Heaven's Reach (82 page)

Plus another item.

Lark glanced at the most unique member of the Mother Consortium, encapsulated in a golden cocoon of
toporgic
frozen time. An archaic cadaver, possibly a billion years old, that had traveled with
Streaker
's luckless crew ever since their fateful visit to a place called the Shallow Cluster.

Herbie was its name.

The mummy's enigmatic smile seemed all-knowing. All-confident.

“Isn't this your most precious relic?” Lark had asked during those frenetic moments leading up to the supernova explosion, as the
Streaker
samples were stowed and
Polkjhy
's protective shell closed around it.

“Herb and I have been through a lot together,”
Gillian answered.
“But I figure it's more important that he ride with you folks. He may tell some distant civilization more about us than a whole Library full of records.”

The Earthling woman had looked tired, yet unbowed, as if she felt certain that her trials would soon end.

“Besides, even if
Streaker
somehow survives what's about to come, I figure old Herbie's not irreplaceable.

“I know where we can get lots more, just like him.”

That cryptic remark clung to Lark as he and his mate let their senses roam, watching a soft luminance sweep by—the loose threads and stitching that always lay hidden, behind the backdrop of life's great tragicomedy. For some reason, it seemed to imply a story still unfolding. One in which he kept playing a part, despite an end to all links of cause or communication.

Someone could be felt sliding alongside the two floating humans. A dolphin—long, sleek, and scarred from many travails—jostled their bodies slightly with backwash from its fins, slipping a strong mental presence near theirs, sharing their view of the austere scenery beyond
Polkjhy
's glimmering hull.

Soon, their new companion sang a lilting commentary.

Ling sighed appreciatively and Lark nodded. He turned to congratulate the cetacean for summing up matters so beautifully.

Only then he blinked, for his eyes were staring at an empty patch in Mother's rich, organic stew.

He could have sworn that a big gray shape had drifted right next to him, just moments before—glossy, warm, and close enough to touch! A dolphin he had not met, among the newcomers.

But no one was there.

It would be many years before he heard that voice again.

I feel it's a bad practice for a writer to get stuck in a particular “universe,” writing about the same characters or situations over and over again. To keep from getting stale, I try never to write two “universe” books in a row. But clearly, the Uplift Storm Trilogy (
Brightness Reef, Infinity's Shore
, and
Heaven's Reach
) is an exception. I never deliberately set out to “go the trilogy route,” but this work took off, gaining complexity and texture as I went. Life can be that way. If you drop one stone into a pond, the pattern of ripples may seem clear. But start tossing in more than a few at a time, and the patterns take off in ways you never imagined. A realistic story is much the same. Implications and ramifications spread in all directions.

Many people have asked questions about my Uplift series. This is certainly not the first time an author speculated about the possibility of genetically altering non-sapient animals. Examples include
The Island of Dr. Moreau, Planet of the Apes
, and the
Instrumentality
series of Cordwainer Smith. I grew up admiring these works, and many spin-offs. But I also noticed that nearly all these tales assume that human “masters” will always do the maximally stupid/evil thing. In other words, if we meddle with animals to raise their intelligence, it will be in order to enslave and abuse them.

Don't get me wrong! Those morality tales helped tweak our collective conscience toward empathy and tolerance. Yet, ironically, I feel it is now unlikely our civilization would behave in a deliberately vile way toward newly sapient creatures, because the morality tales did their job!

The Uplift series tries to take things to the next level.
Suppose we genetically enhance chimps, dolphins, and others, with the best of motives, offering them voices and citizenship in our diverse culture. Won't there still be problems? Interesting ones worth a story or two? In fact, I expect we'll travel that road someday.
Loneliness
ensures that someone will attempt Uplift, sooner or later. And once an ape talks, who will dare say “put him back the way he was”?

It's about time to start thinking about the dilemmas we'll face, even if we're wise.

As
Glory Season
let me explore a range of relationships that might emerge from self-cloning, the Uplift Universe gives me a chance to experiment with all sorts of notions about starfaring civilization. And since it is unapologetic space opera, those notions can be stacked together and piled high! For instance, since we're positing Faster Than Light Travel (FTLT) I went ahead and threw in
dozens
of ways to cheat Einstein. The more the merrier!

One problem in many science fictional universes is the assumption that things just
happen
to be ripe for adventure when
we
hit the space lanes. (For instance, the villains, while dangerous, are always just barely beatable, with some help from the plucky hero.) In fact, the normal state of any part of the universe, at any given moment, is equilibrium. Things are as they have been for a very long time. An equilibrium of law perhaps, or one of death. We may be the First Race, as I discuss in my story “Crystal Spheres.” Or we could be very late arrivals, as depicted in the Uplift books. But we're very unlikely to meet aliens as equals.

Another theme of this series is environmentalism. What we're doing to Earth makes me worry there may have already been “brushfire” ecological holocausts across the galaxy, set off by previous starfaring races who heedlessly used up life-bearing planets as their “Galactic Empire” burned out during its brief reign of a few ten thousand years. (Note how often science fiction tales ring with the shout, “Let's go fill the galaxy!” If this
already happened a few times, it might help explain the apparent emptiness out there, for the galaxy seems, at this moment, to have few, if any, other voices.)

A galaxy might “burn out” all too easily, unless something regulates how colonists treat their planets, forcing them to think about the long run, beyond short-term self-interest. The Uplift Universe shows one way this might occur. For all the nasty traits displayed by some of my Galactics—their past-fixation and prim fanaticism, for instance—they do give high priority to preserving planets, habitats, and potential sapient life. The result is a noisy, vibrant, bickering universe. One filled with more life than there might have been otherwise.

For the record, I don't think we live in a place like the wild, extravagant Uplift Universe. But it's a fun realm to play in, between more serious stuff.

Pile on those marvels!

Hang on. There's more to come.

I want to thank my insightful and outspoken prereaders, who scanned portions of this work in manuscript form—especially Stefan Jones, Steinn Sigurdsson, Ruben Krasnopolsky, Damien Sullivan, and Erich R. Schneider. Also helpful were Kevin Lenagh, Xavier Fan, Ray Reynolds, Ed Allen, Larry Fredrickson, Martyn Fogg, Doug McElwain, Joseph Trela, David and Joy Crisp, Carlo Gioja, Brad De Long, Lesley Mathieson, Sarah Milkovich, Gerrit Kirkwood, Anne Kelly, Anita Gould, Duncan Odom, Jim Panetta, Nancy Hayes, Robert Bolender, Kathleen Holland, Marcus Sarofim, Michael Tice, Pat Mannion, Greg Smith, Matthew Johnson, Kevin Conod, Paul Rothemund, Richard Mason, Will Smit, Grant Swenson, Roian Egnor, Jason M. Robertson, Micah Altman, Robert Hurt, Manoj Kasichainula, Andy Ashcroft, Scott Martin, and Jeffrey Slostad. Professors Joseph Miller and Gregory Benford made useful observations. Robert Qualkinbush collated the glossaries. The novel profited from insights and assistance from my agent, Ralph Vicinanza, along with Pat LoBrutto and Tom Dupree of Bantam Books.

Emerson's last song comes from the finale of Giuseppe Verdi's opera
Falstaff.

Some of the spectacles contained herein did not start in my own twisted imagination. The
Fractal World
, that tremendous structure made of huge fluffy spikes, presenting far more surface area (for windows) than any Dyson sphere, was described by Dr. David Criswell in a farseeing paper that can be found in
Interstellar Migration and the Human Experience
, edited by Ben Finney and Erik Jones (University of California Press).

As usual, this tale would have been a far poorer thing
without the wise and very human input of my wife, Dr. Cheryl Brigham.

And now … a lagniappe!

I did it once before, following the afterword to
Earth.
A little denouement—a story-after-the-story—for those of you who hung around all the way through my final remarks. It visits one of our characters a year or so after the Great Rupture, and attempts to tie off just a few (of many) loose ends.

Enjoy.

Civilization

T
HE SEAS OF HURMUPHTA ARE SALTIER THAN
Jijo's.

The winds don't blow steady, but in strangely rhythmic bursts, making it awkward and dangerous to sail a close tack.

That is, till you figure out the proper cadence. After that, you get a feel for the rolling tempo, sensing each gusty surge and tapering wane. With a light hand on the tiller, you can really crowd the breeze, filling the mains till you've heeled over with spars brushing the wave-tops!

The first time I did that with Dor-hinuf aboard, she hollered as if Death itself had come up from the deep, to personally roar a Chant of Claiming. By the time we got back to the new dock, soaked from head to toe, she was trembling so hard I figured I must have really gone too far.

Boy was I wrong! The moment we stepped through the door of our little seaside khuta, she grabbed me and we made love for three miduras straight! My spines hurt for several days after.

(Soon I realized, civilized hoons seldom experience the stimulated drives that come from exhilaration! Back on Jijo, that was part of daily life, and served to balance a hoon's instinctive caution. But our starfaring relatives have such sedate lives, except for once-a-year estrus, they hardly ever think of sex! Fortunately, Dor-hinuf has
taken to this new approach, the way an urs takes to lava.)

Alas, we seem to have less time for romantic trips together. Business is picking up, as word keeps spreading across the high plateau—where hoonish settlements huddled for a thousand years, confined to prim, orderly city streets, far from any sight of surf or tide. After all that time, I guess there's a lot of pent-up frustration. Or maybe it has something to do with the way the Five Galaxies have been shaken up lately. Anyway, lots of people—especially the younger generation—seem willing to consider something new for a change. Something our Guthatsa patrons never taught us.