Life on the Quinlan boat was very much a panic and boredom thing. When in port we worked until we dropped, whereas while en route tasks tended to be routine and easy, if somewhat dull. This left me multiple opportunities to keep my eye on the food offering.
The furl buzzed the boat twice more, but showed no interest in the scraps. A couple of acrils, though, though descended on it with cries of noisy delight. So maybe furl were herbivores? I might be overgeneralizing from Terran examples, but birds tended to be opportunistic feeders. Even hummingbirds ate insects, when available. I sighed silently and grabbed the net to retrieve the afternoon meal. I felt a little silly, getting bent out of shape over a bird. Ralph had been convincing, but still.
Mealtime conversations were always free-wheeling, but hadn’t been nearly as interesting since Teresa and I had parted ways. I often found my mind drifting while the others argued the fine points of Quinlan life. Bridget would probably be very interested, and in fact might be replaying the sessions as fast as they could be transferred across the SCUT connection.
I snapped back to attention though when Gil said “Hey Sam, your pet is back.”
Sure enough, a furl was hopping around on the pile of crates.
I scraped off a bit of fish and tossed it in the right direction. The furl froze for a moment, then went back to hopping around completely ignoring the offering. In fact, it appeared to be… reading labels? That couldn't be right.
I turned back to my companions, but kept one eye on the animal. It eventually left the pallet and flew over to another stack and repeated the performance. And the more I watched it, the more convinced I became that it was looking at the shipping information on the crates.
I contacted Hugh on the intercom.
“Hey Hugh.”
“What’s up, Bob?”
“Do we know if the Administrator's technology level is advanced enough to include small drone-like units?”
“Unlikely. No SURGE drive.”
“What about something that emulates a bird.”
“Uh… ornithopter kind of thing? Yeah, I don't see why not. The Boogens were masterpieces of miniaturization, you’d said so yourself.”
“Yeah. Uh, you're on a boat, right? Have you seen any small birds hanging around.”
“Lots of acrils. Rats with wings, they are, but nothing else.”
“Let me know if you spot any furls, okay?”
“Will do.”
Hugh sounded a little puzzled as he signed off. Although weather that was because of the request or the fact that I haven't confronted him on the AI issue was anyone's guess. Meanwhile, the furl had finished investigating a third stack and was back to the miscellaneous pile, which included my crate. Paranoia was no longer a valid explanation.
As soon as we settled down for the night. I went back to virt and called Bill. He showed up in a video window right away.
“What’s up, Bob?”
I explained about the furl's behavior, then asked him about Quinlan drones.
“I agree with Hugh about the lack of SURGE being a limiting factor, but there is no reason why the Administrator couldn't have security devices that mimic birds. Even in original Bob's day, they had mechanical devices that could emulate bird flight. And the Administrator has had generations to work on it, and no real alternative.”
“But why the Clipper? I've been careful to avoid any connection with previous me. The backpack’s put away, Bender is not visible, I looked different… what could've tipped it off?”
“You don't know that it has been tipped off, Bob. Think of how the CDC would track down disease spread. Lots of detective work, mapping of contacts, logical extrapolation, and so on. They can't find Bob with a bulky backpack anywhere, so it's logical to assume you've either gone into hiding, or found a different way to get around. They know where you left the infrastructure, because they have a failed use of Natasha's card. From there, it’s just a case of working outward, and given Quinlan limitations and the geography of Heaven's River, they can concentrate mostly on east and west.”
I nodded, thinking it through. “And river travel is the obvious method. No doubt, they’re watching for Quinlan swimming in a directed manner as well. They can’t know for sure that I won't risk submerging Bender.”
“Which is probably splitting their efforts,” Bill replied. “Good for us, but shipping the matrix is an obvious ploy, if you think of it. They could board and inspect every crate of every ship in two segments, but I imagine they simply don't have the personnel for that.”
“So maybe they'll be looking for anything even the slightest bit odd, like the lack of detail on my shipping label, and may be the shipping guy remembered me wanting to travel with my crate.”
“Uh-huh. They'll be watching for anything even a little off. Even if it doesn't pan out, it applies pressure.”
“Yeah, you're right. And they'll keep adding tactics for as long as they aren't successful.” I shook my head at Bill and sighed deeply. “Looks like I'm right back in the fertilizer.”
We coasted up to the dock in the town of Six Hills. No one knew why was called Six Hills, you could only get Four Hills from the surrounding territory, and only that if you were generous with the interpretation of the word ‘hill’. By this point though, I just rolled my eyes at Quinlan naming conventions. Maybe there was a subtle sort of irony involved, like naming a large man Tiny. If so, I hadn’t caught on yet.
There were cops waiting on the dock as we pulled up, which was perplexing to everyone except me. As soon as the gangplank was down, the gendarmerie marched up straight to the postal pile and grabbed the crate with just my name on the label, which
