Book 5: Chapter 61: First Test
Bill
December 2344
Skippyland
Ilooked around the moot hall. This wasn’t technically supposed to be a public event, but it was hard to keep a secret from yourselves in the Bobiverse. No non-Bobs, though, other than a select group of insiders. Bridget was here, as were Steven Gilligan and Hannah Turnbull. Also present was Bob’s Quinlan friend, Theresa Sykorski, in her human avatar. And of course, Hugh in his video window. Skippyland was still under quarantine, even more than a decade later.
All told, we had about a hundred people in attendance. That was actually a small number if you considered the nature of the event we’d be witnessing. A Heaven vessel carrying three mannies was going to use the wormhole transit system to travel from Epsilon Eridani to the Skippyland star system. It was a one-way trip—nothing would be allowed to leave Skippyland until we knew Thoth had been captured or destroyed.
I swept my gaze over the audience. Everyone had beers or coffees or some other form of refreshment-delivery system. I’d put out snacks, but my repertoire was typical Bob—more utilitarian than imaginative. Sandwiches and chips.
“Okay, folks. We’re almost all Bobs here, so I’m not going to do a huge dog-and-pony show. We have the ship ready to dive into the wormhole. Thor is driving”—I pointed to a Bob in the corner, and he waved to the audience—“and we have the route very carefully mapped out. The transit endpoints are ten thousand kilometers apart at each system, so the ship, which we’ve named the Snark, will have to fly that distance nine times. Even that shouldn’t take long enough to bore anyone, since you can hit the wormhole interface at full speed. So let’s get started.” I nodded to Thor. “Whenever you’re ready.”
Thor gave me a thumbs-up and played with his control console. It was theater, of course. He could have just stood there and controlled the ship with mental commands, but even after several hundred years, we Bobs found we still appreciated visual metaphors. I hoped that would never change, and I felt a little sorry for the Skippies, who seemed to be moving to a data-centric lifestyle format.
A huge video window popped up overhead, showing the forward view from the ship. Telemetry along the sides gave an indication of galactic coordinates and bearing, velocity, and so on. As we watched, the velocity telltale rocketed upward. Thor was wasting no time.