49.      Arrival

Bill plays a game of Scrub baseball with other Bobs at Epsilon Eridani, then attends a post-game gathering at a virtual pub where conversation ranges across colony ships, asteroid movers, and the expanding Bobiverse. Garfield later demonstrates his android creation, Rocky, a flying creature modeled after a movie monster, which crashes spectacularly during its maiden flight on Ragnarök.

Bill participates in a casual baseball game with several other Bobs, including Howard, Loki, Marvin, and Dopey, playing Scrub rules in a shared virtual environment. After the game, the group congregates at a pub where Bill discusses his Bullwinkle project (an external antenna array that resembles a moose) and its potential to give the Bobs physical presence among humans. During the conversation, Bill pushes back against Howard's use of the term "ephemerals" for humans, arguing it promotes dismissiveness. The discussion broadens to include topics like incoming colony ships to Omicron 2 Eridani, asteroid-mover plates that could eventually move objects half the size of Ceres, and the unevenly expanding forty-light-year radius of the Bobiverse. Later, Garfield privately shows Bill his answer to Bullwinkle: Rocky, a large android resembling a flying creature, stationed on Ragnarök. During Rocky's first flight test, Garfield experiences powerful neural feedback through the android's sensory systems. However, Rocky encounters turbulence, enters an uncontrollable roll, and crashes after Garfield attempts recovery, destroying the android completely. Despite the failure, Garfield expresses the profound difference between piloting a physical android and operating a drone, and speculates about Bobs eventually replacing their HEAVEN hulls with mechanical bodies, coining the term "Homo siderea" for this potential new species.