First voice. “Probably a troublemaker. You can get caught up in a Scattering once by chance, but twice, no. Skeev had to be involved in whatever was going on.”
Second voice. “So if he starts up to same shenanigans here, our whole town could end up Scattered.”
Third voice. “But that’s not fair! Why would we all suffer-”
First voice. “Fair isn’t part of the Administrator's vocabulary, youngling. If they decide we've contravened the limits, they will act.”
Third voice. “How do we stop that from happening?”
First voice. “We can't stop the Administrator, but we can present Skeev from brewing more trouble and causing a Scattering in our home.”
Second voice. “Wat do you have in mind, Arro?”
“Talk to him? Make him listen to reason?”
A laugh from first voice. “Sure, that’ll work. Or maybe he just ends up as fish food.”
Second voice. “I'm in.”
Third voice. “I’ve never killed anyone, but I can lose my family. I’m in.”
First voice. “Good, people. So, we’ll invite him here for a beer or dinner to discuss things. Get him a little tipsy, make him think were on his side, then invite him to my place and take care of business.” A pause. “You guys have to be convincing though. He has to believe we’re ready to buy into his crazy ideas.”
I turned a casual eye in the direction of the voices. Two Quinlans were nodding, as a third Quinlan glared at both of them in turn. Those were my marks.
Their conversation drifted off in the more mundane subjects without shedding any more light on Skeev’s sins, or the nature of the Administrator - I could hear the capital letter when I said it. Literally, The Quinlan language included an inflection to indicate proper names. I listened for a while longer until I'd finished my… um beverage? It was every bit as bad as I'd expected. But no other interesting conversations offered themselves.
“You guys discover anything?” I said over the intercom. I hoped I'd kept the triumph of my voice.
“No, but it sounds like you have,” Bridget replied, dashing my hopes. “But at least I found a good hotel. Meet at the dock?”
Everyone signaled their agreement, and I set off for the rendezvous.
“Okay, Bob. Spill. What you get?” Garfield asked.
“Let’s get a room and shut down,” I replied. “I'll go over it back in virt.”
We made our way to the hotel that Bridget had found, negotiated with the proprietor, and in short order, found ourselves in another small bunk room.
“Someday we should try moving up the social ladder, I'd like room to actually have room to turn around without elbowing someone,” Bill said.
“Why?” Garfield replied. “We’re just racking the Mannies here. What are you planning on doing?”
Bill glared at him, but didn't reply. We picked bunks and lay down, then deactivated. I popped into my library and was just settling myself into my La-Z-Boy when the others arrived. Their favorite furniture was ready for them, since this was a long-term project and they'd be here a lot. Jeeves brought beverages, Spike picked a random lap to colonize, and we settled in.
“Alright, here's what I overheard.” I queued up the conversation from the tavern and played it back. When it was done, there were several milliseconds of silence.
Garfield was the first to speak. “So, Scattering. Does it chase off the miscreants?”
“Hmm, it's a little more than that, I think,” Bill said. “There was talk of collateral damage. ‘Our whole town could end up Scattered,’ he said?”
“So, the administrator, whoever he is…”
“It,” Bill said, interrupting Garfield. “The speaker definitely used a third person indeterminate, or maybe ‘they’. The Quinlan language doesn't differentiate between singular and plural for this declension.”
“Okay, whoever they are. They Scatter a town of people who get uppity. How, I wonder…”
“I wonder what defines ‘uppity’. We have to get to Skeev before the hit squad does their dirty work,” I said, interrupting Bill and Garfield's discussion. “Ideas?”
“Let’s just be waiting at the tavern,” Bill said.
“Yum,” I replied. “More swill.”
I played with my fish soup, trying to pretend I was eating. Bill and Garfield were doing slightly better, and Bridget had talked into it like a native. Biologists, geeze. We were beginning to get worried after several hours of waiting. The barkeep was eyeing us, since we were drinking enough to pay for the seats.
Garfield had finally had enough. “We need to consider the possibility that they changed their plans. Do we know what other taverns are around this area?”
Bridget leaned over and poked a neighbor with a finger. “Hey, friend. How many other taverns within walking distance?”
He turned with a frowned, but his expression changed when he took in her three friends. Apparently deciding on courtesy as a tactic, he mentioned two other locations and gave us general directions.
I’d given the others a video image of our targets, so Bill and Garfield hurried off to check the other bars. Meanwhile, I bought our neighbor a beer for his trouble, and he became considerably friendlier, if a little perplexed.
“I’ve got them,” Garfield said. “They’re just leaving the Prancing Pralia. I guess they must have changed plans. We’re lucky we didn't wait any longer.”
“Stay with them, Gar”, I replied. “We’ve got you on pings, we’ll get there as soon as we can.”
Bridget and I leapt up and sprinted for the doors as protestations and curses followed us. A text from Bill indicated he was on the way as well. It was tempting to apply nonbiological levels of speed, but that would've raised questions that would've required us to leave town, and might alert the Administrator if they had a properly functioning intelligence gathering network.
Garfield waited at the entrance to an alley as we pulled up. Bill was still on his way.
“Traffic jam,” he said. “I'll be a while longer.”
“How do you get a traffic jam on a horse and buggy world?” I muttered.
“Maybe start a riot by peeking in the back of a wagon,”
