“I'm going to need a ride,” Howard said into the silence.
“What happened?”
“I just got spit out of the tunnel in the mid-air, and did a bit of flying, but not the good kind. I think I broke the Manny. I’ve got my beacon on.”
“Drone has located you, one moment.”
I piggybacked the drone’s video window as it lowered itself into a mostly dry canal. Spread eagle on a bed of rocks and branches was a Quinlan form. Some of the limb positions were definitely not natural.
“How did this happen?”
“I was sucked into a tunnel and got spit out here. I think I flew about 50 yards before landing. It looks like the city builders put in tunnels between canals to equalize water levels, but this canal is mostly dry. I bet it’s blocked upstream.”
In the video, roamers were collecting Howard and bundling him into the drone.
“Have you checked your diagnostics?”
“Yeah, this baby is going to need some work. I'm surprised I'm still connected, honestly.”
“The comms subsystem is tough.”
There was a pause. “Don’t tell Bridget. She’ll kill me.”
I smiled, although Howard couldn't see it. “I understand you have a new red ale in the works. Riker's Red, I think it’s called?”
“No, it’s…” Another pause. “You’re a bastard.”
“Yes, but now I'm a bastard with a red ale named after me.”
19. You Did WHAT?!
Bob
June 2334
Garrick's Spine
I activated my Manny and sat up, rubbing my eyes. I wasn't sure if it was something Quinlans did, but it felt right. I peered out the small single window. Still dark. We'd gone to bed yesterday while it was still light out, so we had missed the Heaven’s River sunset. I wanted to see the sunrise. Mostly, I wanted to see for myself how Heaven’s River handled emulation of night and day.
I'd woken a few minutes early to be certain I was up before the dawn, but I’d left a message with the others. Quietly, not for my crew’s sake but for the other occupants of the motel, I snuck out of our room and down the stairs to the front door. The air felt crisp and cool and wouldn't be out of place in early fall on Earth.
The artificial sun supplied heat as well as light to the habitat. That implied a heatsink of some kind at ground level, since this was otherwise a closed system. My bet was that the water was kept below ambient, probably cooled by the river bottom impeller filters. Maybe the central cylinder absorbed infrared as well, when the sun was off.
No one else was about. We knew that Quinlans were primarily diurnal, so no big surprise there. There might be a night guard wandering around, and maybe a paperboy or something, but otherwise I pretty much have the street to myself.
Or so I thought, until a voice beside me said, “Morning.”
“Morning, Bill. Had the same idea?”
“Mmhmm. Moving lots of data from the drones, but nothing beats eyewitness.”
We stood quietly, watching as a light gradually grew at one end of the gigantic cylinder that was Heaven’s River. By convention we translated that direction as east, with the other compass points falling naturally into place. North was anti-spinward, and South was spinward, but from inside you wouldn't be able to tell without doing some very sensitive experiments. Under this coordinate system, this branch of the river flow generally west.
“It's quite directional,” Bill said into the silence.
“What?”
“The light, from the central structure. In theory, we should be able to see it from hundreds of miles away, but it doesn't become apparent until it's relatively close. I think it’s masked in some way, to only shine over a limited range.”
“Makes sense. That would also mimic the early morning and late afternoon dimming of a natural sun, due to atmospheric effects.”
Finally, the sky had turned a discernible blue, and the pseudo-sun was clearly visible at an angle of perhaps 10° above the horizontal. It wasn’t a perfect illusion. For one thing, every point on the surface of the habitat would see the sun pass directly overhead, as if everyone was at the equator. For another, the swing across the sky wouldn't be evenly paced, because the pseudo-son moved at a constant pace along the central cylinder it would appear to accelerate as it approached local Zenith, then slow down afterward. Noon would be very brief.
“But the sky is blue. Have we figured that out yet?”
Bill turned to me. “Some of it could be just light scattering, but yeah, you'd think we'd be able to see more of the interior. Maybe not all the way around, but more than we do.”
“It's a hologram.”
I jerked as Will’s comment came out of the blue through my comms. “What?”
“It’s a hologram. Very weak one, non-directional, and no detail. All it does is mask the central cylinder and reinforce the blue scattering slightly, just enough to give the effect that it does, of fading out the interior in the distance.”
“That’s interesting,” Bill said. “How did you get this information?”
“Inspecting the segment scans. We found some hologram projectors on the central cylinder. Big suckers.”
“Makes sense, I guess.”
“What makes sense?”
Bill and I both turned as we heard Bridget's voice. She and Garfield had just exited the motel, presumably looking for us.
“Will’s comment. Run through the playback. You’ll understand.”
Bridget closed her eyes and turned her face up to the sun. “Feels good. The builders put a lot of effort into making this as homey as possible.
“Hmm, yeah. Which argues against the forced colonization scenario, which brings us back to the question…”
“Well. You all seem to be up very early. Got somewhere special to be?”
We all turned again at this latest unexpected voice. It was the cop - the same cop that we’d run into yesterday. I wondered for a moment if maybe he was a Manny and didn't need
