We Are Legion (We Are Bob)

Will

August 2339

Planet BSC-142-C

Istood at the edge of the precipice and looked down. Five kilometers, vertical drop. Jeez.

Some aspects of our former humanity still stuck with us, despite the centuries. I was controlling a manny, so in absolutely no danger, but I still had to fight the urge to backpedal, an almost overpowering desire to be elsewhere. I could, of course, use the endocrine inhibition system, which was still built into every new replicant matrix—the Bob ones, at least. But I hadn’t felt any need to use that particular crutch since—well, ever, really. Not since Bob, before I was even cloned. I didn’t know if the replicant matrix models used by the various post-life arcologies that had sprung up in post-Earth human space included the same circuitry. Arcologies was, of course, a misuse of the original term, but it had somehow stuck.

I was standing at the edge of a huge escarpment on planet BSC-142-C. I smiled to myself at the arrogance. The Bobiverse Stellar Catalog was now replacing the HIC, HIP, Messier, and all the other competing catalogs used by astronomers back in the twenty-first century. Less Sol-centric and with a more sensible planetary categorization system, it labeled planets from the innermost to the outermost, rather than in order of discovery. Among many other advantages.

I gave myself a mental shake to get back on track and looked to the left and right. BSC-142-C was a young and still extremely active planet, tectonically. Along the line of this escarpment, two continental plates had collided and were continuing the shoving match. For some reason, though, instead of this simply producing the usual mountain chain, one plate had ridden over the other as a unit, creating a cliff cutting right across the new continent, five kilometers high on average. Behind me on the escarpment, mountains jutted several more kilometers into the sky. And a kilometer or so to my left, a waterfall put every single other similar feature in known space to shame.

The planet itself was almost but not quite habitable. The ecosystem was still primitive, only recently having developed the fungi that would compost dead plant and animal matter. The fungi now were making up for lost time and had a lot of material to work with, so the atmosphere was what I’d have to characterize as swamp times ten. Even Takama’s citizens would run screaming back to their planet after a few seconds here.

On the other hand, flying cities with filtered air would be fine. And the views were definitely spectacular.