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

starships, ending Jijo’s blessed/cursed isolation. What point in keeping secrets, if Judgment Day is at hand?
    Sara was exhausted and numb by the time morning pushed through an overcast sky. An expanse of undulating hills stretched ahead to a dark green marsh.
    The party dismounted at last by a shaded creek. Hands aimed her toward a blanket, where she collapsed with a shuddering sigh.
    Sleep came laced with images of people she had left behind.
    Nelo, her aged father, working in his beloved paper mill, unaware that some conspired its ruin.
    Melina, her mother, dead several years now, who always seemed an outsider since arriving in Dolo long ago, with a baby son in her arms.
    Frail Joshu, Sara’s lover in Biblos, whose touch made her forget even the overhanging Fist of Stone. A comely rogue whose death sent her spinning.
    Dwer and Lark, her brothers, setting out to attend festival in the high Rimmer glades … where starships were later seen descending.
    Sara’s mind roiled as she tossed and turned.
    Last of all, she pictured Blade, whose qheuen hive farmed crayfish behind Dolo Dam. Good old Blade, who saved Sara and Emerson from disaster at the Urunthai camp.
    â€œ
Seems I’m always late catching up
,” her qheuen friend whistled from three leg vents. “
But don’t worry, I’ll be along. Too much is happening to miss
.”
    Blade’s armor-clad dependability had been like a rock to Sara. In her dream, she answered.
    â€œ
I’ll stall the universe … keep it from doing anything interesting until you show up
.”
    Imagined or not, the blue qheuen’s calliope laughter warmed Sara, and her troubled slumber fell into gentler rhythms.
    The sun was half-high when someone shook Sara back to the world—one of the taciturn female riders, using the archaic word
brekkers
to announce the morning meal. Sara got up gingerly as waves of achy soreness coursed her body.
    She gulped down a bowl of grain porridge, spiced with unfamiliar traeki seasonings, while horsewomen saddled mounts or watched Emerson play his beloved dulcimer, filling the pocket valley with a sprightly melody, suited for travel. Despite her morning irritability, Sara knew the starman was just making the best of the situation. Bursts of song were a way to overcome his handicap of muteness.
    Sara found Kurt tying up his bedroll.
    â€œLook,” she told the elderly exploser, “I’m not ungrateful to your friends. I appreciate the rescue and all. But you can’t seriously hope to ride horses all the way to … 
Mount Guenn
.” Her tone made it sound like one of Jijo’s moons.
    Kurt’s stony face flickered a rare smile. “Any better suggestions? Sure, you planned taking the Stranger to the High Sages, but that way is blocked by angry Urunthai. And recall, we saw
two
starships last night, one after the other, headed straight for Festival Glade. The Sages must have their hands and tendrils full by now.”
    â€œHow could I forget?” she murmured. Those titans, growling as they crossed the sky, had seared their image in her mind.
    â€œYou
could
hole up in one of the villages we’ll pass soon, but won’t Emerson need a first-rate pharmacist when he runs out of Pzora’s medicine?”
    â€œIf we keep heading south we’ll reach the Gentt. From there a riverboat can take us to Ovoom Town.”
    â€œAssuming boats are running … and Ovoom still exists. Even so,
should
you hide your alien friend, with great events taking place? What if he has a role to play? Some way to help sages and Commons? Might you spoil his one chance of goin’ home?”
    Sara saw Kurt’s implication—that she was holding Emerson back, like a child refusing to release some healed forest creature into the wild.
    A swarm of sweetbec flies drifted close to the starman, hovering and throbbing to the tempo of his music, a strange melody. Where did he