Book 2: Chapter 39: Bob-Moot
Bill
August 2188
Epsilon Eridani
I hadn’t called the meeting to order yet. Forty-three Bobs milled around the banquet hall. Knots of people argued, discussed, or just hugged and got caught up. Bob-1 formed the center of a dense cluster of Bobs, describing his Deltans to a rapt audience. It was interesting to watch. Bobs more than a generation or two removed from him seemed to treat him with reverence, as though they were meeting the pope.
I looked around the room. These were all the Bobs that had upgraded to SCUTs, and some of them were physically up to thirty light-years away. I grinned at the heady feeling from that knowledge.
A dozen Jeeveses circulated, supplying beer, wine, coffee, and food of every kind I could think of. Virtual, of course. But still.
I’d adjusted the acoustics several times to keep the background noise down. That was cheating a little and generally frowned upon when hosting a VR. But this wasn’t really a social event, despite appearances.
The latest data from Hal had caused a firestorm of debate.
The weapon that the Others used was in fact some kind of gamma ray emitter. Theories about how it worked had been bouncing around BobNet ever since.