Book 2: Chapter 24: Visiting Marvin
Bob
March 2174
Delta Eridani
I hadn’t had to kill a hippogriff in months. It wasn’t clear if they’d learned to avoid the territory, or if there simply weren’t any left that were close enough to bother the Deltans. Since Marvin’s departure, I was handling all the drones myself. I could automate a certain amount of the tasks, but I still eventually had to review the mission recordings. Honestly, I couldn’t be bothered.
I kept my eye on Archimedes and his family, probably a little more than I should. I had occasional flashes of myself as the overbearing grandparent who kept wanting to visit. It was an embarrassing image, and I resolved to contact Archimedes a little less often.
Marvin was long gone, heading for Pi3 Orionis. I think he was hoping for an intelligent species that he could be in charge of. It seemed we actually had a paternal streak. Or maybe maternal. He was, as promised, keeping his top speed low enough so that he could still interface via SCUT connection. We’d found a balance, where he frame-jacked up a bit and I slowed my time-sense some, and we could then interact at the same time-rate. It worked.
Today, I was visiting Marvin. In Delta Eridani, as senior Bob, I generally played host. It was interesting that traditions and modes of behavior were developing even among a bunch of post-human computers. Generally, the senior Bob in any system was in charge, and played host to the other Bobs. It made sense to me, which meant it pretty much made sense to all the Bobs.
Marvin apparently had a bit of a luxury streak in him. His VR environment was an open-air patio and rancher-style house at the top of a low mountain, in a semi-tropical climate. The ocean stretched out in all directions, right out to the horizon.
It was a beautiful, if somewhat mundane scene, except for a couple of anomalies: the very close horizon, the low gravity, and the presence of Earth hanging in the middle of the sky.