David Brin - Infinity's Shore

A phalanx of armored damsels brandishes whips of forked lightning against fire-breathing dragons, whose wounds bleed rainbows across the desert floor. Though intrigued, he dismisses such scenes, collaborating with his rewq to edit out the irrelevant, the fantastic, the easy.

What does that leave?

A lot, it seems.

From one nearby lava field, crystal particles reflect tart sunbursts that his eye makes out as vast, distant explosions. All sense of scale vanishes as mighty ships die in furious battle before him. Squadrons rip each other. Fleet formations are scythed by moving folds of tortured space.

True!

He knows this to be a real memory. Unforgettable. Too exquisitely horrible to let go, this side of death.

So why was it lost?

Emerson labors to fashion words, using their rare power to lock the recollection back where it belongs.

I … saw … this … happen.

I … was … there.

He turns for more. Over in that direction, amid a simple boulder field, lay a galactic spiral, seen from above the swirling wheel. Viewed from a shallow place where few spatial tides ever churn. Mysteries lay in that place, undisturbed by waves of time.

Until someone finally came along, with more curiosity than sense, intruding on the tomblike stillness.

Someone …?

He chooses a better word.

… We …

Then, a better word, yet.

… Streaker!

A slight turn and he sees her, traced among the stony layers of a nearby mesa. A slender caterpillar shape, studded by the spiky flanges meant to anchor a ship to this universe … a universe hostile to everything Streaker stood for. He stares nostalgically at the vessel. Scarred and patched, often by his own hand, the hull’s beauty could only be seen by those who loved her.

… loved her …

Words have power to shift the mind. He scans the horizon, this time for a human face. One he adored, without hope of anything but friendship in return. But her image isn’t found in the dazzling landscape.

Emerson sighs. For now, it is enough to sort through his rediscoveries. A single correlation proves especially useful. If it hurts, then it must be a real memory.

What could that fact mean?

The question, all by itself, seems to make his skull crack with pain!

Could that be the intent? To prevent him from remembering?

Stabbing sensations assail him. That question is worse! It must never be asked!

Emerson clutches his head as the point is driven home with hammerlike blows.

Never; ever, ever …

Rocking back, he lets out a howl. He bays like a wounded animal, sending ululations over rocky outcrops. The sound plummets like a stunned bird … then catches itself just short of crashing.

In a steep, swooping turn, it comes streaking back … as laughter!

Emerson bellows.

He roars contempt.

He brays rebellious joy.

Through streaming tears, he asks the question and glories in the answer, knowing at last that he is no coward. His amnesia is no hysterical retreat. No quailing from traumas of the past.

What happened to his mind was no accident.

Hot lead seems to pour down his spine as programmed inhibitions fight back. Emerson’s heart pounds, threatening to burst his chest. Yet he scarcely notices, facing the truth head-on, with a kind of brutal elation.

Somebody … did … this.…

Before him, looming from the fractured mesa, comes an image of cold eyes. Pale and milky. Mysterious, ancient, deceitful. It might have been terrifying — to someone with anything left to lose.

Somebody … did … this … to … me!

With fists clenched and cheeks awash, Emerson sees the colors melt as his eyes fill with liquid pain. But that does not matter anymore.

Not what he sees.

Only what he knows.

The Stranger casts a single cry, merging with the timeless hills.

A shout of defiance.

Ewasx

THEY SHOW COURAGE.

You were right about that, My rings.

We Jophur had not expected anyone to approach so soon after the Polkjhy slashed an area of twenty korech around our landing site. But now a delegation comes, waving a pale banner.

At first, the symbolism confuses our Polkjhy communications staff. But this stack’s very own association rings relay the appropriate memory of a human tradition — that of using a white flag to signify truce.

WE INFORM THE CAPTAIN LEADER. That exalted stack appears pleased with our service. My rings, you are indeed well informed about vermin! These worthless-seeming toruses, left over from the former Asx, hold waxy expertise about human ways that could prove useful to the Obeyer Alliance, if a prophesied time of change truly has come upon the Five Galaxies.

The Great Library proved frustratingly sparse regarding the small clan from Earth. How ironic then, that we should find proficient knowledge in such a rude, benighted world as this Jijo. Knowledge that may help our goal of extinguishing the wolflings at long last.

What? You quiver at the prospect?

In joyful anticipation of service? In expectation that yet another enemy of our clan shall meet extinction?

No. Instead you shudder, filling our core with mutinous fumes!

My poor, polluted rings. Are you so infested with alien notions that you actually hold affection for noisome bipeds? And for vermin g’Kek survivors we are sworn to erase?

Perhaps the poison is too rife for you to be suitable, even with useful expertise.

The Oailie were right. Without master rings, all a stack can become is a pile of sentimental traeki.

Lark

THE TALL STAR LORD WAS NO LESS IMPOSING IN A homespun shirt and trousers than in his old black-and-silver uniform. Rann’s massive arms and wedgelike torso tempted one to imagine impossible things … like pitting him against a fully grown hoon in a wrestling match.

That might take some of the starch out of him, Lark pondered. There’s nothing fundamentally superior about the guy. Underlying Rann’s physique and smug demeanor was the same technology that had given Ling the beauty of a goddess. I might be just as strong — and live three hundred years — if I weren’t born in a forlorn wilderness.

Rann spoke Anglic in the sharp Danik accent, with burring undertones like his Rothen overlords.

“The favor you ask is both risky and impertinent. Can you offer one good reason why I should cooperate?”

Watched by militia guards, the star lord sat cross-legged in a cave overlooking Dooden Mesa, where camouflaged ramps blended with the surrounding forest under tarpaulins of cunning blur cloth. Beyond the g’Kek settlement, distant ridges seemed to ripple as vast stands of boo bent their giant stems before the wind. In the grotto’s immediate vicinity, steam rose from geothermal vents, concealing the captive from Galactic instruments — or so the sages hoped.

Before Rann lay a stack of data lozenges bearing the sigil of the Galactic Library, the same brown slabs Lark and Uthen found in the wrecked Danik station.

“I could give several reasons,” Lark growled. “Half the qheuens I know are sick or dying from some filthy bug you bastards released—”

Rann waved a dismissive hand.

“Your supposition. One that I deny.”

Lark’s throat strangled in anger. Despite every point of damning evidence, Rann obstinately rejected the possibility of Rothen-designed genocidal germs. “What you suggest is quite preposterous,” he said earlier. “It is contrary to our lords’ kindly natures.”

Lark’s first response was amazement. Kindly nature?

Wasn’t Rann present when Bloor, the unlucky portraitist, photographed a Rothen face without its mask, and Rokenn reacted by unleashing fiery death on everyone in sight?

It did Lark no good to recite the same point-by-point indictment he had laid out for Ling. The big man was too contemptuous of anything Jijoan to heed a logical argument.