David Brin - Infinity's Shore

Tsh’t had never expected such duty when Streaker blasted out of Earth orbit, refurbished for use by a neodolphin crew. Back then — over two years ago, by ship-clock time — Tsh’t had been only a junior lieutenant, a distant fifth in line from Captain Creideiki. And it was common knowledge that Tom Orley and Gillian Baskin could step in if the need seemed urgent … as Gillian eventually did, during the crisis on Kithrup.

Tsh’t didn’t resent that human intervention. In arranging an escape from the Kithrup trap, Tom and Gillian pulled off a miracle, even if it led to the lovers’ separation.

Wasn’t that the job of human leaders and heroes? To intercede when a crisis might overwhelm their clients?

But where do we turn when matters get too awful even for humans to handle?

Galactic tradition adhered to a firm — some said oppressive — hierarchy of debts and obligations. A client race to its patron. That patron to its sapience benefactor … and so on, tracing the great chain of uplift all the way back to the legendary Progenitors. The same chain of duty underlay the reaction of some fanatical clans on hearing news of Streaker’s discovery — a fleet of derelict ships with ancient, venerated markings.

But the pyramid of devotion had positive aspects. The uplift cascade meant each new species got help crossing the dire gap dividing mere animals from starfaring citizens. And if your sponsors lacked answers, they might ask their patrons. And so on.

Gillian had tried appealing to this system, taking Streaker from Kithrup to Oakka, the green world, seeking counsel from impartial savants of the Navigation Institute. Failing there, she next sought help in the Fractal Orb — that huge icy place, a giant snowflake that spanned a solar system’s width — hoping the venerable beings who dwelled there might offer wise detachment, or at least refuge.

It wasn’t Dr. Baskin’s fault that neither gamble paid off very well. She had the right general idea, Tsh’t mused. But Gillian remains blind to the obvious.

Who is most likely to help, when you’re in trouble and a lynch mob is baying at your tail?

The courts?

Scholars at some university?

Or your own family?

Tsh’t never dared suggest her idea aloud. Like Tom Orley, Gillian took pride in the romantic image of upstart Earthclan, alone against the universe. Tsh’t knew the answer would be no.

So, rather than flout a direct order, Tsh’t had quietly put her own plan into effect, just before Streaker made her getaway from the Fractal System.

What else could I do, with Streaker pursued by horrid fleets, our best crew members gone, and Earth under siege? Our Tymbrimi friends can barely help even themselves. Meanwhile, the Galactic Institutes have been corrupted and the Old Ones lied to us.

We had no choice.

… I had no choice …

It was hard concealing things, especially from someone who knew dolphins as well as Gillian. For weeks since Streaker arrived here, Tsh’t half hoped her disobedience would come to nought.

Then the detection officer reported gravitic traces. Starcraft engines, entering Jijo space.

So, they came after all, she had thought, hearing the news, concealing satisfaction while her crew mates expressed noisy chagrin, bemoaning that they now seemed cornered by relentless enemies on a forlorn world.

Tsh’t wanted to tell them the truth, but dared not. That good news must wait.

Ifni grant that I was right.

Tsh’t paused outside the bridge, filling her gene-altered lungs with oxy-water. Enriching her blood to think clearly before setting in motion the next phase of her plan.

There is just one true option for a client race, when your beloved patrons seem overwhelmed, and all other choices are cut off.

May the gods of Earth’s ancient ocean know and understand what I’ve done.

And what I may yet have to do.

Nelo

ONCE, A BUYUR URBAN CENTER STRETCHED BETWEEN two rivers, from the Roney all the way to the far-off Bibur.

Now the towers were long gone, scraped and hauled away to distant seas. In their place, spiky ferns and cloudlike voow trees studded a morass of mud and oily water. Mulc-spider vines laced a few rounded hummocks remaining from the great city, but even those tendrils were now faded, their part in the demolition nearly done.

To Nelo, this was wasteland, rich in life but useless to any of the Six Races, except perhaps as a traeki vacation resort.

What am I doing here? he wondered. I should be back in Dolo, tending my mill, not prowling through a swamp, keeping a crazy woman company.

Behind Nelo, hoonish sailors cursed low, expressive rumblings, resentful over having to pole through a wretched bog. The proper time for gleaning was at the start of the dry season, when citizens in high-riding boats took turns sifting the marsh for Buyur relics missed by the patient mulc beast. Now, with rainstorms due any day, conditions were miserable for exploring. The muddy channels were shallow, yet the danger of a flash flood was very real.

Nelo faced the elderly woman who sat in a wheelchair near the bow, peering past obscuring trees with a rewq over her eyes.

“The crew ain’t happy, Sage Foo,” he told her. “They’d rather we waited till it’s safe.”

Ariana Foo answered without turning from her search. “Oh, what a great idea. Four months or more we’d sit around while the swamp fills, channels shift, and the thing we seek gets buried in muck. Of course, by then the information would be too late to do any good.”

Nelo shrugged. The woman was retired now. She had no official powers. But as former High Sage for all humans on Jijo, Ariana had moral authority to ask anything she wanted — including having Nelo leave his beloved paper mill next to broad Dolo Dam, accompanying her on this absurd search.

Not that there was much to do at the mill, he knew. With commerce spoiled by panic over those wretched starships, no one seems interested in buying large orders.

“Now is the best time,” Ariana went on. “Late in dry season, with water levels low, and the foliage drooping, we get maximum visibility.”

Nelo took her word. With most young men and women away on militia duties, it was mostly adolescents and old-timers who got drafted into the search party. Anyway, Nelo’s daughter had been among the first to find the Stranger from Space in this very region several months ago, during a routine gleaning trip. And he owed Ariana for bringing word about Sara and the boys — that they were all right, when last she heard. Sage Foo had spent time with Nelo’s daughter, accompanying Sara from Tarek Town to the Biblos Archive.

He felt another droplet strike his cheek … the tenth since they left the river, plunging into this endless slough. He held his hand under a murky sky and prayed the real downpours would hold off for a few more days.

Then let it come down! The lake is low. We need water pressure for the wheel, or else I’ll have to shut down the mill for lack of power.

His thoughts turned to business — the buying and gathering of recycled cloth from all six races. The pulping and sifting. The pressing, drying, and selling of fine sheets that his family had been known for ever since humans brought the blessing of paper to Jijo.

A blessing that some called a curse. That radical view now claimed support from simple villagers, panicked by the looming end of days—

A shout boomed from above.

“There!” A wiry young hoon perched high on the mast, pointing. “Hr-r … It must be the Stranger’s ship. I told you this had to be the place!”

Wyhuph-eihugo had accompanied Sara on that fateful gleaning trip — a duty required of all citizens. Lacking a male’s throat sac, she nevertheless umbled with some verve, proud of her navigation.