David Brin - Heaven's Reach

I brought gifts from Jijo to my spacefaring cousins — adventure and childhood. They, in turn, taught me what serenity can be found in home, hearth, and low, melodic rituals inherited from a misty past, before our race ever trod the road of Uplift or cared about distant stars.

Those stars are farther than they used to be. Ever since the Five Galaxies abruptly became four, half the transfer points and interspatial paths went unstable, and may remain so for the rest of our lifespans. Untold numbers of ships were lost, trade patterns disrupted, and worlds forced to rely on their own resources.

I guess this means it’ll be a while before we get a letter from Ur-ronn. I’m sure she’s having the time of her life, somewhere out there, consorting with engineers of all races, up to her long neck in pragmatic problems to solve.

Though urs aren’t a sentimental people, I do hope she remembers us from time to time.

All I can say about poor Pincer is that I miss him terribly.

Sometimes you just have to let go.

Death has always been the one great, hopelessly impassable gulf. Now there is another. When Galaxy Four finally ripped loose, it seems every sapient being felt it happen, at some deep, organic level. Even on a planet’s surface, it staggered many folks. For days, people walked around kind of numb.

Scientists think the recoil effects must’ve been far worse in Galaxy Four itself, but we’ll never know for sure, because now that entire giant wheel of stars lies beyond reach, forevermore. And with it, Jijo. My parents. Home.

There are consolations. It feels nice to imagine dolphins, swimming with abandon through the silky waters off Wuphon, playing tag with my father’s dross ship, then coming near shore each evening to discuss poetry by Loocen’s opal light.

Of course the Commons of Six Races can now tear up the Sacred Scrolls and stop hiding their faces from the sky. For the laws of the Civilization of Five Galaxies don’t apply to them any longer. Perhaps Jijo’s people have already dealt with the Jophur invaders. Or maybe they face even worse crises. Either way, the burden of guilt we inherited from our criminal ancestors can be shrugged off at last. The folk of the Slope aren’t trespassers — or sooners — anymore.

Jijo is theirs, to care for and defend as best they can.

I have faith they’ll come out all right. With a little help from Ifni’s dice.

Speaking of strange colonists, I’m now being nagged by a little otterlike creature who wants yet another favor.

Ever since admitting he could talk, Mudfoot has been a real chatterbox, constantly demanding to know if Tymbrimi ships have come to Hurmuphta Port, or if any vessels are bound for the war front in Galaxy Two. Mudfoot’s impatience is characteristic. Though he calls himself a tytlal, he’ll always be a noor to me. I prove it by puffing my throat sac and humming a favorite umble. He joins my pet Huphu on my shoulder, and soon they’re wrapped up together, dumb to the outside world.

“He will never leave,” Dor-hinuf predicts. Indeed, Mudfoot seems to enjoy his daytime job on the yacht, scrambling among the sails and spars, chewing sourballs and muttering caustic remarks about the landlubber passengers.

Yet, I’m not so sure. A flame burns inside the small creature, like a human with a cause, or an urs with a gadget she wants to try. Mudfoot will never rest till he’s taken care of unfinished business.

Knowing what I do about tytlal, it probably has to do with a joke. Something long range and desperately funny … unless you happen to be on the receiving end, that is.

Someday, I figure we’ll wake up and find him gone — with all our lanyards tied in knots as his way of saying a fond good-bye.

Mudfoot is reading over my shoulder as I write this, panting and grinning enigmatically, enjoying my speculations without offering a clue.

Enough. Come on, you little rascal. There are customers waiting. The breeze is fine, and companies of clouds march in neat rows past a silver horizon.

Let’s go give some stuffy old hoons the thrill of their lives.

g’Keks — the first sooner race to arrive on Jijo, some two thousand years ago. Originally uplifted by the Drooli, the g’Kek have biomagnetically driven wheels and four eyestalks rising from a combined torso-braincase. Due to vendettas by enemies, the g’Kek are extinct throughout the Five Galaxies, except on Jijo.

glavers — the third sooner race to reach Jijo. Uplifted by the Tunuctyur, who were themselves uplifted by the Buyur. Glavers are partly bipedal with opalescent skin and large, bulging eyes. Roughly a meter tall, they have a prehensile forked tail to assist their inefficient hands. Since illegally settling Jijo they devolved to a state of presapience, dropping out of the Commons of Six Races. To some, glavers seem to be shining examples, having shown the way down the Path of Redemption.

hoons — the fifth wave of settlers to arrive on Jijo, bipedal omnivores, with pale scaly skin and woolly white leg fur. Their spines are massive, hollow structures that form part of their circulatory system. Hoons’ inflatable throat sacs, originally for mating displays, are now used for “umbling.” Since their Uplift by the Guthatsa, this race have found widespread service as dour, officious bureaucrats in Galactic culture.

humans — the youngest sooner race arrived on Jijo less than three hundred years ago. Human “wolflings” evolved on Earth, apparently achieving technological civilization and crude interstellar travel on their own, or else assisted by some unknown patron. Passionate debates rage over this issue.

Jophur — semicommunal organisms resembling cones of stacked donuts. Like their traeki cousins, Jophur consist of interchangeable spongy “sap-rings,” each with limited intelligence, but combining to form a sapient community being. Specialized rings give the stack its senses, manipulative organs, and sometimes exotic chemosynthetic abilities. As traeki, this unique species was originally gentle and unaspiring when first uplifted by the Poa. The zealous Oalie later reinvented them by providing “master rings,” transforming the traeki into Jophur, willful and profoundly ambitious beings.

qheuens — the fourth sooner race on Jijo. Originally uplifted by the Zhosh, qheuens are radially symmetric exoskeletal beings with five legs and claws. Their brain is partly contained in a retractable central dome or “cupola.” A rebel band of qheuens settled Jijo attempting to hold on to their ancient caste system, with the gray variety providing royal matriarchs while red and blue types were servants and artisans. Conditions on Jijo — including later human intervention — provoked the breakdown of this system.

Rothen — a mysterious Galactic race. One human group (the dakkins or Daniks) believe the Rothen to be Earth’s lost patrons. Rothen are bipeds, somewhat larger than humans but with similar proportions and charismatic features. Believed to be carnivores.

traeki — second illicit settler race to arrive on Jijo. Traeki are a throwback variant of Jophur, who fled the imposition of master rings.

urs — the sixth sooner race on Jijo. Carnivorous, centauroid plains dwellers; they have long, flexible necks, narrow heads, and shoulderless arms ending in dexterous hands. Urs start life as tiny, six-limbed grubs, turned out of their mothers’ pouches to fend for themselves. Any that survive to “childhood” may be accepted into an urrish band. Urrish females reach the size of a large deer, and possess twin brood pouches where they keep diminutive mates, who are smaller than a house cat. A female with prelarval young ejects one or both husbands to make room for the brood. Urs have an aversion to water in its pure form.