We Are Legion (We Are Bob)

I walked slowly around the VR of the native encampment. Drones had taken enough high-quality footage that I was able to create a life-size replica of the actual village. I had no idea about the smells, so I just went with Earth-equivalents. But the heat, humidity, and the texture of the plants and ground were all accurate.

I watched the tribe members in their daily routines. They didn’t react to my presence, since these were recordings. But it gave me a good feeling of scale and movement.

I spent a few days observing the natives—whom I was starting to refer to as Deltans—both through live video and VR simulation and by listening to recordings of their speech. The Deltans seemed to have two genders, a tribal structure, and loose pairing, by which I meant that certain Deltans seemed to prefer each other’s company. There didn’t really seem to be anything formal, and a couple of individuals were seeing multiple significant others. Tsk.

The males tended to hang out together, and the females and children formed the core of the tribe. Or at least the center. It seemed to be closely analogous to how anthropologists believed that primitive humans were organized. In fact, the more I watched them, the more I realized how similar they were to primitive humanity. Was that because the environment naturally constrained behaviors, or was there something inevitable about the tribal structure? I hoped that we—the Bobs, that is—would eventually gather enough samples to form a theory. Even if it took millennia.

The Deltans seemed to have a high level of vigilance. There were always males on alert, patrolling the edge of their territory. Weapons consisted of clubs, handheld rocks, and pointed sticks. I hadn’t yet seen what they were guarding against. Other Deltans? Animals?

Their vocalizations weren’t particularly complex. Nothing like dolphins, thank goodness. By the 22nd century, we still couldn’t talk to dolphins. I was slowly building a list of standard sounds and sound groups for the Deltan language. I hoped soon to have enough to do some analysis.

Another batch of observation drones was delivered from the autofactory, which was both good and bad news for me. The good news was that I could set up permanent lines-of-sight for watching the Deltans, then send drones to other locations. The bad news was that overseeing all the moving drones was getting to be a strain. Replicant I might be, but I still could only concentrate on one thing at a time. I needed more Bobs.

Light bulb! Why not do just that? I could build the AI cores in advance of the vessels and set the other Bobs to monitoring various groups of drones. They wouldn’t mind. I knew that they’d enjoy it because, well, Bob. Actually, no. I hoped they’d enjoy it because Bob. It really wasn’t a sure thing.

I transmitted instructions to the autofactory to bump up priority of computer cores at the expense of vessel assembly. Fortunately the standard templates included plans for cradles to hold disembodied cores.