I nodded, passed the box to him, and made sure my Manny had a good grip on his. “See you in a couple of hours.” I popped back into VR and ordered a coffee.
There was a message from Bridget. I settled into my La-Z-Boy, took a sip of coffee, and opened the text file.
“Hi Bob. I saw your pics of His Badgerness, as you’re calling him. Just wanted to let you know, that's not a badger. Uh, I mean it's not a relative of Quinlans. That's an actual junior - an immature Quinlan. Still pre-sentient. And probably about two years old. Nasty little buggers, aren’t they? My guess is he probably got away from a crèche and has gone totally feral. Humans who've grown up that way have never been able to acclimatize to civilization or even learn proper language. I don't know if it would be the same with a Quinlan, but I suspect it might be. If they go through the equivalent of the evolution of prefrontal synthesis…”
She went on for a few more paragraphs, becoming increasingly technical. Typical of someone leaving a message, she was talking to herself as much as to me. The takeaway though was that the evolution of a facility for language recursion in human beings required the children be exposed to actual usage by a certain age, or they would never be able to pick it up. Frontal dynamic aphasia, she called it.
I closed the file and sat back, deep in thought. This could've been a problem back on Quinn, naturally, but it would be much more of a problem on Heaven's River where there was more space, fewer Quinlans, and less pressure to stay together due to a more accommodating environment. I started to compose a reply, then changed my mind. I would wait until the next time we talked. Instead, I pinged Will and received an invitation. I opened a video window and found him working with his garden, about 30 feet away. I realized I was getting a video feed from a roamer. Will probably had my transmission on his heads-up.
“Still at it?” I said.
“Yep. These plants won't breed themselves.”
“Uh…”
He laughed. “Okay, they would. But I'm trying for specific adaptations.”
I hesitated for a moment, then blurted out, “Listen, Will, I read your blog. Especially the part about a mini-Bellerophon. Are you really thinking of physically heading out in it? Is it even ready?”
Will stood straight, and gazed in my direction for a moment with an inscrutable expression. “To be honest, I left the 82 Eridani system a year and a half ago. I'm already well on my way.”
I let my jaw drop. He hadn’t mentioned this to anyone, as far as I knew.
“No, I haven't told anyone yet,” he said, reading my mind. “And it doesn't really matter, does it? As a group were still unconsciously in the mindset that you have to be located in whatever system you’re active. But with SCUT, as long as you're on the network, you can be anywhere.”
“So you'll keep working on the Valhalla terraforming?”
“Mmm…” Will made a so-so gesture. “I want to get out of politics. So I'm going to have to be perceived as unavailable. I think I’ll have to hand off this project as well. Fortunately, it's far enough along that the Asgard government can take it from here.”
“And you're going to do this thing with Herschel and Neil?”
“Yep. And then keep going.”
I blew out a breath. “I’m shocked and surprised, but also a little jealous.”
“Well I'll still be around in the Bobiverse for a long long time, Bob.”
“Can you take another passenger?”
Will gave me the side eye. “Seriously?”
“Not sure yet. I'll think about it.”
Hugh and I managed to keep to our plan for eight days with no glitches. But somewhere along the line, we must've slipped up somehow. Or maybe we were just unlucky.
It was the middle of the night and I was off watch, sitting in my library, when I got a call from Hugh.
“Bob, I think we have a problem.”
I popped immediately back into my Manny.
“What?”
To maintain silence, we continued to communicate over the intercom.
“For boats converging on us. That seems unlikely to be a coincidence.”
“Can we dodge them?”
“If we didn't have Bender, we could just run underwater. With the box having to stay on the surface, I don't see how. Especially if they have aerial support.”
I examined the darkness above us. “Probably some kind of night flyer. That means that even if we get away, they'll be watching for this strategy in the future.”
“True, but let's deal with the current situation right now.”
I took a moment to evaluate the four approaching boats. “We might be able to sow some confusion with this many pursuers.”
Hugh did his own survey, then added “We could also use the Millennium Falcon maneuver.”
“We’d also need a distraction.”
“I can handle that. I'll take the box, you take Bender. I've already got my spiders cutting open the case.”
“You’ll have to submerge Bender, at least for a few moments. I sure hope the vellum is water tight.”
“Me too, but I don't think we have a choice. I can also stuff the matrix into your pack, just for a little additional safety.”
I nodded, just as the cover on the shipping case released with a slight pop. Hugh rummaged in the box while I held it steady. The boats grew steadily closer, but they were still too far away to see us. I was sure they were navigating by dead reckoning and instructions from someone. I still couldn't see anything in the air above us. Hopefully the surveillance was too high to see clearly what we were doing, and once you was submerged, he would be invisible.
Hugh disappeared under the waves with hardly a ripple, leaving me with the transport case, I jammed the lid back on and began to noisily swim away, sacrificing everything for speed. I wasn't going to do a straight run though, I wanted to
