Brightness Reef

book one of a new Uplift trilogy

Plot

But over the centuries it has been resettled. Groups of sapient beings, fleeing persecution or neglect, have ignored the laws and evaded the patrols, landing in secret. After years of warfare and mistrust, a new society has evolved on forbidden Jijo, based on tolerance and respect among its six intelligent races: the mysterious hoon, the crablike qheuens, the centaurlike urs, the wheel-borne g'Kek, the multiple-personality-bearing graeki, and last of all to land on Jijo, humans from Earth, bringing with them a new technology allowing civilization to blossom in the wilderness. They all now live in hiding under canopies of camouflage, in dread of Judgment Day, when the Five Galaxies will certainly discover their illegal colony.