While I waited, I adjusted my features so that I wasn't a close twin for the cop that it hauled Sam away. It would be just my luck for someone to remember the guy’s mug. Within minutes, the Clipper was bearing down on me. I waved, waited until I got an acknowledgment from someone on deck, then swam over and pooted on board, right in front of Ralph.
“Hi,” I said in the cop’s voice that I'd used most recently. “I’m Wyatt. I’ve been swimming for days and I’m ready for a change of pace. I can pay for passage, or I can work if you have an opening.”
“You're in luck,” he replied. “We lost a crew member back in Six Hills. Standard rate.” He examined me from several angles. “No luggage or anything?”
“I travel light,” I said, patting my backpack.
I settled back in the life of the Clipper, being careful to be a good worker, but not as good as Sam. I was also careful not to use people's names before I was introduced. I hadn’t engaged with this group all that much, so I didn't have a lot of subjects to remember to avoid. This time around, it was determined to be even less sociable. I tried to project affable loner whenever someone talk to me. Not impolite, by any means, but no attempt to keep the conversation going. I would try for neither likable nor unlikable, but forgettable.
It turned out to be easier than expected. The days of arguing and debating with Teresa on the Hurricane had been idyllic, even with the stress of my situation, and the crew of this boat seemed flat and uninteresting by comparison. My package was in the same spot, wearing the same label, as verified by a brief conversation with my spider. I thought about finding a blank label and relabeling the box, but I knew that Ralph maintained a manifest and would notice if one destination disappeared and another mysteriously replaced it. Little Creek was in the next segment, and the Clipper would be turning around at the end of this one to head back up along the Arcadia River. That meant they would be offloading any postal items intended for a downstream destination at the last town in this segment, which was High Ridge. I was playing around with a number of scenarios for grabbing the box, either during offloading or afterward, but nothing it gelled yet.
On my third day as Wyatt, we were eating lunch when Ralph pointed and said “More furls.”
I turned to look, and sure enough, a couple of the small birds were hopping around on the cargo.
“There must be food in one of those crates,” he continued. “I've never seen birds so interested in cargo, not even acrils. And those garbage scows would eat wood if nothing else was available.”
Hugh hadn’t mentioned any birds acting unusual yet in his location. Maybe the search hadn't widened to that point yet, but the Administrator was definitely on full alert, judging from the activity here. I did a quick calculation, then contacted Hugh.
“Hey Hugh, I think you should start seeing furls or other birds acting funny in the next two days or so.”
“Because?”
“Because the theoretical search perimeter will have expanded to your location by that point.”
“Makes sense, but the Administrator probably will try something else soon, Bob. They're not going to just stick with random searches.”
“Yeah. We’ll deal with that when we come to it, I guess.”
And who knew what form that something else would take? With the fake birds still checking postal items, I couldn't pull any fast ones with labels. The Administrator was probably checking boxes against the postal manifests. Come to think of it…
Uh-oh. My manner of leaving the Six Hills jailhouse would have been attention-getting to say the least. By now, they'd have opened the shipping crate and discovered its mundane contents. It wouldn't be much of a stretch to figure out that I had switched crates or labels. They’d be after the Clipper.
Normally that wouldn’t be a problem, since the fastest form of transport for information or goods was a boat, but the Administrator, and for that matter the Resistance, had already long since proven that they weren't limited by what was available to the public. There would be a welcome party waiting at High Ridge, and they'd be armed to the teeth. Come to think of it, they didn't even have to wait at High Ridge, they could sail out from the next town and board us.
Things had just gotten even more complicated.
I had called an emergency expedition meeting, and Bill, Will, and Bridget were attending by video window. Hugh sat in the beanbag chair, as was becoming common. Bill stared into space, his coffee forgotten.
“You could grab the box and slip over the side, as soon as it gets dark.”
“And go where?” I replied. “Granted, the crates float, but I can’t pull it underwater. It's too buoyant, and it probably wouldn't be water-tight enough for that kind of treatment. If I just push it along the surface, it'll take forever and someone will notice. That's not normal behavior.”
“And if he tries to go inland, it's likely that there will be surveillance birds. That's an obvious thing to watch for,” Bridget added.
Will glanced in my direction before replying. “Bob's right about a boarding party being likely. That certainly what I would do. They don't seem to have anything like constitutional protections in Heaven's River: what
