Infinity's Shore

Infinity's Shore

Author	David Brin
Cover artist	Jim Burns
Language	English
Series	Uplift Storm
Genre	Science fiction
Published	1996 (Spectra)
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print (Hardcover & Paperback)
Pages	644
ISBN	0-553-57777-8
OCLC	38045623
Preceded by	Brightness Reef
Followed by	Heaven's Reach

Infinity's Shore is a science fiction novel by America writer David Brin, published in 1996 as the second novel in the Uplift Storm series. The plot follows the adventures of the Jijoan exiles, although the crew of Streaker are minor characters.

Plot synopsis

At the end of Brightness Reef the character known as The Stranger, who has been unable to speak except in song, recalls his name, Emerson. He also recalls another name, Creideiki, the neo-dolphin captain of the Earthclan ship Streaker, who suffered an eerily similar wound that also robbed him of the ability to speak. Streaker has not been seen since the end of Startide Rising.

As Infinity's Shore opens, Emerson recalls more details of his own life, names places, and realizes he was a crewman aboard Streaker, while at the same time, the reader becomes aware Streaker is actually hiding in the seas of Jijo, and has intercepted the homemade submarine built by Alvin and his companions, though the youngsters are not yet aware who's ship they are on as the dolphins are all wearing deep-sea armor and do not speak Anglic in their presence. They are treated well and their wounds healed, but are told nothing of where they are or who controls the ship they are on.

Meanwhile, terror has gripped the Commons of Jijo with the arrival of a massive Jophur battleship that has landed atop the much smaller Rothen craft in the Glade of Gathering and dammed the valley, creating an artificial lake. The Jophur have used a substance they call a topogoric to encase the Rothen ship in a bubble of quantum-shifted time, causing it to be out-of-sync with its surroundings. Lark Koolhan and others devise a plot to swim to the vessel and attempt to communicate with those inside, seeking common cause against their new, overwhelming enemy. Some progress is made but they are betrayed to the Jophur by Rann, one of the Daniks, and Rann, Lark, and Ling are all taken captive aboard the enormous Jophur battleship. The Jophur, mistaking the activation of a small computer as a deliberate signal betraying their hated enemies the G'kek, also encase the entire G'kek town of Dooden Mesa in the strange substance.

Elsewhere in the highland forest of the surrounding mountains, a mysterious project involving hundreds of Trakei "pharmacists" is underway. Far away in the Grey Hills, Rety, Dwer and Mudfoot observe Jophur and Danik support craft engage in battle, and both craft crash land in a mulc swamp. Sarah and the Stranger are led to a secret refuge of urs, human women, and the planet's only horses hidden deep inside the dangerous, toxic, hallucination-inducing desert known as the Spectral Flow.

Events begin to accelerate on Jijo. The increasingly angry Jophur commit terrible acts of war against the nearly-defenseless Commons. As is often the case, crisis leads to innovation, and Jijoans rediscover lost "wolfling" arts such as ballooning and semaphore communication. With such primitive technologies being totally unknown to Galactics such as the Jophur, they are able to use them without attracting suspicion. It also becomes clear that Uriel, the innovative smith of Mt. Guenn, has actually constructed a massive analog computer, although others are slow to realize its true purpose, thinking it an elaborate toy or distraction. Gillian Baskin decides to send Alvin and his companions into temporary exile on an island for their own safety, but at the last moment Alvin realizes that they have been aboard Streaker, and insists they be allowed to return. Streaker also sends a strike team to attack the surviving Jophur in the mulc swamp, in the process befriending Dwer and Rety and, to their great surprise, causing Mudfoot to speak, though he refuses to do so again. Asx, the Trakei high sage, emerges from the Jophur battleship, re-born as Ewassx, having been "gifted" a master ring to transform him into a Jophur, so that he may aid them in their conquest of Jijo. The high sages are at first delighted and then terrified to see their friend again. The secret project in the forest is revealed to be the construction of explosive rockets, which successfully destroy the second Jophur "boat" but do no damage at all to the mighty battleship, which the reader learns is named Polkihjy.

Streaker makes contact with Wuphon Port and with Uriel, now joined by Sara and Emerson. A meeting to negotiate is agreed to, and Gillian Baskin is astonished to find Emerson among the delegation. There are many comings and goings from Streaker, Alvin and his friends say goodbye to their families so they might represent the Commons of Jijo on Streaker's continuing mission, Dwer briefly re-unites with his sister Sara, but she joins the crew of Streaker to remain with Emerson and serve as an expert in the lost art of calculus, which is shunned by Galactic society, while Dwer embarks on an incredibly dangerous ballooning mission for Uriel and the Commons. A small colony of neo-dolphins are left on Jijo, those who have given in to "stress atavism", medical personnel to aid them, and those not considered critical enough to the coming escape attempt to risk their lives, thus all three races of Earthclan now have hidden populations on Jijo, and Streaker is left with only a small portion of its original crew. A number of the glavers and a tall, cloaked stranger are also seen to board Streakers’ support craft.

Streaker finally makes an escape attempt from Jijo, having partially re-activated and automated dozens of barely-functional derelict spacecraft found in the Great Midden, and aided by other decoys constructed by Uriel and overseen by Dwer on his balloon. Dwer and Rety both find themselves towed into space by Polkihjy while it is too busy attempting to reach the nearest transfer point to stop and examine it's prizes, it trails a long thread of captured ships, hoping one of them may be Streaker itself. As the ships near the transfer point that seems destined to be the site of a final showdown between the two, a powerful psionic blast comes from the "Holy Egg" on Jijo, disorienting the Jophur and astounding most others.

The final scene of the series that is set on Jijo features Nelo the paper maker, father of Lark, Sara, and Dwer, standing in the smashed remains of his beloved paper mill which has been destroyed by fanatics. Nelo does not give in to the despair and resignation he seemed to express through the two novels but instead commits to build the mill back better than ever, and to help his neighbors who lost so much to the destructive acts of the fanatics in Dolo and elsewhere.

Aboard Streaker, the remaining crew work furiously to find a way to escape the Jophur, while Emerson has another breakthrough, his first thought in a complete sentence in over a year. He senses his part in this saga is not over.