Brightness Reef by David Brin

Author:David Brin
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780307572721
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2011-03-22T18:30:00+00:00

Dawn spilled quickly downslope from the Rimmers. It was in clear violation of emergency orders for the gopher to continue, but nobody dared say it to the captain, who had a crazed look in his eye.

Probably comes from spending so much time around humans, Sara thought. The steamers had as many men and women on the crew—to tend the machines—as hoon sailors. Grawph-phu, the pilot and master, knew the river with sure instincts that arose out of his heritage. He also had picked up more than a few Earthling mannerisms, like wearing a knit cap over his furry pate and puffing a pipe that fumed like the steamer’s chimney. Peering through the dawn haze, the captain’s craggy features might have come from the flyleaf of some seafaring adventure tale, chosen off the shelves in the Biblos Library—like some piratical old-timer, exuding an air of confidence and close acquaintance with danger.

Grawph-phu turned his head, noticed Sara looking at him, and closed one eye in a sly wink.

Oh, spare me, she sighed, half expecting the hoon to spit over the side and say—“Arr, matie. ’Tis a fine day for sailin’. Full speed ahead!”

Instead, the gopher’s master pulled the pipe from his mouth and pointed.

“Biblos,” he commented, a low, hoonish growl accented by a salty twang. “Just beyond the curve after next. Hr-rm.… A day sooner ’n you expected to arrive.”

Sara looked ahead once more. I should be glad, she thought. Time is short.

At first she could make out little but Eternal Swamp on the left bank, stretching impassably all the way to the Roney, an immensity of quicksand that forced the long detour past Tarek Town. On the right began the vast Warril Plain, where several passengers had debarked earlier to arrange overland passage. Taking a fast caravan were Bloor, the portraitist, and a petite exploser carrying dispatches for her guild. Both were slight enough to ride donkeys all the way and with luck might reach the Glade in three days. Prity and Pzora also went ashore at Kandu Landing to hire carts in case the Stranger must be taken before the High Sages—to be decided during this trip to Biblos.

As the fog cleared, there now reared to the right a wall of stone, rising from the water line, getting taller with each passing dura. The cliff shimmered, almost glassy smooth, as though impervious to erosion or time. Arguments raged as to whether it was natural or a Buyur relic.

Against these mirror-like cliffs, Ulgor had said the citizens of Dolo Village might see flames from burning books. Two centuries ago, settlers had witnessed such a sight, horrible even from afar. A disaster never equaled since, not by the massacre at Tolon, or when Uk-rann ambushed Drake the Elder at Bloody Ford.

But we saw no flames.

Still, tension reigned until the steamer turned a final bend.…

Sara let out a tense sigh. The Archive … it stands.

She stared for some time, awash in emotion, then hurried aft to fetch the Stranger and Ariana Foo. Both of them would want to see this.

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