“These people loved their art,” I said in a hushed voice.
“That they did.”
We walked past one building, and I couldn't help but chuckle. The façade around the entrance had been sculpted into what might be some kind of fairy-tale scene. Unless they actually had a species of giant rodent with a mouth that big, I wasn't sure if I’d want to bring my children to see this montage. But then I reminded myself that people used to read Grimm's fairy tales to children.
We walked along a path that ran beside a canal. We can see half submerged boats and barges in several places. It was likely that the Quinlans used rivers like humans used roads. I wondered idly what rush hour must been like. Would they use transit, or would it even be a concept if you could swim like an otter? The buildings we passed were multi-story, but not the high-rise monsters that many Earth cities contained. I didn't see anything over about six stories or so. Perhaps the Quinlans didn't like heights. Or maybe they just didn't see the point.
The most notable feature though was the amount of square footage set aside for green space. Every building had a terrace in front of it, and most canals had a treed path running along one side or the other - all brown and dead now, but it would've been beautiful before… just before.
We finally turned and headed back to the building on whose front lawn we had landed. We picked it deliberately, after an aerial survey, as the most likely place to find governmental stuff. It had a certain look of officialdom that seem to transcend species barriers. A combination of pompous self-importance combined with lack of artistic touch or any kind of individuality perhaps. Or I might be overthinking it. Getting into the building wouldn't have been a problem in any case, for android muscles or roamer plasma cutters, but fortunately the front doors weren’t locked. We gazed around the large lobby and spotted a directory.
“Hmm. Definitely governmental,” I said perusing the listing while my heads-up popped up translations. “Licenses, statistics, taxes, all the usual things that seem to infest civilizations everywhere.”
“I'm most interested in finding corpses. Emergency management sounds like something that would be staffed right up until the end. Fourth floor.”
Bridget pointed to a solid looking door near the elevators. We checked the door and sure enough, it was locked.
“If this is a set of stairs,” I said, “as it appears to be - oof!” The door bent and sprung off its hinges as we gave a concerted push in unison - android muscles, remember - to reveal stairs going up and down. “Yep, and locked at ground level, just as they would be on Earth. So, we can assume a similar level of distrust in Quinlan society.”
We proceeded up three flights of stairs the rise and run looking odd to me, but feeling perfectly natural when I went down on all fours. Like the Pav, Quinlans seemed to prefer to be on their hind legs, but would go quadrapedal when traveling any distance. I couldn't shake the image of a fat river otter when watching the videos of them getting around.
We reached the fourth floor and walked down the hall, examining doors and information plaques. The Manny OS didn't automatically translate written information, but are our in-vision heads-up-display showed a pop-up translation, when desired. We soon found the offices of emergency management. The door was unlocked. Presumably there had been traffic in and out right up until the end. There was no working lighting, of course, but Quinlan eyes had a large effective range to allow for both above and below water operation. Our android eyes were even better, and covered a larger portion of the visible and surrounding light spectrum.
“There,” Bridget breathed, and made her way between the desks. A single dried husk of a corpse sat at a desk, head still cradled in its arms, as if the victim it simply fallen asleep at their desk and never woken up. I hoped it had been that peaceful.
Bridget gestured to the drone which had kept up with us all this time. It floated down to desk level and the cargo door popped open. Bridget reached in and began removing items. “You going to watch?”
“I, uh… I have to do this other thing over there.” I said inanely, and retreated with my dignity in tatters.
I've seen my share of violence and death on Eden, but somehow the clinical measured experience of an autopsy added a whole new level of yuck. The Manny wouldn't throw up, but I still experienced the mental reaction of any human non-medical professional. I heard Bridget begin the mutter to herself, no doubt dictating notes. As it happened, I could make myself useful in the meantime. I examined the office, trying for an anthropologist's viewpoint.
“The desks were… desk-like.” How many ways were there to present a horizontal working surface? The chairs were more like backless bucket seats with a slot to accommodate the Quinlan butt and tail. Each desk sported something that had to be a phone system, including a handset. Physical buttons were absent There was a black plate that had probably been a touchscreen. I started randomly opening drawers. Papers, writing implements, and desk accessories dominated. A couple of drawers contained what might be fossilized snacks. I turned off my olfactory sense, even though after all this time there was unlikely to be any residual odor.
It struck me that the interior of this building was surprisingly dry. I’d watched the TV series ‘Life After People’ when I was still alive, and the show made the point again and again that things would fall apart quickly once people were gone. But everything here seemed to be in pretty good condition.
