Heaven's River

by Dennis E. Taylor

  “Will, there's a simple solution to that. With Casimir power sources, civilizations don't have to cluster around their suns.”

  “Except the Others, who had a biological imperative.”

  “Yeah yeah, but still. Nothing. You don't think we’re the pinnacle of knowledge, do you?”

  I laughed. “No, of course not! But it's a pyramid, by necessity. The most advanced civilizations at the top will be the smallest group.”

  “Not good enough,” Will shook his head. “At least I don't think so. There’s something more at play.”

  “But there’s no conflict, Hersh. your motivation and minor compatible. Either way, we both want to get humanity more spread out, and while it's laudable that you're going to found a colony or two on the way out, this is still very much a one-way trip for you too, isn't it?”

  “Look, I can’t speak for Phineas, or Ick and Day, or any of the other Bobs. But for me, the problem is that I can't shake myself loose. You know why I'm still our rep in the UFS?”

  I laughed. “Because everyone knows if no one else volunteers you’ll keep doing it.”

  Will chuckled, a little ruefully. “I didn’t think it was that obvious, but yes, I have this outsized sense of duty. It's my replicative drift, I guess. But they can't expect me to continue to carry it if I'm not around.”

  “Wow.” I shook my head and thought for a moment. “To be honest, I'm coming around to the idea that this may be isn’t some kind of sinister urge taking us over. Bob-1 was looking forward to the adventure when he left Sol that first time. I distinctly remember the feeling. Maybe this is what we've all always wanted, but have gotten distracted out of.”

  “Not all of us. I doubt you could get Howard to budge, or the Gamers, or Bill for that matter. Yes, they found something else to dedicate themselves to. Original Bob had a strong sense of responsibility as well. You're not that far removed in that way, Will. But in the absence of anything to tie us to one spot, I guess there’s a little wanderlust still in all of us.”

  “I agree,” Will replied. “But I don't think it's strictly either/or. Guilt can do funny things to people.”

  I nodded. We settled into a mutual silence for a few mils, although I couldn't decide if it was the awkward or companionable variety.

  Neil popped in at that moment. “Will! Long time no see! Come to inspect our research?”

  Will look surprised, and I controlled the urge to roll my eyes. I couldn't suppress a low growl, though.

  “Research?”

  I waved a hand in dismissal. “Well, we do have this large ship full of raw material, and a lot of time on our hands…”

  “I hadn't heard anything.”

  “We haven't been posting any papers,” I said. “Neither of us is quite sure why. The best we can come up with is that we’re not sure if we want this stuff to be public yet.”

  “Oh, now you've really got me curious,” Will said.

  I shot Neil a glare, which he studiously ignored. “We'd appreciate it if you'd keep it quiet until we feel ready to do a reveal.”

  I sent Will a guest Manny address, then closed my virt session and entered my personal Manny.

  I pulled myself out of the Manny pod. Beside me, Neil was just sitting up. On the other side of them, Will was peering over the edge of the guest Manny's pod.

  “This is the Bellerophon's control cavern,” I said to Will, gesturing around us.

  “You've pressurized it?” he replied.

  “Just the control cavern. The rest of the ship is still in vacuum. We have to use the airlock if we want to go anywhere else, but that's a minor inconvenience.”

  I lifted off from the pod and hovered a few feet away.

  Will's eyebrows rose on his head. “You're uh… you appear to be flying. In control.”

  I grinned at him. “These Mannies have small SURGE drives. Based on the mover plate technology. Very small. Good for maybe a 10th g, and not sustainable over planetary distances. At least not yet, but they're perfect for moving around in freefall.”

  I demonstrated by doing a few loops, then returning to my original position. Will grinned, then got that slightly distracted look Manny operators get when they're concentrating on internal systems. Then he shot out of his pod with a whoop, did some barrel rolls, and swooped over to us.

  “How is this something you'd be reluctant to share? This is awesome!”

  Neil replied before I could. “This isn’t what we’re talking about, Will. This is a minor item we implemented for convenience on the Bellerophon. Until we get the SURGE power up a lot higher, it's not useful for anything but freefall maneuvering. And I can't think of any situation where Mannies are used right now where this would be useful. Except here, of course.”

  “I’d bet every Bob in existence would want a turn, though,” Will said, still slowly doing loops. “Okay, let's see what you consider to be more than a minor item.”

  I gestured him to follow and headed over to a corner of the cavern, where we set up our workshop. Walls, cables, pillars, and stanchions had been welded to the deck in whatever random location we'd needed them at the time. Looking at it through fresh eyes, I felt a twinge of embarrassment. It did look somewhat haphazard.

  Will didn't seem to mind. He headed unerringly for the structure that dominated the work area. It vaguely resembled an oversized Manny pod, but with a lot of science fictionish greebles tacked on. I did a quick mental inventory to check if any of those were actually gratuitous. Will would probably ask.

  He stopped, hovering in front of the pod. “This is impressive. I have no freaking clue what it is, but I like it already.”

  I cocked my head at Neil. “You want to do the honors, or should I?”

  “You had it last time,” he replied. “My turn.”

  I gave Neil a pro forma eye roll, then gestured for him to get on with it.

  “I'll hold your Manny,” I said and grabbed his arm just as his Manny went slack.

  Will look from one of us to the other, perplexed.

  “He’s gone back to virt? Why-”

  He was interrupted by door opening on the giant pod. Will floated back several feet as our experimental Manny stepped out and hovered in place. I gestured to it.

  “This is the X-Man 1. Stands for Experimental Manikin 1. Neil is running it right now.”

  Will's expression was slack with amazement as he examined it. The size and shape were consistent with our standard Bob Mannies, but the X-Man 1 was a mottled silver-grey color. It wore no clothes, and had no particular gender.

  Neil did an exaggerated bow, then slowly rotated in place, grinning the whole while.

  “So, what do you call it?” Will asked. “Instead of X-Man 1?”

  Neil and I exchanged a glance. Will looked back and forth at us, no doubt noting our shame-faced expressions.

  “Okay guys, give. You can't tell me you haven't come up with a nickname.”

  I responded with a sickly smile. “Manikin Skywalker.”

  Will stared at me for several mils before responding. “You’re despicable.”

  He flew over and examined the Manny at close range. “The skin, uh, surface. Whatever. It seems to be, um, moving? It's a little unsettling, to tell the truth.”

  “This Manny,” I replied, “is made up entirely of ants. Or our adaptation of the ants, to be more precise. We’ve managed to miniaturize them to about the size of a tardigrade. They link up, kind of like actual cells, and can form any shape we program into of them.” I grimaced. “We haven't quite got the fine control nailed yet though. Neil’s skin actually is crawling.”

  Will made a face of exaggerated disgust. “Man, I can see someone getting a phobia just being near that thing. For that reason alone, I’d approve of not making it public.”

  “Thing is, Will,” I said, “this design can shape shift. Not quickly yet, but we’ll keep improving it. There’s no built-in discrete structure, as such. Every ant unit is capable of doing any required task by reconfiguring itself. Ev
erything from the SCUT transceivers to the SURGE drive is built from cooperating units. Skeletal structures are generated by units locking themselves together with double bonds, and so. The computer core is distributed throughout the structure, as is the power core. There is no Achilles' heel, no weak spot. That's a lot of power for a post-human replicant.”

  Will nodded. “Yeah, I get it. Look, when you feel like it's ready for a real demo, let's have the senior Bobs look it over and maybe make a recommendation.”

  “Sounds good.” I looked at Neil and tilted my head. He nodded and climbed back into the pod.

  Will shook his head in wonderment. “Wow. This beats transformers and space whales, hands down.”

  14. Getting Out

  Bob

  July 2334

  Heaven's River

  I don't know what I would've done if I'd run into a security patrol. I no longer had a flechette gun, and needing to be careful about Bender's matrix meant most of my go-to tactics were unavailable. Fortunately, the subject didn't come up. It was quite possible that all personnel were outside looking for me around the Helep's Ending transit station. I stared at the elevator. It didn't really look at a different from any other. Maybe a little larger door. The problem was the button, or more accurately the sign over the button, that said authorized personnel only. There was a card reader beside the button.

  I took a totally unnecessary deep breath and pulled out Natasha's card. Moment of truth. I doubted that a failure would result in sirens and flashing red lights, but it would certainly alert someone, and I'd have visitors by-and-by and nowhere to run. Before I could kvetch any more, I pushed the card against the reader, then pressed the button. The button lit for a moment… and the door opened. Hallelujah, I was in business. I entered the elevator and press the top button, since that would be where I’d transferred to another stay. The doors closed, and the elevator accelerated upward. And I realized something that I'd failed to notice when I boarded - this elevator had windows.

  I shouldn’t have been surprised. The Quinlans of long since shown that they had a strong visual artistic sense. Naturally, they wouldn't waste the opportunity to display this view. I had 56 miles of vertical travel in which to enjoy it, and uh, I didn't specifically remember ever having had acrophobia, but I'd never been going literally miles up into the air with a panoramic view before. I had to consciously stop myself from stepping to the back of the elevator. If this got any worse, I might have to activate the endocrine control system.

  I deliberately stood at the window and observed while trying to control my breathing. The curve of Heaven's River was becoming visible, and we'd already passed at least one cloud layer. The River system, forests, townships, and dots on the water that could be boats, all spread out below me in a panorama that exceeded anything I'd seen in a lifetime several hundred subjective years long. I made a point of recording as much as I could, and forwarding it to my blog.

  The trip took 20 minutes total, which was quite impressive. Deceleration was accompanied by an automated suggestion to place my feet on the ceiling, as the centrifugal gravity by that point was almost nonexistent. When the doors opened, I was in as close to zero-g as made no difference. The corridor had a visible curve, with doors and side corridors spaced regularly along it. The sign beside the elevator said Utopia Spoke. Handy. I just needed to move over to the other east-flowing river, the Nirvana.

  I picked a random direction and headed off. As with my first day when we broke into Heaven's River, the Quinlan body had no trouble adapting to zero-g movement. Handholds along the corridor helped as well. Within a few minutes, I'd found the Nirvana Spoke elevator. Small problem, the elevator was at ground level, so there would be a 20-minute wait.

  The ride down was very much like the ride up, in reverse. Strangely, starting from a view-from-orbit kind of panorama made it easier to get used to the height without cringing. By the time it started to resemble real land, I was verging on bored. This maintenance complex was uninhabited, which led me to believe that most of the population of the mountains was probably Resistance. I made it to the train station without incident, and pressed my card against the reader plate.

  “Not authorized.”

  I looked up sharply. “What?”

  “Your identification is not authorized.”

  Oh great. They’d canceled my card. Well, Natasha's card. It had been inevitable, but couldn’t they have done it after I'd gotten on the train?

  I fished out the second card, the one I grabbed from the guard, and tried it.

  “Not authorized.”

  Well, that was that.

  I looked around, half expecting the entire population of hell to come pouring out. But this complex was uninhabited. Come to think of it, I'd never seen or heard of the Administrator using anything but live muscle inside Heaven's River. Maybe automated muscle was forbidden? It sounded like the kind of limitation you’d place on an AI to keep it from taking over. And how had that worked out for the Quinlans? Still, while I wasn't about to be tackled, I also wasn't about to get a free ride back to Garrick's Spine, and hordes of minions could be on their way right now. Their cards would work. A hasty departure seemed advisable.

  Back up the whole way up the stairs, and soon I was in the lobby. The maintenance door opened easily from the inside, and I was out in the open. I could see a town in the distance, but I have no idea what it might be called. I was a quarter-turn around the circumference of Heaven's River, and 3800 miles west of Garrick's Spine, which was my only way out. I had an 8-inch cube in my backpack sticking up like a carbuncle and advertising my presence to any Crew or Resistance who might be looking for me. I might as well be wearing a hard hat with a flashing red light. Oh, and I couldn't risk going in the water. Piece of cake.

  I needed a story. Some plausible reason for the big lump in my backpack. A quick glance up at the sun confirmed the day was young. I have plenty of time to get to the town before dark, but maybe I shouldn't. I had only the coins in my stomach, and I might need them for something more critical than lodging. I dithered for a few moments, then decided I might as well head for town while I tried to come up with something. First, I'd need to update Hugh.

  “Hi Hugh.”

  “Bob! Got news?”

  “Of a sort. I have Bender.”

  “That's great! I’ll meet you at Garrick's Spine and we can get out of here.”

  “Uh, it may not be that simple.”

  I updated Hugh on recent events and my current location.

  “Well that's… suboptimal,” he said. “Listen, you can't be the first Quinlan that's needed to carry something large. A funerary box is about the same size, for instance.”

  “Uh, what?”

  “Bridget can probably give you anthropological details, but Quinlans keep the bones of their deceased. Ground up, they fit into a box of about the right size.”

  “You'd accumulate a lot of boxes over time,” I commented.

  “Yeah, I don't know, ask, Bridget. But maybe check around town. Someone might have something that would keep the box dry. Maybe you can find a funerary box and test it out.”

  “That's an excellent idea, Hugh. Thanks.”

  “Then you’d just need to travel seven segments to Garrick, and you're golden.”

  “Thanks a bunch, Hugh. And with that cheery thought, I'm signing off.”

  Still, one problem at a time. I paused and prairie-dogged to get a close look at the town. Things might be looking up this slightest teeniest bit. I composed and fired off an email to Bridget, not wanting to spare the cycles for conversation. I'd review whatever she sent me when I have time. The first order of business though, was to not come into town from along the road from the maintenance complex. If someone was watching for a Quinlan with a carbuncle, that would be the obvious place to set up.

  Moving to the bushes was more of a pain than expected. I remembered Bridget mentioning that the climate varied from segment to segment, probably to replicate conditions on Quinn. Thi
s segment had a more tropical motif, which meant thicker and more riotous vegetation, and probably a lot more variety in the way of predators. And me without so much as a pig sticker in my inventory.

  After a half hour of bush-whacking accompanied by my best cursing, I decided enough was enough. I spied a trail ahead that likely lead to a regular road, and made for it. The path led through some pretty run-down residential structures and I began to worry about being mugged. A couple of rough looking characters did give me the evil eye, but no one made a move. In 15 minutes more I was in the town proper, which was named Forest Hill. I button-holed a few random strangers and eventually got directions to a funeral home.

  The Quinlan translation was more like House of Setting Sun, which was oddly poetic for a culture that named cities after people's body parts. I entered the establishment and glanced around. An elderly Quinlan came over to me.

  “May I be of service?”

  “I, uh, I'm concerned about getting my grandfather waterlogged. I'm not sure exactly what might be available.”

  “Are you transporting your ancestor over a large distance?”

  “Yes, to Garrick's Spine.”

  “I’m not familiar with that city. However, the normal strategy is to have the ancestor sent by post. Carrying the box on your back…” The sales-critter ostentatiously leaned sideways to look disapprovingly at my backpack. I felt I should blush or something.

  “I'm hoping to bring him home myself. I'd like instead to find a way to wrap the box or get a better backpack…” I left the sentence hanging, hoping the sales-critter would volunteer something.

  He glanced at my backpack again, then asked, “What size of funerary box?”

  “Um…” Bender's matrix was 8 inches on the side. “Inside dimensions, 8 ¼ inches,” I said, trusting the translation software to take care of the conversion to local units.

  “That's oddly precise. Also, not standard size. Here.” He wrote something on a piece of paper and handed it to me. “My cousin Vinny is a carpenter. He could probably put something together to your specifications. Tell him Carmine sent you.”