Heaven's River

by Dennis E. Taylor

  Once they were settled in. We went through the by now routine frenetic running around that characterized leaving port. The cargo we'd taken on at Beetle Juice - which was mostly Beetle Juice, no surprise - was making the Hurricane wallow a little more than usual, so we were taking extra care to maintain a good conservative trim. Once the boat was in mid-river and running an easy reach, we were able to break for lunch. I jumped in with the other crew members and we chased down some juicy fish. Yum. Unfortunately, given the close quarters, I had to be seen to be eating, sleeping, and so on, just like everyone else. So, fish for breakfast, fish for lunch… when I was done with the Bender rescue, I resolved that I would never go near fish again.

  We brought up a dozen or so as well, for the captain and passengers. I sat down with Teresa and Belinda, studiously ignoring Snidely who was snarfing back fish like he hadn't been fed in weeks. The Pav would've approved of his table manners. My mother, not so much. Belinda quietly removed the less desirable fish parts with a small but doubtless expensive knife, and offered the fillets to her grandmother, who took them with a smile.

  “Belinda’s not much for talking,” Teresa said to me. “I've watched you try to engage her in conversation.” She placed a fond hand on her descendant’s head. “Kids are getting less and less verbal, it seems.”

  “I have a friend who commented that it's less necessary in Heaven's River, so intelligence is being gradually bread out.”

  “With some help from the Administrator, I’ve heard that theory. Not impossible but their manipulation would have to be very subtle.”

  “Oh, in Father's name. More yokel superstition,” said Snidely. “Save me from the uneducated.”

  Teresa gave him a mild stare. “And what’s your educational background, Mr. Whiplash?”

  “I have a Masters in Business from the University of Peach Land,” he replied heartily.

  I checked the translator out of curiosity. That wasn't bad, close enough to retain the meaning anyway, although I doubted that a Masters had quite the same meaning as a human university degree.

  “And you took classes Peach Land?” Teresa asked.

  “Of course.”

  “I taught courses at Peach Land, Mr. Whiplash. Don’t talk down to me. I have several doctorates in subjects much more relevant than how to count money for those who’ve had their life handed to them.”

  Woah. Snidely jerked back, and I imagined flames sparking at the end of his whiskers. As much as I disliked him, obvious glee wouldn't be helpful, so I maintained a stone face as he stood stiffly.

  “That would've been very handy, I suppose, before senility set in,” he said, showing his canines.

  Belinda turned on him, snarled, and extended her claws. Snidely jumped back, surprised and alarmed by her reaction.

  “You’re a small man, with a small shriveled soul, Mr. Whiplash,” Teresa said. “There is no bigger waste of a formal education, gave to someone incapable of using it. I have no doubt your whole life would disappear into your father's accomplishments without leaving our ripple.”

  Snidely glared at her for a moment, totally silenced, before stalking off.

  “That went well,” I said.

  Teresa chuckled. “And what about you Mr. Fungi? You have a last name as well. Do you have anything to show for it?”

  “Not really. My family earned the name long ago. Nowadays it's mostly useful for keeping people like Snidely from patronizing me too much.”

  “Do you believe, as Mr. Whiplash apparently does, that the world came about naturally?”

  “Of course not,” I replied. “It's a rotating structure, 100 hen in radius, composed of segments each 1000 hen in length. The ratio is clearly artificial. The experiment to determine the rotational period is something we did in our first-year classes. It's exactly what you’d need in order to generate 0.86 g.”

  I was taking a chance showing any scientific chops, but I wanted Teresa to approve of me. Not just because she appeared to have a ferocious intellect, but also because I might learn something useful. This could turn out to be the first truly useful encounter since we'd landed.

  She nodded slowly. “Ah. An engineer. A frustrating occupation, I imagine. So much of what you know you could do is forbidden.”

  “And what did you teach, Teresa?”

  “Philosophy. Math. History.” She smiled sadly. “That last item is particularly frustrating. Even in my lifetime, I've watched people letting go of some of the more difficult aspects of Quinlan history, in favor of myth. Belief in the Administrator as a supernatural deity of some kind, and just-so stories.”

  Jackpot. Maybe I'd finally get a complete picture of the history of Heaven's River.

  “So, what do you think the Administrator…”

  The captain's voice cut through everything. “Alright you lazy sots, this tub won't steer itself. Are you going to leave that mess on the deck forever? Do I pay you to sun yourselves? Hop to it!”

  I sighed. Lunch 10 minutes was over.

  The next day's topic was life after death. Orrick and Freda, no surprise had opinions the tended toward the mystical. Teresa, bless her heart, didn't mock or condescend, but she did ask questions that they found very hard to handle. During a lull, while Orrick and Freda were regrouping, she turned to me.

  “You've been quiet, Enochi. Don't have an opinion?”

  I chuckled. “That'll be the day. I guess the real problem is defining what you mean by life after death.”

  “I would have thought it with self-explanatory.”

  “The supernatural version, sure. Also unprovable. At least so far. But what about a more science-oriented version?”

  I launched into a highly abbreviated explanation of replication. When I was done, Orrick and Freda looked equal parts confused and appalled.

  “That’s not the same,” Freda exclaimed. “That's just a copy of you.”

  “But if original you isn’t around anymore, it sure beats the alternative,” I replied with a grin.

  Teresa laughed. “And to anyone else, it might make no difference. If a copy of me loved to chase my grandchildren around and remembered everyone's birthdays, how would you tell it wasn't original me?”

  “But it wouldn’t be.”

  “There is a postulate in the information theory that information can't be destroyed,” I said slowly. I was sticking my neck out, I knew it. I watched myself doing it, and couldn't stop. This might be well beyond what Quinlans had managed to retain.

  “And in philosophy, there's something called a Closest Continuer, which according to some thought actually would be you, even if there was a gap.”

  Teresa gave me a quizzical look. “I can get the definition of Closest Continuer from context, but I'd love to hear more about this, bit about information theory.”

  There were groans from the others. It appeared advanced physics was not a popular subject.

  I was in my VR library, studying some of the blueprints of Heaven's River produced from scans by the Skippies and Gamers, when I received an alert from my Manny's AMI: sentry roamer reports disturbance.

  That meant someone or something was disturbing my trunk. I quickly entered my Manny and climbed quietly to my feet. It was full night, and Ted was on watch. The ersatz starlight was enough to illuminate the shore if we got to close, but it generally wasn't a problem, as the current and wind tended to keep the boat in the middle of the river. Ted would wake us up if some emergency navigation became necessary.

  Meanwhile, we had a small lantern on bow and stern, just enough to mark our position for any other boats, but not enough to affect night-adapted eyes. Of course that didn't matter for a Manny equipped with real night vision.

  Someone had peeled back part of the tarp and was bent over the trunks. Someone with a, shall we say, extra wide silhouette. I walked quietly up behind Snidely and whispered.

  “It's locked, asshole.”

  He jerked up and turned to face me. “Very well locked, it would seem. Better than mine, whi
ch appears to be the same quality.”

  Huh. He just out and out admitted he was trying to break in my trunk. Probably a punchline of some kind was coming.

  “Is there a point, Snidely, other than that you're a thief?”

  He smirked back at me. “Well Enochi, I happen to be watching when we pulled into Beetle Juice. It was very impressive how you managed to get them to not inspect your trunk.”

  I frowned. “How so? They didn’t inspect either trunk.”

  “But I ordered them not to inspect mine. You tricked them into thinking I had two trunks.”

  “I didn’t do anything things except pull off the tarp, Snidely. They made an assumption. Should I have begged them to please open my trunk? I noticed you didn't volunteer.”

  “Very glib, Enochi. Tell you what, since it's all so innocent, why don't you open your trunk for me.”

  “You first.”

  “My truck,” he said haughtily, “is not under suspicion.”

  “Neither is mine, dumb ass. Meanwhile, I found you trying to break into my property, which gives me the right to defend it, so here's the thing.” I stepped up until my beak was right up against his. “If I catch you trying that, or anything similar again, I will rip off your head and shit down your neck. We clear?”

  Snidely stepped back, clearly not prepared for the level of implied violence I was projecting.

  “I will tell the captain you threaten me.”

  “I will tell the captain you are a thief. I wonder which one of us will be tossed off the boat.”

  He glared for a few more seconds, then turned and stalked off. But I knew this wasn't over. Not by a long shot.

  17. Trolling for Treasure

  Bill

  August 2334

  Virt, Pits of Payback

  The troll lay at my feet, sliced in two, the haves neatly cauterized. I cleaned my sword - carefully - and re-sheathed it. I’d gotten the flame blade and some enchanted armor in exchange for the Staff of Fireballs and most of my portion of Gar's horde. It had been a fair trade, in that both myself and Saruman the Wise claimed we'd been fleeced. Still, neither of us backed out of the deal.

  Our dungeon party was currently creeping along a dark hallway in the Pits of Payback. When asked about the name, the current DM would only smile mysteriously and say that all would be made clear at the conclusion of the campaign. Which probably meant a bad pun or something was in our future.

  Kevin was back, has his original character, having left behind just enough identifiable pieces to allow a resurrection. Gandalf had used one of his scrolls after taking all of Kevin's remaining worldly goods in payment. Kevin seemed to have finally gotten over the loss of his staff, thankfully. I hadn't been subjected to any more glares, at least. Tim, who hadn’t left anything but floating ash, was back. As a first level thief. He was staying in the center of the group until he leveled up enough to not be killed by an inadvertent sneeze.

  Vern, Pete, and I provided the muscle and sharp implements. So far, we'd been able to handle the encounters, but the increasing difficulty sent a pretty clear message that we were getting close to the payoff. Gandalf strode along just behind me, acting like the king of the mountain. I hoped his talents matched up to his attitude. He was remarkably closemouthed about his actual abilities and assets.

  “That was a troll,” Tim said unnecessarily. We turned to look at him.

  “And?” Vern said.

  “Pretty hefty monster for this level of dungeon,” Tim answered. “If not for Bills flame blade, I'm not sure we’d have been able to take it down. Not without losing another player or two, anyway.”

  I looked back in the direction of the troll carcass. Tim was right. I’d gotten too used to being able to cleave just about anything with one swipe. But trolls were, generally speaking, more than a handful.

  “Are you suggesting we’re being set up?” Gandalf asked. “Anyone made any enemies lately?”

  I glanced at Kevin, who gazed back at me innocently. That was a long shot, anyway. If Kevin was that sensitive about losing treasure, he'd never make it as a Gamer.

  Everyone else was looking around at everything and nothing as they considered their own recent past.

  “There’s a secret door here.”

  We all turned at Tim's comment. He was poking at a random section of wall.

  “You sure?”

  “It's about the only thing I'm good for,” Tim replied. “Why do you think I picked this character class?”

  “Fair enough,” I said. “Let's see if we can crack this.”

  We all started poking, twisting, pushing, lifting, and pulling every protuberance in the area. A few seconds later, a door opened with the typical stone-grinding sound effect, revealing a pitch-black tunnel.

  “That looks dark,” Tim said. “And cramped.” He pulled a copper piece out of a pocket and tossed it into the blackness. There was a dull thump, followed by a metallic tinkle.

  “Uh, yeah, something’s in there. Anyone get a light spell? Or a flashlight?”

  We needn't have bothered. Whether we woke it up with the coin toss, or it simply decided it had lost to the element of surprise, the demon hound charged out of the tunnel, straight at Vern.

  He, a battle-hardened fearless half-dwarf warlord, went rigid with fear. Seriously. The hound knocked him over like hitting an inflatable Bozo the Clown. Apparently, the hound had been expecting more resistance than Bozo had been able to deliver. It continued on in its trajectory, speed unabated, and fetched up against the far wall with a loud thump. The hound made an oddly human “oof” noise and slid down the wall to land in a heap.

  Pete, who hadn't gone rigid, took the opportunity to impale the beast before it could get up. As the light went out of the hound’s eyes Pete smiled and said “About time I got a good kill-”

  The second demon hound hit him at neck height, taking his head clean off.

  “Shit!” his head said as it bounced along the floor.

  I finally unfroze, pulled my sword, and parted the hound cleanly.

  “Well, that's suboptimal,” Gandalf said. He grabbed Pete’s head by the helmet crest and lifted until they were face-to-face.

  “No resurrections, buddy. Even if you could afford it. I used my last scroll for Kevin.”

  Pete’s head said “Yeah, okay. I was getting tired of this character anyway.”

  The conversation was interrupted by a heavy base growl ahead of us in the hallway.

  “What the blinkin’ blue blazes was that? Kevin whispered.

  Tim replied. “Dunno, but it had a certain quality of bigness to it.”

  “And hungriness,” I added.

  Tim peered into the tunnel. “I think were being herded. But it's this, or go straight back. I kinda wish you still had that staff, Bill.”

  I shook my head in reply. “Firing if off in that cramped space would as likely as not cook all of us with the blowback. Gandalf, you got anything for close quarters fighting?”

  “Not like what you mean, Bill. I think your flame blade is our best hope.”

  Wonderful. This meant I would be going first, holding my magic sword out in front of me in hopes of killing an attacker before it could get to us. Which would do diddly squat against a magical attack. My future began to truncate in front of me.

  I shrugged, and edged carefully into the tunnel. “Someone want to shed some light on this?”

  Gandalf muttered something and a light shone over my shoulder, illuminating the tunnel ahead. The tunnel wasn't high enough for us to stand straight, so we were forced to move forward, bent at the waist. If I'd been bio in doing this in real, I would've had back spasms within a minute or two, but in the spirit of classic D&D, the game engine allowed us to overlook some of the more realistic aspects of adventuring.

  The tunnel eventually terminated in a blank wall. We all turned to Tim who, shrugged.

  “I don't see anything.”

  “I’m getting tired of this campaign,” Vern muttered. “We've been
battling high-level beasts since almost the entrance, lost over half our group, and we've sweet diddly to show for it.”

  “Hopefully the final payday is worth it.” Gandalf checked through his satchel. “I have a spell of True Seeing in here somewhere. Ah.” He pulled out a small notebook and paged through it. A few seconds of nodding and muttering, and he looked up. “Let’s try this.”

  Gandalf made some gestures and spoke in and arcane tongue. He then squinted and peered intently around, checking the blank wall and the tunnel wall around it.

  “Nothing. What the hell?”

  We all stared at the blank wall. Red herrings were one thing, but dead ends generally needed to have a point.

  “I'm really starting to hate this DM,” Tim said, and turned around to head back up the tunnel. He took three steps, then said, “Really, really, really hate.”

  We looked past him at the blank wall where a tunnel used to be. We were now in a section of tunnel about 20 feet long, blocked at both ends.

  I frowned. “Gandalf, is your True Seeing spell still active?”

  “Yes, for another minute or so.”

  “See anything in this tunnel we should know about?”

  “Nope.”

  “What blocks or counters a True Seeing?”

  “Uh, higher-level magic of course, but I'd sense that.”

  “Tim, you see anything significant?”

  “No, and a True Seeing would pick it - hold on.” Tim put his hand near a section of wall. “There’s a draft here.”

  We moved over and each took a turn feeling for the slight airflow.

  “On the list of things that defeat a True Seeing,” Gandalf opined, “we can add low-tech tricks like building a wall without mortar.”

  He pushed on the section of wall and it gave a little. We all put our backs into it, and after a few seconds of resistance, the wall collapsed outward.

  The good news was that it crushed several of the zombies who were waiting on the other side. The bad news was that it alerted all of their still un-crushed brethren. We were at one end of a large subterranean hall with a ceiling so high it was lost in the gloom. Torches lined the walls, giving enough light to illuminate dozens of zombies milling around the chamber, and a large nondescript statue at least 20 feet tall standing at the center.