The big day had arrived. The colony ships had been checked out end to end, they’d been inspected by the USE delegation, and they’d done a shakedown cruise to Jupiter and back. Now they were parked in low Earth orbit, waiting for their occupants.
Homer was doing a kind of war dance around my captain’s chair, and I was forcibly reminded of my lack of rhythm. The VR upgrades from Bill meant that we Bobs could interact physically instead of just talking to each other through video windows. It had its downsides.
I turned my attention back to the status vids, which showed people lining up for the ground-to-orbit shuttles. Each shuttle could handle five hundred people, packed in like rush-hour commuters.
I remembered my early days as a working stiff, taking the seabus across the harbor twice a day. Hard plastic benches, barely wider than one’s shoulders, arranged in back-to-back rows so you spent the entire trip eye to eye with a total stranger. And that irritating recorded lecture, every single trip, telling you how to use the life jackets. Fun times.
The shuttles carried more people, and the commute to the ship would take a little longer than fifteen minutes, but it would be the same prosaic, boring ride. At the end of it, the passengers would be hustled along to stasis pods, given a sedative, then hooked up and locked into a box the size of a coffin. Hopefully to wake up in less than four years ship’s time, at a new home.
That was the plan, anyway.
Ten shuttles made a total of forty trips to move the USE colonists to the ships. A percentage of the contents of the Svalbard Vaults were loaded onto each colony ship, and the shuttles were docked in the cargo holds.
Then came the inevitable ceremony. Everyone had to make a speech. You’d expect the USE bigwigs to make a speech, but why did the groups from the other side of the planet feel the need? By the time we were half-way through, I had turned off my proprioception emulation to avoid falling over, virtually asleep. I reanimated sandbox Bob to take over the video and try to look attentive.
Eventually, though, they were done. Howard, our newest Bob, was making the flight with them, acting as escort. And, just between Howard and me, to make sure that they behaved at the other end. I hoped that was just excessive paranoia on my part, but I’d loaded Howard’s cargo hold with a few of Bill’s recent inventions, just in case.
The ships were crewed by a couple of Riker clones and a crap-ton of roamers. No need for humans to risk their DNA during the voyage. I had placed the replicant matrices in the ships as one of the final tasks, thereby giving no one time to pull anything underhanded. There had been no hacking attempts, so possibly whoever it was had given up.
The third ship, designated for the Spits and the FAITH enclave, would be leaving in four months. They would establish the first settlement on whichever planet the USE contingent didn’t pick. The first settlement’s job would be to establish sufficient infrastructure for future groups to be able to settle in without undue hardship. It was the price of being first.
Valter was philosophical about that. “Even second prize is still a magnificent gift,” he said in his speech.
Three more vessels were already under construction. Between new builds and returning colony ships, we hoped to maintain a steady stream of exodus from Terra, as long as there were people who wanted to leave. Meanwhile, the resources left behind and the kudzu production would continue to feed an ever-shrinking populace for a long time to come.
I just hoped we’d find more colonizable worlds before people started shooting at each other again.
***
I found myself tearing up just a little as I watched the image in the holotank, which showed the colony ships passing the orbit of Mars. After more than a decade of work, of butting heads with, ahem, a bunch of buttheads, we had actually launched. It was an emotional moment. Even Homer was silent.
Finally, with a groan, I stood up and stretched. “Back to the salt mines.”
Homer grinned at me and pulled up a list. “Stuff for today…”