Free Netlink by William H Keith Page A

even his survival, depended on establishing communications with as wide a range of intelligent civilizations and cultures as possible.
    Unfortunately, deep surveys were rather in short supply just now, and most xenologists on the Frontier had been reduced to training exercises and simulations, shuffling through old data. Known data.
    When there was so much more to be learned through reality.
    “I haven’t given up, Taki,” he said. “Sanders doesn’t have the last word.”
    “He’s head of the field research department.”
    “But Eileen Zhou is his boss.”
    “How can R&D help us?”
    “For one thing, Madam Zhou controls Sanders’s budget. For another, my mother knows her.”
    “Ah. That again.”
    “Yes. Again. She’s a senator. If she pushes for this, we’re going to get it.”
    “Your mother hasn’t been willing to help so far.”
    “No. But there’s got to be a way. If nothing else, I’ll wear her down through damned stubborn persistence.”
    “You’ve been trying for three years.”
    “Then I’ll try for three more! Damn it, Taki, something’s going to give!”
    She smiled, and held up her hand. “Pericles, Daren.”
    He took her hand, squeezed it, and drew her closer once more. “Pericles.”
    It was a kind of code phrase they used between themselves, a promise that what they were doing was right.
    Ancient Greece had been a patchwork of tiny city states, each evolving on its own, isolated from its neighbors by Greece’s rugged terrain. Once contact was established, however, and trade begun, the result was the flowering of the golden age of Pericles, the birth of democracy, and a world-view that postulated and discussed atoms, a round Earth, and life on other worlds. The crossing of cultures, of ideas, of worldviews and ways of thinking and looking at things led inexorably to synergy, with results that no one could guess at beforehand.
    Communications with the Naga had first been made possible by contact with the DalRiss; soon after, exchanges with both species had resulted in an explosion of new understanding, new science, new technologies—especially in the fields of nanotechnology and biotechnics—leading to a genuine renaissance in the biological and linkage sciences. The Naga, with their literally inside-out worldview, had given Man a whole new way to look at the universe; the ability to link closely with pocket-sized Nagas was transforming the way Man looked at himself.
    But Daren was seeking more than just new races, new ideas, or new ways of thinking, and he certainly had more in mind than new forms of Naga-expressions or more convenient ways of linking with machines. Misunderstanding and lack of communication had resulted in a fifty-year war with the Naga, a war fought with weapons that could devastate entire worlds. If each new contact brought with it the possibility of knowledge about still other races, an ever-widening web of contact and communication could be created. The fact that three species coexisted within a hundred light years or so of one another suggested that the galaxy must be positively teeming with life and Mind. Daren was convinced that it would be good to find out about those other near neighbors, and to do so before there were any more misunderstandings.
    Wars could be avoided that way.
    But the university was not willing to even consider organizing an expedition beyond known space. Nor were any of the usual science foundations and corporate R&D facilities. War with the Imperium was too real a possibility just now. It would be foolish to invest some tens of millions of yen in an expedition that might be canceled at any time because the ships were needed for conversion to military purposes.
    And that was the worst of it. Compared to the DalRiss or the Naga or any other thinking, technic species that man might encounter out there, the differences between New American and Terran, between native Japanese and descendant of North American colonists were insignificant to