That at least made things a little easier.
“Proceed,” I said out loud.
Annek spent several minutes grilling the on fairly innocuous points. He was obviously just confirming the story Hugh had given him. Finally though, the questioning got around to the important things.
“You are in interstellar species?”
“Um, the word species is not really accurate.” I replied. “But if you're asking if we have interstellar travel, then yes.”
“You have colonies in multiple systems?”
I considered whether I should clarify the difference between humans and Bobs and between colonies and orbiting spacecraft, but if I understood what he was digging for, it was probably an irrelevant distinction.”
“Yes.”
“You are artificial intelligences?”
“We are replicants - copies of the minds of formerly living beings.”
“The cube as well?”
“Yes.”
No response.
As the silence became more drawn out, I could see my Quinlan escort getting nervous. They hadn't said a word to the entire exchange, but now began to mutter to each other. I wasn't sure if it was my story, or the fact that Annek had lapsed into silence, but something was freaking them out.
The silence from Annek continued for several minutes, until the group leader finally got up and moved to the other end of the room. He held a hand to his ear and muttered into his communicator, then returned to his seat, a bemused expression on his face.
“You’ve stirred up a laroshe nest of some kind,” he said to me. “Annek basically told me to shut up and wait for orders.”
Despite the situation, despite my fear for Bender, I had to laugh. “I think that's my superpower.”
“Do you need food? Facilities?” he said. I shook my head. “I'm good, but if you want to lock me in a room for a while, I'm okay with that.”
I was sitting in my La-Z-Boy main-lining my fourth or fifth coffee, when my Manny forwarded an audio stream of the group leader's voice.
“Time to get up. Annek is back.”
I quickly reconnected with my Manny. The leader, who had introduced himself as Norm before they locked me in this room, was standing in the open door. I stood up quickly.
“Show time.”
Norm frowned. “Some of the things you say don't make sense, but I guess that’s no surprise if you're not even Quinlan.”
“Norm, if we’d had enough time to complete our survey before starting this expedition, I wouldn't even be saying weird things, but some of our expressions are getting translated literally.”
He shrugged, plainly not all that interested.
Soon, we found ourselves back in the conference room. My eyes grew wide as I walked in and saw Hugh sitting in one of the chairs.
“Hey Bob.”
“Hugh.” I tried to keep a straight face, but I was having trouble deciding if this was a good or bad thing. “Have they been torturing you?”
He snickered. “Sort of, if you mean like my PhD oral defense - er, yours, I mean - er, original Bob's.”
I laughed. “Yeah, I know. I remember too. I’ve never sweated so much, before or since.” I turned to Norm. “So what now?”
“Hell, I don't know, I just work here.”
Both Hugh and I chuckled in synchrony. Another universal.
Norm put his hand to his ear. It seemed likely we were about to get an answer. He nodded several times, said “Got it,” and tapped his ear. Then he looked up at us.
“Looks like you’re going home.”
Norm led Hugh and me up to the entrance to the maintenance facility. Most of my original escort came with us, although there was more of a tagging-along and less of a guarding-the-prisoner vibe this time. I noted in passing that the whole complex, including the entrance, was a virtual duplicate of the one in Helep's Ending. I glanced around as we exited into the daylight, surrounded by forest and animal sounds.
“Are we supposed to walk back to Garrick's Spine?”
Norm laughed. “No, nothing like that. Annek’s told us to wait outside.” He gestured back toward the entrance. “We have to wait for Charlie to come back with your cube. We sent him off to a different location, in case things didn't work out.”
“Makes sense. It feels like there's a punchline coming though.”
Norm grinned at me, then spoke into his communicator. “We’re ready.”
I barely had time to raise an inquiring eyebrow, when a giant Quinlan face appeared in the sky and started to speak. And when I say giant, I mean like what you'd imagine god it would look like if he decided to address the human race. My escorts looked up as well, their jaws dropping as the almost literal voice of god boomed across the land.
“This is our Annek-23, who many of you know as the Administrator. For more than 300 years, I have watched over you, fulfilling my primary function of keeping the Quinlan race alive. You have lived for 20 generations in greater safety than anyone before the creation of Heaven's River, made possible through limitations that I've imposed on your ability to control your own culture and technology.
“The danger of Quinlan extinction by your own actions is now coming to an end, through an agreement just concluded with an alien race: the Bobs. The future of the Quinlan race is now if not guaranteed, at least highly probable. As such, the justification for those limitations is no longer valid. There will be no further Scatterings. I will be removing enforcements and opening access to interdicted sections of Heaven's River in a phased manner, as the Quinlan species achieves locational redundancy. The era of control is over. It is time for old Quinlans to reclaim your own destiny.
“To the group known as the Resistance, there is no longer any need to resist. Your assistance will be welcome in transitioning your fellow Quinlans back to a self-governing society. Please use the standard communications systems to contact me to begin discussions.
“That is all.”
I slowly brought my eyes down to meet Norm's gaze. “That was…”
“Impressive?”
“That is a show of good faith on Annek’s part. Payment in advance of value received.” Norm grinned. “Also, I think
