Sunborn

by Jeffrey Carver

  But the memories that have been

  coming back to me...

  I know now, I remember it. ///

  Bandicut swallowed hard, thinking. /You mean—that the Mindaru destroyed your homeworld?/

  /// Our sun was...like *Thunder*.

  Made to contribute to the explosion of

  a neighboring star. ///

  Bandicut closed his eyes. /And then wiped out by the supernova?/

  /// Yes. Cosmic murder.

  So this setup is not only giving *Thunder* a bellyache,

  it’s threatening the life of every star nearby,

  and doing it deliberately. ///

  Bandicut gulped. “Okay, Napoleon,” he said at last. “Take us as close as we need to go. Let’s see if this thing has a weak spot.”

  “Aye, Cap’n. Doing so now.”

  *

  It took several hours for Copernicus to maneuver The Long View close enough to give them a good view of the thing. It was a black, prickly sphere, like a floating mine. So far, there had been no sign of hostile activity, which was puzzling. “It’s possible,” Jeaves said, “that this device is designed to perform just the one task. The others we’ve encountered may have been sentries and protectors.”

  “And they may have big brothers nearby,” Bandicut muttered.

  “So how do we distract this thing from its one true task?” Li-Jared said, scratching his breastbone. He had been very quiet throughout the approach, apparently unbothered by their plunge into the sea of fiery radiation. Bandicut didn’t know whether it was good or bad for Li-Jared to be so calm.

  “Well, we don’t have any ship-to-ship weapons on board,” Jeaves said. “Just some small arms. I believe we have some n-space disrupter grenades, and that sort of thing.”

  “So-o-o...?” Bandicut asked.

  “We probably need to dock,” Jeaves continued. “Board it. Shut it down from the inside, if possible. What do you think?”

  “That you’re nuts?” Li-Jared said.

  “Probably,” Napoleon said. “We should be close enough to dock within the hour. Shall we prepare our boarding party?”

  Bandicut could only stare at him.

  Chapter 28

  Boarding Party

  There were at least sixty reasons Bandicut could think of not to attempt a boarding of the Mindaru satellite—or whatever it was—starting with the fact that they were inside a star, and if the Mindaru didn’t kill them, the star probably would. But the Mindaru was a marauding murderer that had to be stopped, and he couldn’t think of any other way to stop it.

  “No indication of defensive force-fields or hostile weaponry,” Napoleon reported. “It may be that the fact that it’s in the atmosphere of a star was considered defense enough.”

  “Yah,” Bandicut said. “Or maybe its big brother will be paying us a visit.” So who’s going in? What am I saying, the thing is the size of a beachball! Unless we have some really tiny probes...

  “I have identified a possible service-entry port,” Copernicus reported. “I am going to attempt a semihard dock, and attach a boarding tunnel extrusion.”

  “Coppy, the thing is tiny! How are we supposed to—?”

  “We will have to drop into three-space,” Copernicus continued. “This may cause a change in the aspect. In any case, we have automated probes that will fit nicely through that port—assuming we can get it open.”

  Bandicut’s heart was suddenly pounding with relief; or maybe it had been pounding all along and he hadn’t noticed. /Thank God, we don’t have to turn ourselves into spaghetti to get into the thing./

  /// For the time being.

  But a probe isn’t going to be able to interpret

  what it sees the way your stones might.

  Or I might. ///

  Bandicut scowled but didn’t answer. Napoleon was already saying, “Depending on what the probe finds, it is logical that I would be the next to go. Shall we proceed with rendezvous and docking?”

  There was a sudden vibration in the deck, and the image in the viewspace changed subtly, as though the sensors had shifted to a different wavelength. The Mindaru satellite appeared darker, closer, and more ominous.

  Copernicus announced, “We have dropped into three-space, folks. Normal-space, if you prefer—though of course we still have the n-space layering of the hull for protection.”

  “Then why—?”

  “To simplify station-keeping and docking with the other vessel.”

  Bandicut glanced around nervously. “Then shall we go ahead and—”

  There was a perceptible bump, then a click. “We are docked,” said Copernicus.

  *

  Ik was both surprised and moved by the upwelling of sound around him. It reminded him of the Maw of the Abyss from the Neri ocean-world as it distorted and twisted gravity in a futile attempt to complete a stargate operation. It was also like the rushing of wind he’d experienced in one of the sectors of Shipworld where huge air masses swept, moaning, over a hot desert. And it reminded him of the star-spanner that, long ago, had pulled him and his little ship to safety from his exploding sun.

  /Hello?/ Ik tried to say, and the result was a translation into a gentle gong-ng-ng-ng-ng-ng-ng sound, reverberating into space. To his astonishment, there came in reply a deeper, almost seismic groan. Words? Or at least syllables? Were the stones translating?

  *We are attempting...it is difficult...*

  Besides his own stones working frantically to understand the star, he could feel Antares’s stones trying to help...and all the while, he could feel the presence nearby, the star trying to understand what this new thing was. There was still anger, Ik thought, and fear or alarm. The star didn’t know what they were, but it knew small intruders were harmful.

  /Hello,/ he offered again, and hoped that this simple sound, and the benevolent wish behind it, might somehow be conveyed to the star.

  Gong-g-g-g-g-g-g. And with the sound, an expanding wave front of crimson-orange light.

  Ik felt a sudden burst of activity in his own head, a buzzing that ricocheted back and forth from one side of his skull to the other—the stones, consulting with each other on the exquisitely difficult problem of translation.

  A fresh groan welled up from the star. A response to his hello? Maybe. But he was a long way from verbal communication. That, Ik thought, might take a very long time.

  *

  For Deeaab, this was a more difficult time-fusion than any he had yet attempted. Time, in this region, flowed in subtly different streams and currents; it was altered by the many channels of n-space that the Mindaru had created. The sun clearly was in distress, no doubt because of the strange matter burning through those channels. Charlene-echo said that it seemed angry. The faint memory-echo of Delilah said that it was in pain. Perhaps both were true.

  Deeaab considered taking immediate action, perhaps disrupting the n-space channels by direct force. But neither echo supported this thought. The results could be unpredictable; and in any case, he could not disrupt all of the channels at once.

  Instead, he focused on what he was good at—bending time and trying to help the large life and the slow life to talk. He just had to accept that it was going to be hard.

  *

  “The boarding tube is pressurizing,” Copernicus reported. “The probe is ready. We are attempting to crack the code on the access hatch.”

  “You’re still watching for defensive threats, right?”

  “Of course, Cap’n.”

  “Good. Uh—listen, as you probe this thing, check to see if conditions are suitable—you know, in case one of us has to go in.” Bandicut shut his eyes; he couldn’t believe he was even thinking it, much less saying it.

  “Certainly, Cap’n. But does it make sense for you to risk yourself if our probes can explore the area? Napoleon can go if we need greater capability.”

  Bandicut drew a breath. “Just call it a premonition. Maybe we won’t have to, and that would be great. This is purely hypothet
ical.” He realized Antares was looking in his direction. Even though she was mostly focused on the star, she apparently had heard him.

  Copernicus said, “Code resolved. The port is opening. Probe now entering the Mindaru vessel. Readings are coming back.” Napoleon pointed to a display window in the viewspace, where they could see the camera’s eye view of the probe floating into the dark interior of the alien device. Angular shapes of machinery loomed in the probe’s lights.

  “What are we getting?”

  Napoleon answered. “Atmosphere is confirmed, one-half sea-level Earth normal. Thirty percent argon, seventy percent helium. If you should decide to go in, you would need to take air, assuming you’d like oxygen.”

  “I accept the recommendation. What else?”

  Napoleon took a moment to study the telemetry. “Local illumination is starting to come on, Cap’n, seemingly in response to our probe’s presence. Also, it would seem that the interior space is expanding to allow room for movement. Interesting.”

  Bwang. “Why would it do that?” Li-Jared asked, looking more troubled than pleased.

  “Perhaps it is designed to accommodate servicing visits,” Napoleon suggested. “It may be like our ship, and able to expand at need.”

  /// Excellent.

  That will be very helpful in the event

  we decide to go in person. ///

  /Mm./ Bandicut squinted at the images coming from the probe. “It’s pretty hard to tell what we’re looking at here. Nappy, can you decipher any of it?”

  The robot clicked briefly. “Not very specifically, Cap’n. There appear to be large masses of solid-state circuitry, and possibly some moving parts. I cannot determine the function of any of it.” A little later, he added, “I recommend I turn this analysis over to Jeaves, and prepare to enter the space myself.”

  Bandicut nodded, working his jaw for a moment. “I probably should prepare to go with you. In case it seems necessary.”

  “Cap’n, I don’t see the purpose in risking your life,” Napoleon said, and his words were echoed a moment later by Copernicus.

  “The purpose is: if we can’t interpret what’s inside there, and determine what the hell it’s doing, then we aren’t going to be able to stop it, are we?”

  Jeaves spoke up. “Do you think you could do that better than Napoleon? Enough better to justify the risk?”

  Bandicut glanced at Antares and Li-Jared, both of whom were staring at him. “Not really. But—” he tapped the side of his head “—Charli might. And don’t forget my stones. Between us, yes, I think we have a better chance.”

  “Bandie,” Li-Jared said, “it would really make more sense for me to go—”

  “No, it wouldn’t. I mean, it might if we were talking about sending the smartest person. But Charli has memories that are connected to this business. And she’s smarter than both of us combined. So no—if anyone goes, it should be me.” Bandicut put a hand on Li-Jared’s coarse-haired shoulder. “You know it’s true.”

  Li-Jared’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t answer.

  “Folks,” Copernicus said. “Sorry to interrupt, but we just lost the signal from the probe.”

  *

  Things were happening in Ik’s mind, things he didn’t understand. He felt as though he had come to a cliff edge, and gazed out onto a nighttime vista of stars, and become aware of something or someone much larger than himself moving and thinking and feeling in that vista. His sense of time, and space, and the boundaries of his body were all changing. He had lost nearly all awareness of the ship around him, and wasn’t even completely sure it was still there, or that he was on it. He felt as if he were floating on a river of time, a stream flowing from time’s beginning to time’s end. He had always been on that stream, but now something was different; he was stretching along the stream. He could see many parts of it, though the end stretching into the future was obscured.

  The sensation was dizzying. Behind him, sharing the view, was the great, luminous presence of the star, and also the darkly mysterious cloud of Deep. He couldn’t see either of them, but he knew they were there, sharing this space. What he saw, they saw; what he felt, they felt.

  His vision began to change again. He was starting to glimpse what *Thunder* saw in the time river...cold gas swirling and condensing and forming into balls of proto-stellar matter. The globules remained that way, like eggs, until a shock wave from a supernova slammed through the clouds, compressing the gases and igniting fusion.

  *Thunder* was reliving these moments, replaying them with perfect fidelity...as a new sun burst into life. With it came a dazzling brightness, and a billowing wind of radiation, blasting and scouring surrounding space. The shell of searing radiation hit other knots of coalescing gas—and some of them blew apart to the winds—and some of them, compressed by the shock wave, also collapsed and fused, and thus even newer stars were born from the chaos. And in many of them, thought emerged.

  The stars whispered among themselves, telling tales, tales of the passage of years, of transformation, of newlife becoming oldlife and oldlife becoming death. Sometimes death came in cataclysms, and sometimes sooner rather than later. Some suns burned hot and fast, living their lives with intensity. One such was *Thunder*. She knew her life would be measured by its blazing brightness, not its duration.

  Even so, there had come to be a wrongness at work, stars dying young, dying because they were invaded, infected. There was a killer among them, poisoning the birthing grounds. A killer small and deadly...

  Ik absorbed all of this in a billowing, wordless cloud. He felt a sense of timelessness in his knowing, a sense in which he felt he had always known these things, and always not known them. And a sense in which he had always, and never, asked the question he now found himself speaking to the star: “We are here to help. Can you tell us how to stop this killer?”

  To his astonishment, a response came:

  Lives

  created

  lost

  So many things passing

  passing away

  The words jolted him, coming fully formed through his stones. He was momentarily speechless. The stones had found a translation key.

  “We are here to help,” he repeated. “We want to help.”

  There was a sudden change in the air; he couldn’t say what it was exactly, but the winds whirling around him seemed to have changed direction. And he heard more words, embedded in the sound of a clear bell, ringing deep from the bottom of an unfathomably large space:

  Grieved

  We are grieved

  Filled with pain

  So much pain

  Why are you here ?

  Are you here to cause more pain ?

  More death ?

  Ik was staggered by the suffering and anger. Why should it trust him? He could only repeat what he had said before. “We have come to help. Do you know how?”

  We are uncertain

  What you are

  What are you ?

  “I am Ik. Call me Ik.”

  The star’s reply began with a softer kind of gong, and then...

  Ik-k-k...

  Ik rocked back, stunned by the confirmation that it really had heard him.

  Why are

  you here ?

  Are you sent by *N-n-ck-k-k-k* ?

  Ik breathed in through his ears, his excitement growing. If he could convey their intentions; if they could genuinely communicate...“We have spoken with *Brightburn*. *Brightburn* told us of *Nick-k-k*.”

  *Brightburn* is dying

  “Yes,” Ik said. “But she told us of *Nick-k-k*.”

  The ringing and gonging of the star began to grow louder and faster.

  *N-n-ck-k-k-k* is dying

  The serpent passes

  through us

  Help

  Help

  Help

  Help

  Yes ?

  Ik whispered, “Yes . . .”

  *

  “Any idea where the airlock is?” Ba
ndicut asked Napoleon.

  “I will take you there, while Copernicus sends another probe in,” Napoleon answered. “We have made no decision that you will enter the object, are we agreed on that?”

  Bandicut chuckled darkly. “Yes, Napoleon.”

  Napoleon stood between Bandicut and the door leading from the bridge. “Cap’n, just so we are clear about this. I have, at your request, stopped addressing you in the manner of respect that you are due. But that does not mean I have abandoned my fealty to you and your company. I will not let you needlessly put yourself in danger.”

  Bandicut opened his mouth but didn’t know how to reply. Finally he said, “Thank you, Napoleon, I appreciate that. But trust me, I have no intention of entering that damn thing unless it’s absolutely necessary. Now, can we go?”

  Napoleon bowed and turned to the door.

  Bandicut looked back at Antares and Ik; it seemed unlikely that they were aware of what he was doing. He told them the plan anyway. “I’ll be near the airlock, watching the second probe go in. If you learn anything, let me know. If...I have to go in...I’ll try to stay in contact, but make whatever decisions you think are best.”

  Antares blinked slowly and squeezed his hand. “Use care,” she murmured. “Ik is speaking to the star.” It took a moment for her words to penetrate. Ik is speaking to the star. He blinked, dumbfounded, as he watched Antares return to whatever realm she was inhabiting with Ik.

  Finally he turned his gaze to Li-Jared. “I guess you’re in charge here. Pay attention to Ik and Antares, okay? They’re...speaking to *Thunder*.”

  Li-Jared made a soft hacking sound. “Yes,” he murmured. “Be careful, Bandie John Bandicut.”

  “Yah.” He strode off the bridge, following Napoleon.

  The airlock was, surprisingly, only a short distance away. Jeaves followed them on audio, reporting on the progress of the second probe. “Nothing yet that we didn’t see with the first one.”

  “What equipment have you got for me if I need to board? You said something about n-space disrupters—whatever those are. I don’t suppose we have any high explosives, do we?” Bandicut asked. He had never touched a high explosive in his life, but right now, it seemed like a good idea to have some.