Infinity's Shore by David Brin Read Free Book Online Page A

Jomah. Prity and me. The Stranger and Dedinger.
    No matter. The stern riders seemed indifferent about doubling up, two to a saddle.
    Is that why they’re all female? To keep the weight down?
    While deft astride their great mounts, the women seemed uneasy with the hilly terrain of gullies and rocky spires. Sara gathered they disliked rushing about strange trails at night. She could hardly blame them.
    Not one had a familiar face. That might have surprised Sara a month ago, given Jijo’s small human population. The Slope must be bigger than she thought.
    Dwer would tell stories about his travels, scouting for the sages. He claimed he’d been everywhere within a thousand leagues.
    Her brother never mentioned horse-riding amazons.
    Sara briefly wondered if they came from off-Jijo, since this seemed the year for spaceships. But no. Despite some odd slang, their terse speech was related to Jijoan dialects she knew from her research. And while the riders seemed unfamiliar with this region, they knew to lean away from a migurv tree when the trail passed near its sticky fronds. The Stranger, though warned with gestures not to touch its seed pods, reached for one curiously and learned the hard way.
    She glanced at Kurt. The exploser’s gaunt face showed satisfaction with each league they sped southward. The existence of horses was no surprise to him.
    We’re told our society is open. But clearly there are secrets known to a few.
    Not
all
explosers shared it. Kurt’s nephew chattered happy amazement while exchanging broad grins with the Stranger …
    Sara corrected herself.
    With
Emerson.
…
    She peered at the dark man who came plummeting from the sky months ago, dousing his burns in a dismal swamp near Dolo Village. No longer the near corpse she had nursed in her tree house, the star voyager was proving a resourceful adventurer. Though still largely mute, he had passed a milestone a few miduras ago when he began thumping his chest, repeating that word—
Emerson
—over and over, beaming pride over a feat that undamaged folk took for granted. Uttering one’s own name.
    Emerson seemed at home on his mount. Did that mean horses were still used among the god worlds of the Five Galaxies? If so, what purpose might they serve, where miraculous machines did your bidding at a nod and wink?
    Sara checked on her chimp assistant, in case the jouncing ride reopened Prity’s bullet wound. Riding with both arms clenched round the waist of a horsewoman, Prity kept her eyes closed the whole time, no doubt immersed in her beloved universe of abstract shapes and forms—a better world than this one of sorrow and messy non-linearity.
    That left
Dedinger
, the rebel leader, riding along with both hands tied. Sara wasted no pity on the scholar-turned-prophet. After years preaching militant orthodoxy, urging his desert followers toward the Path of Redemption, the ex-sage clearly knew patience. Dedinger’s hawklike face bore an expression Sara found unnerving.
    Serene calculation.
    The tooth-jarring pace swelled when the hilly track met open ground. Soon Ulashtu’s detachment of urrish warriors fell behind, unable to keep up.
    No wonder some urs clans resented horses, when humans first settled Jijo. The beasts gave us mobility, the trait most loved by urrish captains.
    Two centuries ago, after trouncing the human newcomers in battle, the original Urunthai faction claimed Earthlings’ beloved mounts as war booty, and slaughtered every one.
    They figured we’d be no more trouble, left to walk and fight on foot.
A mistake that proved fatal when Drake the Elder forged a coalition to hunt the Urunthai, and drowned the cult’s leadership at Soggy Hoof Falls.
    Only, it seems horses weren’t extinct, after all. How could a clan of horse-riding folk remain hidden all this time?
    And as puzzling—
Why emerge now, risking exposure by rushing to meet Kurt?
    It must be the crisis of the