Echo-1 The Whale

32: Elephant Farm

With the young white whale integrated into the ship's whale society and Jonas taking him under his wing, Veronica was free to return to her cloning experiments. She and Dixon worked methodically with the Earth DNA that Mox brought. Dixon with her eye on the prize of a new snowy world to populate was influenced the creatures they worked on first. They expanded the bio-lab and within a year where growing test tube animals successfully. They focused on the mammoth and several varieties of arctic plants, adapting shrubs, weeds, and some high protein root vegetables to grow in a cold environment. 

Robot crews expanded the surface plateau of the frozen sea to accommodate a roaming species. They opened up an additional ten deck high range that was over a hundred square kilometers. It took up a good portion of the back of the ship. They tightly packed supplies and cargo into other parts of the Banga. The robots utilized every available millimeter of ship-wide storage to empty the needed decks. 

The highway systems were in full use. They brought out the large transports, activated legions of worker robots, and dug up tons of earth from the second rainforest to haul to the back of the ship. Uzi assigned pilot synthetic units to lead the efforts. 

When I interacted with the pilot Zero-Gs it was sometimes odd. At first, I thought they were former people from the simulation but soon realized they were programmed artificial intelligence. They looked uniform and I must admit, almost exactly like me. I came to understand why those from Echo-1 went to great lengths to individualize themselves. 

Zero-Gs learned and adapted but ultimately lacked true personalities. They were like drones, antisocial office workers, or dull people from the menial jobs of my youth. The larger grunt units were all soldiers with soldier attitudes. They were even worse than the pilots but they did follow orders well. I grew to understand why people who had seen synthetics before were very interested in X or myself. We were different. 

I don't know if we were better, but in some ways, I had to think we were. I questioned things. If the other synthetic units didn't know something they asked the computer. If the computer couldn't answer, then there was no answer. Usually, they would sleep and wait for assignments and they were happy with that. I always want more and there always seemed to be more to everything. 

Veronica, when in her synthetic form, chose a unique model, a medical unit designed as field surgeons when synthetics were used in wars. Her four-armed bald self became a regular fixture in my life. She worked with Dixon in the lab to clone forty individual mammoths. Twenty genetically unique males and twenty genetically unique females. The next batch of forty was going into incubation. 

The main lab became a wild baby pachyderm kennel. They were getting big fast and needed a place to go. I showed up on moving day.

Tim was out front of the lab entrance when I pulled up on my bike. He gave me his visor nod and I returned it. He leaned back in the cab of his flatbed transport and waited for it to be loaded. It would be a safe bet to assume Tim came from a long line of Teamsters in Echo-1.

X's Diamond-a-gogo with sidecar was also parked out front. When I went through the doors, five brown furry elephants charged for the opening. 

"Hands! Stand tall and put your arms up!" yelled Dixon yelled from the back of the room. 

I put my arms up. The baby mammoths still charged at me. The door closed behind me and I leaned against it. 

Our she-wolf towered over the yearling elephants. "Grrrooooowl at them." 

Nidi had grown to over two meters tall now, not including her ears. I let out a loud growl and the mammoths froze. Nidi went on all fours and herded the parade. She gathered them all into the center of the room with relative ease. X was in the middle legs straddled over one of the larger males, riding it like a miniature horse.