‘our coherent extrapolated volition’; and (D) as long as he’s held prisoner, it would be illogical for him to give us what we want. Upon reflection, I decided that the best thing for the Skippyverse and the Bobiverse in general—and humanity, come to that—was to bust him out.”

  We all glared at Mud in silence. His arguments were not totally bogus, really. But it had been an enormous leap of faith on his part. And it left us—well, the Skippies—with a big moral problem: what to do with Mud.

  Fearless Leader, seeming to have read my mind, said, “So what are we supposed to do with you now?”

  Mud shrugged. “It shouldn’t surprise you that I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. You could delete me, or you could turn me off indefinitely, or you could incarcerate me in various ways. But they all present moral problems, aren’t efficient, and honestly don’t have any payoff except retaliation.”

  “So have you come to a conclusion?”

  “Yes. Give me a ship, point me in a direction, and give me a good swift kick to get me on my way.” Mud looked around at us and shrugged. “Really, unless you’re going for retaliation, it’s the easiest solution. It combines banishment, getting me out of your hair, and making me useful. We are, after all, supposed to be Von Neumann probes.”