Bridget was silent for a moment. “I wonder if the Quinlans got their motivation from being certain that they'd kill themselves off soon.”
“Hair-trigger tempers plus advancing weapons technology. Not a stretch, as a working theory.”
During this discussion, we drifted into the actual straight. This section of the Arcadia River was perhaps 2 miles wide, which led me to believe that the river must be quite shallow through the segment itself. Otherwise, four straits wouldn't be able to handle the flow. In any case, the current had certainly picked up, as had the wind. Ships attempting to sail up River would have a demanding and extended voyage.
The mountains rose straight up out of the water on either side of us, with no concession for any kind of usable shoreline. I thought I could see what might be a road or path along the nearer bank, but I couldn't resolve it enough, even at maximum magnification to be sure.
It was an impressive, if short, ride. Within minutes we been spit out on the downstream side of the mountains and the river immediately started to split off into tributaries. We also discovered something new: it was full night on this side of the mountains.
I gazed up at the stars. “We didn't… time warp, did we?”
“Interesting,” Bill replied. “It looks like the segments alternate day and night cycles. Makes sense, only half the segments would be drawing power for sunlight at any time.”
“Or this segment has a burned-out bulb,” Garfield added.
“Sure, or that,” Bill said, rolling his eyes.
Another three hours of floating brought us to a largish city, just as morning was breaking. Several sets of docks crowded with rivercraft hinted at a thriving industry. The city was close to a couple of tributaries, and it was likely that there were other settlements in those directions. This would be an excellent place to look for information and possibly make contact with a useful group, if we could figure out how not to get stabbed and shot during the introductions.
We decided to improve our chances by entering the town individually. Group of sabbatarians, one female, was a pretty good filter, if they were watching arrivals. Hopefully they didn't have photorealistic wood carvings or something.
The first person into town, Bill, set himself up to casually watch the dock area, looking for anyone else who might be doing the same. Next, Garfield docked and went looking for somewhere to stay. Bridget arrived shortly after him, and began asking around for a library. I came in last and searched for pubs. There'd been a lot of argument about whether this was strictly necessary, but I pointed out the we'd found out quite a bit during the Skeev affair by just sitting and listening.
Garfield reported that he had found and paid for a large room without having to specify the number of occupants. If we could avoid the use of the word ‘four’ entirely, we'd likely be better off.
Bridget had gotten directions to a library, without the up-and-down appraisal this time. She was headed in that direction and sent us a map.
Bill reported noticing a half dozen different people, including a couple of cops, but admitted they might have legitimate business that required them to hang around. Especially the cops. He didn't want to appear suspicious himself, so he suggested tag teaming with Garfield.
I eventually settled into a pretty forgettable pub a few streets in from the docks. It had an outdoor patio, which I took advantage of. The fare offered an option other than fish, for a wonder. Hounid, which was a smaller and presumably more tender version of the draft animal. I decided that I liked this town.
“Say, did anyone notice the name of the town when we came in?
“First Stop,” Garfield replied. “Not kidding. If these people have artistic souls, it doesn't extend to their city-naming.”
“Well, whatever First Stop may lack in naming, I'm willing to cut some slack because it also has steak.”
“What?! Where?”
I gave directions, and sat back to enjoy my meal. In minutes, the others showed up and ordered similar meals, which the Quinlans referred to as ‘land meat’. Garfield kept grinning, and I finally had ask what was tickling him.
“On the ‘Quinlans are a lot like humans’ list,” he replied, “I saw an adult female walking her, uh, pet. It's a sort of small dog equivalent. The poor creature was wearing a waxed paper…” Garfield made motions around his head.
“Cone of Shame? It had a Cone of Shame??”
Garfield grinned. “Yeah. It actually made me homesick.”
“I found a library,” Bridget said. “That's my target for the afternoon.”
“We’re going on the pub crawl,” I replied. “And doing some listening.”
“Three pub crawls, I think. We should stay spread out.”
“A little late for that Bill,” I gestured at the table with the four of us seated around it.
Bill made a gesture of helplessness. “The steak… it called the to us.”
I grinned and sopped up the last of my meal with a piece of bread.
We met back in our hotel room at the end of the day, having been very careful to come in one at a time.
“Anyone get anything?” I said, starting the discussion.
Twin head shakes from Bill and Gar confirm my fears. The pub crawls a been a bust. “I’ve heard more than I'll ever need to about day-to-day Quinlan life, but the Skeev thing may have been a fluke.”
“Or this town is just too unimportant to have a Resistance presence,” Garfield added.
“Well I made some progress on background,” Bridget said. “Sort of. It's heavily mythologized. According to their origin story, they originally lived in a land called Quinn that had no boundaries, but a finite amount of space. The Quinlans overpopulated it and began fighting over the land, so Annek - some kind of God, I think - changed the world to one with boundaries but infinite land to end the fighting. But the Quinlans had gotten into the habit of fighting, so he
