by David Brin
Jijo is theirs, to care for and defend as best they can.
I have faith they’ll come out all right. With a little help from Ifni’s dice.
Speaking of strange colonists, I’m now being nagged by a little otterlike creature who wants yet another favor.
Ever since admitting he could talk, Mudfoot has been a real chatterbox, constantly demanding to know if Tymbrimi ships have come to Hurmuphta Port, or if any vessels are bound for the war front in Galaxy Two. Mudfoot’s impatience is characteristic. Though he calls himself a tytlal, he’ll always be a noor to me. I prove it by puffing my throat sac and humming a favorite umble. He joins my pet Huphu on my shoulder, and soon they’re wrapped up together, dumb to the outside world.
“He will never leave,” Dor-hinuf predicts. Indeed, Mudfoot seems to enjoy his daytime job on the yacht, scrambling among the sails and spars, chewing sourballs and muttering caustic remarks about the landlubber passengers.
Yet, I’m not so sure. A flame burns inside the small creature, like a human with a cause, or an urs with a gadget she wants to try. Mudfoot will never rest till he’s taken care of unfinished business.
Knowing what I do about tytlal, it probably has to do with a joke. Something long range and desperately funny … unless you happen to be on the receiving end, that is.
Someday, I figure we’ll wake up and find him gone — with all our lanyards tied in knots as his way of saying a fond good-bye.
Mudfoot is reading over my shoulder as I write this, panting and grinning enigmatically, enjoying my speculations without offering a clue.
Enough. Come on, you little rascal. There are customers waiting. The breeze is fine, and companies of clouds march in neat rows past a silver horizon.
Let’s go give some stuffy old hoons the thrill of their lives.
Glossary of Species and Terms
Cast of Sapient Species
g’Keks — the first sooner race to arrive on Jijo, some two thousand years ago. Originally uplifted by the Drooli, the g’Kek have biomagnetically driven wheels and four eyestalks rising from a combined torso-braincase. Due to vendettas by enemies, the g’Kek are extinct throughout the Five Galaxies, except on Jijo.
glavers — the third sooner race to reach Jijo. Uplifted by the Tunuctyur, who were themselves uplifted by the Buyur. Glavers are partly bipedal with opalescent skin and large, bulging eyes. Roughly a meter tall, they have a prehensile forked tail to assist their inefficient hands. Since illegally settling Jijo they devolved to a state of presapience, dropping out of the Commons of Six Races. To some, glavers seem to be shining examples, having shown the way down the Path of Redemption.
hoons — the fifth wave of settlers to arrive on Jijo, bipedal omnivores, with pale scaly skin and woolly white leg fur. Their spines are massive, hollow structures that form part of their circulatory system. Hoons’ inflatable throat sacs, originally for mating displays, are now used for “umbling.” Since their Uplift by the Guthatsa, this race have found widespread service as dour, officious bureaucrats in Galactic culture.
humans — the youngest sooner race arrived on Jijo less than three hundred years ago. Human “wolflings” evolved on Earth, apparently achieving technological civilization and crude interstellar travel on their own, or else assisted by some unknown patron. Passionate debates rage over this issue.
Jophur — semicommunal organisms resembling cones of stacked donuts. Like their traeki cousins, Jophur consist of interchangeable spongy “sap-rings,” each with limited intelligence, but combining to form a sapient community being. Specialized rings give the stack its senses, manipulative organs, and sometimes exotic chemosynthetic abilities. As traeki, this unique species was originally gentle and unaspiring when first uplifted by the Poa. The zealous Oalie later reinvented them by providing “master rings,” transforming the traeki into Jophur, willful and profoundly ambitious beings.
qheuens — the fourth sooner race on Jijo. Originally uplifted by the Zhosh, qheuens are radially symmetric exoskeletal beings with five legs and claws. Their brain is partly contained in a retractable central dome or “cupola.” A rebel band of qheuens settled Jijo attempting to hold on to their ancient caste system, with the gray variety providing royal matriarchs while red and blue types were servants and artisans. Conditions on Jijo — including later human intervention — provoked the breakdown of this system.
Rothen — a mysterious Galactic race. One human group (the dakkins or Daniks) believe the Rothen to be Earth’s lost patrons. Rothen are bipeds, somewhat larger than humans but with similar proportions and charismatic features. Believed to be carnivores.
traeki — second illicit settler race to arrive on Jijo. Traeki are a throwback variant of Jophur, who fled the imposition of master rings.
urs — the sixth sooner race on Jijo. Carnivorous, centauroid plains dwellers; they have long, flexible necks, narrow heads, and shoulderless arms ending in dexterous hands. Urs start life as tiny, six-limbed grubs, turned out of their mothers’ pouches to fend for themselves. Any that survive to “childhood” may be accepted into an urrish band. Urrish females reach the size of a large deer, and possess twin brood pouches where they keep diminutive mates, who are smaller than a house cat. A female with prelarval young ejects one or both husbands to make room for the brood. Urs have an aversion to water in its pure form.
Glossary of Terms
allaphor — the metaphorical interpretation made by sentient minds of certain features in E-Level hyperspace.
Anglic — a human language created in the Twenty-First century, using many English words, but influenced by other pre-Contact tongues and modified according to new understandings of linguistic theory.
Buyur — former legal tenants of Jijo, froglike appearance, known for wit, foresight, and gene-crafting of specialized animal-tools. Departed when Jijo was declared fallow half a million years ago.
client — a race still working out a period of servitude to the patrons that uplifted it from presapient animal status.
criswell structures — fractal shells designed to surround small red suns, utilizing all light energy. The fractal shape allows maximum possible “window area,” unlike a simple Dyson sphere.
Daniks — a vulgarized term for “Danikenite,” a cultural movement dating from humanity’s first contact with Galactic Civilization. Daniks believe Earthlings were uplifted by a Galactic patron race that chose to remain hidden for unknown reasons. An offshoot cult believes Rothen are this race of wise, enigmatic guides.
dura — approximately one-third of a minute.
E-Level hyperspace — a dangerous hyperspatial region in which the distinctions between consciousness and reality become blurred. Self-consistent concepts may exist without a host brain or computer to contain or contemplate them. See allaphor.
Earthclan — a small, eccentric Galactic “family” of sapient races consisting of neo-chimpanzee and neodolphin clients, along with their human patrons.
Egg — see Holy Egg.
Embrace of Tides — a quasi addiction that causes elder races to seek the sensation of gravitational tides, close to very dense stars.
er — genderless pronoun, sometimes used when referring to a traeki.
fen — plural of “fin,” Anglic shorthand for a neodolphin.
Fractal World — a place of retirement for races that have nearly transcended the Civilization of the Five Galaxies. (See criswell structures.)
Galactic — a person, race, concept, or technology deriving from the aeons-old Civilization of the Five Galaxies.
Galactic Institutes — vast, powerful academies, purportedly neutral and above interclan politics. The Institutes regulate various aspects of Galactic Civilization. Some are over a billion years old.
Galactic Library — a fantastically capacious collection of knowledge gathered over the course of hundreds of millions of years. Quasi-sapient “Branch Libraries” are found in most Galactic starships and settlements.
Gronin Collapse — historical name
given to the last time in Galactic history when the expansion of the universe caused transfer points between galaxies to “pull apart,” thus fragmenting Galactic society.
Holy Egg — a mysterious mass of psi-active stone that emerged from a Jijoan volcano a century ago, accompanied by widespread visions.
humicker — slang term for someone who mimics humans, because Earthling texts dominated literate life on Jijo after the Great Printing.
Ifni — a vulgarization of “Infinity.” In spacer tradition, a name given to the goddess of luck. Personification of chance or Murphy’s Law.
Izmunuti — a red giant star close to Jijo’s sun; spews a carbon wind masking Jijo from supervision by the Institute for Migration.
jadura — approximately forty-three hours.
Jijo — a planet in Galaxy Four. Home of seven sooner races: humans, hoons, qheuen, urs, g’Kek, the devolved glavers, and “demodified” Jophur known as traeki.
Kazzkark — a space station operated by the several major Galactic Institutes, including the Institute of Navigation.
kidura — approximately one-half second.
Kiqui — an amphibious presapient race native to Kithrup.
Kithrup — a water world rich in heavy metals.
Midden — a vast undersea crevasse, or subduction zone, formed by plate tectonics, running alongside the Slope on Jijo. All dross generated by the inhabitant races — from skeletal remains to the hulls of sooner spacecraft — is dumped into the Midden, where natural forces will carry it below Jijo’s crust for melting.
midura — a unit of time, approximately seventy-one minutes.
Morgran — a transfer point where Streaker was first attacked by warships of the most fanatic religious clans.
neo-chimpanzee — humanity’s first clients. Fully uplifted neo-chimps can speak; the “unfinished” variety that accompanied humans to Jijo are mute, but able to communicate with sign language.
neodolphin — uplifted dolphins; clients of humanity.
noor — a Jijoan term for tytlal, a Galactic species uplifted by the Tymbrimi, and living on Jijo in secret sapient form. To Jijoans, noor are bright, dexterous, mischievous otterlike creatures. Noor cannot be tamed, but the patient, good-natured hoon are able to employ some on their ships. Noor are considered pests by other sooner races.
NuDawn Colony — a world colonized by the Terragens before contact was made with Galactic Civilization, in unknowing violation of migration laws. The inhabitants were forcibly and violently evicted by hoonish bureaucrats, supported by Jophur and other vigilantes.
Oakka — a regional headquarters of the Institute of Migration.
Orders of Life — seven types of sentient life are known among the Five Galaxies:
oxygen breathers — members of Galactic culture, including humans.
hydrogen breathers — utilize “reducing” atmospheres, having slower metabolisms. Most inhabit giant gas planets, drifting among the clouds, performing internal simulations of the world.
Retired Order — former patron races that have reached senescence and “retired” from Galactic affairs.
machine — self-replicating sentient machines. Generally confine themselves to high-radiation areas or zones of deep space unwanted by either hydrogen or oxygen civilizations, though a few types are tolerated for their usefulness.
Transcendent — races that have “passed on” to a higher plane. Galactics are riven by many beliefs about this stage of life. The first to transcend (it is assumed) were the Progenitors.
memetic — bizarre “thought” organisms residing primarily in E-Level hyperspace.
Quantum — organisms discovered only during the last 100 million years, existing between the interstices of the universe, making scant contact with Galactic society. Their way of life seems to depend on macroquantum uncertainty.
There is widespread disagreement over whether the number of life orders should equal eight. Even more are suspected. Contact between life orders is dangerous, and widely discouraged.
patron — a Galactic race that has uplifted at least one animal species to full sapience.
pidura — six to the seventh power duras, or approximately four days.
Polkjhy — the name of the Jophur battleship that landed on Jijo in search of the fugitive Earthship Streaker.
Primal Delphin — semilanguage used by natural, nonuplifted dolphins on Earth.
Progenitors — the legendary first spacefaring race, who began the cycle of Uplift two billion years ago, establishing Galactic society.
rewq — quasifungal symbionts that help the Six Races “read” each other’s emotions and body language.
sooners — outlaws who colonize worlds designated fallow by the Galactic Institute of Migration. On Jijo, the term means those who try to make new illegal settlements, beyond the confines of the Slope.
Streaker — a dolphin-crewed Terran starship. The Streaker’s discoveries led to unprecedented pursuit by dozens of Galactic factions, each seeking advantage by possessing the dolphins’ secrets.
stress atavism — a condition found among newly uplifted species, which tend to lose their higher cognitive functions under stress.
Terragens Council — the ruling body of humanity’s interstellar government, in charge of matters directly affecting relations between Earthclan and Galactic society.
Toporgic — pseudomaterial substrate made of organically folded time.
transfer point — an area of twisted spacetime that allows faster-than-light travel for vessels entering at a precise angle and velocity.
Tymbrimi — a humanoid species allied with Earthclan, known for cleverness and devilish humor.
tytlal — see noor.
Uplift — process of turning a presapient animal species into a fully sapient race ready to join Galactic society. Performed by “patron.”
wolfling — a derogatory Galactic term for a race that appears to have uplifted itself to spacefaring status without help, or else to have been abandoned by its patron.
ylem — the underlying fabric of reality itself.
Zang — a phylum of hydrogen breathers consisting of single cells, sometimes organized to resemble huge squids. They live in the atmospheres of gas giants. Jijo’s entire region (Galaxy Four) has been leased to hydrogen breathers by the Institute of Migration.
FB2 document info
Document ID: 4edbeb05-583f-40c0-843c-2a7059712263
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