Startide Rising

Startide Rising Read Free Page A

Book: Startide Rising Read Free
Author: David Brin
Tags: Fiction, Science-Fiction
Ads: Link
it.”
    Two hundred and fifty years after contact with Galactic civilization, mankind was still struggling to catch up. The Galactic species which had been using the aeons-old Library since before the first mammals appeared on Earth—adding to that universal compendium of knowledge with glacial slowness had seemed almost god-like to the primitive Earthmen in their early, lumbering slowships. Earth had a branch Library, now, supposedly giving her access to all of the wisdom accumulated over Galactic history. But only in recent years had it proven to be much more a help than a confusing hindrance.
    Streaker, with its complex arrangements of centrifugally held pools and weightless workshops, must have seemed incredibly archaic to the aliens who had looked it over just before launch. Still, to Earth’s neo-dolphin communities, she was an object of great pride.
    After her shakedown cruise, Streaker stopped at the small human-dolphin colony of Calafia to pick up a few of the best graduates of its tiny academy. It was to be Toshio’s first, and possibly last, visit to old Earth.
    “Old Earth” was still home to ninety percent of humanity, not to mention the other terrestrial sapient races. Galactic tourists still thronged in to gawk at the home of the enfants terribles who had caused such a stir in a few brief centuries. They were open in their wagering over how long Mankind would survive without the protection of a patron.
    All species had patrons, of course. Nobody reached spacefaring intelligence without the intervention of another spacefaring race. Had not men done this for chimps and dolphins? All the way back to the time of the Progenitors, the mythical first race, every species that spoke and flew spaceships had been raised up by a predecessor. No species still survived from that distant era, but the civilization the Progenitors established, with its all-encompassing Library, went on.
    Of the fate of the Progenitors themselves there were many legends and even violently contradicting religions.
    Toshio wondered, as just about everyone had for three hundred years, what the patrons of Man might have been like. If they ever existed. Might they even be one of the species of fanatics that had ambushed the unsuspecting Streaker, and even now sought her out like hounds after a fox?
    It wasn’t a pleasant line of thought, considering what the Streaker had discovered.
    The Terragens Council sent her out to join a scattered fleet of exploration vessels, checking the veracity of the Library. So far only a few minor gaps had been found in its thoroughness. Here a star misplaced. There a species miscatalogued. It was like finding that someone had written a list describing every grain of sand on a beach. You could never check the complete list in a thousand lifetimes of a race, but you could take a random sampling.
    Streaker had been poking through a small gravitational tide pool, fifty thousand parsecs off the galactic plane, when she found the Fleet.
    Toshio sighed at the unfairness of it. One hundred and fifty dolphins, seven humans, and a chimpanzee; how could we have known what we found?
    Why did we have to find it?
    Fifty thousand ships, each the size of a moon. That’s what they found. The dolphins had been thrilled by their discovery—the biggest Derelict Fleet ever encountered, apparently incredibly ancient. Captain Creideiki had psicast to Earth for instructions.
    Dammit! Why did he call Earth? Couldn’t the report have waited until we’d gone home? Why let the whole eavesdropping galaxy know you’d found a Sargasso of ancient hulks in the middle of nowhere?
    The Terragens Council had answered in code.
    “Go into hiding. Await orders. Do not reply.”
    Creideiki obeyed, of course. But not before half the patron-lines in the galaxy had sent out their warships to find Streaker.
     
    Toshio blinked.
    Something. A resonance echo at last? Yes, the magnetic ore detector showed a faint echo toward the south. He concentrated on

Similar Books

Ian Mackenzie Jeffers The Grey

Ian Mackenzie Jeffers

Lily's Cowboys

S. E. Smith

Falling for Autumn

Heather Topham Wood

A Case of Doubtful Death

Linda Stratmann

In the Court of the Yellow King

Tim Curran, Cody Goodfellow, Gary McMahon, C.J. Henderson, William Meikle, T.E. Grau, Laurel Halbany, Christine Morgan, Edward Morris

Better to rest

Dana Stabenow

The Scent of Jasmine

Jude Deveraux

Fade to Red

Willow Aster