We Are Legion (We Are Bob)

Book 4: Chapter 25: Trouble Follows

Book 4: Chapter 25: Trouble Follows

Bob

July 2334

Elbow

Another day, another town. Touring with a band could be so boring. According to Garfield, anyway. He seemed to be on a rock star metaphor, for some reason.

We’d floated for a full day and eventually arrived at the town of Elbow. Yeah. Elbow. Didn’t seem to be short for anything, either. It was situated at a bend in the river, though, so maybe that.

We pulled our dripping butts up onto the dock, shook off—Quinlans did something very similar to dogs to shed water—and moseyed into town. Elbow seemed to be larger than average, with a robust performing arts subculture. Or maybe there was a festival on. It seemed like every third person was either carrying a musical instrument or dressed up like a minstrel. Or maybe a clown. It could be hard to tell.

We saw at least two stages, with people performing on them, and one children’s theater with a Muppets kind of a thing going on. No Kermit—that would have been freaky—but the lead character did have a Fozzie-ish kind of look. I stopped to watch and got an elbow in the ribs from Bridget.

Grumbling, I rejoined the group. Bridget buttonholed a couple of people and asked about a library. The second individual gave us an unnerving once-over before responding with directions.

“That was odd,” Bill said as we continued on. “Are we underdressed or something?”

I looked down at my naked-save-for-fur body. “Uh …” I grinned at the answering chuckle. “But I’m glad it’s not just me that thought he was odd.”

We weren’t in any particular hurry now that Bridget had her goal in sight, so to speak. So we were able to stop and watch the shows. I asked a few questions and confirmed that there was, in fact, an annual festival going on. Something local, and I never got the gist of the reason for the celebration, but any reason for a party is a good reason.

The singing was surprisingly good. For all their resemblance to members of the weasel and rodent families, Quinlans had amazingly good voices and understood harmony. As for their dancing, uh, the less said the better. When your legs are that short, you can’t really soar. I tried to be cosmopolitan and open-minded and appreciate the effort … Nope. That was just a bridge too far.

Eventually the festivities petered out as we moved from the entertainment district into what I assumed must be the business district. And a quite deserted district at that, since everyone was probably back at the party.

“Say, uh, guys?” Garfield said as we turned a corner.

“Um?”

“I’m looking down that block”—he pointed—“and we’ve been there. I just did a mapping in my head and that guy gave us really long-way-around directions. My spidey sense is jumping up and down and waving its arms right now.”

I turned and sure enough, that was a familiar traffic island. My own spidey sense started dancing a Quinlan ballet in time to Garfield’s. I turned around slowly, scanning the entire area. “Bill? Bridget?”

“Nothing. And we’re about two blocks away from the library,” Bridget said. “Maybe he only knew the one way to get there. Or maybe he wanted us to see the sights. Look, I appreciate your concern, but it’s closer to the library than the river, so …” ??????S?

“Right,” I replied, “but let’s keep our guard up until we get there.”

We continued on our route, but without any of the previous sightseeing activity. Every sense was tuned, every reflex on hair trigger. If someone had innocently popped out of a doorway at that point, they might have met an unfortunate end.

Bridget halted abruptly, and Bill almost walked into her.

“What do you guys always call it? Spidey sense?” She motioned to the square ahead of us, where an ornately official building sported a large sign that translated as Sanctuary of the Written Word.

“What is it, Bridge?” There were a couple of people talking outside the door of the library, but I couldn’t see anything else.

“I’m not sure. One of those guys there started to turn toward us, then aborted the move with a jerk. Like someone who’d just been told don’t look, you idiot …”

We stood in one spot for several seconds, indecisive. Then Bill said, “So let’s see what happens if we try to leave.” With that, he wheeled and strode off.

The rest of us looked at each other briefly, then turned and followed him.

And all hell broke loose.

There was a shout behind us, followed immediately by an answering call. Out of doorways and alleys, more than a dozen Quinlans emerged, at full gallop. And I do mean gallop—they were on all fours, a much quicker mode of travel. And they were carrying swords in their mouths, pirate style.

“Uh-oh, I don’t think this is the welcome wagon. Time to be elsewhere.”

“Thanks, Bob, for that insightful analysis,” Bridget said. “Now move your ass or get out of my way.” Without waiting for me to make up my mind, she shot past me, heading for the dock. The direct way, too. Apparently, she’d checked Garfield’s map.

And, no surprise, the welcome wagon had thought we might do that. Six more Quinlans appeared in front of us, sporting either very large knives or short swords. I wasn’t inclined to stop and take a measurement. And three of them had what appeared to be holstered pistols. Trank guns?

I jacked slightly, not enough to lose connection with the manny, but enough to have time for a conversation. The others synced automatically.

“How many?”

“I saw six in front and twelve behind. Some of the ones in front have trank guns.”

“Fourteen behind,” Garfield said, correcting Bridget’s assessment.

“Big gap to the left. We could make for that.”

“This is a well-planned hit, Bob. They left a big gap to a whole street by accident? I don’t think so.”

Bill was right. “Good point. Let’s not go that way.”

“We’re not going to go through them, not with those pigstickers,” Garfield said.

“It may be time to loosen up on the no-impossible-moves rule. I don’t want to end up as sushi.”

For Bridget, that was a significant concession. “Or gift-wrapped.”

“Agreed,” Bill added. “Let’s go through the six in front. Full gonzo.”

I received three acks, and shifted my manny into overdrive. Not that it turned into a Transformer or anything, but the internal power supply jacked up to full output, all internal nanites deployed for possible damage, and fake blood circulation was increased to handle the higher cooling requirements. There would need to be some maintenance done later.

The scene slowed in my visual field, and I took the time to estimate angles and distances. Garfield and Bridget had already picked lines that would take them either around or through the defensive ends, so I was going to have to go through the middle of the line. I glanced at Bill, who seemed to have the same idea as me.

We ran straight at the line, accelerating as only a mechanical otter can, then went down on all fours as we came to just outside of weapon range. As expected, the Quinlans aimed their stabby things downward at us.

We leaped. And sailed right over them.

Quinlans can jump, of course. But not like this. In Quinlan terms, this wasn’t quite like doing a pole vault without the pole, but it would definitely be a record-breaking high jump. And long jump.

And sprint. We hit the ground just as Garfield and Bridget came around the ends of the line, having straight-armed their opponents as they stopped to look up. They dropped to all fours. Our afterburners cut in, and we disappeared down the street faster than they could possibly keep up with. A couple of pings off nearby walls led me to believe that at least one of them was now shooting at us as well.

There was a brief astonished silence behind us, which was good, then a bunch of shouted warnings, which was bad. They weren’t shouting at each other. This was shouting directed at someone far away. I had a bad feeling we weren’t done.

“Detour, guys. The direct route is booby-trapped or staked out or something.”

Three acks. No one was sparing energy for speeches. We made an abrupt left at the next intersection, still setting a pace that would make a Quinlan Olympian quit in despair. Assuming they had Olympics.

More shouts. We’d pissed them off, at least.

“To the left. Up there,” Bill said.

I looked in the indicated direction. Huh, not bad. A three-story building with a flat roof, and a reasonable climbing route, if you’re into parkour. It would be fair to say that Quinlans are not climbers, and it would not occur to them that we might climb drain pipes and hop roofs.

Bill led, we followed. Mechanical muscles and computer reflexes ensured no oopsies, and in seconds we were lying flat on top of a roof. There was a short barrier wall around the edges, more likely for aesthetics, as I couldn’t see it being of any practical benefit. I opened my mouth, spit out a roamer, and set it on top of the wall. The others did the same, and in moments we had four video windows hanging in our heads-up displays while we lay out of sight.

Our pursuers came into view in a ragtag mob. They had clearly not planned for this eventuality. Some were checking doors and alleys, others were running back and forth on all fours. I could see five trank guns being carried in plain view. Then one of the group called out and the others gathered around her. I tagged her as a probable leader and made sure I got a close-up image.

The group had a conversation that we couldn’t make out. Or maybe argument would be a better term. There was a lot of arm waving and interrupting, and one attempted bite. But eventually they settled on a plan. A couple of Quinlans took up positions in the shadows where they could keep an eye on the street, while the rest marched off the way they’d come.

“Looks like we’re going to be here a while,” Bill noted.

“I need a coffee,” I added.

Leaving the mannies’ AMIs on sentry, we all popped into my VR and grabbed our favorite seating. I pulled up the four video windows from our surveillance roamers and put them on the wall.

Bill leaned forward and made a point of making eye contact with each of us. “I guess the first question we need to deal with is how they knew we were coming.”

“That’s got some assumptions in there.”

“Reasonable ones. We didn’t do anything to attract attention in Elbow, like peeking into a cart.” Bridget gave me the sideways eye.

“One friggin’ mistake …”

“Good point, though. This had the smell of setup right from when we asked—” Garfield stopped abruptly and stared into space, his eyes growing slowly wider.

“What? What?” We all knew that facial expression. It was the lightbulb look.

Instead of answering, Garfield pulled up another video, showing our encounter with the helpful citizen who had given us directions. He paused the video, then pulled up another video from our subsequent encounter. He fast-forwarded a bit, then paused that video and placed them side by side.

Sure enough, the helpful giver of directions was also one of our ambushers.

“Well, that pretty much settles it, if there was any doubt in the first place.” Bill swept us with a glare. “They were watching for us. Us, specifically. In a town we’d never been in.”

“The general population doesn’t have anything like telephone or radio. Or telegraphs.” Garfield popped up the report from Hugh. “They explicitly are pre-steam and pre-electricity.”

“And Hugh confirmed that they didn’t have any electronics in Galen,” I added. “But there are ways to communicate over long distances that don’t depend on those technologies.”

Garfield shrugged dismissively. “Pony Express. Ship-based mail systems. Semaphore telegraph towers like in Lest Darkness Fall. We’ve seen no signs of any of that.”

“Actually, they do have a river-based mail system, but it’s kind of what you might call relaxed in its execution. News of us would reach Elbow in about two weeks.”

“Which means our erstwhile captors have some more immediate form of communications.”

“The Administrator?”

“It does seem to be the most likely explanation.”

“But using locals?”

“Who says they’re ‘locals’?” Bill said, cutting into my discussion with Garfield. “I mean, they’re Quinlans obviously, but they might go home at the end of the workday to their underground, fully tech-enabled bunkers.”

“Ah. Secret Police. Sort of.”

“Wait,” Bridget said. “You don’t think these are Resistance? Why?”

“Quick communications between cities,” Bill replied. “Multiple trank pistols.”

I nodded. “Well, it makes sense if you think about it. There’s some kind of secret society with full technological assets that is either controlling or at least monitoring the general population. They’re probably responsible for ‘scatterings’ when people break some set of rules.”

“Wait, hold on. The people we took on in Galen Town who were trying to kill Skeve talked about scattering as something that someone else did to them. They couldn’t be part of the Administrator’s group.”

Garfield held up his hands in emphatic negation. “Unless it was Skeve or his contacts that tagged us, Bridget. Maybe they noticed us trying to grab Skeve.”

“Nope, that doesn’t make sense either. Skeve was scattered twice, remember? He wouldn’t know anyone in Galen Town.” I grimaced in frustration. “Dammit. Are we running from Skeve and Company or from his attackers? And if the latter, does that mean there’s more than one group? And do any of them represent the Administrator?”

“Well one way or another, we attracted someone’s attention.” Bill drew a deep breath and leaned back, hands behind his head. “If they have some kind of back-channel communications, then it doesn’t matter. Either way, they’re a step up from the common population.”

I sighed. “We have a lot of theories, but not much in the way of answers. The question is, should we let them succeed?”

“What?”

“Are you insane?”

“That’s ridiculous!”

Not one of my more popular suggestions. I contemplated the shocked and outraged expressions. “It’s just a thought, guys. And I guess it’s always available if we get desperate. But it would presumably get us in touch with someone, one way or another.”

“We’ll keep it in mind, Bob,” Bill said. “But I think we’d have to be pretty desperate. It’s an all-or-nothing action, and if we’ve guessed wrong, it would send us back to square one. Even worse than square one, I think, since the Administrator would then know exactly what they are dealing with.”

I nodded, feeling obscurely disappointed, although whether that was with myself for the suggestion or my friends’ reaction to it, I couldn’t say.

It was now very early the next morning, and the street surveillance had given up and gone home—or wherever—so we’d gone back to our mannies. The first order of business was getting down off the roof. I didn’t want to go the same way we came up, because it was always possible someone was still watching from a less obvious location, but a quick check around the periphery of the building made it clear that the route we’d taken was the only simple one. So it was that or go through the building.

Fortunately, there was an entrance, a horizontal hatch which likely opened directly into the top floor. Unfortunately, it appeared to be secured from the inside. But we had roamers. I spit out a couple of two-millimeter models and sent them down between the cracks in the structure. It took them only seconds to discover the problem—a simple sliding latch. Unfortunately, moving that was beyond the strength capabilities of that particular model, even if we all unloaded our entire complement.

“Can we cut the latch off?” Bill asked.

“I guess we’ll have to,” I replied. “But let’s make it quick. Everyone spit up fleas.”

We sent in a total of twenty of the little guys, miniature light sabers primed and ready. Ten seconds of battling the dark side and the latch released with a thud sound. I pulled up the hatch and we carefully climbed down the very steep stairs.

The building had the look of an apartment complex—long halls with numbered doors, spaced evenly. A stairway was situated near the center of the building. No elevators, of course. The stairs creaked loudly enough to wake the dead in the next town, and we were all cringing with every step.

When we got to the main floor, Bridget glanced around and pointed. “Back door.” Without waiting for agreement, she headed that way. The door led out to an alleyway, not particularly odious as alleys went, but quite gloomy due to the tall buildings on all sides. We paused to take stock.

“Are we just going to bail again?” Bill asked.

“A good question,” I replied. “It might not actually be a terrible tactic to stay overnight and go to the library in the morning. I’d think they’d be expecting us to head downstream first thing. They might even have set up at the river to watch for us.”

“Or we could cross over to the next river and head back upstream. Double back,” Garfield suggested. “Maybe communications between rivers is less dependable, or slower.”

“Or,” Bridget added, “head downstream underwater and skip a couple of towns.”

“What about taking a tributary?” Bill said. We turned to him in surprise. “The population isn’t all concentrated along the main waterway. There are lots of tributaries and branches along the way, and there’s usually a small town or village or two on them.”

“Unlikely to have a good-sized library, Bill. That’s what we’re looking for.”

“Yes, but also less likely to have goons looking for us. At least I hope so.”

“All right. Vote.” I queued up a voting app. Two milliseconds later, the results were in.

One vote for each of four alternatives. Le sigh.

“Well, looks like it’s Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock again.”

The elimination rounds lasted a few extra milliseconds, but it soon transpired that we would be, by executive decision, going farther downriver.

“Okay, fine, but we can’t just float down. That’s asking for trouble.”

“Agreed, Bill. Like Bridget said, we’ll stay underwater and put some serious speed on. That will hopefully throw them off.”

This business of sneaking to the shore was getting really old. The vegetation was thick, and I didn’t care how aquatic Quinlans were, I didn’t like swampy, squishy ground. But finally, we were in the water.

We went under immediately and stayed a good twenty to thirty feet below for hours, driving west as hard as our mannies would allow. We still hadn’t done that maintenance break, and I was a bit concerned about breakdowns, but the mannies were well-constructed and didn’t give us trouble.

This marathon swim would take us through one of the segment ends. We all agreed that this was a good thing in that it would be very interesting. Whether it would put us beyond the reach of our pursuers was up in the air.

When we were close to the mountain, we all surfaced and formed a raft. We knew, generally speaking, what to expect. The river narrowed and consolidated as it approached the segment boundary, until only four branches of it flowed through the mountains, in straits wide enough to take the total river flow without forming rapids.

The mountains themselves were impressive. They rose abruptly out of the shell with very little lead-up—only a mile or two of foothills, turning into a slope of seventy degrees, easily. Looking at them, I decided that even that pitch was a concession to the engineering requirements of holding back the atmosphere, if and when. And they seemed to go up, forever.

“Are you sure this is intended to be closed off?” Bridget said, staring at the spectacle.

“We have scans,” Bill replied. “Not a ton of detail, but essentially the middle hundred yards or so of the segment boundary is a diaphragm, similar to a camera shutter. I think if it was activated, it would close off the segment right to the central cylinder. And you can see two sets of guy-wires or pylons or stays of some kind attached to the central cylinder, if you engage telescopic vision. One set on either side of the central line of the mountains.”

“The diaphragms would serve two purposes,” Garfield added. “One, to allow segments of the topopolis to be pressurized during construction while adding new segments; and two, as a safety mechanism in case of catastrophic blowout.”

“Where would the river go, though?” I asked.

“We already have two rivers going in each direction. Just divert all the water to the next river.”

“Wow.” Bridget shook her head in awe. “Are we sure we’re more technologically advanced than these people?”

“Not really, no. We just have some tech that they don’t. But remember, Bridget, and we said this back when we were starting out on this quest, this whole thing is just scale. Everything we see, humans could do, if they had the will. And a sufficiently long view to make them stick to it for however long it took.”

Bridget was silent for a moment. “I wonder if the Quinlans got their motivation from being certain that they’d kill themselves off soon.”

“Hair-trigger tempers plus advancing weapons technology. Not a stretch as a working theory.”

During this discussion, we’d drifted into the actual strait. This section of the Arcadia River was perhaps two miles wide, which lead me to believe that the river must be quite shallow through the segment itself. Otherwise four straits wouldn’t be able to handle the flow. In any case, the current had certainly picked up, as had the wind. Ships attempting to sail upriver would have a demanding and extended voyage.

The mountains rose straight up out of the water on either side of us, with no concession for any kind of usable shoreline. I thought I could see what might be a road or path along the nearer bank, but I couldn’t resolve it enough, even at maximum magnification, to be sure.

It was an impressive, if short, ride. Within minutes we’d been spit out on the downstream side of the mountains, and the river immediately started to split off into tributaries.

We also discovered something new. It was full night on this side of the mountains. I gazed up at the stars. “We didn’t time-warp, did we?”

“Interesting,” Bill replied. “It looks like the segments alternate day and night cycles. Makes sense. Only half the segments would be drawing power for sunlight at any time.”

“Or this segment has a burned-out bulb,” Garfield added.

“Sure. Or that,” Bill said, rolling his eyes.

Another three hours of floating brought us to a largeish city, just as morning was breaking. Several sets of docks crowded with rivercraft hinted at a thriving industry. The city was close to a couple of tributaries, and it was likely that there were other settlements in those directions. This would be an excellent place to look for information and possibly make contact with a useful group, if we could figure out how not to get stabbed and shot during the introductions.

We decided to improve our chances by entering the town individually. “Group of sabbatarians, one female” was a pretty good filter, if they were watching arrivals. Hopefully they didn’t have photorealistic wood carvings or something.

The first person into town, Bill, set himself up to casually watch the dock area, looking for anyone else who might be doing the same. Next, Garfield docked and went looking for somewhere to stay. Bridget arrived shortly after him, and began asking around for a library. I came in last and searched for pubs. There had been a lot of argument about whether this was strictly necessary, but I pointed out that we’d found out quite a bit during the Skeve affair by just sitting and listening.

Garfield reported that he had found and paid for a large room, without having to specify the number of occupants. If we could avoid the use of the word four entirely, we’d likely be better off. Bridget had gotten directions to a library, without the up-and-down appraisal this time. She was headed in that direction and sent us a map.

Bill reported noticing a half-dozen different people, including a couple of cops, but admitted they might have legitimate business that required them to hang around—especially the cops. He didn’t want to appear suspicious himself, so he suggested tag teaming with Garfield.

I eventually settled into a pretty forgettable pub a few streets in from the docks. It had an outdoor patio, which I took advantage of. The fare offered an option other than fish, for a wonder: hownid, which was a smaller and presumably more tender version of the draft animal. I decided that I liked this town …

“Say, did anyone notice the name of the town when we came in?”

“First Stop,” Garfield replied. “Not kidding. If these people have artistic souls, it doesn’t extend to their city naming.”

“Well, whatever First Stop may lack in naming, I’m willing to cut some slack, because it also has … steak!”

“What? Where?”

I gave directions and sat back to enjoy my meal. In minutes, the others showed up and ordered similar meals, which the Quinlans referred to as land meat. Garfield kept grinning, and I finally had to ask what was tickling him.

“On the Quinlans are a lot like humans list,” he replied, “I saw an adult female walking her, uh, pet. It’s a sort of small dog-equivalent. The poor creature was wearing a waxed paper …” Garfield made motions around his head.

“Cone of shame? It had a cone of shame?”

Garfield grinned. “Yeah. It actually made me homesick.”

“I found a library,” Bridget said. “That’s my target for the afternoon.”

“We’re going on a pub crawl,” I replied. “And doing some listening.”

“Three pub crawls, I think. We should stay spread out.”

“A little late for that, Bill.” I gestured at the table with the four of us seated around it.

Bill made a gesture of helplessness. “Steak. It called to us.”

I grinned and sopped up the last of my meal with a piece of bread.

We met back in our hotel room at the end of the day, having been very careful to come in one at a time.

“Anyone get anything?” I said, starting the discussion.

Twin head shakes from Bill and Gar confirmed my fears. The pub crawls had been a bust. “I’ve heard more than I’ll ever need to about day-to-day Quinlan life, but the Skeve thing may have been a fluke.”

“Or this town is just too unimportant to have a Resistance presence,” Garfield added.

“Well, I made some progress on background,” Bridget said. “Sort of. It’s heavily mythologized. According to their origin story, they originally lived in a land called Quin that had no boundaries but a finite amount of space. The Quinlans overpopulated it and began fighting over the land, so Anec—some kind of god, I think—changed the world to one with boundaries but infinite land to end the fighting. But the Quinlans had gotten into the habit of fighting, so he took away their weapons and their wisdom and scattered them.”

“Nice,” Bill said. “Finite but unbounded describes a sphere. I don’t think the description of a topopolis is right, but they may not have fully explored it yet—lengthwise.”

“A billion miles.” I shook my head. “Not really a surprise.”

“Very interesting,” Garfield said. “But it still doesn’t explain the backward technological level of the inhabitants. Do you think it was voluntary? Or maybe voluntary like my way or the highway voluntary?”

Bridget paused, then gave Garfield a shrug. “That part still isn’t clear. I need to spend more quality time in a library. Talking to people works up to a point, but if you appear too ignorant of common knowledge, they start to get suspicious.”

“Actually suspicious?”

She nodded. “I couldn’t ask, obviously. But maybe they think you’re either Administration and checking on their knowledge, or you’re a government operative trying to check on loyalty or attitude.”

“Or both,” I said. “We don’t know the extent to which the Administrator operates as a level of government.”

Bridget nodded. “I noticed too. My research isn’t clear on a lot of details, but I’m sure the Quinlans have been living like this for hundreds of years. The Administrator, as the person or group is called, maintains order by scattering any group that breaks the rules, like attempting to circumvent the tech limits, but otherwise seems to maintain a hands-off policy.”

“The existence of a Resistance would make me think the Administration is at least partly hands-on.” I tapped my chin in thought. “What about Administration staff? Are they known? Do they have offices?”

“Understand, a lot of this is inferred from reading between the lines. So everything I say comes with a large dollop of uncertainty. But no, they’re not an official part of the hierarchy. They are generally referred to as Crew. It’s not clear whether they live somewhere else or are just part of the population. Which leads me to believe it might be both. Hired muscle for the in-country work, and full-time Crew somewhere else.”

“Wow, that’s pretty a good analysis, Bridget,” Bill said. “So with the group that just wanted to bump off Skeve, we now have three factions—Administration plus Crew, Resistance, and locals who don’t want anything to do with either one. The business in Galen makes more sense now.”

We discussed strategy the next morning. First Stop didn’t have any other libraries as it turned out. Bridget grumbled and made faces, but we recognized that it was to be expected. It wasn’t a small town, but it did appear to be a backwater. Bridget, not surprisingly, wanted to head out immediately.

We asked around, and determined that the biggest, closest town was Three Lagoons. It was located on the next river system south of us, the Utopia, at the mouth of the connecting tributary. I immediately voted to head there, as it would give me a chance to examine how Heaven’s River handled a connection between two rivers heading in opposite directions.

“We really have to stop prepaying our room rentals,” Bill complained. “At least until we know how long we’ll be staying. I think we’ve overpaid about a month’s worth already.”

Garfield made a head motion toward Bill. “The accountant has spoken.”

Bill showed Gar his teeth, but didn’t reply.

For a change, we’d be leaving town in a dignified and completely unexceptional manner. Not even any looking-in-carts jokes. We marched to the docks, jumped in the water, and per directions from the locals, swam determinedly for the south side of the river.

Once we were close enough, we formed into a Quinlan raft and let the current take us. It would be twelve miles or so before we’d reach the tributary, known locally as theGronk, which would take us to the main river to the south, the Utopia. Meanwhile, it was a good opportunity to get some sun and do a little thinking.

The others apparently felt the same, as there was no attempt to start any kind of discussion. As one, we tilted our heads back and worked on our under-beak tans.

After some indefinite but comfortable amount of time, Bill said, “We’ve got company.”

Three heads jerked up and swiveled. The company, though, turned out to be a hown-driven riverboat, which was gradually closing in on us. We could tell immediately from their heading and relaxed pace that they were simply traveling to the same destination as us, rather than actively trying to intercept.

Garfield glared at Bill. “You didn’t have to be so dramatic. I almost had a coronary.”

Bill managed an injured innocence look. “What? All I said was that we have company. The coronary is your fault. You have a guilty conscience.”

Garfield responded with a dismissive pfft, but the statement was technically true. And Bill would just deny it had anything to do with the earlier accountant comment anyway.

As the boat came closer, we were able to get a good look. It was a cargo hauler, with very little in the way of passenger accommodations. Some Quinlans had obvious duties, and a few were hustling around. But there was another group of four just sitting on the deck, relaxing.

One of the crew waved at us and called out, “If you’re taking the Gronk, we’ll give you a lift for a copper each. Got another set of sabbatarians here already.” He motioned to the group that was sunning themselves.

Bridget said, “Can’t hurt, and we might pick up something. And the ride is supposed to be a little rough.”

Without further discussion, we broke up, submerged briefly, and pooted onto the deck. The deckhand held out a paw, and I dropped four Quinlan coins into it.

We ambled along to the other group, which moved over to give us some deck space.

“Planning on heading east?” the deckhand asked, walking with us.

“Going to Three Lagoons,” I replied. “We haven’t planned past that point. Bridget, here, wants to visit their library.”

“Ah, a seeker.” The Quinlan made a gesture that translated as mildly dismissive. “There’s fewer of them every year, seems to me. Most of you youngsters seem to be content to just float until you find a place to settle.”

“Isn’t that the point?” a member of the other group said.

“Maybe. But we used to be more.” The deckhand gave the other Quinlan a hard look and stalked off. I glanced from the retreating back to the speaker.

The seated Quinlan grinned up at me. “Oldsters are determined to pine for our lost destiny. But this is a good life. What’s the point?”

“You mean Quin?” Bridget asked.

He nodded in reply. “I’m Kar, by the way. This is Malin, Arik, and Ti.”

This produced a brief flurry of introductions before Kar continued on what sounded like a speech he’d made many times before. “I have literally never met anyone who was scattered. Know why? Because most people aren’t idiots. From what I learned in school, this is paradise.”

“Or a zoo,” Ti interjected.

“With no gawkers, Ti. I think you need a better metaphor. Meanwhile, there’s lots of fish, the weather is predictable, the water’s clean, and other than the occasional border dispute, there’s no war. As fates go, it doesn’t suck.”

This was definitely looking like a well-worn argument, and I was prepared to just sit back and listen. But Bridget wasn’t going to be so passive. “What about the Resistance?”

Kar laughed. Even Ti did a Quinlan eye-roll.

“Oldsters playing at warrior,” Kar said. “There’s nothing to resist. Crew barely exist, not so you’d notice. And if there’s a scattering, not that I have any personal knowledge, mind you, you just wake up and it’s done.” He made a negating motion with his hand. “What’re they fighting for, anyway? Chase fish, bask in the sun, swim until you’re tired, sleep. That’s all you need.”

“This guy’s a hippy,” Bill said over the intercom. Then to Kar, “Except for the part about making a family and children.”

“Sure, but do we need towns for even that?” Kar swept his eyes over his audience. “Everything in towns is stuff you can get for free, or stuff you only need because townies say you have to have it. We could get rid of towns entirely, and no one would suffer.”

“It would make it pretty hard for us to trade our goods.” We looked up. It was the same deckhand, come around again in his cycle of chores.

“Slightly different things from upriver or downriver, that people want only because they’ve been told it’s desirable. Or better.” Kar was warming to his subject, and still seemed to be in a well-worn groove. I watched his friends as he and the deckhand traded barbs. They didn’t seem surprised, or especially concerned about his comments. If anything, their expressions indicated agreement, to the extent they cared at all.

The argument soon died down, as the deckhand wasn’t being paid to stand around, a fact made loudly clear by someone who was probably the captain. He moved off to his next assignment and Kar laid back to catch some rays.

“That’s interesting,” Bridget said over the intercom as we closed our eyes and pretended to doze. “And not entirely unexpected. Civilization and technology are methods of controlling the environment to increase your chances of survival. But what if you’re so well-adapted that you don’t need civilization at all? Or don’t need it anymore?”

“Heaven’s River is idyllic,” Bill replied. “Are you saying it’s perhaps too much so?”

“Yes. The Quinlans were probably well-adapted to their environment on Quin, and this environment was designed with their preferences in mind, so it’s even more ideal. So there really isn’t any kind of selection pressure anymore.”

“And you think this is deliberate?”

“I don’t know, Bill. I don’t think so. The problem is that if it continues, the Quinlans could lose their remaining knowledge, then their culture, then ultimately their intelligence.”

“Excuse me?” I said, aghast.

“Brains are expensive, Bob. They are for humans, and they are for Pav, and they are for Quinlans. Twenty to twenty-five percent of daily calories go to keeping us cogitating. Now assume a Quinlan comes along with a smaller brain, maybe only needing fifteen percent. That Quinlan has an advantage, in reproduction, in keeping itself fed, and so on. Without any reason to privilege intelligent Quinlans, the new breed could take over within a dozen generations. Have that kind of stepwise mutation happen a few times, and the Quinlan race would be just another set of animals.”

“The Administrator cannot have had that in mind.”

“I agree. Which is why I think it’s probably an unintended consequence. And possibly one that hasn’t occurred to anyone yet.”

“Dammit.” I was here to get Bender. That was all. But could I just walk away from this? Would I end up being the Bawbe all over again?

As the old Pachinoism goes, the more I try to get out, the more they keep pulling me in.