Sunborn

by Jeffrey Carver

  Li-Jared growled under his breath, but did not say no.

  Chapter 5

  Unscheduled Departure

  “Morning” was marked by light streaming in through translucent squares high in the bedroom walls. Bandicut blinked his eyes open, wondering for a moment where he was—until it all rushed back with a jarring urgency. He pushed himself upright, washed and dressed, and walked with Antares through the empty common room. On his way, he picked up a mug of coffee and something that looked like a scone. Antares took a dark roll and a mug of sweet tea. They ate their breakfast standing up, before pushing open the front door.

  Jeaves was waiting outside. “Good morning,” he said. “Did you sleep well? Would you like to stretch your legs?”

  “Fair, and I suppose so. Are Ik and Li-Jared up?”

  “They went to take a look at the ship. If you hurry, you can catch them. Walk that direction.” Jeaves pointed to their left. “You’ll find the path. It’s a short walk to the docks.”

  Bandicut glanced at Antares. She hooked an arm through his, and they followed a narrow path winding through the woods. There was a certain surrealistic feeling in walking among trees dressed in russet and yellow—many of them reminiscent of Earth, others with strangely curved branches that ended in spherical clusters of leaves. Bandicut was about to ask Antares if there were trees on the Thespi world, when he spotted the glint of a different environment ahead through the woods. Space docks?

  They quickened their steps, before they heard Li-Jared’s twang: “There they are!” The path broke out of the trees into a large, high-ceilinged area with a floor of a hard, pebbly gray material. Directly ahead loomed a huge spacecraft hangar.

  Most of the floor space was taken up by empty docking cradles. Li-Jared waved them toward the nearest, the only one holding a vessel. Napoleon and Copernicus circled around it, taking readings from the strange-looking craft. The size of a small yacht, it was shaped like a melted, slightly deformed lozenge. Its surface was translucent and milky orange. It was enveloped in a nearly transparent haze, which on closer inspection was filled with almost invisible, silver glitter. Nano-assemblers? Bandicut wondered, remembering a seafloor factory that had manufactured submarines.

  /// Nano-shit for starships? ///

  Charlene mused.

  /Maybe./

  Whreeeek-whreeek! The sudden sound was like a shriek of badly tuned violins. A flurry of angular black shapes, part bat and part tattered black rags, fluttered around the spacecraft—and disappeared into the hull. “Hrah! Shadow-people!” Ik cried. Fractal beings, the shadow-people only partially inhabited the familiar dimensions of spacetime; but they were a welcome sight. It appeared they were hard at work on the ship.

  Antares had turned to watch the shadow-people, but now she swung back to Ik and Li-Jared. “So, is this the spaceship? The one Jeaves wants us to take into that nebula?”

  Jeaves’s holo-image appeared beside Ik. “It is.”

  Li-Jared strode alongside the haze-enshrouded ship, gesturing in agitation. “And we’re supposed to believe that this thing—” he waved his hands “—can not only get us to that nebula alive, but help us do something once we’re there?”

  “Well, rrrm, the star-spanner bubble didn’t look like much, either,” Ik pointed out. “Perhaps Jeaves will enlighten us.”

  “I will try,” said the robot.

  “Starting with the empty cradles,” Ik continued. “Is this the only ship on the station?”

  “Yes. All of the other vessels were sent out as probes.”

  “The ones that didn’t return?” Li-Jared asked. “Why do you think this one will do any better? What’s so different about it?”

  The robot seemed to pause in thought. “Well, the basic hull design is the same—but the probes were all robotic and smaller, whereas this one is being fitted to accommodate you.”

  “That’s it? That’s the difference? Has anyone considered that maybe there’s a design deficiency—and that’s why the others didn’t return?” Li-Jared waved at the ship. “Look at it! That doesn’t look solid enough to stand in, much less fly into whatever the—” rasp “—we’d be flying into!”

  “Hrrm, I am forced to agree,” Ik said. “If the other missions failed, why should we think we can do better, with the same kind of ship?”

  “The other missions didn’t have you,” said Jeaves.

  Bandicut blinked. “Huh?”

  “The seven of you. The other missions had excellent robotic equipment and programming. But they didn’t have you four, or the quarx, or your robots.”

  “And that’s the difference?” Bandicut asked.

  Jeaves’s sparkle-eyes looked at each of them in turn. “That is the difference.”

  Li-Jared made a bonging sound. “Well, that’s just—”

  “Oh, and the others didn’t have me,” Jeaves added. “For whatever that may be worth. I have some knowledge and experience, which may prove useful.”

  Li-Jared lowered his head, muttering darkly.

  Antares blew a strand of hair away from her face. “What is it about us that you find so compelling?”

  The robot stretched its gleaming arms wide. “You have a proven record, working together; you have succeeded in ways no one else has. Ik—you have a remarkable ability to bring cohesion to a group. You brought this company together.”

  “Hrmm, yes, but surely they would have—”

  “They trust you, Ik. You’re careful, you’re reliable, and you take the long view of things. Yes? And you, Li-Jared.”

  Bong. “What about me?”

  “You have knowledge, wit, and common sense. You don’t hide your feelings. You speak if you think someone’s not being straight with you. It can be annoying to your friends, I suspect, but it’s a great asset.”

  Li-Jared stood uncharacteristically mute.

  “Antares,” Jeaves continued, “the value of your empathic abilities should be obvious. But so is your combination of hardheadedness and compassion, and your loyalty to your friends. And John—or should I say, John and Charlie?—the two of you together have the ability to do things none of the others can.”

  “Come on.”

  /// It’s true, you know. ///

  “You healed Neri who were dying from radiation sickness—remember? Plus, you’re an excellent leader, and you have the benefit of all of Charlie’s knowledge and insights.” Jeaves turned around, looking at each in turn. “Should I continue? You all have translator-stones, which even by the standards of Shipworld are remarkable. And then we have Napoleon and Copernicus, who have grown so much they’d be unrecognizable to the people who built them.”

  “Okay, we get it,” Bandicut said.

  “Do you? All of you?”

  “That means me, right?” Li-Jared said. “Well, I’m flattered, but not so much that I’m ready to sign on to your mission.” He made that deep-in-the-throat sound again. Bwang. “I think we’ve done enough already. I think we should take this ship and fly it home. Or just stay here and hold out for a return to Shipworld.”

  “But could you fly this ship yourselves?” Jeaves asked. “It is not ready for flight yet, and its AI is being prepared for a particular mission. As for transportation back to Shipworld, I have no way to offer that.”

  “Could you not, if we decline the mission,” Ik asked, “send us away in a star-spanner bubble?”

  “The star-spanner generator on Shipworld has to be able to reach out and latch on to you,” Jeaves answered. “Even if I had a hotline to Shipworld to arrange that—which I don’t—the distance and the interference from the hypergrav waves effectively rule it out.” The robot shook his head. “No, you would need a fully independent star vessel.”

  Ik opened his mouth to reply, but was interrupted when a low rumble began to throb through the ground. “Rrrm! Not another—?” The rumble grew louder and harder. A series of jolts made them all stagger.

  The Jeaves holo flickered, went out, then returned. “Stand by. We’re picki
ng up warnings from the sensing satellites.”

  Whreeeek-whreeek-whreeeeeeek! A group of shadow-people swarmed out of the ship and divided; half flurried around the craft and the rest flew up and vanished near the ceiling. Bandicut watched them until his gaze focused on the clear dome overhead. The ceiling vibrated visibly as another shock wave rippled through the station. “Jeaves—is that ceiling going to come down on us? Should we be getting to a shelter?”

  “Too far—!” Jeaves began, then blinked out.

  As the shaking became more intense, Napoleon and Copernicus raced up, alarm lights blinking. Napoleon staggered, and Copernicus skidded as his wheels slipped on the vibrating deck. “This is not a safe place to be!” Napoleon twanged. There was a loud crash, somewhere on the far side of the hangar.

  Jeaves blinked back on. “We have lost contact with several of our sensing units between here and the nebula. This is all—” Whatever Jeaves said next was drowned out by another crash, this time from the direction of the forest. Trees falling?

  “Jeaves? Should we get back to the lodge?”

  Jeaves flickered out. When he did not reappear, Ik tipped his head back and said, “I am worried about those dome sections. If they crack—”

  “This will be the first place to lose pressure,” Bandicut said.

  “The lodge may be reinforced,” said Antares.

  With the ground shivering under their feet, they ran—bouncing and skittering as if on an enormous griddle—toward the woods and the lodge. They were just approaching the tree line when a thunderous series of cracking sounds in the woods ahead made them stop.

  Whreeeek-whreeek-whreeek! A cluster of shadow-people flew over their heads and circled back toward the ship, crying out.

  *They want you to return to the ship. It’s the safest place.*

  All four looked at each other, as though their stones had spoken to them in unison. A halo appeared, wheeling over their heads, seemingly intending to lead them.

  As the ground shook again, Bandicut waved toward the ship with his arms. “Let’s go!” They ran together, following the halo.

  Jeaves reappeared as a ghostly image near the ship, where Napoleon and Copernicus had just careened to a stop. The appearance of the vessel had changed in the minutes since they had left. The surrounding haze was gone, and the hull had taken on a more metallic and silvery sheen. It also had sprouted slender attachments, and bristled like a sea urchin. Antennas? Bandicut wondered. Force-field generators? Spines to discourage predators?

  “Please get aboard,” Jeaves urged. “You’ll be better protected on the ship, especially if we lose atmosphere in the hangar.”

  “How likely is that?” Li-Jared demanded, his voice vibrating.

  “I don’t know. The station is coming under significant stress. Until now, these waves have been a nuisance and a warning. But the station AI has just declared an emergency,” Jeaves said, leading them toward the stern of the ship.

  Bandicut felt Antares’s hand on his arm. “John, what is that?” She pointed past the stern to the end of the hangar. “Is that a star-spanner bubble?”

  He squinted. A pale gold sphere was gliding toward them along a silver thread that stretched across the open hangar floor. “Looks like. Is that our bubble?”

  “It is,” Jeaves confirmed.

  The bubble moved quickly. As it approached the spacecraft, it began to shrink. With a sound like a sizzling frying pan, it drew up to the stern of the ship—growing smaller but brighter, until it was a blazing ball the size of a grapefruit.

  Bandicut’s stones suddenly spoke. *Recharge is complete.* The star-spanner bubble flared with a diamond light, then vanished with a hiss into the end of the spacecraft. There was a reverberation like a plucked harp string. *Joining phase is complete. Boarding phase has begun.*

  A dark opening appeared in the side of the spaceship. “Please board here,” Jeaves said. He sparkled and disappeared, and Copernicus answered his plea by rolling forward into the opening. The hangar floor shook again.

  The company exchanged glances and strode aboard, with Napoleon bringing up the rear. The quaking immediately diminished. There was no airlock or entry chamber, just a passageway, luminous with a reddish orange glow. After several sharp turns, it opened into a large room, also suffused with a pale, but still orange, glow emanating from translucent walls. It looked like an intimate theater, with four padded bench seats and standing room for one or two dozen people. The floor sloped down to an open space, and a luminous front wall where a holo-screen might have been.

  Jeaves’s disembodied voice called, “Come on down front.”

  As they did so, Bandicut asked, “Where are we? And where are you?”

  “You’re in the operations and command center of the vessel. What you might call the bridge,” Jeaves answered. “I’m not installed in the ship yet, so I’m still speaking remotely from the station.”

  Bridge? The space did not look even remotely like a command center. “How do we—?”

  “Hrrrm, the controls,” Ik asked. “The instruments. How can one fly the ship from here?”

  A shimmer of light appeared in the middle of the floor. It darkened to reveal a pedestal holding a small console; lighted geometric shapes covered its top. “We can bring up controls as needed, in a variety of configurations,” Jeaves said. “But the shipboard AI will be doing the flying, with help from one of the haloes. We’ll keep these out of the way until we need them.” The pedestal vanished. A moment later, a halo dropped out of the ceiling, circling overhead. It made the familiar ringing sound like a hoop around a pole, and seemed to echo with a sound like “Dee-lee-lee-lie-lie-lie-lie-lie...”

  Jeaves said, “You have met De-li-li-li before. She is speaking her name to you.”

  Bandicut watched the halo circling, and was suddenly reminded of a dog he had once known, a dog named Delilah that was always running in circles, barking. “Delilah? May we call you that? I knew a Delilah once.”

  (Delilah,) came a soft, chiming voice. (Delilah, yes.)

  “This is all very nice, I’m sure,” Li-Jared said curtly. “But since you got us aboard the ship, would you mind telling us what’s happening with the quake that drove us in here?”

  Jeaves answered, “It is diminishing, but our remote sensors indicate that more violent shock waves will arrive shortly. The hypergrav disturbances seem to have entered a new phase; they are coming in waves of increasing severity. This is not entirely unexpected.”

  “Meaning what?” Bandicut asked.

  “Meaning it appears to confirm a theoretical model.”

  “A model?”

  “Yes, it predicts that the hypergrav disturbances may grow past a critical threshold, then abruptly become much more powerful, and more destructive.”

  Bandicut tried to absorb that. “Your model predicts this?”

  “Yes,” said the bodiless voice.

  “That implies you know what’s causing the waves.”

  “Negative. That’s what we need to find out. We know it’s coming from stars in the nebula, but little beyond that.”

  “Then how—?”

  “It was a chaotic pattern analysis. The strength of this current set of waves is very close to one set of predictions for a multiplier effect. It is likely to get worse. Much worse.”

  “That seems like a good reason for us to leave,” said Li-Jared.

  “It does indeed,” Jeaves said. “And the shadow-people are speeding preparations for launch. They can work very fast when they need to. They’re giving it top priority, even over protection of the station.”

  Bandicut opened his mouth and closed it.

  “When you say launch,” Antares asked, “you mean toward the Starmaker Nebula, don’t you?”

  “That is my hope.”

  “But if we prefer to go in another direction?”

  There was a pause, and finally a grainy holo of Jeaves’s body appeared where the pedestal had been. The image seemed to be shifting its gaze from one per
son to another, attempting in vain to make eye contact. “This ship has been outfitted for the purpose of flying to Starmaker, to discover the source of the trouble. Any other destination would negate our chances of accomplishing that mission.”

  “Then we’re prisoners?” Antares asked. “Will you take us against our will?”

  The grainy holo turned, and turned. “Not against your will, no. But truthfully—without your help, the mission has little chance of success. If it fails, then Ed’s world will fall, and likely others. Perhaps many—”

  “But if we ask you to take us to Shipworld, can you do it?” Li-Jared asked, interrupting.

  “I wouldn’t know how—not directly. There are other waystations. Possibly the trip could be made in stages, if you chose that path. I am uncertain.”

  “Sounds like we’d be better off staying here and trying to call for a pickup, if we made that decision,” Ik said.

  Jeaves’s head jerked slightly. “I fear...your chances of survival here would not be great.”

  “How not great?” Antares asked.

  “Very not great. The truth is...the shadow-people have just advised me to launch. They are finishing the essential parts of the job as we speak. The station is under increasing strain—more than predicted, actually—and with heavier shock waves forecast, the risk of structural failure is rising rapidly.”

  “So we don’t have to go—” Antares began.

  “But if we stay here,” Bandicut said, “we get pulverized with the station?”

  “More or less,” Jeaves concluded.

  They stood silently, looking at each other. Bandicut was aware of the two robots ticking and whirring around the room, investigating. Suddenly the floor started to vibrate more noticeably. “We can continue this discussion later! I must check on the progress of the preflight!” Jeaves said sharply. “And I must get myself loaded onto the ship. Delilah will assist you for now.” The holo winked out.

  Bandicut half closed his eyes, feeling the deck tremble. “This place is shaking itself to pieces.”

  “Hrah.”