Sundiver (Uplift Trilogy) by David Brin

Author:David Brin
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Random House, Inc.
Published: 2010-07-08T04:00:00+00:00

“Do you think they’ll notice we waited until they were through with the calving?” Jacob asked.

She shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe they thought we were just a timid form of adult torus. Perhaps they don’t even remember our earlier visits.”

“Or Jeff’s?”

“Or even Jeff’s. It wouldn’t do to assume too much. Oh, I believe Dr. Martine when she says her machines register a basic intelligence. But what does that mean? In an environment like this … even more simple than an ocean on earth, what reason would a race have to develop a functioning semantic skill? Or memory? Those threatening gestures we saw on previous dives don’t necessarily indicate a lot of brains.

“They might be like dolphins were before we started genetic experiments a few hundred years ago, lots of intelligence and no mental ambition at all. Hell, we should have brought in people like you, from the Center for Uplift, long ago!”

“You’re talking as if evolved intelligence is the only route,” he smiled. “Galactic opinion aside for the moment, shouldn’t you at least consider another possibility?”

“You mean that the Ghosts might have once been uplifted!?” deSilva looked shocked for a moment. Then the idea soaked in and she leaped on the implications, her eyes sharp. “But if that were the case, then there’d have to have been …”

She was interrupted by the pilot.

“Sir, they’re starting to move.”

The Ghosts fluttered in the hot, wispy gas. Blue and green highlights rippled along the surface of each as it hovered lazily, a hundred thousand kilometers above the photosphere. They retreated from the ship slowly, allowing the separation to diminish, until a faint corona of white could be seen surrounding every one.

Jacob felt Fagin come up beside him on his left.

“It would be sad,” the Kanten fluted softly, “if such beauty were found sullied by a crime. I could have great trouble sensing evil while struck in awe.”

Jacob nodded slowly.

“Angels are bright …” he began. But of course, Fagin knew the rest.

Angels are bright, though the brightest fell.

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