Heaven's River

by Dennis E. Taylor

  A female voice said “Destination?”

  Oh great. “Uh, Helep’s Ending.”

  There was another ding and the door began sliding closed - just as a flechette flew in and struck me in the arm.

  “Ow! Son of a bitch!”

  “Is medical assistance required?”

  “Now let's go, please.”

  “Please have a seat. Acceleration will begin in eight seconds.” said the train.

  Eep. I plunked myself on the nearest seat, placed Bender on my lap, and examined the wound. Small neat hole, penetration about a half inch. It was actually a nicely tuned weapon. Internal systems were already breaking down the flechette and starting repairs.

  There were no windows in the tube train, the view of the tube not being particularly inspiring, but it meant I wasn't able to see my pursuers as I pulled away from the station. I imagine they'd call a train as well, but could they follow this one? Could they ask the train attendant to let them off of the same platform?

  “Train voice, can I specify a destination to be the same as the train in front of us.”

  “There is no train in front of us.”

  I examine the ceiling briefly.

  “Can occupants of the train behind us asked to be let off at the same station as us, without specifying it by name?”

  “Yes.”

  “Shit.”

  “I do not understand that command.”

  “Never mind. Thank you. How far behind us will the next train arrive?”

  “It will arrive at the same location. Not behind us.”

  Grr.

  “How many seconds after our arrival will the next train arrive?”

  “There is a mandated interval of 112 seconds between train departures and the next arrival.”

  Oh, much better. “Thank you, no more questions.”

  So I had just a shade under two minutes, that being the human translation of the Quinlan time unit vec, to get out of Dodge or implement whatever strategy I came up with.

  I’d asked to go to Helep's Ending in a panic, but really I wanted to go to Garrick's Spine. But if I asked to go there, would they have a welcoming committee waiting? We’d already seen more than enough evidence that the Resistance’s communications were efficient and far-reaching. Could I pull a fast one?

  “Train voice, can I change my destination choice before we arrive?”

  “Yes, but it may still be necessary to stop at the original destination first, depending on traffic.”

  “Can we leave without opening the doors?”

  “Not if passengers are waiting.”

  “Are passengers waiting?”

  “Yes.”

  Uh-oh. Those would either be Resistance, or less likely, Crew. Neither group was likely to welcome me with open arms. Well, yes, they would, but not for hugs. I was going to have to put on some serious speed, which meant that Bender would have to go in the backpack. I just hoped that a) the matrix would fit, and b) I could tighten it down enough to prevent damage from jostling.

  A frantic minute of fooling with the backpack resulted in a partial success. I was able to fit Bender in and tighten the straps, but I had to abandon most of the contents to make space and to prevent them banging around. So goodbye flechette gun, extra knives, money…

  In a moment of inspiration, I swallowed some coins. My artificial stomach could be turned, off preserving the coins intact, but I didn't want to swallow too many and end up jingling when I moved.

  The train began deceleration phase and I looked around frantically.

  “Train voice, which door will be closest to one or the other edge of the platform?”

  “The door 3 to your left, or the door 6 to your right.”

  I dashed to my left, dropped to all fours, and went into a sprinters crouch. I had hope I could clear the vestibule before they could get everyone over to my end. The train pulled smoothly to a stop, and the door swooshed open. I immediately gave it all that gas I could, frame-jacking just enough to be able to evaluate the situation. I immediately evaluated that there were four Quinlan standing right in front of the door, holding a net.

  I changed direction slightly and barreled into one of the net holders, knocking him over backward. I launched off his forehead and galloped down the hallway. A quick glance backward rolling my eyes instead of turning my head revealed that there were enough Quinlans to cover all 10 doors. That was a lot of personnel to bring to bear on very little notice. Where did they come from?

  That was a question for another time. A much calmer time filled with cups of coffee and purring cats. For now, I needed to amscray. I hit the emergency staircase door and began nearly flying up the stairs. I had to hope they wouldn't be cover-

  Two flechettes hit me before I could react. Dammit. The gun-toting Quinlan stood in front of me, their eyes slowly getting wider as they realized that I was approaching way too fast and I wasn't slowing down. By this point, I'd pretty much perfect of the run-them-down maneuver, and I didn't even break stride. I noticed on the way past that the second one had a security card dangling from an attachment point on his backpack. I gave it a quick tug, and with my already considerable momentum, it came off cleanly. Chances were he’d notice and report the card, but it was just a distraction. I still had Natasha's card, and they probably hadn't yet associated it with me.

  At the top of the stairs, I stopped and changed my features to that of the cardholder, or at least as close as I could manage in a few seconds and without a selfie. Then I pushed open the emergency door. Three Quinlan stood on guard, pistols in hand.

  One said to me, “Rick? What's up?”

  I bent over, put my hands on my thighs, and faked deep heaving breaths and tried to gasp a lot.

  “Got him!” Pant, pant. “Need help,” gasp pant, “too strong,” and I waved in the direction of the stairs while keeping my head down so they couldn't see my face clearly.

  Apparently my acting chops were pretty good, as the trio headed for the stairs, barely glancing at me. As soon as they were out of sight, I went out the maintenance door and made for the wilderness.

  The good news was that I was free of my pursuers. The bad news was that I was stuck in the Helep's Ending area. They were obviously monitoring the train stations and would probably maintain a guard on them for the foreseeable future. They couldn't cover 400 million stations, of course, but they didn't need to. Without the trains, I was limited to what I could reach on foot or by water. And not even the latter, since I couldn't take a chance on getting Bender's matrix wet.

  The backpack was under considerable strain, with the cube stuffed into it. One popped seem, and that would be it. I could possibly book passage on a boat, but they didn't have passenger lines, as such. You paid for deck space on the cargo vessel, and you fed yourself by fishing when hungry. Someone would eventually notice that I wasn't going in the water, and questions would be asked. Plus, there would probably be a bolo out for a Quinlan with a large lumpy backpack.

  I needed to stop reacting and form some kind of plan. I found a field of tall grass and waited in a few yards, then plunked myself down. A little back-and-forth with my butt and I had a nice nest, out of view of anyone happening by. Then I made a call.

  “Hey Hugh.”

  “Hi Bob, what's up?”

  “Things are very interesting right now. Listen, can you arrange a scan of the area around Helep’s Ending?

  “Sure. Where is Helep's Ending?”

  “It's near my location.”

  “Sure, where are you?”

  “I'm near… never mind, I guess I didn't think that through.”

  “Sorry, Bob. Still not enough equipment in the air to do random scans.”

  “Got it. Thanks anyway.”

  That was mildly embarrassing. I suspect that I was still suffering from a bit of panic mode. I needed to slow down, calm down, take stock. I gazed up at the fake blue sky filled with real clouds and the occasional flock of birds. Lying there in a field of grass, it would be
easy to lose the moment. To imagine myself back in Minnesota on one of those bluebird summer days. Except for the large mountains. And the stays holding up the central cylinder. That kind of blew the illusion.

  The stays.

  Will’s professor friend had said they were used to access the central cylinder. Four stays, corresponding to the four rivers, ran up from the mountains. If I was to get onto one of the other rivers, the resistances search radius would become untenable. But could I? Would Natasha's card have access to the elevators up to the central cylinder? Bender and said that he'd spent the last 100 years giving the Resistance hacked access. And why stop with the trains or maintenance complexes? It was that, or skulk around the area until they gave up, or try to get somewhere overland, or take a possibly even bigger chance on a boat.

  Screw it. I’d already gotten into the underground maintenance complex once and escaped. I doubted they'd expect me to go back there first thing.

  I sent a quick email to Will, asking him for any details on the location and accessibility of the transport system up the cylinder stays, then set off yet again for the mountains. At least I knew the way.

  I peered to the bushes and glared at the single guard standing in front of the maintenance complex access door, trying to burn out his brain with my heat vision.

  Sadly, no heat vision.

  The guard stood relaxed, unaware of his brush with death. I could attack him and knock him out, but would he stay out long enough for me to get in and get to the elevator? And what about surveillance cameras? I hadn’t found any around the entrance before, but they'd be on full alert now. And they'd only leave a single guard if that guard was being watched.

  Come on, Bob. James Bond could handle this.

  I could dig my way into the corridor, but that would take forever and would probably be noticed. I could kill the guard… no, not really. Knocking him out was contraindicated. Bribery was unlikely to work, even if I had something to offer. Distraction? Throw rock over there than wait until he investigated? Nah, too cliché for words. He’d probably turn in the opposite direction, expecting an attack.

  At that moment a file arrived from Will. I put on my heads-up and examined the images. It was a SUDDAR scan from a segment boundary, showing the area at the base of the stay, with inked-in annotations in a non-Bob hand. Probably the professor, but the important thing was that there was just enough detail for me to be able to find the complex’s entrance to the transport system up the stays. If I could get in. And if all the segment boundary complexes were identical.

  I was stymied for the moment, so I might as well do something. I settled for searching for any cameras. Out came the spiders. I also wanted to be ready to move at a moment’s notice if an opportunity presented itself, so out came the fleas to infest the door mechanism again. And I moved as close to the door as I could get while remaining hidden.

  It took very little time to find the camera, hidden in some foliage. It had been set up to point at the guards back. So the guard was as much bait as anything - they expected him to be attacked. Nice. And speaking of the guard, he seemed to be getting restless. Over several minutes, he glanced around, paced a bit, and scratched himself a few times. I haven't done anything, so I wasn't sure what was… oh. Hydraulic pressure, leading to a call of nature. Heh.

  The guard moseyed over to a nearby bush and was-

  Holy moly, what was I doing color commentary for? The guard had moved away from the entrance, and had his back to it.

  I ordered the fleas to unlock the door, and as quietly as I could I pulled it and slipped in. A couple of my spider scurried in behind me, but most of them were left outside along with most of my fleas. I could wait for them to dig their way in, but while I was doing that the guard’s shift could end and his replacement could come traipsing up the corridor. Un-good for sure. Nope, I’d have to leave them and hope I didn't come to regret that.

  This part of the infiltration was almost routine, including the stair door that I'd previously jimmied. I went down one floor, which Will's plans indicated would lead me to the elevator up to the central cylinder. If there were security cameras, I would just have to hope that I looked enough like a Natasha to fool them. And then I'd find out how good a hacking job Bender had been doing.

  13. Getting Busy

  Herschel

  July 2334

  Bellerophon

  I got ping from Will, and replied with an invitation. He popped in within a mil. It had been what, almost a century since Will had been aboard, even if only in virt?

  I'd long since gotten tired of playing with virt layouts, and had reverted to the default library motif.

  Will barely glanced around. “Hi Herschel, thanks for having me over.”

  “Hi Will, long time no see. I hope this isn't going to be as dramatic as the last time.”

  He snorted. “No. No intergalactic battles pending, that I know of anyway. Just the usual dull roar whenever humans are involved.”

  I gestured to a chair and called Jeeves. He showed up with a coffee for me and a Coke for Will. “You know, your general dislike for humans seems incompatible with the amount of effort you're putting into Valhalla.”

  Will paused to drink his Coke, taking long enough that it was probably a delaying tactic. “Honestly Herschel, it’s simply my version of Ragnarok. If things had gone just a bit different back in Epsilon Eridani, I might've been the one to stay there and start a skunk works instead of Bill. I regret that, sometimes. Dealing with humans has soured me a bit. … okay, a lot.”

  I nodded slowly, trying to keep my eyebrows from climbing my head. Will was not usually this forthright. Something was up. “Okay. You have a solution?”

  “Yes, something I've been working on for a while. The Ever-Onward society, which I understand you've been sniffing around. At least that's what my sources tell me, and you've been fairly public about looking for colony volunteers. I think we've been working in parallel on very similar plans, to the point where the urge to scream copyright infringement is almost overpowering.”

  I raised a finger and opened my mouth to respond before I realized I was about to argue copyright law. Instead, I smiled at Will. “Okay, you got me reacting. Now give.”

  “Going off on a tangent for a moment, you guys have published enough analyses of the Bellerophon so that we could replicate it if we wanted to, except with a working surge drive instead of plates. I, uh… I started building a slightly smaller version about 50 years ago.”

  I goggled at him. “In the 82 Eridani system? And no one noticed? That's a lot of material.

  He grinned in reply. “Well first, I’ve been very active with this Valhalla thing, and it takes a lot of effort and material to build all those fractionaters and so on. And the colonies have mostly been concentrating on planet-side improvement, so it's not like we’re getting in each other's way. Besides, the standard agreement between Bobs and colonies allows us to harvest such materials as may be necessary for activities relating to our original purpose, without compensation to the colony. I just never mentioned the side project.”

  “Wow that's… lawyerish. And it still a lot of steel.”

  “The standard agreement doesn't set any limits on how much we can take. It's never really come up.”

  I rubbed my eyes and check metadata. Yep, definitely Will. “Okay this is a little mind-boggling, especially coming from you, but I still don't see the connection to us.”

  “A couple of things, Herschel. First, your goal appears to be to place a colony far from current human space with no attempt to maintain communications. I get why you want to do that, but I don't think the part about severing communications is necessary. Second, your idea of sending AMI Heaven vessels ahead of you is a kludge forced on you by having a bunch of colonists in your belly. Even the original project designers on Earth were reluctant to trust AMIs with that level of executive control. Except China, of course, and look how that ended.”

  Will paused, and I tilted my head and gave him t
he side eye. “Okay?”

  “What I intend to do is spit out ready-made space stations as I pass by systems. The stations decelerate to place themselves in a solar orbit, and will have drones on board to do a system survey. AMIs can handle that. And in the event it turns out to be something at all interesting, the stations will include a blank replicant matrix, just ready for a Bob to download into and take over. And if not, we still have an AMI-controlled relay station at every system along my flightpath.”

  I nodded slowly. “Bob seeds. And you never have to slow down. But again, why tell us?”

  “If I lead and you follow,” Will replied, “then you'll know when I find a good colony target well before you reach that point. And once you've established a colony there, you'll still have a full hold of material, so from that point on, you can do what you were originally planning.”

  “Or do your way.”

  Will shrugged. “Sure, whatever.”

  “Why, Will? What's with his urge to head for the edge of the Universe because this sounds like the same kind of thing Phineas and the others have been doing.”

  “And you and Neil? What's your motivation for this?”

  “I'm concerned about running into someone or something that can wipe out humanity. We found a lot of intelligent races for the small segment of the galaxy that we've explored. It's only a matter of time until we run into something we can’t handle.”

  Will nodded. “No disagreement, Hersh. But don't you find it curious that all the civilizations we found are or were at about the same age, give or take a few hundred to a few thousand years? No K-2’s or anything at that level? Don't you wonder why that is?”

  “Not necessarily. The local stars are all of similar type, similar age, with similar metallicity. There is really only a billion year or so window when life can develop, so-”

  “I know where you're going, but I'm talking about a window of a few thousand years. That's a lot more coincidental, and nothing more advanced out to as far as we can see.”

  “The Dyson dilemma?”