The history of Earth is the same as in our time line, until Soviet probes discover that Venus is habitable. Then a serious space race begins. The cost of the race helps to destroy the Soviet Union and helps to distract the United States from dealing with global warming.
As you may have noticed, the Pecheneg machine gun was never used. Chekhov was wrong. You can put a gun on the wall in the first act and never use it.
DAVID BRIN
Change may not be good, but it’s often unavoidable—especially when it’s your whole world that’s about to change …
David Brin entered the science-fiction field in the late 1970s, and has been one of the most prominent SF writers in the business ever since, winning three Hugo Awards and one Nebula Award for his work. Brin is best known for his Uplift series, which started in 1980 with Sundiver, and subsequently has continued in Startide Rising, which won both a Hugo in 1984 and a Nebula in 1983, The Uplift War, which won a Hugo in 1988, and then on through Brightness Reef, Infinity’s Shore, Heaven’s Reach, and Gorilla, My Dreams. There’s also a guide to the Uplift universe, Contacting Aliens: An Illustrated Guide to David Brin’s Uplift Universe, by Brin and Kevin Lenagh. He won another Hugo Award in 1985 for his short story “The Crystal Spheres,” and won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award in 1986 for his novel The Postman, which was later made into a big-budget film starring Kevin Costner. Brin’s other novels include Kiln People, Kiln Time, The Practice Effect, Earth, Glory Season, Sky Horizon, and, with Gregory Benford, Heart of the Comet. His short work has been collected in The River of Time, Otherness, and Tomorrow Happens. He edited the anthology Project Solar Sail with Arthur C. Clarke, and has published several nonfiction books such as The Transparent Society, Through Stranger Eyes, and King Kong Is Back!: An Unauthorized Look at One Humongous Ape. His most recent book is a new novel, Existence.
The Tumbledowns of Cleopatra Abyss
DAVID BRIN
1.
TODAY’S THUMP WAS OVERDUE. JONAH WONDERED IF IT MIGHT not come at all.
Just like last Thorday when—at the Old Clock’s midmorning chime—farmers all across the bubble habitat clambered up pinyon vines or crouched low in expectation of the regular, daily throb—a pulse and quake that hammered up your foot soles and made all the bubble boundaries shake. Only Thorday’s thump never came. The chime was followed by silence and a creepy letdown feeling. And Jonah’s mother lit a candle, hoping to avert bad luck.
Early last spring, there had been almost a whole week without any thumps. Five days in a row, with no rain of detritus, shaken loose from the Upper World, tumbling down here to the ocean bottom. And two smaller gaps the previous year.
Apparently, today would be yet another hiatus …
Whomp!
Delayed, the thump came hard, shaking the moist ground beneath Jonah’s feet. He glanced with concern toward the bubble boundary, more than two hundred meters away—a membrane of ancient, translucent volcanic stone, separating the paddies and pinyon forest from black, crushing waters just outside. The barrier vibrated, an unpleasant, scraping sound.
This time, especially, it caused Jonah’s teeth to grind.
“They used to sing, you know,” commented the complacent old woman who worked at a nearby freeboard loom, nodding as gnarled fingers darted among the strands, weaving ropy cloth. Her hands did not shake though the nearby grove of thick vines did, quivering much worse than after any normal thump.
“I’m sorry, grandmother.” Jonah reached out to a nearby bole of twisted cables that dangled from the bubble habitat’s high-arching roof, where shining glowleaves provided the settlement’s light.
“Who used to sing?”
“The walls, silly boy. The bubble walls. Thumps used to come exactly on time, according to the Old Clock. Though every year we would shorten the main wheel by the same amount, taking thirteen seconds off the length of a day. Aftershakes always arrived from the same direction, you could depend on it! And the bubble sang to us.”
“It sang … you mean like that awful groan?” Jonah poked a finger in one ear, as if to pry out the fading reverberation. He peered into the nearby forest of thick trunks and vines, listening for signs of breakage. Of disaster.
“Not at all! It was musical. Comforting. Especially after a miscarriage. Back then, a woman would lose over half of her quickenings. Not like today, when more babies are born alive than warped or misshapen or dead. Your generation has it lucky! And it’s said things were even worse in olden days. The Founders were fortunate to get any living replacements at all! Several times, our population dropped dangerously.” She shook her head, then smiled. “Oh … but the music! After every midmorning thump you could face the bubble walls and relish it. That music helped us women bear our heavy burden.”
“Yes, grandmother, I’m sure it was lovely,” Jonah replied, keeping a respectful voice as he tugged on the nearest pinyon to test its strength, then clambered upward, hooking long, unwebbed toes into the braided vines, rising high enough to look around. None of the other men or boys could climb as well.
Several nearby boles appeared to have torn loose their mooring suckers from the domelike roof. Five … no six of them … teetered, lost their final grip-holds, then tumbled, their luminous tops crashing into the rice lagoon, setting off eruptions of sparks … or else onto the work sheds where Panalina and her mechanics could be heard, shouting in dismay. It’s a bad one, Jonah thought. Already the hab bubble seemed dimmer. If many more pinyons fell, the clan might dwell in semidarkness, or even go hungry.
“Oh, it was beautiful, all right,” the old woman continued, blithely ignoring any ruckus. “Of course in my grandmother’s day, the thumps weren’t just regular and perfectly timed. They came in pairs! And it is said that long before—in her grandmother’s grandmother’s time, when a day lasted so long that it spanned several sleep periods—thumps used to arrive in clusters of four or five! How things must’ve shook back then! But always from the same direction, and exactly at the midmorning chime.”
She sighed, implying that Jonah and all the younger folk were making too much fuss. You call this a thump shock?
“Of course,” she admitted, “the bubbles were younger then. More flexible, I suppose. Eventually, some misplaced thump is gonna end us all.”