Earth Ship Protectress: Book Two in the Freddy Anderson Chronicles (13 page)

Yellows said, “Another mystery. Please continue.”

Chapter 16
Prepping Shop for Her First Visitors

A
lmost everyone followed us out to the cliff. When we reached the proper spot, on a tight beam so that Katie and Melanie would not detect it, I triggered the proper sequence inside to open the shield wall. The commander and I walked through the wall, and the shield slammed into place.

“Shop?”

“
Yes, Freddy? Hello, Comma
nder.”

“
Hello, Shop.”

“Give me a video of the outside of this wall, please,” I said.

On the wall appeared a video of the admiral and the two generals, trying to find the opening. The girls were laughing at them. Everyone else had seen this a hundred times. The president had Melanie off to one side. She said, “I don’t know if you caught how he did that, but don’t tell anyone. It’s important to the security of the world that no one gets the information inside that shop until Freddy is ready to give it out.”

“He is much stronger than I am and probably would have sensed it if I had tried. I did not try because you ordered me to not pry. I like his sense of morals on this subject, and I think I’m going to adopt them. No prying unless it’s absolutely necessary, but I can’t shut out the open mind.”

I was happy that the young lady had the scruples of her aunt. I pathed to Katie and told her what I’d heard. She was happy too. I told the commander what I’d heard and let her know that it made me feel a little better.

“Shop, open up the back areas completely. We’ll be doing a tour of the build complex. Attach a YRP to the commander, please.”

“
Freddy, I have to remind you that a Yellow Robot Protector only warns once and does not pro
tect.”

I looked at the commander and said, “I understand, Shop. I think the commander is quite capable, and I trust her to not get into trouble.”

A yellow light about the size of my thumb showed up and hovered near the commander’s right ear, just outside her peripheral vision. She turned her head, but the dot followed so quickly she couldn’t see it.

“Where’d it go?”

“It’s next to your right ear. Put your hand up, and you can get it to move forward.”

She did, and the yellow dot was just within sight as it zoomed around her head to get out of the way and then resumed hovering near her right ear.

“If you don’t like the position of the dot, simply ask it to move to another position.”

“Dot, please move to my left side.” The dot did as directed. “That’s very neat, Freddy. What’s it made of?”

“Energy. It’s pure energy. The shop computer controls it.”

“Dot, what are your orders?”

A tiny voice said in the commander’s ear, “To warn if you are about to do something that may harm you or if you may be about to harm the project.”

“
Could you hear that, Commander?” I asked.

“Yes. Very clearly.”

“Good.”

“Freddy, you said you didn’t have all the bugs out of them yet?”

“I don’t think we’ll have a problem with the reds, greens, or yellows, but the blues tend to be a little overzealous regarding their responsibility, and I won’t even turn on the blacks anymore. I lost five robots just because the blacks didn’t like them looking at me when I walked by. At least the blues think first before they do anything.”

The Green choked for a second, trying to hold back controlled laughter.

Blue said in an annoyed tone, “I would continue, if I were you.”

We searched the entire front area and found some paperwork that the commander said I should put away, and then we headed toward the back. At the opening to my construction floor, the Commander paused. I could feel the astonishment and the pure delight radiating off her. The space was over five miles long and three miles wide. The walls, ceiling, and floor were of steel-hard granite, compressed and polished to a glassy sheen. The mirror-like reflections off the walls and ceiling made what was enormous look almost impossible. With all the activity, someone could stand at the opening and watch for days and never see everything.

Susan said in a whisper, “How?”

“It’s easy. I built one robot to build and program robots that build and program other robots to build what I want built. I continually have to update the original and the others so that I can get new types of jobs completed, but I assure you that everything is completed exactly as I specify, using all the best materials and the best workmanship. These ships are not built by contractors who provided the cheapest bid.”

“How did you even make this workshop?”

“You’ve seen me work with my equipment, making holes for the mini-homes and stuff. It’s the same thing here, only there is a lot more planning involved and a lot more work.”

“It’s all so beautiful! I see so much going on, but I hear almost nothing.”

“I designed the shop to have the worst acoustics possible. Get more than a few feet away from someone, and you have to yell. The dots will communicate between each person.”

She turned to me with a mischievous grin. “Where’s your dot, then?”

“Bit, show yourself.” A clear dot changed colors through the spectrum and then returned to clear again.

“Is Bit always with you?”

“Only when I’m in the shop. As soon as I leave, she’s not needed anymore. She can’t leave the shop
…
not very far, anyway.”

Susan looked back out over the mess. Robots were everywhere. Materials were stored everywhere. I had incorporated a lot of safety features into the shop so there was nothing stacked very high without bracing, and the walkways and exits were all marked and kept clear. I had over two thousand robots now, and they were quite a sight. Some moved slowly and some very fast, and many flew or hovered. They came in all sizes, shapes, and colors. Completed ships were set on racks stacked to one side, and the two main ships—the ones I was currently working on—were in the center. The destroyer was pointing at us, and directly to our left, dwarfing the destroyer, was a ship bigger by a factor of ten—my building-mover ship.

A thought crossed my mind, and I asked the commander, “Susan, since that ship is for moving things, do you think I could hire one of the moving-van companies to run it?”

She looked at me with unbelievable distaste and then saw how hard I was trying to keep from laughing. She gave my hair braid a little tug and laughed with me.

We took the platform to the bottom and walked into the shop. We searched the entire place. It took a long time to search the destroyer and each small ship because I had to stop to rest frequently. I thought we were taking this a little too far, but she insisted we check everything. The mover ship took almost no time at all, as it was still just a shell.

We finished around midnight and left the shop. During our tour, I told her about all of the issues that had come up and the things that I still had not figured out how to do. Most were things that any human could do, but getting a robot to understand and do it was a different thing entirely.

“Freddy, I know you don’t want people in your shop, but if you’d let us help, most of your issues would go away.”

“I know, Susan. After we remove that rock, I will let people into the shop to help. I have so much to do, and I can tell you right now I’m going to take a rest after this and then slow down. I have no problem farming out work and having people come in after that. Until then, I just can’t take the chance.”

“It’s a lot of work, sweetheart. We should start calling you Noah.”

I smiled. “When I build the Ark II, then they can call me Noah. Until then, I’m just Freddy.” With enthusiasm, I asked, “Did you know that I have already identified three planets that may be good for colonization?”

“I don’t doubt it, but how did you do that?”

“I had to test out my drive system and shields, and I also had to test out my FTL communication system. I built several probes and sent them out at nearly 250 times the speed of light. Sounds fast, doesn’t it? What it means is they crawl along at about one light-year every four minutes. I’ve been getting information back from them for five months now. I sent out one hundred of them, but I haven’t had time to go over the data lately. I suppose I could give that information to someone to look at for me. Shop, give me a data chip on the information sent back from my Class One probes.”

“
Wor
king.”

“
Send it to the front office.”

“
Will do, Freddy. It’s a lot of information and will take three minutes to download onto a data
chip.”

“
Three minutes! How much information is there?”

“
Approximately 157 billion gigab
ytes.”

“
That’s a lot of information to sort through!” A smile crossed my face as I asked the commander, “That information is highly important, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Freddy. I believe it would be. There could be vast amounts of information about the galaxies, stars, habitable planets, and other life forms.” Her eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“The information is important and would make the people giving it out look very good, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, it would.”

“If I gave this information to the army to investigate and study, wouldn’t it take them a long time and possibly give them so much to do that they would stay out of our hair for a few months?”

She smiled. “Yes, it would.” She paused, thinking. “Freddy, let me handle the conversation. You just—very reluctantly—hand over the data cube when I tell you.”

“Bad cop, good cop?”

“More like a parent telling a child to do something he doesn’t want to do.”

“I can play that real well.” I took hold of her hand and added, “Mommy.”

She smiled and said, “Don’t overdo it. They’re not that easy.”

“Susan, this could actually be some of the greatest discoveries ever. The army will become very popular if this holds the information I think it does.”

“I know—and that’s why it will work. Let’s go.”

Gray said, “He has information on systems in this area. We could use that.”

The little Yellows tried to shut me down but failed. They tried again and failed.