The Black Sun

by Jack Williamson

  Still wary of her, he cut himself off.

  “Pig!” Washburn snarled the word. “He got me into his cabin. Tried to get me into his bed. Threatened me with that bomb—” She broke off abruptly and searched Carlos with a one-eyed squint. “He runs the ship with threats of it. He tried to bribe me with it. Promised to make me his queen. Turned so nasty I slapped him. That’s when he did this.” She touched the red-stained patch on her temple. “Snatched a brass lamp off the captain’s desk and smashed it across my face.”

  She grinned and flinched with pain.

  “Knocked me flat, but I got up laughing at him. I told him his bomb was a dud. It is.” She nodded soberly at Rima. “I sabotaged the ignition chip when the captain left it with me for inspection.”

  “The bomb?” Mondragon stared at her. “Is it in fact still disabled?”

  “Judging from Mr. Roak’s fury, I’d say it is. But he says he has a demolition engineer in his camp. Says they found the damage and replaced the chip with a spare he says he brought with him. Likely one more lie, but I guess we’ll never know. Not unless he and Stecker do try to blow us up. That’s their bluster now. Shut up in their cabin, daring anybody to call their hand.”

  “Would they?”

  “Quick and probably painless.” Washburn shrugged. “If they’ve got the guts.”

  Dismally, Rima’s shoulders hunched.

  “If we can’t help the kids, I don’t think I care.”

  “But if we can …” Mondragon frowned uncertainly at Washburn and back at her. “We must.”

  Rima straightened, searching Washburn’s battered face.

  “Reba, here’s what we want.” Voice quivering, she spread her hands. “Carlos says the Beta’s standing in the work balloon. We want to take it out. To look for my kids. If you’ll let us through the lock—”

  “Why not?” Washburn brightened, with a painful little grin. “Mr. Roak and the captain have been plotting an escape of their own, if the ship gets too hot for them. Loading the spider with their private supplies.” She smirked with satisfaction. “One up for me.”

  The deck shuddered and they heard a rumbling boom somewhere above. Rima held her breath till silence came, smiling uneasily at Mondragon.

  “Why not?” Washburn muttered again, fumbling at her belt. “One down for Jonas Roak!”

  She turned a key in the console behind her. The ship’s lock slid open. Rima waved at her and hurried after Mondragon into icy darkness. Blind for a moment, she heard the hiss and thud of the valves sealing behind them. Light came on. Shivering in the chill, she stared up at the spider. Crouching over her on its ungainly metal legs as if about to spring, it looked huge and strange, alien as the planet itself. Stark terror brushed her, terror of the unknown masters of the dark and the ice.

  “Rima? Dr. Virili?”

  Mondragon’s call broke that spell. He was already climbing the ramp. She caught her breath and followed him up into the monster’s belly. Behind him at the controls, she watched him close the lock, listened to the muffled roar of the salvage pumps that let the balloon’s deflated fabric collapse upon the frame overhead, watched its own wide portal open to the stars.

  “So far, ’sta bien.”

  Seated at the wheel, he turned for a moment to grin at her. She heard the turbine hum. Her shoulders were hunched against the cold and the dread that haunted her, but he seemed deft and sure, driving them down across the ancient beach. Watching him, she found a sense of comfort she had not felt for many days.

  She stood for a long time close behind him, reluctant to leave him, but at last she climbed into the bubble, where she could see the waste of starlit frost and the blaze of the arching constellations. The ship was already far behind, a thin sliver of polished metal gleaming dimly against the dark ridge behind it. The pale gray ice ahead looked bewilderingly flat and featureless, but he steered across it as if he knew where to go.

  “Beta! Stecker to Beta!” The sudden yelp from the radio took her breath. “Mondragon! Virili! You are guilty of mutiny. Theft! Treason! Get the Beta back here at once, under penalty of death—”

  Stecker was cut off. A moment of silence, then Jim Cheng’s voice, hoarse with tension.

  “Rima! Carlos! Listen please. A message from the captain. He’s still holding off the mutineers, but we’re desperate. You’re in no danger—at least not from us. But you’ve left us in a hopeless mess. Trapped aboard. Both spiders gone. We can’t get out to do anything. And you’re throwing your own lives away. Bring the Beta back, and we can promise you a pardon—

  “Oh God!”

  A startled gasp. Rima heard a crash like a gunshot, cursing voices, Cheng again.

  “Glengarth’s on the phone.” He sounded frantic. “The mutineers are storming Stecker’s cabin. He’s triggering the bomb—”

  A brittle snap, and all she heard was the interstellar static.

  Climbing into the bubble with her, Mondragon pointed back the way they had come. Looking, she saw the frost gone blindingly bright, the ice-crowned cliffs etched against the dark. A ball of fire swelled from where the ship had stood, reddened swiftly, and faded into the eternal night.

  She rubbed her eyes and blinked at Mondragon.

  “Thanks to los santos!” He crossed himself, hoarsely whispering. “We got away in time.”

  “But Mr. Glengarth.” Knees gone weak, she sat down at the navigation table. “Jim Cheng. Reba. Everybody.” She caught a long breath. “Carlos, we’re all alone.”

  “Except for the Alpha.” He shrugged. “Los niños. We can still follow them.” He studied her sharply. “There’s Stecker’s whisky, if you need it.”

  “Coffee.” She nodded, grateful for his calm. “Coffee will do.”

  She followed him down into the cabin and sat on the berth, watching him brew a pot of Stecker’s Kona coffee. She sipped it slowly, while that balloon of fire burned and vanished again and again in her mind.

  “It’s done.” He stood up when his cup was empty. “The saints have saved us from the bomb.” He crossed himself again. “Let them guide us on.”

  He returned to the controls. The turbine hummed again, and the spider glided on. She sat for a time at the table with another cup of coffee. Wishing she had Mondragon’s faith, she began to feel some spark of it. The new launch facility had always been a hopeless dream. The bomb, after all, had really changed nothing. Not for them. Resolved to face what she must, she put the cups in the cleanser and climbed to the bubble.

  She was swept for a moment into homesick longing for Earth, but soon she found the sun’s dead blot and a few stars she had begun to know. She watched them swing right, swing left and right again, as Mondragon followed the Alpha’s track. At last the sun hung still on the left and she saw that Mondragon was driving them toward the arrow-shaped cluster of yellow giants low in the south. She climbed down again to watch his lean brown hands steady on the wheel, his head often bent to follow traces too faint for her to see.

  “You found the trail?” she asked him. “Tell me how.”

  “I used to track my father’s goats.”

  Leaning to peer over his shoulder, she found nothing but the limitless frozen flatness.

  “Look close in,” he said. “For the tire marks in the frost. It’s the last wisp of atmosphere, frozen into a crystal fluff. The tires crush it, leaving a pattern you can see when they come under the lamp.”

  She frowned again through the thick quartz plate and shook her head.

  “You can learn,” he promised her.

  “I’ll try.” She tried for a time, found marks too faint to follow, and asked him at last, “Aren’t you hungry?”

  “I could eat. You’ll find supplies in the pantry locker.”

  She found the locker, deep and generously filled. Soya stuff enough, but more from the captain’s private stock. Irradiated ham and bacon, steaks and chops. Fresh fruit, eggs, mushrooms, crisp asparagus, all in stasis wraps. Stecker had meant to live well. No bread; tofusoya toast would
have to do. She made ham and eggs, then set the tiny table the locker door made when it was folded down.

  “Carlos,” she called. “Stop the spider and come down to eat.”

  “I smell the coffee,” he answered. “Bring me a cup and a sandwich, and I’ll drive on.”

  Walking forward, she found him still leaning over the wheel.

  “I am desperate to save the kids,” she told him. “But it may take all our lives, even if we can. We must save ourselves. Right now, you need a break.”

  He stopped the spider and came back to join her. In spite of all the strain and dread, she felt a wave of relief as he sat across the little table. A stubble of beard shadowed his blood-freckled face, yet he was good to look at, smiling as he watched her pour the Kona coffee.

  “Rima—” He spoke on impulse. “If I may call you Rima.”

  “Of course.” Her tired face lit. “Please!”

  They were alone together, comfortable together, sharing a common goal. He liked the deft grace of her fingers, spreading the captain’s real dairy butter on her tofusoya toast. Passing it to him, she paused for a moment, eyes on his face.

  “Carlos,” she said, “I don’t know how to thank you. It’s a terrible time, but now I feel very lucky. I thought my world had ended. You’ve brought me back to life. I’m grateful to you.”

  “I’m the lucky one.”

  He had to gulp and blink back sudden tears. For all his daring dreams, he had never expected such a moment. He sipped the coffee to cover his emotion.

  “Carlos—” Something caught her voice and made her shake her head. Silent a moment before she went on, she seemed more relaxed than she felt. “You know, we’re almost strangers. Tell me something about yourself.”

  “If you—if you ask.”

  Confusion had taken his voice. He gulped the hot coffee.

  “Or do you mind?” Her fine eyes had a look of keen appraisal. “If you do—”

  “No! If you care.” His voice came back, and the English was easier now. “I grew up in a dead mining town called Cuerno del Oro. We never had much money for anything, but I did learn what I could. I heard about the starships. I dreamed of going out to the stars—though never to this one.”

  Ruefully, he nodded at the black sun in the holomonitor beside the locker.

  “I cared for my mother through her last year or so. Came north and got across the border when she died. I saw you at the launch site….”

  Remembering the moment, he laid his fork down and forgot to go on. Even now, hollow-eyed with worry, her tawny hair in disarray, she had a beauty that ached in his heart. A wave of emotion carried him on.

  “I was waiting with the pickets at the gate because I had no pass to get inside. I saw you in the taxi, smiling when you spoke to the children. You were beautiful. I knew you were kind. I knew I loved you—”

  Her startled look checked him. She was staring past him.

  “My Kona coffee.” It was the voice of Jonas Roak. “Pour me a cup.”

  He turned to see Roak climbing the steps out of the engine compartment, a smug grin on his narrow face, a blue steel gun in his hand.

  Twenty-four

  “Where’s this?”

  Kip was standing at the little table under the pantry locker, spreading tofujam on a hard slab of soyamax toast. In spite of the ripe red strawberry on the label, the jam had a bitter aftertaste he thought he would never learn to like. But he was hungry.

  “Where’s Mom?”

  Looking up, he found Day slipping into the cabin from the pilot bay. Her pale hair fell in an uncombed tangle across her face. Dark shadows ringed her eyes, but they had lost the glassy stare that frightened him.

  “We’re in the spider,” he told her, “out on the ice.”

  “To look for Me Me.” She nodded. “But I’m awful hungry.” Her eyes were on his toast. “Can I have some?”

  “Sure.” Looking for the black bead, he saw it still stuck behind her ear. It unnerved him for a moment, but she was once more his little sister. “The locker’s full of stuff.”

  “Thanks to the captain and Mr. Roak.”

  He saw Dr. Cruzet coming down the narrow steel steps from the bubble. The bead still shone behind his ear, yet he was smiling at Day, asking if she wanted fruit with her cereal. Whistling softly as he did when he was busy, he made scrambled eggs out of a yellow powder and cooked slices of the captain’s ham in the microwave. When he had them ready, Andersen stopped the spider and came to eat.

  Cruzet had made soya milk for Day and a mock orange drink for him. That was no better than the tofujam, but Cruzet let him have real coffee when he asked. All of them were so hungry, they ate without talking. Cruzet was standing, draining his cup and yawning sleepily, until Day yelped at him. A sharp animal sound, like the yip of a startled pup.

  “Okay.” Suddenly very serious, he nodded at her. “I’ll drive us on.”

  Frowning in a strange way, she watched him go back into the nose. The turbine hummed, and the spider lurched into motion.

  “We have to hurry,” she told Andersen. “Me Me needs us.”

  “I know,” he said. “We’re pushing on as fast as we can now.”

  “Me Me says …” She was rubbing her eyes, and her voice was fading. “Me Me …”

  She was suddenly asleep, her head on the table. Andersen carried her to the curtained berth at the rear of the cabin. He came back to clear the table and put the dishes away.

  “Andy—,” Kip began. A shiver stopped him. Andersen had turned to frown inquiringly, but he saw the bead’s black glint, and it was a moment before he could go on. “If you don’t mind, there’s a lot I don’t understand.”

  “I suppose you don’t.” Frowning soberly, Andersen nodded. “I wish you hadn’t come.”

  “But here I am!” his words burst out. “And Day’s gone crazy! I know she does miss her panda doll. She cried back at White Sands when they made her leave it, but that’s where it is.”

  “Could be you’re right.” Andersen shrugged, nodding reasonably. “It doesn’t matter. Tony and I want to push ahead toward the source of that signal.”

  “The city of giants?”

  “Whatever it is.” Andersen shrugged as if giants were common. “We had just a glimpse of it from far out in space, but it did look like a cluster of buildings—if you can imagine buildings the size of mountains.”

  “So we’re really going there?” Blinking at Andersen’s lean brown face, he saw a look that bothered him. Eager excitement, but also something cold and strange. It took him a moment to get his breath and go on. “Across all those thousands of kilometers? To the middle of the ice?”

  “A hard trip.” Andersen nodded calmly. “But your sister knows the way.”

  Did she? he wanted to ask. If she really did, how had she learned? Why did Andersen believe her? If she was actually their guide, how did they understand her queer chirps and yelps and grunts? What had the black beads done to her? To all three of them? He didn’t ask, because he was afraid he wouldn’t like the answers.

  “My mother,” he said. “She’ll be terribly worried. Can I call her on the radio?”

  “We’ve come too far.” Andersen frowned and shook his head. “We’re now below the line of sight, with the peninsula ridge in the way.”

  “Mr. Glengarth said signals reflect from space.”

  “Sometimes.” Andersen nodded. “From orbital dust. But most of the time the clouds are too thin and patchy. Even if you happened to get through, Stecker wouldn’t let anybody follow us. He needs the other spider at the pit.”

  “Can I try to call?”

  “Why not?” Andersen shrugged. “Use the radio up in the bubble.”

  He stretched and yawned and lay down on the berth. Climbing the narrow stairway, Kip heard him already snoring.

  In the bubble, Kip felt lost in a still, cold hell. The stars burned hard and bright in the dead black sky, never dimming, never twinkling, as they had burned forever. The turbine’s
muffled hum was hard to hear. He felt no motion. Beyond their own tiny island of dim red light, the pale frost reached out to the straight black horizon, the same everywhere, with no landmark to show direction.

  Stark terror chilled him for a moment, till he found the sun’s round black shadow on the sky behind, and the tight little cluster of stars that made a high-crowned cowboy hat, still straight ahead. Peering down, he made out their wheel prints in the frost, unreeling steadily behind.

  He turned on the radio.

  “Beta to ship.” He called and listened and tried again. “Beta spider calling the ship.”

  Silence. He turned up the volume till he heard a crackling whine. Interference, maybe, from the fusion engine or the motors that drove the wheels. He backed off the volume and called again. Again and again, till he felt dead for sleep. Maybe the people on the ship were all busy, rushing the pit project. He never got an answer, and he had no way to know about his mother. At last he crept back down the narrow steel stairway. The cabin was empty. He used the tiny toilet and dropped onto the berth.

  The next he knew Day was jogging his arm.

  “Wake up, lazy-head. Dr. Cruzet is making dinner.”

  He smelled something better than tofusoya and saw Cruzet busy at the little counter under the locker, whistling to himself.

  “Hello, Kipper.” Cruzet liked to call him that. “Nearly five hundred kilometers made, and we’re all okay.”

  Andersen had stopped the spider.

  “On smooth ice.” He was coming back from the pilot bay in the nose. “Except for a couple of seismic faults too small to cause a problem.”

  Kip rubbed his eyes and peered at them. All three looked like their normal selves, but they still wore the bright black beads in the hair behind their ears. And normally, he thought, they would never have seemed quite so carefree about the long trek ahead, or so little bothered by what might be happening back on the ship.

  He caught the rich aroma of broiling steak.

  “One of the captain’s precious sirloins,” Cruzet said. “Shared four ways, because the stuff in the locker won’t last us forever.”