A Gift from Earth (1968)

A Gift From Earth is a science fiction novel by American writer Larry Niven, first published in 1968 and set in his Known Space universe. The novel was originally serialized as Slowboat Cargo.

Plot summary

Plateau, a colony in the Tau Ceti system, was settled by humans some 300 years before the plot begins. The colony world itself is a Venusian-type planet with a dense, hot, poisonous atmosphere. It would be otherwise uninhabitable, except for a tall monolithic mesa that rises 40 miles (64 km) up into a breathable layer in the upper atmosphere. This gives the planet a habitable area about half the size of California. The Captain of the first colony vessel named the feature Mount Lookitthat (from his interjection at first sight of it), and the colony became known as Plateau.

After landing the slower-than-light ships, the Crew sign an agreement, called the Covenant of Planetfall, with their former passengers (who had just emerged from suspended animation and were in a weak bargaining position). This agreement gives the Crew (and their descendants in perpetuity) all control over the new colony. A system of medical care evolves, in which organ transplantation is the only method of treatment, even for cosmetic defects (such as baldness); a justice system evolves, based on the Hospitals in the two immense "slowboat" spacecraft which had brought their ancestors to the planet; all crimes are punishable by death, followed by involuntary donation of the perpetrator's transplantable organs (including skin, scalp, and teeth). Only Colonists are arrested for crimes, and only Crew are eligible to receive transplants, except as a rarely granted privilege in return for service to the Crew. Some Colonists become dissatisfied with the system and form a dissident group called the "Sons of Earth".

The prologue of the story begins with a dissident Colonist escaping Implementation, the local police force, by jumping to his death over the "void edge", the 40-mile (64 km) high cliff that forms the sides of the mesa. On Mount Lookitthat, all crimes are punished by being dissected for spare parts. Thus, this is considered to be the greatest of crimes, as it leaves nothing to harvest.

An automated Bussard ramjet arrives from Earth, carrying an unknown cargo of great importance, which the government finds and conceals, but not before the cargo has been observed and photographed by Polly, an agent of the Sons of Earth.

Meanwhile, Matthew Keller, an ordinary miner, is invited to a party and drawn into a conversation about psi powers. Matt strikes up a flirtatious conversation with Polly, but she suddenly loses interest. Angered, Matt hooks up with a woman named Laney and is having sex with her (his first time) when Implementation agents raid the house, which turns out to be full of Sons of Earth members. Matt escapes in a stolen car. The Implementation chase him to the edge of the Plateau, where he dives into the poisonous gas. Implementation leaves him for dead, but he survives and resurfaces.

Feeling guilty, he tries to enter the Hospital where the captured Sons of Earth have been taken and rescue Laney. He has several strange encounters with Implementation where they suddenly fail to be able to see him. He makes his way to the Vivarium, where the Sons of Earth who are still living are being kept, and sets them free. He, along with two of the leaders and Laney, steal a car and flees to the home of Millard Parlette, a prominent political figure and direct descendant of the captain of the original colony vessel.

Matt explains how he rescued them and they conclude that he has a psionic power: the ability to influence the optic nerves of anyone whose attention is focused on him. When he is excited or frightened, people focused on him are compelled to contract the pupils of their eyes, and thereby lose that focus to the point of short-term memory loss – even if he has just threatened them with a weapon.

When Millard Parlette returns home, he allows himself to be captured by Matt with little difficulty. However, the others overreact upon seeing him enter the house and knock him out with a stun gun. Matt and Laney leave to go back to the hospital. Matt intends to rescue Polly, having realized that her rejection of him was an outcome of his nervousness and psionic power. Laney intends to rescue the rest of the Sons of Earth who were recaptured.

In the house, Millard Parlette reveals that the cargo of the ramship consisted of four medical breakthroughs: a symbiote that regenerates skin, technology to culture a human liver, another to culture a human heart, and a second symbiote that lives in the bloodstream, fighting disease, dissolving blood clots, repairing and cleaning fatty deposits from the circulatory system, and maintaining hormone levels at those of an adult. These advancements are amazingly beneficial, but that is the precise problem. Colonists, once they learn of them, would assume that the organ banks had become obsolete, and expect Implementation to disband. However, these advancements only reduce the need for transplants; they do not remove it entirely. If Implementation continues to take colonists to the banks, they would assume that necessity had given way to malevolence. Every colonist on Plateau would revolt. At least half the population would perish in the conflict, and technological civilization might come to an end. Thus, the political figure Parlette wants to negotiate a replacement for the Covenant of Planetfall with the rebels in advance, and prevent such a conflict.