David Brin - Infinity's Shore

Rising, falling…

Rising, falling…

The dance spoke of a lost science she had studied once, in an obscure text from the Biblos Archive. Its name floated through her delirium—orbital mechanics—as if managing the ponderous gyres of suns and moons were no more complex than maintaining a windmill or waterwheel.

Dimly, Sara knew physical pain. But it came to her as if through a swaddling of musty clothes, like something unpleasant tucked in a bottom pantry drawer. The strong scent of traeki unguents filled her nostrils, dulling every agony except one … the uneasy knowledge—I’ve been harmed.

Sometimes she roused enough to hear speech … several lisping urrish voices … the gruff terseness of Kurt the Exploser … and one whose stiff, pedantic brilliance she knew from happier days.

Purofsky. Sage of mysteries…

But what is he doing here?

… and where is here?

At one point she managed to crack her eyelids in hopes of solving the riddle. But Sara quickly decided she must still be dreaming. For no place could exist like the one she witnessed through a blurry haze — a world of spinning glass. A universe of translucent saucers, disks and wheels, tilting and rolling against each other at odd angles, reflecting shafts of light in rhythmic bursts.

It was all too dizzying. She closed her eyes against the maelstrom, yet it continued in her mind, persisting in the form of abstractions.

A sinusoidal wave filled her mental-foreground, but no longer the static shape she knew from inked figures in books. Instead, this one undulated like ripples on a pond, with time the apparent free variable.

Soon the first wave was joined by a second, with twice the frequency, then a third with the peaks and troughs compressed yet again. New cycles merged, one after another, combining in an endless series—a transform—whose sum built toward a new complex figure, an entity with jagged peaks and valleys, like a mountain range.

Out of order … chaos …

Mountains brought to mind the last thing Sara had seen, before spilling off the volcano’s narrow path, tumbling over sharp stones toward a river of fire.

Flashes from a distant peak … long-short, short-long, medium-short-short…

Coded speech, conveyed by a language of light, not unlike GalTwo…

Words of urgency, of stealth and battle…

Her mind’s fevered random walk was broken now and then by soft contact on her brow — a warm cloth, or else a gentle touch. She recognized the long, slender shape of Prity’s fingers, but there was another texture as well, a man’s contact on her arm, her cheek, or just holding her hand.

When he sang to her, she knew it was the Stranger … Emerson … by his odd accent and the way the lyrics flowed, smoothly from memory, as a liquid stream, without thought to any particular word or phrase. Yet the song was no oddly syncopated Earthling ballad, but a Jijoan folk ballad, familiar as a lullaby. Sara’s mother sang it to her, whenever she was ill — as Sara used to murmur it to the man from space, soon after he crashed on Jijo, barely clinging to life.

“One comes from an umbling sac, a

song for you to keep,

Two is for a pair of hands, to spin you

happy sleep,

Three fat rings will huff and puff out

clouds of happy steam,

Four eyes wave and dance about, to

watch over your dream,

“Five claws will carve your new hope

box, all without a seam,

Six will bring you flashing hooves to

cross the prairie plain,

Seven is for hidden thoughts, waiting

in the deep,

But eight comes from a giant stone,

whose patterns gently creep.”

Even half-conscious, she knew something important. He could not sing unless the words were stored deep within, beyond the scarred part of his brain. It meant she must have touched him, when their roles were reversed.

Not all the unguents in the world — nor the cool beauty of mathematics — could do as much for Sara. What finally called her back was knowing someone missed her, when she was gone.

Ewasx

THERE WAS AN ENJOYABLE SENSE OF IMPORTANCE TO our task, was there not, My rings? There we stood, this stack of shabby-looking, retread toruses, deputized with a noble job — explaining to envoys of six races the new order of life on this world.

FIRST — they should not hope for great judges to come from those Institutes who mediate among ten thousand starfaring races. Passions run too high, throughout the Five Galaxies. Institute forces have withdrawn, along with timid, so-called moderate clans, a dithering, ineffectual majority. Only great religious alliances show nerve nowadays, battling over which way the Galactic wheels shall turn during a time of changes.

WE ARE YOUR JUDGES, I told the ambassadors. Out of kindness, we the Polkjhy crew have volunteered to serve as both posse and jury, chastening the seven races who invaded this world’s fallow peace.

To demonstrate this benevolence, we have delayed by many days the important work that originally brought us here, even though it means leaving our comrades to make their own repairs in that eastern swamp, while our remaining corvette tours the Slope, photographing and recording evidence. It also gives us an opportunity to demonstrate the irresistible majesty of our power. We did this by destroying egregious structures that sooners should not use, if their goal truly is racial redemption.

IT IS NOTED THAT YOU WERE NOT MUCH HELP IN THIS WORK, MY RINGS. (Accept these reproaching jolts, as tokens of loving guidance.) Asx melted many memories, before capture and conversion, yet we/I did recall certain abominations. We gained credit, for instance, by helping target the Bibur River steamboats, and a refinery tower in Tarek Town, an edifice called the Palace of Stinks.

DON’T WORRY. In time, we of the Polkjhy will find all pathetic objects-of-sin prized by headstrong sooners. We shall help erase the flagrant hypocrisy of tool use among those who chose the Downward Path!

SECOND comes our unstoppable demand for justice. The High Sages showed surprising good sense by swiftly emitting a call, soon after our last meeting. A flicker of computer cognizance, leading our corvette to Dooden Mesa. But this token gesture will not suffice for long. We want every living member of the g’Kek race accounted for. That should not be too hard. Stranded on a roadless planet, they are singularly immobile beings.

“Please do not destroy our wheeled brethren,” the envoys entreat. “Let the g’Kek seek holy shelter down Redemption’s Path. For is it not said that all debts and vendettas stop, once innocence is resumed?”

At first we see this as yet more lawyerly blather. But then, surprisingly, our senior Priest-Stack agrees! Moreover, that august pile makes an unusual, innovative suggestion—

HERE IS THE QUESTION posed by the Priest-Stack: What kind of revenge on the g’Kek would transcend even extinction?

ANSWER: to see the g’Kek race become once again eligible for adoption, and for their new patrons to be Jophur! In their second sequence of uplift, we might transform them as we see fit — into creatures their former selves would have disdained!

Vengeance is best when executed with imagination. This justifies bringing a priest along. Indeed, that stack variety has uses.

Of course this daring plan carries complications. It means refraining from informing the Five Galaxies about this sooner infestation. Instead, our Jophur clan must keep it secret, tending Jijo like our own private garden.

SO WE BECOME CRIMINALS, under Galactic law. But that hardly matters. For those laws will change, once our alliance assumes leadership during the next phase of history.

Especially if the Progenitors have indeed returned.