Sundiver (The Uplift Saga, #1)

by David Brin

Uncle Jeremey was telling about how the old Bureaucracy had decreed that everyone alive would be tested for “violent tendencies” and that all who failed would from then on be under constant surveillance—Probation.

In spite of the restlessness he had felt recently, he was reluctant to admit that it was time to leave the Center for Uplift. The work with dolphins and chimps was fascinating, and far more equable (after the first tumultuous weeks during the Water-Sphinx affair) than his old profession as a scientific-crime investigator had been.

The issue: how did Homo-Sapiens originate as a thinking being?

“Jacob Alvarez Demwa, a-Human, ul-Dolphin-ul-Chimp, we welcome you. It pleases this poor being to sense you today, once again.” Fagin spoke clearly, but with an uncontrolled singsong quality which made his accent sound like mixed Swedish and Cantonese. The Kanten did much better speaking dolphin or trinary.

“Fagin, a-Kanten, ab-Linten-ab-Siqul-ul-Nish, Mihorki Keephu. It pleases me to see you once again.” Jacob bowed.

Patronymics and multiple client names would tell a great deal about the status of each.

“I will now formally introduce you to Bubbacub, a-Pil, ab-Kisa-ab-Soro-ab-Hul-ab-Puber-ul-Gello-ul-Pring, of the Library Institute.”

To be derived from such a chain meant status in a diffuse galactic culture whose every spacefaring species (with the possible lone exception of humanity) was brought up out of semi-intelligent savagery by some previous, space-traveling race.

The “ul” something squared said that the Pil race had in turn fostered two new cultures on their own. This too was status. The one thing that had prevented the complete snubbing of the “orphan” human race by the Galactics was the fortunate fact that man had himself fostered new intelligent races twice before the Vesarius had brought Contact with the E.T. civilization home to Earth.

“Jacob Demwa, meet Doctor Dwayne Kepler, of the Sundiver Expedition, and Doctor Mildred Martine, of the Department of Parapsychology at the University of La Paz.”

“Jacob Demwa, a-Human, ul-Dolphin-ul-Chimp, please meet Culla, a-Pring, ab-Pil-ab-Kisa-ab-Soro-ab-Hul-ab-Puber, Assistant to Bubbacub of the Libraries and Representative of the Library with the Sundiver Project.”

Bubbacub, head of the entire Branch Library on Earth—why is he involved in an obscure Terran project? In some ways, the little Pil was the most important E.T. on the Planet outside of the Tymbrimi Ambassador. His Library Institute, the biggest and most influential of the galactic organizations, made Fagin’s Institute of Progress look like a drum and tambourine outfit. Did Martine say he’s going to Mercury?

The sublime mental activities, such as religion, altruism and morality, all evolved, and have a physical base.

There was nothing new in the Skin-Shirt controversy. One side insisted that man should be proud of his unique heritage as a self-evolved race, having won intelligence from Nature herself on the savannah and shoreline of East Africa. The other side held that homo sapiens—just as every other known race of sophonts—was part of a chain of genetic and cultural uplifting that stretched back to the fabled early days of the galaxy, the time of the Progenitors.

(Jacob hoped that Kanten were not prone to claustrophobia. But then, what were talking vegetables afraid of anyway? Being nibbled on, he supposed. He wondered about the sexual mores of a race whose lovemaking required the intermediary of a sort of domesticated bumblebee.)

The Stasis Generator controlled the flow of time and space through the body of the Sunship, so that the violent tossing of the chromosphere would seem a gentle rocking to those inside. The fundamental physics of the generator was still only partly understood by the scientists of Earth, though the government insisted that it be built by human hands.

History is usually written by the winners.

Life is an extension of the physical world. Biological systems have unique properties, but they nevertheless must obey the constraints imposed by the physical and chemical properties of the environment and of the organisms themselves…evolutionary solutions to biological problems are…influenced by the physico-chemical environment.

Because they’d made no major attempt to fit themselves into the basic structure of settler society, the Cherokee had no political power to back up the rightness of their cause. They trusted, and cleverly used, the high and honorable laws of the new nation, but didn’t realize that public opinion has every bit as much force as law.

Curiosity and numbness are my defense mechanisms.

Same.