Read Online Brightness Reef by David Brin - Free Book Online Page B

and dishonor, but it would be far worse when his beloved factory was blown to oblivion before an all-destroying flood.
    Sara had a strange thought-should she sneak up to her old attic room and wait for the wave? Who had prophesied right? Dwer and Lark? Or those images she had foreseen in dreams? It would be a once-in-a-lifetime chance to find out.
    Resumed chanting tapered off as someone new moved forward from behind the crowd of pale hoon sailors. It was a centauroid figure with a long sinuous body of mottled suede that branched into a pair of stubby shoulderless arms and a powerful snakelike neck. The narrow-pointed head contained three black eyes, one of them lidless and faceted, all set around a triangular mouth. It was an urrish tinker Sara recognized from past visits to Dolo, buying scraps of glass and metal, selling simple Buyur tools reclaimed from some ruin. The urs stepped daintily, as if worried her hooves might catch in the rough floorboards. She had one arm raised, exposing a glimpse of the bluish brooding pouch underneath, an act that might have different connotations in a meeting of her own kind, but Fru Nestor took it as a request to speak, which she granted with a bow.
    Sara heard a human mutter—“hinney!”—a rude callback to days when newcomer Earthlings fought ur-rish tribes over land and honor. If the tinker heard the insult, she ignored it, carrying herself well for a youngish urs with just one husband pouch tenanted by a squirming bulge. Among so many humans, the urs could not use a plains dialect of Galactic Two but made do with Anglic, despite the handicap of a cloven upper lip.
    “I can ve called Ulgor. I thank you for your courtesy, which is vlessed among the Six. I wish only to ask questions concerning the issues discussed tonight. Ny first question follows-
    “Is this not a natter vest decided vy our sages? Why not let those wise ones rule whether the great tine of judgnent has arrived?”
    With an exaggerated show of mannerly patience, Jop replied, “Learned neighbor, the Scrolls call on all villages to act independently, to erase all signs that might be seen from the sky! The order’s simple. No complicated judgment is needed.
    “Besides,” he concluded. “There’s no time to hear from the sages. They’re all far away, at Gathering.”
    “Forgive,” Ulgor bowed her forelegs. “Not all. A few linger in residence at the Hall o’ Vooks, in Vivlos, do they not?”
    There was confusion as people looked at one another, then Fru Nestor cried out, “The Hall of Books, in Biblos! Yes, that’s true. But Biblos is still many days away, by boat.”
    Again Ulgor bent her neck before dissenting. “Yet I have heard that, fron the highest tree in Dolo, one can see across the quicksand narsh to the glass cliffs overlooking Vivlos.”
    “With a good telescope,” Jop acknowledged, wary that this was sapping the crowd’s passionate momentum. “I still don’t see how it helps—“
    “Fire!”
    Faces turned toward Sara, who had shouted while the thought was still half formed.
    “We’d see flames as the library burned!”
    Muttering, the crowd stared at her, till she explained. “You all know I used to work at Biblos. They have a contingency plan like everyone else. If the sages command it, the librarians are to carry off what volumes they can, then ignite the rest.”
    This brought on a somber hush. Wrecking Dole’s dam was one thing, but loss of Biblos would truly signal an ending. No place was more central to human life on Jijo.
    “Finally, they are to blow the pillars holding up the roof-of-stone and bring it down on the ashes. Ulgor’s right. We could see any change that big, especially with Loocen rising at this hour.”
    Fru Nestor spoke a terse command. “Send someone aloft to see!”
    Several boys leaped up and vanished through the windows, accompanied by a string of hooting chimpanzees. A nervous murmur ensued while the crowd waited. Sara felt uncomfortable under the regard