16. Still Trying

Bob, disguised as a random Quinlan named Enoki Funguy, takes a job as a deckhand on the merchant vessel Hurricane to transport his matrix (Bender) across river segments in a locked trunk. The chapter covers his journey downriver, encounters with various crew members, and a tense confrontation with a pompous passenger who suspects Bob's trunk contains contraband.

Bob leaves Bender tied in a tree and adopts a new disguise to create distance from his previous identity. He purchases a steamer trunk from a merchant named Steve, securing it with a matrix and a spider programmed to protect it. After hiring on as a deckhand with Captain Lisa aboard the Hurricane, Bob meets his crewmates Oric, Ted, and Frieda. An obnoxious paying passenger named Snidely Whiplash boards the vessel, displaying ignorant beliefs about Heaven's River being a natural environment rather than an artificial structure. When the boat docks at Beetle Juice, law enforcement arrives searching for a fugitive carrying a funerary box in a backpack. Bob deflects suspicion by highlighting Snidely's trunks to the inspectors, obscuring his own in the process. The boat continues downriver and picks up two additional passengers: elderly Theresa and her granddaughter Belinda. Bob engages Theresa in philosophical discussions about the Administrator, information theory, and the nature of consciousness, discovering she is a highly educated scholar with doctorates. Theresa verbally demolishes Snidely's pretensions and intellectual arrogance. Late that night, Bob's manny alerts him to someone tampering with the trunks. He confronts Snidely attempting to break into his trunk and intimidates him with violent threats, but recognizes that Snidely remains a threat.