“So we should go quadruped?”
“More than that, Garfield. Do you smell that?”
Garfield frowned and we all sniffed the air.
“What’s that?” he asked. “Water?”
“Yep. Running water. It smells different than standing water.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes, Bill. Even Earth animals could tell the difference. It's only a surprise to creatures with atrophied smellers like humans.”
“Okay, so water.”
“Even more than they are inclined to travel on all fours, Quinlans are inclined to travel in water.”
“Ohhh,” Bill said. “So we should be swimming.”
“Yep. This way.”
Without waiting for further discussion, Bridget marched off in the direction of the water. Well, ‘marched’ to the extent that something like a fat weasel could be said to march. More of a determined waddle. After a few moments she dropped to all fours. The rest of us followed suit. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that we were able to move considerably faster this way, and some of the odd design details of the Quinlan backpack started to make more sense. In less than a minute we’d come upon a small stream.
“Doesn't look big enough to swim in,” Bill opined.
“Not for human, flailing around with those gangly limbs in all directions,” Bridget replied with a laugh. “But with the tail, we’re basically torpedoes. Watch.”
Bridget dove into the stream with hardly a ripple. There was a sort of surge in the stream's surface, like those movies involving an underwater monster. Less than two seconds later she popped up about 30 yards upstream.
“Ta-da!”
I thought back to our swim together on that first day on Quinn, and felt excitement overtake me. Perhaps that was part of the Quinlan persona. But it was also part Bob. I'd never been a good swimmer, nor very comfortable in the water. I’d considered swimming to be something you did as an alternative to drowning. Now, in an android replica of a semi aquatic species, I could own that water. Or something like that.
Bridget shot past us in the downstream direction, undulating just at the surface. I laughed with delight and dove in. I heard other splashes behind me, but didn't try to count them. Anyone who declined would be left behind, and would have to hoof it.
I caught up to Bridget and slapped her tail. She responded by smacking me on the head with the appendage, then shooting off around a submerged rock. So that's the way it's going to be, is it? We shot through the water, upstream, downstream, looping around the others, tagging and being tagged. The stream, so small from land, seemed an entire country from this perspective, with the third dimension available to maneuver in.
One by one the others joined the game until the water was frothing with Quinlan bodies, dodging, breaching, and chasing each other. The game lasted almost 10 minutes, until my heads-up display informed me that a proper Quinlan would be exhausted and would need to spend some quality time floating. I could've ignored it - the android body never got tired - but Bridget would have something to say in that case.
I rose to the surface and turned onto my back. The motion seemed natural, and I'd seen images from the spy drones of Quinlans floating in this pose. “Otters,” I muttered, as the others popped up one by one. We linked up, grabbing with forepaws or hind paws to form a raft of Quinlans, slowly rotating as we floated downstream.
“Okay, that was insane,” Bill exclaimed. “Bridget you might want to let Howard know about this - he’ll probably be able to figure out a way to turn it into a business.”
“Heaven’s River Tours?” Bridget waggled her ears at him, a sign of amused agreement to a Quinlan. “I think they'd be popular.”
“And not just with the Bobs. Maybe even some of the second wave replicants. It might jarr them out of their VR only existence.”
“Heads up people, you're coming up on the village.”
At Will’s announcement, we all turned to look downstream. Sure enough, we were around the last bend and would soon be floating through the small burg. We unlinked and torpedoed to the nearest pedestrian dock. Sure, infrastructure was one of the many differences between Quinlan culture and anything else we were used to. They used waterways the way humans would use sidewalks and roads, which meant that there were pedestrian docs and boat docks where the waterway was wide enough.
The latter were little different from what you'd find on earth, or for that matter on Pav or New Pav. Quinlans used mostly sailboats of a generally catamaran-like design, although I’d seen images of a couple of more barge-like variants that used the local beasts of burden to turn a paddlewheel.
Interestingly, this town did not have canals, so roads were the only method of moving around. I frowned for a moment, then realized that the actual soil wouldn't be all that deep. If the Quinlans tried to dig canals they'd likely run into shell material before they get deep enough to matter. All-terrain contouring would have to be baked into the shape of the shell during construction.
The pedestrian docks were essentially a set of half-submerged ramps that allowed the Quinlans to swim up then walk out. They could shoot out of the water like a penguin and land on their feet, but it was considered impolite in crowded situations, since she could easily find yourself in a pileup for the same patch of dock. The Quinlans had a word for the move: poot - which the Skippy's had translated as up-diving.
We walked up the ramp and moved out of the way quickly. The ramps were busy, and Quinlans seemed to have a low tolerance for queuing up. Most simply dove off the nearest edge, and at any moment a few more impatient souls took to up-diving, braving the black looks of their peers.
As I watched, one miscreant hopped out of the water only to be
