"02 - Infinity's Shore" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brin David)

Infinity's Shore
David Brin

(Back of Jacket)
For the fugitive settlers of Jijo, it is truly the beginning of the end. As starships fill the skies, the threat of genocide hangs over the planet that once peacefully sheltered six bands of sapient beings. Now the human settlers of Jijo and their alien neighbors must take heroic--and terrifying--choices. A scientist must turn against the benefactors she's been trained to love. A heretic must rally believers for a cause he never shared. And four youngsters find that what started as a simple adventure--imitating exploits in Earthling books by Verne and Twain--leads them to the dark abyss of mystery. Meanwhile, the Streaker, with her fugitive dolphin crew, arrives at last on Jijo in a desperate search for refuge. Yet what the crew finds instead is a secret hidden since the galaxies first spawned intelligence--a secret that could mean salvation for the planet and its inhabitants. . . or their ultimate annihilation.



Streaker

[Five Jaduras Earlier]


Kaa

* What strange fate brought me,
* Fleeing maelstroms of winter,
* Past five galaxies? *
* Only to find refuge,
* On a forlorn planet (nude!)
* In laminar luxury! *

SO HE THOUGHT WHILE PERFORMING SWOOPING rolls, propelling his sleek gray body with exhilarated tail strokes, reveling in the caress of water against naked flesh.

Dappled sunlight threw luminous shafts through crystal shallows, slanting past mats of floating sea florets. Silvery native creatures, resembling flat-jawed fish, moved in and out of the bright zones, enticing his eye. Kaa squelched the instinctive urge to give chase.

Maybe later.

For now, he indulged in the liquid texture of water sliding around him, without the greasiness that used to cling so, back in the oily seas of Oakka, the green-green world, where soaplike bubbles would erupt from his blowhole each time he surfaced to breathe. Not that it was worth the effort to inhale on Oakka. There wasn't enough good air on that horrid ball to nourish a comatose otter.

This sea also tasted good, not harsh like Kithrup, where each excursion outside the ship would give you a toxic dose of hard metals.

In contrast, the water on Jijo world felt clean, with a salty tang reminding Kaa of the gulf stream flowing past the Florida Academy, during happier days on far-off Earth.

He tried to squint and pretend he was back home, chasing mullet near Key Biscayne, safe from a harsh universe. But the attempt at make-believe failed. One paramount difference reminded him this was an alien world.

Sound.

-a beating of tides rising up the continental shelf-a complex rhythm tugged by three moons, not one.
-an echo of waves, breaking on a shore whose abrasive sand had a strange, sharp texture.
-an occasional distant groaning that seemed to rise out of the ocean floor itself.
-the return vibrations of his own sonar clicks, tracing schools of fishlike creatures, moving their fins in unfamiliar ways.
-above all, the engine hum just behind him ... a cadence of machinery that had filled Kaa's days and nights for five long years.

And now, another clicking, groaning sound. The clipped poetry of duty.

* Relent, Kaa, tell us,
* In exploratory prose,
* Is it safe to come? *