The Black Sun

by Jack Williamson

  “Those black beads?”

  Deliberately, they took their seats with Glengarth and Rima. Cruzet’s eyes were hollow, his face drawn with fatigue. Andersen rubbed his red-stubbled chin, grinning bleakly across the table.

  “Those damn beads?” Stecker demanded again. “What did you learn?”

  “Not much,” Andersen said.

  “Forty hours in the lab.” Cruzet raised a rusty voice. “I’m dead for sleep. Can you get us some coffee?”

  “Forty hours wasted,” Roak muttered. “Time you could have been at work in the pit.”

  But he sent Rivera for coffee. Stecker ordered another gin and tonic. Waiting, they turned impatiently to Andersen.

  “So what have you got?”

  “Artifacts.” Andersen frowned. “Riddles we failed to resolve.”

  “Don’t feed us riddles. What exactly did you find?”

  He paused for a moment, choosing his words. “The black prisms are mostly carbon, though the spectrograph shows a little gold, with trace amounts of a dozen elements. They’re harder and denser than diamond. And nothing nature ever made.”

  He turned to Glengarth, his face very sober.

  “Sir, they were manufactured.”

  “Manufactured?” Sharply, Roak echoed the word. “How do you know?”

  “Under the microscope they look like stacks of very thin diamond slices, connected with fine threads of what I take for gold or a gold alloy. I’d guess they’re doped with the other elements, like silicon chips, but we’ve no way to tell.”

  “If they are chips,” Roak demanded, “what’s your riddle?”

  “They aren’t chips. Not silicon. Certainly not electronic. They adhere to each other like magnets, but they are not ferromagnetic. They seem, in fact, to be shielded from magnetic fields. A bigger riddle is their age. No artifact of ours would last a billion years. Even frozen here. You might expect time to change them, but I believe they still retain at least some trace of their original activity. Whatever that was.”

  “So what?”

  “If I may finish—”

  Andersen stopped when he saw Rivera emerging from the elevator with the steward and his cart. He and Cruzet accepted their coffee gratefully, but Stecker ignored his drink. He glanced nervously at Roak and sat scowling expectantly at Andersen.

  “If I may finish,” Andersen went on, “the objects appear to be insulated from heat as well as from electromagnetic energy. They have no temperature. We tried to fuse or burn them in the electric crucible. Let them freeze again. Put them on an anvil and struck them with a heavy hammer. They’re never damaged. Not by anything. They never even feel hot or cold when you pick them up.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know.” Andersen looked at Cruzet, who merely twitched his narrow shoulders. “If you want a guess, I think we’re dealing with creations of a science unknown to us.”

  “Is that all you’ve got?”

  “All we really know. There are inferences we might make. Singh found six of the things with the skeleton. Mondragon picked up another on the beach. That suggests that they may have been common and somehow important to the native amphibians. Ornaments? Money? Religious emblems? We know too little even to guess.”

  He shrugged and reached for his coffee.

  “Are they a danger to us, here aboard?” Roak demanded. “Did they really kill Singh and her crew?”

  “It’s a fair assumption, which would lead to the question why.” He shrugged again. “Who knows?”

  “Sir?” Rima asked. Stecker scowled and set his drink back on the table. “If I may bring up something else.”

  “Huh?” he muttered as if he didn’t care to listen.

  “Yes?” Roak surveyed her, his eyes too bold. “What’s your problem?”

  Trying not to cringe, she kept her eyes on Stecker’s face.

  “You know, sir, that most of us are getting tired of soya that and algae this. We’re going to be here a long time. We’ll get hungry. I think we can use the habitat excavation to grow half our food.”

  Stecker pushed his glass aside and sat glaring at her, his pasty face turning slowly red.

  “It’s close to eight hundred cubic meters.” She tried to ignore his mounting fury. “I want to seal it, install a fusion engine and a heat lamp for meltwater. With carbon dioxide from the cyclers—”

  “You went back there?” Stecker exploded. “Where Singh and the Mexican found those beads? A wonder they didn’t suck you out to die on the ice.”

  “They didn’t,” she said. “We’re getting rid of them.” She spread her hands in appeal. “Sir, our real danger is more than those beads, whatever they are. It’s starvation.”

  “You disobeyed me,” Stecker snarled. “I won’t have it.” He turned to Roak. “Tell her, Jonas.”

  “I’m sorry, Rima.” He smiled, but she heard mockery in his tone. “But we’ve got important people dead. We’ve been listening, but Captain Stecker and I are not as happy here as you are. The launch pit’s our only hope to get away. It’s a desperate undertaking that will require everything we have. Forget your garden.”

  Later that afternoon, Kip and Day went down to the playroom. Mrs. Sternberg was telling the younger children stories of Earth, now a fairyland they would never see again. Day had demanded one about a panda named Me Me. She shook her head when it was over, and said the end was wrong. Me Me wasn’t really happy in the bamboo forest. She wasn’t anywhere on Earth, or happy at all. Kip wanted to slip away to work out in the gym with Mondragon, if Mondragon was through servicing the spiders, though he didn’t tell his mother.

  Alone in the cabin, Rima heard a loud rap and found Roak at the door.

  “Hi, doll.” He gave her an ingratiating smile. “May I see you for a moment?”

  She let him come in. He looked around the cabin and shook his head sympathetically. “Narrow quarters for a woman with two children. I think I can find you something better.”

  Uninvited, he settled himself into the folding seat beside her berth.

  “We’re making do.” She stood by the door, waiting to know his business. “Everybody’s crowded.”

  “Not quite everybody.” He looked up at the small holo of Kip and Day over her berth. “Charming children.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Roak.” Speaking stiffly, she swung the door wider.

  “Jonas,” he said. “To my friends.”

  She said nothing.

  “About your hydroponic project.” Affably, he smiled again. “I’d really like to help you. Maybe later I can, but you know Stecker. I have to deal with him. Not always easy. Those queer beads have him in a blue panic now. He’s determined to get away or kill us trying.

  “But that’s not why I came.”

  He relaxed in her chair, smiling up at the holo.

  “A lovely little girl in her red jumpsuit.” He turned intently back to her. “But here we are, marooned forever, unless the natives wipe us out. We may as well make the best of it.”

  “I’m trying.”

  “Let me help you, Rima.” He paused to scan her body, and she felt a flush of anger. “For the little girl’s sake, and the boy’s, if not for your own. They deserve the best you can give them.”

  “We’re making do,” she said again, but he seemed not to hear.

  “The loss of the Singh group was a dreadful tragedy.” She heard no regret in his tone. “A cruel loss to all of us, and a mystery we’ve been unable to solve. But here on the ship it has left us with a bit of open living space. Singh had been allowed two cabins, the spare for her books and equipment. I can move you into them if you like. A cabin for the kids. The other cabin …”

  He stopped to eye her again, with a half-smile that chilled her.

  “No sale, Mr. Roak.” She let her voice lift. “We’ll stay right where we are.”

  “Rima, dear, look at the facts.” Scolding, he shook his finger at her. “The world we knew is gone forever. The ship’s our own little kingdom, w
ith Herman Stecker for our king. I know you don’t like him. I have my own problems with him. He can be nasty. But the Glengarth gang failed to throw him out, and I’m afraid Stecker could become a threat—”

  “That’s enough, Mr. Roak.” She cut him off. “I want nothing from you.”

  “Darling …” Grinning too widely, he stopped to shake his head at her. “We’re caught in a harder situation than you seem to understand. In public I have to stand with Stecker. Privately, I agree with Andersen that we’ll never get off the planet, but Stecker has the bomb. I’ve helped him organize ship security to hold it safe. Reba had a lesson to learn, but she’s with us now.”

  “Too bad for her.”

  “On the contrary, my dear, a lesson for you. If you haven’t seen the story, I’m something more than Stecker’s front man. He may still think we’re playing his game, but I make the rules. And you, my girl—you’d better play ball.”

  “I don’t play ball.” Anger crackled in her voice. “Just leave. Now.”

  “If you ask.”

  He rose deliberately, but stopped in front of her, so close that his male body reek enveloped her, mixed with the odors of Stecker’s whisky on his breath and an evil hint of Jake Hinch’s lemon-scented hygienic cigars. She backed away, gesturing him out. He came closer.

  “Get out!” she gasped. “Now.”

  “As you ask, my dear.” Tolerantly, he shrugged. “Till you learn the rules.”

  She lay awake most of that night, thinking of him and what might happen to the children. She saw no way of escape. Now and then toward morning, she dozed. The last time she woke to a silence that frightened her. Listening, she heard no breath sounds from Day or Kip. Trembling, she turned on the lights. Their berths were empty. They were not in the shower. Not in the cabin. Not anywhere.

  The elevator was out of service. Calling Glengarth, she found him on watch in the dome. He roused security to power the elevator and search the ship. The children had vanished. Andersen and Cruzet were also gone from their quarters. They woke Reba Washburn, who had stood the night watch on the main deck.

  “Sir, didn’t you know?” She rubbed her eyes and shook her head at Glengarth. “Dr. Andersen said he’d cleared it with you.”

  “Cleared what?”

  “The test run.” She yawned and blinked again. “He said they had to get out early, because both spiders would be needed when the crews went down to the pit. They were taking the Alpha out to test a new heat lamp. He said Dr. Virili was letting the kids go along for a lark—”

  “Lark?” Rima gasped. “I never heard anything about it.”

  “Nothing to alarm you.” Reba yawned again. “They were excited, and I guess they just forgot to let you know. Dr. Andersen and Dr. Cruzet are always free to use the spiders unless they’re requisitioned for the pit. They said they’d be back in time for breakfast.”

  “You say …” Her breathless whisper died. “My children were with them?”

  “Happy to go,” Reba said. “The little girl looked like she was up too early, but Kip was real excited. They’d been cooped up in the ship too long, he said. They were going on a mission, he said, just like his Captain Cometeer.”

  The watch officer opened the lock to let them out into the hangar’s dimly lit balloon. Their shouts woke empty echoes in the dim half-dome. The Alpha was gone.

  Twenty-one

  In the control dome with Glengarth, Rima searched the holoscreens and found the frozen ocean empty out to the dark horizon. She called the Alpha again and again, with never a response. With binoculars and then with the remote-controlled telescopes, she swept the starlit frost again and yet again, but always failed to find the heat lamp’s glow.

  Mondragon burst out of the elevator.

  “Is it true? What I heard at breakfast? That Kip and his little sister are on the missing spider?”

  She nodded dismally.

  “Cómo?” He stared at her in stunned dismay. “How is that possible?”

  Her white face quivered.

  “Where have they gone?”

  “No sign,” she told him. “Nothing.”

  “Nada?” Shaken, he whispered the Spanish word. “Who would kidnap them?”

  “Kidnap?” A bewildered shrug. “Dr. Andersen is missing. And Dr. Cruzet. They told Washburn they had permission to take the Alpha out. And my permission for the kids.” She bit her trembling lip. “I don’t know where they went.”

  “They can’t be far. Can’t you see their heat lamp?”

  “Nothing,” she said again. “Perhaps they forgot to turn it on.”

  “Andy knows cold metal can shatter.” He stared out into the eternal midnight. “He would never forget. Not—” He caught himself, remembering Singh and the engineers. “Not if he’s himself.”

  “I’m afraid.” Trembling, she shook her head. “They aren’t themselves.”

  Glengarth called Roak and Stecker on the interphone, and got no answer.

  “Up late last night,” Jim Cheng told him. “A steward heard them quarreling. Cursing each other. Drunk, he said. They’re probably sleeping it off.”

  He sent Washburn to rouse them. Another hour had passed before they appeared, Stecker red-eyed and wheezing for his breath, Roak grimly silent, a dark bruise around his right eye.

  “What the devil?” Stecker growled at Glengarth.

  “It’s devils we’ve got to deal with,” Glengarth muttered. “Diablos, as Carlos calls them.”

  “Carlos?” Roak sneered. “That stupid Mex?”

  “He’s not the problem.” He turned to Stecker. “Sir, we’ve got a situation I don’t understand. Andersen and Cruzet are gone in the Alpha spider. They took Rima’s kids. I can’t imagine what got into them. Unless those black beads …”

  He looked at Rima.

  “Evil things!” She was hoarse with emotion. “I’m afraid …”

  “Sir?” Glengarth raised his voice. “Didn’t Andersen get rid of them?”

  “He tried.” Stecker shook his head, bleary eyes blinking. “Or said he did, after he’d finished his tests.”

  “Actually,” Roak added, “he never really finished. He wanted to keep on testing, because he said they were so exciting. We finally made him quit. Captain Stecker ordered him to destroy them.”

  Stecker blinked uneasily, and continued where Roak left off.

  “He couldn’t do it, or said he couldn’t. In the end, he brought them back to us. Said he’d tried to burn them, tried to dissolve them with every acid in the lab, tried to smash them on an anvil. Said they wouldn’t burn, wouldn’t shatter. Said no reagent touched them. He left them with me. I gave them to Jonas. Told him to keep them where they couldn’t hurt anybody.”

  He swung to glare at Roak.

  “Ask Reba,” Roak muttered uncomfortably. “I left them in her care, till we found a way to dispose of them.”

  Glengarth called ship security.

  “Sir?” Reba Washburn was on the intercom a few minutes later, her voice hushed with shock. “I had those beads in the office safe. I thought they’d be safe—”

  “But they’re missing?”

  “Yes, sir. Three of them.”

  “You didn’t know?”

  “No way to know, sir. I’d sealed all seven in a brown envelope. The six Dr. Singh dug up and the one the Mexican found. The envelope is still in the safe. Still sealed, with no sign of tampering. None I could see. I just tore it open. Three are gone.”

  “How could that happen?”

  “I can’t explain it, sir. I thought they were secure. I changed the combination after the bomb was missing. I gave it to nobody else. I’d written my name across the flap. I found it still there. The same envelope.”

  “The safe wasn’t forced?”

  “No sign, sir. No sign of anything. I’ve kept somebody in the office around the clock. No problem ever reported. This loss—I can’t explain it.”

  They shook their heads, blankly staring at one another.

  “O
nly three?” Rima spoke at last, a breathless hush in her voice. “We have four people missing.”

  “Only three, Dr. Virili.”

  Roak and Stecker drew aside, muttering to each other.

  “We’re going below.” Roak turned abruptly back. “The captain wants his breakfast.”

  “A moment, sir,” Glengarth called after them before they reached the elevator. “Shouldn’t we send out a search party in the Beta?”

  “I’ll go, sir.” Mondragon spoke on impulse and stopped to look at the others around him in the dome. They stood silent, frowning uncertainly. “We have to follow,” he urged them quickly. “Dr. Andersen and Dr. Cruzet are our best engineers. And your children …” He turned to Rima. “I love the little girl. Your son is my good friend.”

  He saw from her face that she didn’t want to think of the friendship. But Kip was el amigo querido who had found him hiding on the ship and kept his secret. Kip’s disabled Game Box had let him prove his knowledge of computers. Kip always smiled to see him.

  “I wish to go.” He looked at Stecker, and had to gulp at the tightness in his throat. “With your permission, sir.”

  “And I,” Jim Cheng volunteered. “Without Andy and Tony, we can’t even begin the launch facility.”

  Stecker belched, scowling doubtfully at Roak.

  “How could you trace them?” Roak demanded. “If you can’t see the heat lamp?”

  “The track of the wheels,” Mondragon said. “Left in the frost.”

  “Nonsense.” Roak shook his head. “The spiders have been all over the place. Wheel prints on top of wheel prints.”

  “I used to track my father’s goats,” Mondragon said. “I can find the newest trail.”

  Fists clenched and red in the face, Stecker glared at Mondragon and caught Roak’s arm to pull him aside. They huddled together again.

  “The captain says forget it.” Roak swung back to Glengarth, his voice abrupt and harsh. “We don’t know what happened. We can’t risk the Beta. Without it, we’d be dead.”