Heaven's River

by Dennis E. Taylor

  We walked up to the nearest canal and inspected the contents. It didn't seem too bad. Certainly not as oily and turgid as Bob had described on their excursion. If anything, the canal seemed to have a surprisingly robust current.

  “Looks nice,” Howard said.

  “Real estate is less damaged than what you'd expect,” I replied.

  “Bridget took a tissue sample and had it scanned. Huge viral load, and the Skippies modeling indicates it was likely an engineered virus.”

  “So, biological warfare on top of everything else?”

  “Mmhmm. It looks like the entire population had a tantrum and started throwing everything they had at everyone they could. I'm surprised they managed to get to this stage, technologically.”

  “Maybe it's a population density thing?” I grunted and change the subject. “I searched for a good undamaged canal. With the pounding this city received, some have been filled with debris or even had their waterflow blocked entirely. I figure we shouldn't get too adventurous.”

  “Sounds good. Shall we?”

  Without waiting for an answer, Howard dove in. I followed immediately and spotted him, already disappearing into the distance. I pursued, tail and arm flaps working in concert.

  Howard glanced back without turning his head. “This is definitely worth doing, I could sell this. See the ruined world of the Quinlans, quake at the site of blasted cities, gaze in awe at the-”

  “I dare you to try and get that past Bridget.”

  Howard laughed. “You’ve got me there - she'd flay me alive. Okay, so maybe not tours of the Quinn ruins, but even if we just copied the Mannies and put them on Vulcan… hmm, maybe not.”

  “What?”

  I could hear the smile in Howard's voice. “Vulcan has that dinosaur theme, and it carries in the marine life. Lots of big hungry native critters.”

  “In the rivers, maybe?”

  “Maybe. Have to look into it.”

  We swam in a companionable silence for a few more minutes, stopping to examine a couple of submerged wrecks. I imagined the experience would be a lot like scuba diving, except every video I'd ever seen of humans underwater show them as slow and ungainly, struggling to push themselves to the water at a snail's pace. The Quinlan forms moved more like otters, or maybe penguins, since the Quinlans didn't quite have the sinuous flexibility of otters.

  “Curious, the current is surprisingly strong here,” Howard said. “The city didn't seem to have that much of a grade.”

  “Um, I'm not an expert but that seems like more of a concern than a curiosity.” I sounded like a wet blanket, even my own ears, but I’d developed an attitude from terraforming Valhalla that ‘unusual’ equaled ‘bad’. Exceptions had been rare.

  “Sure, okay. It's stronger over here, I'll just have a - yipe!”

  Aaaand this would not be one of those exceptions.

  “Howard, what happened?”

  “I'm - oof - being sucked down - ow! - a tunnel of some kind. Wait, there's light up - oh, shit.”

  I sent a quick order to the cargo drone to lift off, center itself on our location, and do a SUDDAR sweep. Meanwhile, I put some distance between myself and Howard's last known position.

  “I'm going to need a ride,” Howard said into the silence.

  “What happened?”

  “I just got spit out of the tunnel in the mid-air, and did a bit of flying, but not the good kind. I think I broke the Manny. I’ve got my beacon on.”

  “Drone has located you, one moment.”

  I piggybacked the drone’s video window as it lowered itself into a mostly dry canal. Spread eagle on a bed of rocks and branches was a Quinlan form. Some of the limb positions were definitely not natural.

  “How did this happen?”

  “I was sucked into a tunnel and got spit out here. I think I flew about 50 yards before landing. It looks like the city builders put in tunnels between canals to equalize water levels, but this canal is mostly dry. I bet it’s blocked upstream.”

  In the video, roamers were collecting Howard and bundling him into the drone.

  “Have you checked your diagnostics?”

  “Yeah, this baby is going to need some work. I'm surprised I'm still connected, honestly.”

  “The comms subsystem is tough.”

  There was a pause. “Don’t tell Bridget. She’ll kill me.”

  I smiled, although Howard couldn't see it. “I understand you have a new red ale in the works. Riker's Red, I think it’s called?”

  “No, it’s…” Another pause. “You’re a bastard.”

  “Yes, but now I'm a bastard with a red ale named after me.”

  19. You Did WHAT?!

  Bob

  June 2334

  Garrick's Spine

  I activated my Manny and sat up, rubbing my eyes. I wasn't sure if it was something Quinlans did, but it felt right. I peered out the small single window. Still dark. We'd gone to bed yesterday while it was still light out, so we had missed the Heaven’s River sunset. I wanted to see the sunrise. Mostly, I wanted to see for myself how Heaven’s River handled emulation of night and day.

  I'd woken a few minutes early to be certain I was up before the dawn, but I’d left a message with the others. Quietly, not for my crew’s sake but for the other occupants of the motel, I snuck out of our room and down the stairs to the front door. The air felt crisp and cool and wouldn't be out of place in early fall on Earth.

  The artificial sun supplied heat as well as light to the habitat. That implied a heatsink of some kind at ground level, since this was otherwise a closed system. My bet was that the water was kept below ambient, probably cooled by the river bottom impeller filters. Maybe the central cylinder absorbed infrared as well, when the sun was off.

  No one else was about. We knew that Quinlans were primarily diurnal, so no big surprise there. There might be a night guard wandering around, and maybe a paperboy or something, but otherwise I pretty much have the street to myself.

  Or so I thought, until a voice beside me said, “Morning.”

  “Morning, Bill. Had the same idea?”

  “Mmhmm. Moving lots of data from the drones, but nothing beats eyewitness.”

  We stood quietly, watching as a light gradually grew at one end of the gigantic cylinder that was Heaven’s River. By convention we translated that direction as east, with the other compass points falling naturally into place. North was anti-spinward, and South was spinward, but from inside you wouldn't be able to tell without doing some very sensitive experiments. Under this coordinate system, this branch of the river flow generally west.

  “It's quite directional,” Bill said into the silence.

  “What?”

  “The light, from the central structure. In theory, we should be able to see it from hundreds of miles away, but it doesn't become apparent until it's relatively close. I think it’s masked in some way, to only shine over a limited range.”

  “Makes sense. That would also mimic the early morning and late afternoon dimming of a natural sun, due to atmospheric effects.”

  Finally, the sky had turned a discernible blue, and the pseudo-sun was clearly visible at an angle of perhaps 10° above the horizontal. It wasn’t a perfect illusion. For one thing, every point on the surface of the habitat would see the sun pass directly overhead, as if everyone was at the equator. For another, the swing across the sky wouldn't be evenly paced, because the pseudo-son moved at a constant pace along the central cylinder it would appear to accelerate as it approached local Zenith, then slow down afterward. Noon would be very brief.

  “But the sky is blue. Have we figured that out yet?”

  Bill turned to me. “Some of it could be just light scattering, but yeah, you'd think we'd be able to see more of the interior. Maybe not all the way around, but more than we do.”

  “It's a hologram.”

  I jerked as Will’s comment came out of the blue through my comms. “What?”

  “It’s a hologram. Very weak one
, non-directional, and no detail. All it does is mask the central cylinder and reinforce the blue scattering slightly, just enough to give the effect that it does, of fading out the interior in the distance.”

  “That’s interesting,” Bill said. “How did you get this information?”

  “Inspecting the segment scans. We found some hologram projectors on the central cylinder. Big suckers.”

  “Makes sense, I guess.”

  “What makes sense?”

  Bill and I both turned as we heard Bridget's voice. She and Garfield had just exited the motel, presumably looking for us.

  “Will’s comment. Run through the playback. You’ll understand.”

  Bridget closed her eyes and turned her face up to the sun. “Feels good. The builders put a lot of effort into making this as homey as possible.

  “Hmm, yeah. Which argues against the forced colonization scenario, which brings us back to the question…”

  “Well. You all seem to be up very early. Got somewhere special to be?”

  We all turned again at this latest unexpected voice. It was the cop - the same cop that we’d run into yesterday. I wondered for a moment if maybe he was a Manny and didn't need sleep. But in a small town there were probably only a few members of law enforcement, so maybe back-to-backs weren’t that unusual.

  “Just discussing breakfast, sir,” I said, trying to project ‘hungry’.

  “There are lots of eateries along here, gents and lady, but most won't be open yet. But find a place to plant your behinds the doesn't leave you in the middle of the street blocking traffic while you wait.” He glared at us significantly.

  What traffic? The street was virtually deserted except for our group. Wow, this guy was a bit of it dick.

  “Yes sir, we need to get our morning routine going anyway.” I turned to head back to the motel, but the cop stopped me with a truncheon pressed against my chest. Yes, a billy club, one of those things cops always carry in cartoons.

  “Best you be behaving yourselves here on in. I don't want to have to notice you again. Do you understand?”

  I remembered Fred for my time with the Deltans, and fantasized for a moment about grabbing this doofus by the throat and hoisting him in the air. But the feeling passed in a mil or two, and my Manny showed no outward sign of the internal struggle.

  “Yes sir, not a problem.”

  The cop examined us for a moment longer, then turned and walked away.

  Garfield rolled his eyes and grinned. “We’s juvenile delinquents, we is.”

  Bridget glared at him. “That was worst attempt at a Cockney accent I've ever heard. Unless you were going for Irish, in which case it was even worse. Don't do that again.”

  I chuckled. “How often does Howard do that?”

  “Daily. And he says it never gets old.”

  We returned to our closet - eh, room - and sat.

  “Suggestions?” I asked.

  “Why don’t we just split up for a moment?” Bill replied. “This isn't Thunder Dome, it's a small peaceful village. Just wander around and eavesdrop. Maybe one of us will pick up a lead, or at least some useful information.”

  “Reasonable,” Garfield replied. “I vote for that.”

  No one seemed inclined to argue.

  “Okay, let's give it an hour to keep Officer Friendly off our backs. Then we’ll head out.”

  An hour was plenty of time to get things done in the Bobiverse. We set our Manny's on standby and went home.

  An hour later, I had successfully hunted down breakfast of sorts at a nearby pub/eatery. Quinlans didn't really differentiate. I looked down at the plate of fish parts and try to control my face. The barkeep wasn't pranking me - other Quinlans had similar fare in front of them.

  “Something wrong?” he said, eyeing me.

  “No, I just realized how often I've had squiz lately, I'll be fine.”

  He snorted and turned away. Apparently being a barkeep didn't require empathy. Or conversational prowess. Really, this wasn't much different from sushi. And I'd loved sushi. I still loved sushi. And had it regularly in virt.

  Hmm. Nope, not helping. It still looked like chopped up raw fish.

  With a sigh, I directed the embedded AMI to eat the meal while I backed away slightly from foreground processing. I cranked up my audio and try to pick up something besides that snarfing snorting sounds of Quinlan diners. They weren't in anywhere near as bad as on Pav. I'd seen Pav meals. There were many BobTube videos of Pav families eating, complete with overdubbed sports commentary. It occurred to me to wonder if the Pav had seen some of those vids. It might explain their attitude.

  Still, Quinlans work paragons of refined dining, either. Family discussions, gossip, who had or hadn't been arrested for drunk and disorderly, occasional business discussions… there was plenty of talk, but was all routine. Mostly, anyway. I focused in on one discussion in particular, between two Quinlans.

  “Another bunch of blow-ins again, this week. Only some of them sabbatarians.”

  “No one seems to know what's going on.”

  “I’d be less bothered by it if they spent their coin, but they all tend to be tightfisted.”

  “And surly.”

  “Think they’re criminals, running away from something?”

  “Or maybe they’ve been Scattered?”

  “That many? What about disbanded militia?”

  “Having heard of any recent battles.”

  “Hmph. Doesn’t make sense.”

  Well that was interesting. It could just be some local thing, but it was worth checking out. Especially the reference to ‘Scattered’ which had been spoken with peculiar emphasis. I glanced around, trying not to be obvious about it, until I spotted the speakers. A couple of fat older Quinlans, probably local merchants. They were wearing decorative baubles and cosmetic fur coloring that would never survive a swim. If I remembered my sociology, that was a wealth of privilege display, showing that they didn't have to go into the water. Maybe someone else could pick something up.

  “Guys, see if you can find out anything about large movements of untalkative strangers, and maybe get a definition for this slang word ‘Scattering’.”

  I received acknowledgments from the others, and went back to eavesdropping. The conversation had moved on to more commercial matters, unfortunately. After several more minutes, I accepted that no new information was forthcoming. My meal being finished (thank the universe), I decided to go for a walk.

  I stopped, taken aback as I exited the eatery. Traffic had still been thin when I went in. Apparently Quinlans all got up at the same time, or maybe there is a generally agreed-upon workday. For whatever reason it was now chaos. I couldn't detect anything like a right-side left-side rule, or even sidewalk-roadway. Pedestrians dodged in and out of traffic while animal drawn carts maneuvered past each other and generally ignored people on foot.

  I eyed the draft animals - a vaguely box-like beast that the Quinlans call a hound. They were huge, and could probably crush an adult Quinlan without even noticing. Only their slow steady gait allowed people to dodge them in apparent safety. The carts were interesting. None of the contents were exposed. Some were covered in tarps, some were bundled and strapped down, and some carts were completely enclosed. It seemed like it would be a lot of work, as opposed to just piling stuff into the back. I walked up behind a carton and peered in. Definitely well attached, and since it was unlikely a hound was going to take the cards around corners on two wheels, I wondered if grab and run was an issue.

  I was surprised by a shout. “Hey you, get away from my cart. Police! Thief!”

  I looked up and realized the driver had been shouting at me. Geeze. Hair-trigger much? “Sir, I wasn't…”

  “Well, well, look who it is.”

  That was a familiar voice, and not in a good way. I turned to find Officer Friendly leering at me, slapping his truncheon into his hand. Again with the cartoon posture, and I couldn't help a moment of amusement.

  “Li
sten, I wasn't…”

  “I think you were, lad. And we’ll be talking about it down at the station. About-face and march.”

  He attempted to prod me with his truncheon and by reflex I swiveled my upper body to the right to let the weapon pass by. A slight nudge with my left arm ensured that the cops attempted jab would keep going. He scowled and brought the truncheon back in a backhanded swipe to my head. However, since I already had control of the truncheon-carrying limb with my left arm, I simply leaned back and guided it over my head. Hundreds of seconds of virtual kung fu training were coming together, and I wanted to whoop with joy, except you know… cop.

  And speaking of, Officer Friendly was now in full umbrage, and began yelling for backup. It took me a second to realize that backup would come, not from the police force, but from passersby. People turn to the fracas and came at me, hands out to grab. It seemed neighborhood watch was a thing.

  “Guys, I seem to have gotten in trouble with the law. I think we’re all going to have to leave town. Like, now.”

  Bill replied right away. “What in hell did you do?”

  “Looked in a wagon. I'm not kidding, that's all I did. Didn't even touch it, these people really have anger management issues.”

  “Fine,” Bill replied. “We’ll meet downstream. Don't show off, Bob. Nothing inhuman, or un-Quinlan, you know what I mean.”

  I did. My android body was capable of speed and strength that no Quinlan could possibly match. I needed to avoid making them think there was some super Quinlan out there. This exchange had only taken a mil or so, and people were still coming at me. I rolled off the outside of the first person’s grab, then took him around and pushed him into the next person. The pushoff allowed me to reverse direction, and I found myself face-to-face with another individual. His expression was just starting to register surprise when I pushed him into someone else, resulting in the beginning of the total tangle and allowing me to change direction again. I now had people going in three different directions trying to catch me. It took no more than a nudge to an off-balance pursuer and he was down, taking several others with him. Now I had an open space and I went for it, trying to keep my speed within Quinlan norms… right into Officer Friendly.