“You sure? I really don't mind.”
“If things work out that way, great. But like I said, it seems suboptimal.” I paused. “You know, you've had quite a change of attitude about this project. I remember early on in the project, you just thought it was an interesting exercise.”
“Yes, but it's turned out to be a lot more than just a hike in the woods. I've been a little jealous to tell the truth, following along all the shenanigans. I know it's a serious business, but…”
“… but also a lot of fun,” I finished for him. “Yep, I get it. And I'm thankful for the offer, especially if my alternative is a new cohort. Wow, fast times.”
As soon as Hugh signed off. I ordered Guppy to bump priority on completing three replicant matrices. They’d be a while, even at high priority, with the dearth of raw materials in this system, but one way or another they’d be useful eventually.
Three Lagoons was a nice town, overall. Wide clean streets, relaxed pace, no overly officious cops. Even the food seemed to be a step up. Still fish, unfortunately, but the local chefs seem to have discovered things like, oh salt. I wandered the town in a seemingly random manner, checking out the sites. In reality, I was mapping everything. And I strolled every street, pathway, and alley at least once.
I was ready for ruffians and/or blaggards, but none made an appearance. Just as well. I had one of the confiscated pig stickers in my backpack to threaten with, if necessary. Eventually, I ended up at the library that Bridget had found, and decided to spend the afternoon. They didn't have a Dewey decimal system, but they did sort things roughly by subject. I found a section that seemed like it might contain some history, grab some books, and settled in for a good read.
“Bridget is requesting a meeting.”
The announcement registered in my internal audio. I still jumped. A couple of other readers looked up at me quizzically, and I smiled back.
“Fleas.”
They frowned and edged away while trying not to look too obvious about it. Oh well, so much for being popular.
“Thanks, Guppy. Message her back, tell her I'll be about an hour.”
“Acknowledged.”
I settled back into my reading. I was trying to avoid visibly reading at an impossible speed, but I'm sure still appeared to be just looking at pictures. I got through the current selections, then handed them to the librarian and then headed back to our hotel room. I took a moment to check the door and window and confirmed that my roamer was still in place. Then I lay down and exited the Manny.
Bridget was waiting in my VR in a video window, looking impatient. The small station would handle audio and video, but not a full VR connection, so we were effectively back to VR version 1.0. A version of Spike probably, Howard's, was ensconced on her lap, purring loudly enough to be heard over the connection.
“So what do we have,” Bridget said, skipping any pretense of pleasantries.
“Quite a bit, actually. I took a vid of the books as I was reading them, but I can give you a capsule summary that flushes out some of the things that you found.”
Bridget nodded and placed spike on the ottoman in her VR. The cat, offended, leapt off and left the room. Bridget pulled up some windows, one for each book that I'd recorded.
“I haven’t got a complete picture,” I said, “but the colonization of Heaven's River wasn't an orderly event. I think it coincided with the destruction of the environment on Quinn.”
“But Heaven's River was already built?”
“Yes. The way it's described is that Annek - there's that name again - presented it to the Quinlans as a gift, or maybe a bribe. But the Quinlans, once in Heaven's River either disobeyed or betrayed Annek. In retribution Annek took away their riches and set harsh rules. Anyone who crosses the line gets Scattered, which means just what we thought - they get moved to another random location. This can be anything from an individual, to a family, to an entire town. And no two people end up in the same place.”
“It’s like banishment. The worst kind, because you can never go back. And you don't even know if they'll still be there.” Bridget was quiet for a moment, thinking about it. “Well. Surprisingly effective, without any need for violence. Interesting.”
“Yep. I talked to the librarian, and he confirmed that there used to be things like long-distance communications and rapid-travel between different parts of the megastructure, but those were taken away as part of the retribution.”
“Hm. Anything about population?”
“Nothing specific, but the librarian - he comes from a line of librarians, apparently, it's a family thing - said that Quinn was bursting at the seams, according to the oral history. Let’s say, 10 billion, just to throw out a number. That's 10 people per mile in Heaven's River. Give a city control of a 50 mile stretch of river, and that's 500 people. A little low, but maybe the population has expanded over the last, uh, somewhere between 1 and 500 years?”
“That's a big range.”
“Sure, Bridget, but no stars, no moons, no seasons… pretty easy to lose track.”
Bridget nodded and spent a few seconds examining a book window. “The thing is, Bob, if the Administrator’s mandate is to keep the Quinlan safe and alive at any cost, and the solution they came up with sounds a lot like ‘at any cost’, then I don't think they're going to welcome alien spies with open arms. I was starting to play with the idea of just going public, but now I don't think so.”
“Yeah, I agree. They’ve already shown a disturbing tendency to blow things up first and ask questions afterward. Seems to be the safest thing for them to do would be to just off us.”
“So for the moment, it's just you and your clones,
