Far Horizons

by Robert Silverberg

  Seething, Benedetto cleared the screen and began to write. A full account of how he became suspicious of this Andrew Wiggin and tried to find his true identity. How he found out Wiggin was the original Ender the Xenocide, but then his computer was ransacked and the files disappeared. Even though the more dignified newsnets would no doubt refuse to publish the story, the tablets would jump at it. This war criminal shouldn’t be able to get away with using money and military connections to allow him to pass for a decent human being.

  He finished his story. He saved the document. Then he began looking up and entering the addresses of every major tablet, onplanet and off.

  He was startled when all the text disappeared from the display and a woman’s face appeared in its place.

  “You have two choices,” said the woman. “You can delete every copy of the document you just created and never send it to anyone.”

  “Who are you?” demanded Benedetto.

  “Think of me as an investment counselor,” she replied. “I’m giving you good advice on how to prepare for the future. Don’t you want to hear your second choice?”

  “I don’t want to hear anything from you.”

  “You leave so much out of your story,” said the woman. “I think it would be far more interesting with all the pertinent data.”

  “So do I,” said Benedetto. “But Mr. Xenocide has cut it all off.”

  “No he didn’t,” said the woman. “His friends did.”

  “No one should be above the law,” said Benedetto, “just because he has money. Or connections.”

  “Either say nothing,” said the woman, “or tell the whole truth. Those are your choices.”

  In reply, Benedetto typed in the submit command that launched his story to all the tablets he had already typed in. He could add the other addresses when he got this intruder software off his system.

  “A brave but foolish choice,” said the woman. Then her head disappeared from his display.

  The tablets received his story, all right, but now it included a fully documented confession of all the skimming and strong-arming he had done during his career as a tax collector. He was arrested within the hour.

  The story of Andrew Wiggin was never published—the tablets and the police recognized it for what it was, a blackmail attempt gone bad. They brought Mr. Wiggin in for questioning, but it was just a formality. They didn’t even mention Benedetto’s wild and unbelievable accusations. They had Benedetto dead to rights, and Wiggin was merely the last potential victim. The blackmailer had simply made the mistake of inadvertently including his own secret files with his blackmail file. Clumsiness had led to more than one arrest in the past. The police were never surprised at the stupidity of criminals.

  Thanks to the tablet coverage, Benedetto’s victims now knew what he had done to them. He had not been very discriminating about whom he stole from, and some of his victims had the power to reach into the prison system. Benedetto was the only one who ever knew whether it was a guard or another prisoner who cut his throat and jammed his head into the toilet so that it was a toss-up as to whether the drowning or the blood loss actually killed him.

  Andrew Wiggin felt sick at heart over the death of this tax collector. But Valentine assured him that it was nothing but coincidence that the man was arrested and died so soon after trying to blackmail him. “You can’t blame yourself for everything that happens to people around you,” she said. “Not everything is your fault.”

  Not his fault, no. But Andrew still felt some kind of responsibility to the man, for he was sure that Jane’s ability to resecure his files and hide his voyage information was somehow connected with what happened to the tax man. Of course Andrew had the right to protect himself from blackmail, but death was too heavy a penalty for what Benedetto had done. Taking property was never sufficient cause for the taking of life.

  So he went to Benedetto’s family and asked if he might do something for them. Since all Benedetto’s money had been seized for restitution, they were destitute; Andrew provided them with a comfortable annuity. Jane assured him that he could afford it without even noticing.

  And one other thing. He asked if he might speak at the funeral. And not just speak, but do a speaking. He admitted he was new at it, but he would try to bring truth to Benedetto’s story and help them make sense of what he did.

  They agreed.

  Jane helped him discover a record of Benedetto’s financial dealings, and then proved to be valuable in much more difficult searches—into Benedetto’s childhood, the family he grew up with, how he developed his pathological hunger to provide for the people he loved and his utter amorality about taking what belonged to others. When Andrew did the speaking, he held back nothing and excused nothing. But it was of some comfort to the family that Benedetto, for all the shame and loss he had brought to them, despite the fact that he had caused his own separation from the family, first through prison and then through death, had loved them and tried to care for them. And, perhaps more important, when the speaking was done, the life of a man like Benedetto was not incomprehensible any more. The world made sense.

  Ten weeks after their arrival, Andrew and Valentine left Sorelledolce. Valentine was ready to write her book on crime in a criminal society, and Andrew was happy to go along with her to her next project. On the customs form, where it asked for occupation, instead of typing “student” or “investor,” Andrew typed in “speaker for the dead.” The computer accepted it. He had a career now, one that he had inadvertently created for himself years ago.

  And he did not have to follow the career that his wealth had almost forced on him. Jane would take care of all that for him. He still felt a little uneasy about this software. He felt sure that somewhere down the line, he would find out the true cost of all this convenience. In the meantime, though, it was very helpful to have such an excellent, efficient all-around assistant. Valentine was a little jealous, and asked him where she might find such a program. Jane’s reply was that she’d be glad to help Valentine with any research or financial assistance she needed, but she would remain Andrew’s software, personalized for his needs.

  Valentine was a little annoyed by this. Wasn’t it taking personalization a bit too far? But after a bit of grumbling, she laughed the whole thing off. “I can’t promise I won’t get jealous, though,” said Valentine. “Am I about to lose a brother to a piece of software?”

  “Jane is nothing but a computer program,” said Andrew. “A very good one. But she does only what I tell her, like any other program. If I start developing some kind of personal relationship with her, you have my permission to lock me up.”

  So Andrew and Valentine left Sorelledolce, and the two of them continued to journey world to world, exactly as they had done before. Nothing was any different, except that Andrew no longer had to worry about his taxes, and he took considerable interest in the obituary columns when he reached a new planet.

  THE UPLIFT UNIVERSE

  David Brin

  Sundiver (1980)

  Startide Rising (1983)

  The Uplift War (1987)

  Brightness Reef (1995)

  Infinity’s Shore (1996)

  Heaven’s Reach (1998)

  Some people say you can’t have everything. For instance, if a story offers action, it must lack philosophy. If it involves science, character must suffer. This has especially been said about one of the core types of science fiction, the genre sometimes called space opera. Is it possible to depict grand adventures and heroic struggles cascading across lavish future settings—complete with exploding planets and vivid special effects—while still coming up with something worth calling a novel?

  I’m one of those who believe it’s worth a try—and have attempted it in the Uplift novels, which are set several hundred years into a dangerous future, in a cosmos that poor humans barely comprehend.

  I begin with the plausible notion that people may start genetically altering dolphins and chimpanzees, giving those bright animals
the final boost they need to become our peers and partners. In my debut work, Sundiver, I depicted all three of Earth’s sapient races discovering that an ancient and powerful interstellar civilization has been doing the same thing for a very long time. Following an ancient prescription, each starfaring clan in the Civilization of Five Galaxies looks for promising newcomers to “uplift.” In return for this favor, the new client species owes its patrons an interval of service, then starts looking for someone else to receive the gift of intelligence.

  This benign pattern conceals a series of ominous secrets which get peeled away in subsequent stories. Startide Rising and The Uplift War—both winners of the Hugo Award for best novel—depict shock waves rocking Galactic society when a humble earthship, Streaker, staffed by a hundred neo-dolphins and a few humans—uncovers clues to a billion-year-old conspiracy.

  My goal has been to stock the series with elements that science-fiction lovers enjoy—for instance, there’s not just one way to surpass the Einsteinian limitation on faster-than-light travel, but half a dozen. I use five galaxies as the stage for the series, with more waiting in the wings. The cast of characters—dolphins, chimps, and aliens—has been chosen to offer a wide range of sympathetic moments and, I hope, memorable ideas.

  After a hiatus of several years while I worked on other projects, I returned to this broad canvas with the new Uplift Storm trilogy, consisting of three connected novels, Brightness Reef, Infinity’s Shore, and Heaven’s Reach. These works continue exploring the adventures and trials of the Streaker crew, but also delve into a unique, multiracial society on Jijo, a world in isolated Galaxy Four that was declared “fallow,” or off-limits to sapient beings in order to let its biosphere recover. Despite this well-intended law, a series of sneakships have come to the forbidden world, bringing illegal colonists from half a dozen races, each with desperate reasons to flee growing danger back home. After initial struggles and misunderstandings, the Six Races of Jijo—including exiled humans—made peace, joining to create a decent shared culture, sharing their beloved world while hiding from the cosmos…until one day all their troubles came crashing from the sky.

  A Time of Changes has commenced, rocking the complacent Civilization of Five Galaxies. Nobody is safe, and nothing is certain anymore. Not history, law, biology, or even trusty physics.

  Something is happening to the universe, and all bets about our destiny are off.

  In this new story, “Temptation,” I peel back yet another layer in the unfolding saga, and show a small group of fugitive dolphins learning how perilous it can be to be offered exactly what you always wished for.

  —David Brin

  TEMPTATION

  by David Brin

  MAKANEE

  Jijo’s ocean stroked her flank like a mother’s nuzzling touch, or a lover’s caress. Though it seemed a bit disloyal, Makanee felt this alien ocean had a silkier texture and finer taste than the waters of Earth, the homeworld she had not seen in years.

  With gentle beats of their powerful flukes, she and her companion kept easy pace beside a tremendous throng of fishlike creatures—red-finned, with violet gills and long translucent tails that glittered in the slanted sunlight like plasma sparks behind a starship. The school seemed to stretch forever, grazing on drifting clouds of plankton, moving in unison through coastal shallows like the undulating body of a vast complacent serpent.

  The creatures were beautiful…and delicious. Makanee performed an agile twist of her sleek gray body, lunging to snatch one from the teeming mass, provoking only a slight ripple from its nearest neighbors. Her casual style of predation must be new to Jijo, for the beasts seemed quite oblivious to the dolphins. The rubbery flesh tasted like exotic mackerel.

  “I can’t help feeling guilty,” she commented in Underwater Anglic, a language of clicks and squeals that was well-suited to a liquid realm where sound ruled over light.

  Her companion rolled alongside the school, belly up, with ventral fins waving languidly as he grabbed one of the local fish for himself.

  “Why guilty?” Brookida asked, while the victim writhed between his narrow jaws. Its soft struggle did not interfere with his train of word-glyphs, since a dolphin’s mouth plays no role in generating sound. Instead a rapid series of ratcheting sonar impulses emanated from his brow. “Are you ashamed because you live? Because it feels good to be outside again, with a warm sea rubbing your skin and the crash of waves singing in your dreams? Do you miss the stale water and moldy air aboard ship? Or the dead echoes of your cramped stateroom?”

  “Don’t be absurd,” she snapped back. After three years confined aboard the Terran survey vessel, Streaker, Makanee had felt as cramped as an overdue fetus, straining at the womb. Release from that purgatory was like being born anew.

  “It’s just that we’re enjoying a tropical paradise while our crewmates—”

  “—must continue tearing across the cosmos in foul discomfort, chased by vile enemies, facing death at every turn. Yes, I know.”

  Brookida let out an expressive sigh. The elderly geophysicist switched languages, to one more suited for poignant irony.

  * Winter’s tempest spends

  * All its force against the reef,

  * Sparing the lagoon.*

  The Trinary haiku was expressive and wry. At the same time though, Makanee could not help making a physician’s diagnosis. She found her old friend’s sonic patterns rife with undertones of Primal—the natural cetacean demi-language used by wild Tursiops truncatus dolphins back on Earth—a dialect that members of the modern amicus breed were supposed to avoid, lest their minds succumb to tempting ancient ways. Mental styles that lured with rhythms of animal-like purity.

  She found it worrisome to hear Primal from Brookida, one of her few companions with an intact psyche. Most of the other dolphins on Jijo suffered to some degree from stress-atavism. Having lost the cognitive focus needed by engineers and starfarers, they could no longer help Streaker in its desperate flight across five galaxies. Planting this small colony on Jijo had seemed a logical solution, leaving the regressed ones for Makanee to care for in this gentle place, while their shipmates sped on to new crises elsewhere.

  She could hear them now, browsing along the same fishy swarm just a hundred meters off. Thirty neo-dolphins who had once graduated from prestigious universities. Specialists chosen for an elite expedition—now reduced to splashing and squalling, with little on their minds but food, sex, and music. Their primitive calls no longer embarrassed Makanee. After everything her colleagues had gone through since departing Terra—on a routine one-year survey voyage that instead stretched into a hellish three—it was surprising they had any sanity left at all.

  Such suffering would wear down a human, or even a tymbrimi. But our race is just a few centuries old. Neo-dolphins have barely started the long Road of Uplift. Our grip on sapience is still slippery.

  And now another trail beckons us.

  After debarking with her patients, Makanee had learned about the local religion of the Six Races who already secretly settled this isolated world, a creed centered on the Path of Redemption—a belief that salvation could be found in blissful ignorance and nonsapience.

  It was harder than it sounded. Among the “sooner” races who had come to this world illegally, seeking refuge in simplicity, only one had succeeded so far, and Makanee doubted that the human settlers would ever reclaim true animal innocence, no matter how hard they tried. Unlike species who were uplifted, humans had earned their intelligence the hard way on Old Earth, seizing each new talent or insight at frightful cost over the course of a thousand harsh millennia. They might become ignorant and primitive—but never simple. Never innocent.

  We neo-dolphins will find it easy, however. We’ve only been tool-users for such a short time—a boon from our human patrons that we never sought. It’s simple to give up something you received without struggle. Especially when the alternative—the Whale Dream—calls seductively, each time you sleep.

  An all
uring sanctuary. The sweet trap of timelessness.

  From clackety sonar emanations, she sensed her assistants—a pair of fully conscious volunteers—keeping herd on the reverted ones, making sure the group stayed together. Things seemed pleasant here, but no one knew for sure what dangers lurked in Jijo’s wide sea.

  We already have three wanderers out there somewhere. Poor little Peepoe and her two wretched kidnappers. I promised Kaa we’d send out search parties to rescue her. But how? Zhaki and Mopol have a huge head start, and half a planet to hide in.

  Tkett’s out there looking for her right now, and we’ll start expanding the search as soon as the patients are settled and safe. But they could be on the other side of Jijo by now. Our only real hope is for Peepoe to escape that pair of dolts somehow and get close enough to call for help.

  It was time for Makanee and Brookida to head back and take their own turn shepherding the happy-innocent patients. Yet, she felt reluctant. Nervous.

  Something in the water rolled through her mouth with a faint metallic tang, tasting like expectancy.

  Makanee swung her sound-sensitive jaw around, seeking clues. At last she found a distant tremor. A faintly familiar resonance, coming from the west.

  Brookida hadn’t noticed yet.

  “Well,” he commented, “it won’t be long till we are truly part of this world, I suppose. A few generations from now, none of our descendants will be using Anglic, or any Galactic language. We’ll be guileless innocents once more, ripe for readoption and a second chance at uplift. I wonder what our new patrons will be like.”

  Makanee’s friend was goading her gently with the bittersweet destiny anticipated for this colony, on a world that seemed made for cetaceans. A world whose comfort was the surest way to clinch a rapid devolution of their disciplined minds. Without constant challenges, the Whale Dream would surely reclaim them. Brookida seemed to accept the notion with an ease that disturbed Makanee.