Bridget was already having a conversation with the deckhand, gesturing occasionally in that direction. She came over to us and made a get-off-your-asses motion. “Time to bail, boys. If we start now, we won’t have to fight the current too much when crossing.” She nodded to Kar. “Nice to have met you and your friends. Maybe we'll see each other in the future.”
Kar nodded back without comment. The other three hardly registered the conversation. We said a general goodbye to the boat crew, and dove into the river. Swimming submerged, we put on some extra hustle, but not enough to cause any consternation in our erstwhile shipmates. We didn’t want to pop up an impossibly long distance away. We’d probably never see these people again, but why take chances?
Three Lagoons looked, from the water, like a significantly larger than average town, and perhaps more cosmopolitan. That would make Bridget happy, since it would almost certainly mean a bigger library, or maybe even several. We marched up the dock ramp, one at a time, part of a steady stream of Quinlans. It felt a little like rush hour. Did Quinlans have rush hours in Heaven's River? While it seemed unlikely that word of us would've spread across rivers, it felt like basic common sense to not be seen together. At least while coming into town.
As before, we each had our tasks to perform. Garfield had suggested on the way over that he'd like to do the pub crawl, but I'd claim seniority, earning me a low growl. In short order, Garfield had us a room at a transient hotel, Bridget had directions to a library, Bill reported no suspicious activity at the dock, and I had a beer. I’d picked the pub closest to the river, since it seemed likely that it would have the most diverse customer base. The others join me and ordered meals and drinks.
“I'm going to head for the library right after lunch,” Bridget informed us, “before you wankers manage to screw things up and get us run out of town.”
“One time…” I muttered.
“Two, honestly,” Garfield said. “At least we haven’t burned anything down yet.”
“The day is young,” Bill muttered.
Bridget smirked at him, wiped her haora, and marched off with a parting wave.
“So, what shall we do?” I grinned at Bill.
“I vote for eavesdropping while blending in.”
The vote was unanimous. I signaled for three more.
The beer wasn't half bad, but the scuttlebutt was strictly local stuff. After an hour of way too much information about people's financial and relationship problems, Bill and Garfield decided to check out other pubs. I couldn’t blame them, but I maintained my theory that the dockside pub was the most likely place to get something other than routine conversations. After three more hours, I was starting to doubt my logic. I’d learned more than I ever wanted to know about the daily dealings of Quinlans, but nothing that would raise an eyebrow.
I pinged Bridget to see what she might've discovered, and got dead air.”
“Guys? Guys? Bridget's not answering, something's happened.”
No answer.
28. United Federation of Sentients
Will
July 2334
Virt
I stared at the wall of small video windows, wondering for the umpteenth time why I was still doing this. Each window contained the image of a representative of a human colony. The old UN had been replaced by the United Federation of Sentients Counsel, but it was mostly the same bag of rabid spiders with new faces.
Unfortunately, Bobs as a rule had too much common sense to get stuck with the duty, and I had too much of a sense of duty to listen to my common sense. I couldn't walk away and leave an empty seat representing the Bobiverse, so here I was once again, listening to a snarling, self-centered, self-absorbed, self-righteous heard of bozos.
Stupid humans.
The current debacle was about how to handle the Pav. There had always been an assumption that they would, in the fullness of time, join the UFS. We'd even made sure the name wasn't human-centric, in order to avoid any issues of perceived bias. Might as well not bothered. The Pav had made it pretty clear that they weren't interested. Also, that they would come and go as they damned well pleased. The new home in Pangaea colonies were stopping just short of threatening to shoot down any Pav vessel that passed within the Kuiper line of their systems.
At the moment, Sir Lambert of Pangaea was just winding down. She glared of the Council, or after video windows at least, and sat down. Dozens of request lights immediately lit up. The chair recognized the representative from Newfoundland on Asgard, Sir Wall.
Sir Wall looked into the video camera with a small smile. “Sir Lambert, while I grant your concerns about sovereign space are legitimate, perhaps you are overreacting just a tad. The Pav fleet consists of two small exploration vessels, based on the Heaven-1 design. Despite their attitude, their military growth is still mostly theoretical.”
Representative Wall’s statement was a model of calm and moderation. Also, in my opinion, naive. While I didn’t want to be at odds with the Pav, I was fairly certain that their fleet was growing slowly, only because they were putting most of their current production capacity into creating more auto factories. A lot of effort spent bootstrapping early on would pay handsomely down the road, and the Pav, unlike humans were disciplined enough to take the long view about such things. But I'd already pointed this out and been soundly ignored, so screw it.
I sighed and took a moment to check the status of my projects back on Valhalla. Everything was in the groove. Construction had already started on several cities that would be alfresco with no domes or individually pressurized buildings. Things
