We Are Legion (We Are Bob)
Book 4: Chapter 22: Another Close Call

Bob

September 2334

Six Hills

They placed me in an actual cell, with two buckets and a mattress on the floor. One bucket contained water; the other was empty, except for some stains from previous occupants that left little doubt about the intended use. Yech! The bars were something that resembled bamboo, and they felt solid. They were also embedded firmly into the floor and ceiling. A small window, high on the wall, let air and light in. There were two cells against one wall of the room, with a door on the opposite wall that led to the rest of the station.

The cop took my backpack, after inventorying the contents and giving me a receipt. Which he placed in the backpack. I wasn’t sure if that was deliberate irony but commenting wouldn’t accomplish anything except possibly pissing them off, so I kept a cork in it.

After announcing that dinner would be at dusk, they left me to my own devices. Which normally would be just an expression, except, you know, Bob. I had no spiders left, my last spider being in the crate with Bender, but I did have a couple of fleas. They might or might not be able to cut the bamboo without starting a fire. I was just going to have to take the chance. I’d have loved to do a little spying and get the lay of the land, jail-wise, but fleas didn’t have sufficient audio-visual capability.

While the fleas examined the structure of the bars, I sat down and engaged in a good old-fashioned panic attack. Bender was sailing off with the Clipper, with a postal address in Three Circles. Some unlucky recipient was going to get a face-full of angry spider instead of whatever was in the box that the cops currently had in their possession.

Either the recipient would report the issue to the authorities—in which case Bender would be back in the hands of either the Resistance or the Administrator—or the recipient would try to break down the cube for metal. Whether or not they were ultimately successful, Bender wouldn’t survive the treatment.

I looked out the window to see the sky fading to dusk. The Clipper would have left by now. They’d get out to the middle of the river before dusk and sail all night, putting on up to a hundred miles per day. Sailing in Heaven’s River was an almost mindless activity, since you always had the current on your side. The wind tended to be north-south due to residual Coriolis forces, so boats could use a beam reach to travel even faster than the river current. I wasn’t sure if my manny could overtake them, even swimming flat out.

The fleas reported in. The bars were embedded in holes in the ceiling and floor sills, four inches deep at each end. There was about an inch of free play at the top, no doubt to allow for expansion. I tested the bars, attempting to bend them in various directions. No joy. There was no chance I’d be able to pull them out of their settings.

However, I could rotate the bars, which meant they weren’t cemented or nailed in. I had the fleas pull out their plasma cutters and do a test cut in the bottom setting. There was some smoke and a burning smell, but no actual flames. Good. They’d have to work slowly to keep the smoke and odor to a minimum, which would drive me crazy, but this wasn’t the time to get caught because of impatience.

And of course, the cops picked this very moment to deliver dinner. Oh, look, fish. Yum. The cop sniffed the air and got a concerned expression. I shrugged and pointed at the window. “Yeah, you should smell it from in here. I think someone’s burning garbage.”

He glanced at the window, shrugged, and opened the cell door long enough to hand me the bowl. I briefly considered jumping him; I could have taken him on, and easily, but I had no idea how many more cops were waiting in the general staff area.

On the other hand, now that dinner was delivered, I very likely had total privacy until morning.

The fleas cut a crenellation pattern on one of the bars, just below the sill level. Seated one way, the bar would sit normally. Turned sixty degrees, the bar would sit three inches higher. I then had the fleas go into the top sill and cut the bar down to just above sill level. They dropped pieces into the hollow interior of the bar as they cut it down.

Now I had a bar that I could pull out with just a slight bend, then put back in the sill and rotate to make it appear to be solidly seated.

For phase two, I started modifying my appearance to match the cop who had escorted me here. Hopefully he was day shift and would have gone home by the time I was ready to bust out—and if someone spotted me, they wouldn’t notice that I wasn’t wearing the police accoutrements.

Oh, who was I kidding? This wasn’t a plan, it was a desperation move. Most likely I’d end up having to fight my way out and play the lead in a chase to the river.

I recalled the fleas, swallowed them, and twisted the bar. As expected, it came out easily, leaving me a tight but passable gap to squeeze through. I replaced the bar behind me, then crept to the door and put my ear to it.

The general office area on the other side of the door had a couple of desks, a front counter, and some back rooms. There had been four cops, including my escort, when I was incarcerated. But now it was night, and I hoped the night shift would be smaller—maybe even a single person.

I cracked the door and slowly pulled it open, peering through the gap. I had about a thirty degree view of the office area. Empty. Oddly, that was more worrying than reassuring. There would certainly be at least one person, and I had no idea where that person was.

I quickly pulled the door open a little further and stuck my head out for a fraction of a second and took a panoramic snapshot. As I began carefully pushing the door closed, I took the time to examine the image. Two cops. Damn.

But, in one of those Murphy moments, the door that had moved so silently for me when I opened it quickly, squeaked as I slowly closed it. “Are you freaking kidding me?” I muttered.

A voice from the office said, “What was that?” and another replied, “It came from the cells.” Then the first voice again: “I’ll check if there’s a problem.”

Great. They’d undoubtedly turned to look at the door, so I couldn’t move it any further. In particular, I couldn’t re-latch it. I left the door slightly ajar and moved to stand behind it. Standard cliché move, but I knew I could react faster than the cop.

He came into the room cautiously, but the kind of caution where you don’t actually believe you’re in danger. His loss, my gain. As soon as he was past the door, I swatted him on the side of the head. By this point, I’d swatted so many Quinlans that I had the strike finely calibrated.

I caught him as he crumpled. If I’d had the time, I would have modified my features to match his, but I only had a few seconds before the second cop would get suspicious and come in with short sword drawn. ＲΑＮȪ₿ЕṨ

I pulled the door open, careful not to show my face, and said, using the unconscious cop’s voice from a few seconds ago, “There’s a problem.”

The other cop came into the room and bam—down he went.

It was the work of a few moments to take the keys, place both cops in the cell, and lock them up. Hopefully they wouldn’t test the bars, or they’d be out of jail quickly. But I simply didn’t have time to tie up all the loose ends. I had to be gone before they regained their senses, as they might start up a hue and cry that would bring help in short order.

Placing the keys on one of the desks, I grabbed my backpack from where I’d seen the cop store it and sauntered out of the constabulary as nonchalant as you please, not quite whistling a jaunty tune. As soon as I was around a corner, I cut in the afterburners and made for the river.

I took a quick glance at the boats still at dock to verify that the Clipper was gone, then dove into the river. The ideal depth for speed swimming was about a foot down—not so close to the water’s surface that I caused cavitation, but close enough that the water I was displacing could easily bulge upward to get out of my way.

I would have to surface every mile or so to look for the running lights of boats in the area. And I’d have to check out each one, until I found the Clipper.

The manny could probably keep up a maximum pace for six hours before I’d have to stop to do a maintenance check. Chances were that the check would reveal nothing, and I could continue on. Overheating wouldn’t be a problem in the water as long as all systems continued to operate properly.

These and other thoughts echoed through my brain as I drove the manny eastward.

Another problem I would have trouble with would be explaining how I caught up with them. Not just caught up with them so fast but caught up with them at all. A bio Quinlan wouldn’t have been able to maintain the necessary pace.

This stretch of the river was busy. I checked close to a half-dozen boats before dawn. It didn’t require much finesse. Very few boats adhered to a standard design, and even boats built by the same shipyard would have incremental changes on every new build. If that wasn’t enough, the sails were quite often individualized, although that wasn’t much use at night.

Once dawn broke, I could use telescopic vision to check boats from a greater distance. Very few required me to even change course. And finally, I spotted the Clipper, cruising along near dead-center on the river.

Now, how was I going to explain my reappearance?

I swam parallel to the boat for a while, formulating and discarding increasingly wild scenarios. Then I had an idea. It wasn’t a great idea. It wasn’t even a good one. But it would get me on the boat.

I looked around, gauging the traffic levels and the likelihood of my wake being spotted. For safety, I decided to swim slightly deeper for this sprint. I submerged and poured on the horses, passing the Clipper, by dead reckoning, a few hundred yards to port. When I estimated that I was far enough ahead of them, I popped up onto the surface and began to float, otter style. While I waited, I adjusted my features so that I wasn’t a close twin for the cop that had hauled Sam away. It would be just my luck for someone to remember the guy’s mug.

Within minutes, the Clipper was bearing down on me. I waved, waited until I got an acknowledgement from someone on deck, then swam over and pooted on board, right in front of Ralph.

“Hi,” I said, in the cop’s voice that I’d used most recently. “I’m Wyatt. I’ve been swimming for days and I’m ready for a change of pace. I can pay for passage, or I can work if you have an opening.”

“You’re in luck,” he replied. “We lost a crew member back in Six Hills. Standard rate.” He examined me from several angles. “No luggage or anything?”

“I travel light,” I said, patting my backpack.

I settled back into life on the Clipper, being careful to be a good worker but not as good as Sam. I also was careful not to use people’s names before I was introduced. I hadn’t engaged with this group all that much, so I didn’t have a lot of subjects to remember to avoid. This time around, I was determined to be even less sociable. I tried to project affable loner whenever someone talked to me—not impolite by any means, but no attempt to keep the conversation going. I would try for neither likeable nor unlikeable, but forgettable. It turned out to be easier than expected. The days of arguing and debating with Theresa on the Hurricane had been idyllic even with the stress of my situation, and the crew of this boat seemed flat and uninteresting by comparison.

My package was in the same spot, wearing the same label, as verified by a brief conversation with my spider. I thought about finding a blank label and relabeling the box, but I knew that Ralph maintained a manifest and would notice if one destination disappeared and another mysteriously replaced it.

Little Creek was in the next segment, and the Clipper would be turning around at the end of this one to head back up along the Arcadia River. That meant they would be off-loading any postal items intended for a downstream destination at the last town in this segment, which was High Ridge. I was playing around with a number of scenarios for grabbing the box either during off-loading or afterward, but nothing had jelled yet.

On my third day as Wyatt, we were eating lunch when Ralph pointed and said, “More firls.” I turned to look, and sure enough, a couple of the small birds were hopping around on the cargo. “There must be food in one of those crates,” he continued. “I’ve never seen birds so interested in cargo. Not even ackrels, and those garbage scows will eat wood if nothing else is available.”

Hugh hadn’t mentioned any birds acting unusual yet in his location. Maybe the search hadn’t widened to that point yet. But the Administrator was definitely on full alert judging from the activity here. I did a quick calculation, then contacted Hugh.

“Hey, Hugh, I think you should start seeing firls or other birds acting funny in the next two days or so.”

“Because …”

“Because the theoretical search perimeter will have expanded to your location by that point.”

“Makes sense. But the Administrator probably will try something else soon, Bob. They’re not going to just stick with random searches.”

“Yeah, we’ll deal with that when we come to it, I guess.”

And who knew what form that something else would take. With the fake birds still checking postal items, I couldn’t pull any fast ones with labels. The Administrator was probably checking boxes against the postal manifests. Come to think of it—uh-oh.

My manner of leaving the Six Hills jailhouse would have been attention-getting, to say the least. By now they’d have opened the shipping crate and discovered its mundane contents. It wouldn’t be much of a stretch to figure out that I had switched crates (or labels). They’d be after the Clipper.

Normally that wouldn’t be a problem, since the fastest form of transport for information or goods was a boat. But the Administrator, and for that matter the Resistance, had already long since proven that they weren’t limited by what was available to the public.

There would be a welcome party waiting at High Ridge, and they’d be armed to the teeth. Come to think of it, they didn’t even have to wait at High Ridge. They could sail out from the next town and board us.

Things had just gotten even more complicated.

I had called an emergency expedition meeting, and Bill, Will, and Bridget were attending by video window. Hugh sat in the beanbag chair, as was becoming common. Bill stared into space, his coffee forgotten. “You could grab the box and slip over the side as soon as it gets dark.”

“And go where?” I replied. “Granted the crates float, but I can’t pull it underwater. It’s too buoyant, and it probably wouldn’t be watertight enough for that kind of treatment. If I just push it along the surface, it’ll take forever, and someone will notice. That’s not normal behavior.”

“And if he tries to go inland, it’s likely that there will be surveillance birds. That’s an obvious thing to watch for,” Bridget added.

Will glanced in my direction before replying. “And I think Bob’s right about a boarding party being likely. That’s certainly what I would do. They don’t seem to have anything like constitutional protections in Heaven’s River. What the cops say they will do, they can do.”

Bridget nodded. “But they still have to tread carefully because if they make the citizens mad, there will be a revolt. Quinlans appear to be very hard to intimidate, even by authority figures.”

“So I can’t leave the boat, and I can’t stay on the boat.” I frowned. “That does limit my choices.”

Hugh grinned at me. “Oh, you can leave or stay, no problem. It’s Bender they’re looking for.”

“No, I think they want Bob too,” Bridget said. “He’s part of the mystery, and not just because of his apparent superhuman abilities.”

“And you can’t just change the labels again.”

“I don’t think it would matter anyway, Bill. At this point, my guess is they’ll open every single crate. Like I said, it’s what I’d do.”

“What about hiding Bender somewhere else on the boat?” Bridget asked.

Will shook his head. “If it was me, I’d do a thorough search. Even underwater. Even in the bilge, in case anyone was going to suggest that.”

I sat forward. “That’s it, then. Staying on the boat is out of the question. I’ll have to take my chances with the wilderness or the river.”

“I’d suggest wilderness,” Bridget replied. “You have more speed advantage there. And it is possible that the searchers won’t consider it a likely alternative. Or at least, they’ll be reluctant to pursue it. Quinlans don’t like being too far from water.”

I nodded. It would appear I was going on a hike.

I took the night watch for one of the other workers in return for a favor that I would never collect on. As soon as breathing sounds indicated that everyone was peacefully asleep, I snuck over to the postal pile. I’d “accidentally” restacked everything earlier in the day so that my crate was easily accessible. Now I took it and slipped as silently as possible over the side.

I balanced the crate on my stomach and sculled away from the Clipper, using only my tail to prevent any disturbance on the water’s surface. Thanks to the Quinlan design, I could easily watch where I was going, but I was reluctant to place the crate in the water, so the trip to shore took a solid hour.

I could see some lights downriver that were likely the next town. I hadn’t bothered to find out its name, as we were not scheduled to stop there.

I felt bad for the crew of the Clipper, who had all been good people—even the volatile captain. The guy who traded shifts with me would certainly not fare well. And when the cops arrived, they’d have to mention me jumping ship or they’d have no excuse for the missing crate.

Dawn was just starting to come to the eastern sky as I crawled up out of the water into the shoreline weeds. I could make a nest in the tall greenery, but I’d have to make sure it covered me from aerial surveillance as well. Sure as shooting, the Administrator’s devices would be on the prowl.

I made sure everything was as secure as I could make it, then returned to virt. Hugh was waiting for me and raised a coffee mug in salute. I fell back into my La-Z-Boy with a loud sigh.

“If it helps, I’m one segment away from you,” Hugh said.

“It does, a little. But let’s face it, two of us isn’t going to be that much more useful than one. We still can’t take on the entire Crew and Resistance armies. We still can’t travel in the water with Bender’s matrix. And it’ll still take forever to go overland.” I could hear the discouragement in my voice but couldn’t do anything about it.

“Look, if nothing else, I still have my full complement of spiders and fleas,” Hugh said. “We might be able to rig something up. I’m about six days away from you, assuming I don’t have to sit around waiting for a boat going in the right direction.”

I nodded thoughtfully. “You’ll have to go halfway down the Arcadia before you can get on a connector to loop around to the Nirvana. That’ll add to your time.”

I let the silence stretch for a few mils, then opened my mouth to bring up the whole AI thing. And predictably, the rest of the expedition members picked that exact moment to start popping in. Howard was sitting in the video window with Bridget as well.

“Where we at, Bob?” Garfield said.

“My manny is in a grass nest with the crate. I put in extra effort to make sure it was concealed. I’ve reduced the manny’s body temperature in case someone uses infrared for searching. My one spider is out of the box, ready to light-saber anyone or anything that gets too close.”

“I don’t think infrared is likely to be a useful tool,” Bridget said. “The whole point of fur is to retain heat. Fur-bearing animals tend to shed heat either through their breath or their feet.”

“Feet?” Garfield said, disbelief in his voice.

Bridget nodded. “Hummingbirds would shed heat through their feet and eyes.” She made a sad face. “I’d love to have seen a hummingbird.”

“True of a lot of animals,” Will replied. “We still have the genetic info from Svalbard. If we ever perfect the tech, we’ll bring them back. You might yet get your wish.”

Bridget gave him a small smile of acknowledgement, then turned back to me. “Anyway, the manny puts out almost nothing when resting. You could float downstream and you’d be almost impossible to spot.”

“Leaving out the small question of Bender.”

“Look, Bob,” Hugh said, leaning forward. “Your problem has been basically lack of opportunity and time to implement some kind of solution for keeping the matrix dry.”

“And lack of money,” I interjected.

He grinned. “Yeah, that too. But I have money; I’ve been crewing all the way and haven’t had to spend anything, plus the money my manny was initially stocked with. You’ve gone to ground, so other than maybe getting a little farther from the water, you can stay put until I get there. Then we can figure something out.”

I nodded without comment, and again found my opinion of Hugh shifting. He seemed to be honestly concerned about getting Bender out of Heaven’s River. If he was also interested in the AI issue, was that necessarily nefarious? Was I overreacting? Part of the problem was that I didn’t want to find out. It was a true-to-form Original Bob problem—a tendency to not want to deal with uncomfortable personal issues. I clearly had no replicative drift in that particular department.

Hugh’s suggestion about moving away from the water was a good one, and I made a point of doing so that night. Under cover of darkness, with my scent turned off, I hoisted the shipping crate and made my way uphill. I wanted a location where I could see around me but be camouflaged, and where I had an escape route if someone approached. Eventually I found a deadfall formed by several trees and their root-balls, which created a natural kind of cave. Only one problem—it was occupied. Some kind of badger-like animal, with all the accompanying friendly behavior, rushed out and tried to bite me when I came too close.

I tended to be a live-and-let-live kind of person, but I had been running for too long and I was getting decidedly short-tempered about it. I reacted on instinct, the same kind of reflex you get if a dog lunges for your leg. I jumped back, and as the animal continued to charge, I hauled off and kicked it. “Yipe,” said the badger as it sailed over the deadfall, and “Ow, fuck!” said I, and “Oh shit,” said my internal monitors. Or something to that effect.

Bottom line, though, my kicking leg seized up. I gaped at the unusual and certainly unhealthy angle of my knee, then turned to the heavens and used every English, Pav, Quinlan, and Deltan swear word that I had ever saved up for just such an occasion. I don’t think any of the underbrush actually burst into flames, but it was a close thing.

Eventually, when I found myself circling around into the third repetition, I let it wind down and began to hop my one-legged way into my new home. There were enough branches and sticks available to make a defensive array of stakes, in case the badger tried to come back and dispute ownership.

However, any question of escape was gone, until I could effect repairs. And that with a severely reduced complement of fleas. Most of the work would be done by the nanites, but the fleas would have sped up the process. I hoped it was just a case of straightening out some bent components, and not something worse.

“You blew out your knee?” Bill exclaimed, incredulous. He gave me the hairy eyeball from his video window. “What’re you now, an athlete?”

I chuckled ruefully in reply. “Yeah, in the international sport of badger-kicking. If it helps, I put him right between the uprights.”

“Uh-huh,” Bill said. “How much damage?”

“It’ll be repaired by the time Hugh gets here. As long as no one else comes a-searching, I’ll be okay. But right now, if anyone finds me, I’m screwed.”

“Bob, you should really be cloning yourself. Get those other mannies back in the game.”

“To what end, Bill? They’re thousands of miles away, I’ve already stripped them of most of their money and devices, and even with five mannies we couldn’t take on a horde of Crew. Plus I think it’s more important to get more surveillance drones built before more matrixes.”

“But you’ve got Bender now.”

“For the moment. But if I lose him, we need to be able to find him again. And even if I don’t, it sure would be great to have eyes on my surroundings with SUDDAR so I could see approaching pursuers and such.”

“Ah, fair enough.” Bill was silent for a moment. “I’ve been playing with the idea of going in the opposite direction. Build a few more mannies, stock them with a ton of dough, and just buy a boat to come get you.”

I laughed. “That’s thinking big! And a couple of weeks ago it probably would have worked. But I’ll bet you anything that all infrastructure is being closely watched now, if not by the Administrator, then by the Resistance. You’d be spotted as soon as you tried to gain entry.”

“Yup. My thoughts too.” Bill sighed. “No matter how we parse this, it’s essentially down to a simple case of broken-field running. You’re trying to get past them, and they’re trying to stop you. There doesn’t appear to be any way to finesse it.”

“What I don’t know,” I said, “is whether they know where we’re trying to get to. Have they identified Garack’s Spine as our point of origin? Do they have video archives? Or is the fact that it’s the closest connection to the outside enough to make it a prime candidate?”

“True. If they’ve figured that out, they’ll just create a huge cordon around Garack that a mouse couldn’t sneak through.”

“I did write it on my crate’s tag,” I mused.

“An obvious ploy if you wanted to plant a red herring,” Bill replied. “They’ll consider it as a possibility, but they won’t buy it.”

With that cheery thought, Bill waved and signed off. I put my hands behind my head and stretched while I considered what he’d said. Bill was right. This was just going to get harder as we got closer to the finish line.

My new home was a superior-quality, highly coveted residence. I knew this because the former owner tried several times to take it back. The stakes did their job of keeping him at bay, and we generally ended up snarling at each other from opposite sides of the barrier for several minutes.

After the exchange of pleasantries, the enraged critter would leave, but I could always hear him pacing around the deadfall, growling what were undoubtedly badgerish curses. Eventually he settled on a compromise of sorts. I had set up my barrier as close to the center of the deadfall as possible to minimize the area that I might have to defend. This left a good deal of the entrance tunnel available for what turned out to be a siege. Mr. Badger set up shop just on the other side of the stakes, padding his nest with leaves and fur, with the occasional snarl when I displayed too much interest. After that he came and went, usually returning with his lunch dangling from his mouth to eat in my presence. Perhaps he thought he was taunting me. I was fine with that. After all, I’d taken his home, so I figured I should cut him some slack.

I took some close-up images of him, with the intention of forwarding them to Bridget. On close inspection, he looked more like a small ornery Quinlan than anything else. I wondered if he might be related to the natives the way chimps were related to humans.

Meanwhile, internal repairs continued. The injury turned out to be a minor issue in that no complicated machinery was damaged. But I had bent the skeleton just below the knee, so the nanites had to soften and re-form the carbon-fiber structure. It was a slow job and required me to hold still. Meanwhile, His Badgerness seemed none the worse for his short career as a football. Stupid badger.

On the third day, though, I detected the noise of something approaching. No, several somethings, and all speaking Quinlan. A search party.

I couldn’t make out actual words, but it was a fair bet that they were looking for me. This was confirmed, more or less, a few minutes later. A firl hopped into the entrance to the deadfall and paused. I crouched down, trying to become one with the leaves and dirt and darkness. The firl turned its head this way and that, then hopped farther into the tunnel, and snap! became badger lunch.

His Badgerness played with the corpse for a few moments, but he appeared confused by the very un-yummy pile of gears and electronics. After sniffing it a few times, he pushed the pile aside with evident disgust.

There was an exchange of words outside, followed by a Quinlan face being poked into the entrance.

Wow, big mistake.

Having recently ceded one home to one Quinlan, His Badgerness was not prepared to experience a second such loss. He launched himself at the face, which disappeared with a cry of dismay. A few seconds of yelling and snarling followed, accompanied by lots of running around and things being knocked about. Then His Badgerness stomped back into his den, turned, and settled down with his butt toward me. It was probably an editorial comment, but I was too pleased with the events to be offended. This deadfall had just been solidly established as a place where no quarry could possibly be hiding. Rapidly receding voices, and the occasional laugh, confirmed this.

I wished I had some food to give to my cranky roommate. He’d earned it.

The burning question, though, was whether or not that would be the only search party.

When the badger left on his next hunting expedition, I sent my spider over the line to inspect the pile of fake firl. The spider confirmed that there was no power and no electrical activity, so I had him drag the corpse back to me.

The up-close inspection was interesting. Quinlan technology was definitely ahead of ours in some aspects, particularly that of fusion power generation and computer systems. The power plant was a marvel of miniaturization, and if the Casimir systems weren’t so innately superior, we’d have stolen this tech in a cold second. I couldn’t even make heads or tails of the computer system. There were definitely some optoelectronic components, but they were only for interfacing. The core was … weird. I instructed the spider to take it apart and catalog the results. Bill would love this.

“Hey, Bob.”

“Hi, Hugh. Getting close?”

“Pretty sure. The description sounds about right. This would have been easier if you’d gotten that town name.”

“Yeah, rub it in. Once you get to shore, you should be able to pick up the radio telemetry from my spider.”

“Great. Fifteen minutes or so.”

Having Hugh around, even in anticipation, gave me a huge emotional boost. More than I could honestly justify. It wasn’t clear what two mannies could do that one manny couldn’t.

Hugh detected my spider as soon as he came out of the water, and began zeroing in on me. I did a quick check of my leg. Definitely fixed. So I wouldn’t be holding us up.

Finally, I heard approaching footsteps, and seconds later, a soft voice. “Bob?”

“Here, Hugh. Don’t stick your head in, though. My guard-badger has a hair trigger.”

Hugh chuckled, then said, “Let’s see if I can draw him out.”

I listened to shuffling-around sounds for a minute or so, then a small piece of wood sailed into the den. His Badgerness snarled and arched his back. More sticks followed, accompanied by a chant of “Here, kuzzi, kuzzi, kuzzi.” Well, that was interesting. Had Hugh picked up the Deltan insult from my blogs, or was he descended from me through Marvin or Luke?

In any case, it proved too much for my roommate. With a snarl of rage, the badger launched himself out to deal with his tormentor. Hugh made a “whoop” sound and retreated rapidly. But it was enough. I quickly pulled up the stakes, grabbed my crate, and rocketed out of the den. Right into the back end of His Badgerness.

I may not have planned this out as well as intended.

The badger jumped straight up and, incredibly, managed to spin in midair, claws and teeth on full display. I wasn’t about to hang around for hugs, though. I sprinted off in the opposite direction, one eye on enemy mine.

His Badgerness, no dummy, quickly realized that I’d vacated the residence. He shot back into the den, turned, and stood his ground at the entrance, snarling at all and sundry.

“All yours, buddy. And thanks for the hospitality,” I said to him from a safe distance.

Hugh was standing about thirty feet away, under a tree. He waved at me and we converged on a mid-point a safe distance from my former home. I gave him a fist bump. “Nice to see a friendly face again.”

Hugh smiled in reply, then gestured toward the deadfall. “Too bad about the wildlife. That might have made a good secret lair to work from.”

“Mmm. Kind of cramped for two people. You said you had a solution to our problem?”

In response, Hugh took off his backpack and opened the top. He withdrew a bundled package and held it out. “Sealing pitch. What sailors use to patch leaks. We’re going to do a thorough job on your shipping crate. We’ll test it by loading it with rocks and placing it in the water. Then we’re going to float downstream at night.”

“Seems risky,” I said.

“Not so much. I also have”—he pulled out another bundle—“waxed vellum. Useful as waterproof wrapping, and the seam can be sealed by mildly heating it.”

I must have looked chagrined, because Hugh made a deprecating gesture. “Look, Bob, you’ve been concentrating on keeping Bender safe and not exposing yourself. I’ve had a lot more freedom to ask questions and investigate possibilities without worrying about the consequences. Don’t beat yourself up.”

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. At that moment, I felt shame for my suspicions of Hugh and his motivations. If he was indeed a descendant of Marvin or Luke, then he would remember the bond they had with Bender.

Finally, I heaved a large sigh. “Okay, buddy. Let’s get this done.”

We had to build a small fire to soften the pitch, but there was plenty of dried grass that would provide a smokeless flame. Doubtless there were surveillance devices dedicated to watching for anything burning, given the damage an out-of-control forest fire or grass fire could do. With that in mind, we’d been careful to set up where the overhead cover was significant. And with the aid of some inspired cursing, we were able to coat the interior and exterior of the crate, with enough pitch left over to seal the lid in place once the matrix was ready.

Bender went into several layers of waxed vellum, which was sealed with a hot rock. We did some testing on the crate, then sealed Bender into it.

Finally, all preparation done, we sat around the remains of our campfire while I stared in semi-shock at the shipping crate. The idea that I might finally be near the end of this marathon was frankly a little stupefying.

Hugh punched me lightly in the shoulder. “You okay there, bud?”

“Yeah,” I responded with a sickly grin. “I’ve just gotten so used to running I’m not sure how I’ll adjust to a normal life.”

“We have normal lives?”

I answered with a snort, then glanced up at the sky. “About three hours until dark. Do we dare take a break?”

“Maybe alternate watches,” Hugh replied. “Just in case more searchers show up. But let’s get more hidden first.”

I nodded, and we went looking for a spot in the tall grass to build a nest.