David Brin - Infinitys Shore (The Uplift Trilogy, Book 2)

Infinitys Shore

Book Two of a New Uplift Trilogy

David Brin

(Back of Jacket)

For the fugitive settlers of Jijo, it is truly the beginning of the end. As starships fill the skies, the threat of genocide hangs over the planet that once peacefully sheltered six bands of sapient beings. Now the human settlers of Jijo and their alien neighbors must take heroicand terrifyingchoices. A scientist must turn against the benefactors shes been trained to love. A heretic must rally believers for a cause he never shared. And four youngsters find that what started as a simple adventureimitating exploits in Earthling books by Verne and Twainleads them to the dark abyss of mystery. Meanwhile, the Streaker, with her fugitive dolphin crew, arrives at last on Jijo in a desperate search for refuge. Yet what the crew finds instead is a secret hidden since the galaxies first spawned intelligencea secret that could mean salvation for the planet and its inhabitants... or their ultimate annihilation.

CONTENTS

Streaker

[Five Jaduras Earlier]

Kaa

What strange fate brought me,

Fleeing maelstroms of winter,

Past five galaxies? *

Only to find refuge,

On a forlorn planet (nude!)

In laminar luxury! *

SO HE THOUGHT WHILE PERFORMING SWOOPING rolls, propelling his sleek gray body with exhilarated tail strokes, reveling in the caress of water against naked flesh.

Dappled sunlight threw luminous shafts through crystal shallows, slanting past mats of floating sea florets. Silvery native creatures, resembling flat-jawed fish, moved in and out of the bright zones, enticing his eye. Kaa squelched the instinctive urge to give chase.

Maybe later.

For now, he indulged in the liquid texture of water sliding around him, without the greasiness that used to cling so, back in the oily seas of Oakka, the green-green world, where soaplike bubbles would erupt from his blowhole each time he surfaced to breathe. Not that it was worth the effort to inhale on Oakka. There wasnt enough good air on that horrid ball to nourish a comatose otter.

This sea also tasted good, not harsh like Kithrup, where each excursion outside the ship would give you a toxic dose of hard metals.

In contrast, the water on Jijo world felt clean, with a salty tang reminding Kaa of the gulf stream flowing past the Florida Academy, during happier days on far-off Earth.

He tried to squint and pretend he was back home, chasing mullet near Key Biscayne, safe from a harsh universe. But the attempt at make-believe failed. One paramount difference reminded him this was an alien world.

Sound.

a beating of tides rising up the continental shelf-a complex rhythm tugged by three moons, not one.

an echo of waves, breaking on a shore whose abrasive sand had a strange, sharp texture.

an occasional distant groaning that seemed to rise out of the ocean floor itself.

the return vibrations of his own sonar clicks, tracing schools of fishlike creatures, moving their fins in unfamiliar ways.

above all, the engine hum just behind him ... a cadence of machinery that had filled Kaas days and nights for five long years.

And now, another clicking, groaning sound. The clipped poetry of duty.

Relent, Kaa, tell us,

In exploratory prose,

Is it safe to come? *

The voice chased Kaa like a fluttering, sonic conscience. Reluctantly, he swerved around to face the submarine Hikahi, improvised from ancient parts found strewn across this planets deep seafloor-a makeshift contraption that suited a crew of misfit fugitives. Clamshell doors closed ponderously, like the jaws of a huge carnivore, cycling to let others emerge in his wake ... if he gave the all clear.

Kaa sent his Trinary reply, amplified by a saser unit plugged into his skull, behind his left eye.

If water were all

We might be in heaven now.

But wait! Ill check above! *

His lungs were already making demands, so he obeyed instinct, flicking an upward spiral toward the glistening surface. Ready or not, Jijo, here I come!

He loved piercing the tense boundary of sky and sea, flying weightless for an instant, then broaching with a splash and spume of exhalation. Still, he hesitated before inhaling. Instruments predicted an Earthlike atmosphere, yet he felt a nervous tremor drawing breath.

If anything, the air tasted better than the water! Kaa whirled, thrashing his tail in exuberance, glad Lieutenant Tsht had let him volunteer for this-to be the first dolphin, the first Earthling, ever to swim this sweet, foreign sea.

Then his eye stroked a jagged, gray-brown line, spanning one horizon, very close.

The shore.

Mountains.

He stopped his gyre to stare at the nearby continentinhabited, they now knew. But by whom?

There was not supposed to be any sapient life on Jijo.

Maybe theyre just hiding here, the way we are, from a hostile cosmos.

That was one theory.

At least they chose a pleasant world, he added, relishing the air, the water, and gorgeous ranks of cumulus hovering over a giant mountain. I wonder if the fish are good to eat.

As we await you,

Chafing in this cramped airlock,

Should we play pinochle? *

Kaa winced at the lieutenants sarcasm. Hurriedly, he sent back pulsed waves.

* Fortune smiles again,

On our weary band of knaves.

Welcome, friends, to Ifnis Shore. *

It might seem presumptuous to invoke the goddess of chance and destiny, capricious Ifni, who always seemed ready to plague Streakers company with one more surprise. Another unexpected calamity, or miraculous escape.

But Kaa had always felt an affinity with the informal patron deity of spacers. There might be better pilots than himself in the Terragens Survey Service, but none with a deeper respect for fortuity. Hadnt his own nickname been Lucky?

Until recently, that is.

From below, he heard the grumble of clamshell doors reopening. Soon Tsht and others would join him in this first examination of Jijos surface-a world they heretofore saw only briefly from orbit, then from the deepest, coldest pit in all its seas. Soon, his companions would arrive, but for a few moments more he had it to himself-silken water, tidal rhythms, fragrant air, the sky and clouds....

His tail swished, lifting him higher as he peered. Those arent normal clouds, he realized, staring at a great mountain dominating the eastern horizon, whose peak wore shrouds of billowing white. The lens implanted in his right eye dialed through a spectral scan, sending readings to his optic nerve-revealing steam, carbon oxides, and a flicker of molten heat.

A volcano, Kaa realized, and the reminder sent his ebullience down a notch. This was a busy part of the planet, geologically speaking. The same forces that made it a useful hiding place also kept it dangerous.

That must be where the groaning comes from, he pondered. Seismic activity. An interaction of miniquakes and crustal gas discharges with the thin overlaying film of sea.

Another flicker caught his notice, in roughly the same direction, but much closer-a pale swelling that might also have been a cloud, except for the way it moved, flapping like a birds wing, then bulging with eagerness to race the wind.

A sail, he discerned. Kaa watched it jibe across the stiffening breeze-a two-masted schooner, graceful in motion, achingly familiar from the Caribbean seas of home.

Its bow split the water, spreading a wake that any dolphin might love to ride.

The zoom lens clarified, magnified, until he made out fuzzy bipedal forms, hauling ropes and bustling around on deck, like any gang of human sailors.

... Only these werent human beings. Kaa glimpsed scaly backs, culminating in a backbone of sharp spines. Swathes of white fur covered the legs, and froglike membranes pulsated below broad chins as the ships company sang a low, rumbling work chant that Kaa could dimly make out, even from here.