Napoleon swung to look at him. “Nothing, Cap’n. No, amend that—I do detect another pathway. Into the sun.” He pointed tangentially toward the blazing body.
Bandicut squinted. He thought he saw an extra little glimmer of light, but who could tell. “That’s it?”
“It’s the only thing I can see.”
Bandicut drew a breath. “Then let’s try it, shall we?”
“Aye, Cap’n.”
They stepped together.
The transition was much the same as before. But this time Bandicut had a feeling of being surrounded by silent, billowing walls of flame; and when the transition ended, he was enveloped in a storm of fire, and a thunderous roar that shook him to the bone, like standing inside a rocket launch. Napoleon touched him, and must have done something to his force-field suit, because the roar decreased, until it was more like standing a hundred meters from a waterfall. The fire was undiminished, though; he was surrounded by a blowtorch, a blast furnace, a continuous hydrogen bomb explosion, pulsing, blinding. He couldn’t move.
/// Breathe, John—now! ///
He gasped, fearing he would die from inhaling the maelstrom. But he did not die. He was protected by the suit, or by n-space, or both. But he sensed something else, something that made him shiver. /Charli, do you feel that?/
/// A presence...///
/Yes./ It was a tingling sensation wrapped around his mind, a little like the feeling of his first encounter with the translator, and Charlie. But different. More...massive.
/// John, I think it’s the star. *Nick*. ///
That was what he thought, too. “Napoleon?”
“Yes, Cap’n, we’re inside the star. I really thought we might find the control center here. But no sign.”
Bandicut drew a deep breath. “I think I feel the star.”
Napoleon swung quickly. “Is there a problem with your protection?”
“No—I mean, in my mind. I feel its presence.” He hesitated, shutting his eyes to focus—and suddenly felt strobe flashes going off in his skull. With each dazzling burst of light, he felt a powerful rush of fear, or confusion, or pain. For a dizzying few seconds, he thought he was falling into another fugue.
/// It’s not fugue. It’s the star. ///
/I can’t make sense of it! We need Ik! Or Antares!/
/// Or Deep, to fuse
the difference in time scales. ///
Bandicut felt a whirlwind in his mind. The strobe flashes had given way to jets of fire, flying around like leaves in a fall wind. /Can’t you or the stones help?/ he cried.
/// Trying...
I don’t think it’s really aware of us. ///
Bandicut tried to focus on the thought: We are here to help, to save you. But the thought seemed to just bounce around the inside of his skull like an EineySteiney ball. Finally he gazed at the star again. His eyes, or the filter, were adapting. He could see cells of turbulence churning in the nuclear fires. It was like watching the star’s heartbeat. He turned to the left a little. /My God./
The streamers of dark matter were visible again, only now they were rivers of shadow, not light, coursing through the sun glare. The streams dove straight down through the body of the sun. Squinting, he tried to see what was down there in the sun’s core. Charli helped, tweaking his vision slightly. Then he saw it: a shadowy sphere submerged deep in the heart of the star, and the dark matter playing down into it like streams of water in a fountain. It was beautiful, in its way. And it was deadly. “Napoleon?” he murmured.
“I see it, Cap’n. It’s a reservoir of dark matter, contained by an n-space field. I don’t quite understand it. I suppose when enough has accumulated to make the star collapse, it’ll implode and the Mindaru will have its hypernova.”
“Jesus.”
“Quite so. Captain, I cannot determine how close it is to the point of collapse. But I can tell you, there’s a lot of dark matter down there. And I think we’re looking at the source of the hypergrav shock waves. I see a lot of vibration down there. I’ll bet it periodically gives a big shudder as it adjusts to the buildup.”
Bandicut absorbed that. “Do you see anything we can do to stop it?”
Long pause.
“Nappy?”
“Captain...”
“What?”
“I don’t. No. I don’t see a way. I’m sorry.”
Stung, Bandicut was silent. /We’ve come all this way. And by now, Li-Jared has probably taken the ship out of danger. At least, I hope so. Sort of./ Charli didn’t answer. Streaming plasmas thundered in glorious chaos around him as he struggled to think it through. Finally he shouted, “We’re in the middle of this star and we can’t get at the controls to stop that? What the hell’s this pathway for, anyway?”
Napoleon seemed almost pensive. “An inspection portal, maybe? There’s a lot here I don’t understand, Cap’n.”
Bandicut fingered the small cylinders at his waist. “What about these little n-space disrupters? Could we lob a few of these into the core?” It sounded dumb, even as he said it. They’d brought them along for demolition inside the Mindaru vessel.
They were grenades, not super-bombs.
“Flea bites, Cap’n. They’d probably just disrupt the bubble that’s keeping us alive.”
“Bad.”
“Yes. Unless...”
“Unless what?”
“Well, I suppose it’s possible that if we somehow managed to get these disrupters down onto the wall of the reservoir...they might prick the wall like a balloon and cause it to release the dark matter prematurely. It’s definitely a long shot.”
Bandicut felt suddenly very cold, in the midst of this fury. “And what would that do?”
The robot turned to face him with its dark electronic eyes. “I imagine, Cap’n, that it would destroy the star.”
Bandicut closed his eyes again. “Bad.”
“Bad,” agreed the robot. “But if we release the matter before there’s enough to trigger the hypernova, the star might become so unstable that it dies—and it might even explode. But it might not send out such a massive blast of gamma radiation. It might not destroy a hundred other worlds, as the hypernova would.”
Bandicut drew a slow breath. Sacrifice the star—and ourselves—but save the Earth?
/// Not too different from a choice
you already made once. ///
/I shouldn’t have to make it again!/
/// No, you shouldn’t. ///
Bandicut winced inwardly and said to Napoleon, “It sounds like a better plan than nothing.”
“Except that I have no idea how to do it,” said the robot. “Get the grenades from here down to the core, I mean. Plus, there’s always the chance that we would only trigger the hypernova ourselves. Just a little sooner.”
Bandicut clenched his hands helplessly, and glared at the cathedral of fire around him. Pressure was building in his forehead. “Isn’t there any way to tell?”
“Not that I know of. Do you feel lucky, Cap’n?”
“No. There has to be another way.”
“Perhaps so. But none that I can see from here.”
“So we go back empty-handed?”
“You do.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means, milord, that I should stay. It is the only reasonable course.”
Bandicut felt a burning sensation in his forehead. “You just explained why there’s no reason to stay.”
“No, I explained why we might not want to use the grenades now, even if we could. The odds are too uncertain.”
“Then—”
“However, it may be that I will think of a way. And it may be that you will fail to find another method. And it may be that, in the end, this is our only hope. If it fails, and causes a hypernova, then that was going to happen anyway.” The robot was turning back and forth in the tiny area that they had to stand on. “But it will be better than doing nothing. It won’t save me, and it won’t save the star, and it m
ight not even save Ed’s world. But it might save Earth. And who knows how many other worlds. Isn’t that worth giving my life for?”
Bandicut slowly nodded. “Then I should stay with you.”
“No, you should not. Because you have to get word out, and help your friends. And because you should get back to Lady Antares. That’s why.”
“Napoleon—”
“And if it all works out, maybe you can swing by and pick me up on your way out. Like you just told Li-Jared to do.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t believe that when I said it to Li-Jared.”
The robot cocked his head and gazed at Bandicut. “Maybe I don’t, either. Now, get out of here, Cap’n. Before I push you out.”
Bandicut blinked, hard. His vision was blurred.
/// He’s right, you know. ///
/Easy for you to say./
/// No, it’s not. ///
Bandicut opened his mouth, then closed it. He faced the robot and gripped its metal hand. “Napoleon, I don’t like this one damn bit. But okay. You stay, hold the fort, bring up the rear. Are you in touch with Copernicus?”
“Cap’n, get moving. Before they leave.”
“Can you hear Copernicus?” Bandicut shouted.
“No. But quit worrying. Let me be the great romantic hero. Now, go.”
“Okay.” Bandicut was trying to think of some last thing to say. But it didn’t matter, because at that moment, Napoleon’s powerful hand gripped him, spun him around, and shoved him off into the thundering heart of fire.
Chapter 32
In Flight
Julie spent a long time staring out the window of the little service craft, wondering where all this was going to end. Wondering if this was how John had felt when he flew off in pursuit of a comet. Wondering if this was really going to be a one-way trip.
It seemed likely. The translator wouldn’t commit—just told her that if it could take her home safely, it would. But it didn’t seem like a very good bet.
For several days now, they had been hurtling away from the Park Avenue. Her emotions had been careening around at roughly the same rate of speed. For a while, she’d been accepting of her role, if a little numb at the thought of the sacrifice she was making. But that cover hadn’t lasted long, before being torn open by seething rage. Rage at the injustice of what was being done to her life. Rage at the threat to her home planet. Rage that both she and John had been asked to do this, but not together.
The rage, in time, had given way to disbelief. This wasn’t really happening. She wasn’t really being taken for a fool, chasing after some ghost in the night. She was going to wake up any moment now, for sure. When that didn’t happen, she bubbled for a while with quiet resentment.
The resentment was mostly drained away now, replaced by exhaustion and sadness. She wondered when she was going to start feeling noble.
/How soon are we going to be there?/ she asked, breaking a long silence with the stones.
*We expect to intercept the target in approximately seventeen hours.*
Seventeen hours? That was impossibly fast—and yet she could hardly stand the wait. The feeling of helplessness was becoming intolerable, the cockpit becoming a jail cell. She placed her hands on the console, gazing out at the star-speckled blackness. /Can I send messages from here?/ She might not feel so damn useless if she could at least get reports out to...well, someone.
*To what purpose?*
/To let them know we’re still alive and on course! To have some contact with humanity! What the hell purpose do you think? Can it be done?/
The stones hesitated to answer. But finally, they said, *It may be possible. Difficult, but perhaps not impossible.*
/Difficult, why? Because of the distance?/
*Because of the spatial threading. We dare not interrupt it. But possibly we could transmit in microbursts during the interstitial fractions, when we are in normal-space.*
She blinked, and stared at her reflection in the cockpit window. /Are you trying to make me feel stupid?/
*We are threading space: weaving in and out of normal-space hundreds of times per second. During each interval that we are outside of normal-space, we translate forward much farther than we could in normal-space. Thus our apparent speed.*
/Oh./
*It may be possible to send transmissions in a stutter-burst, during the normal-space intervals.*
Julie closed her eyes and thought of the alternative, to sit here feeling helpless and utterly cut off from humanity. “Let’s try it,” she said out loud.
*
It took her two hours to compose and record four messages—a situation update to the Park Avenue and the authorities in general, a more personal message to her parents and brother (probably her last, futile attempt to convince them that she knew what she was doing and was still of sound mind), one to Georgia on Triton, and one to Dakota Bandicut. Of the four, the last somehow cut the deepest for her, probably because it felt like her only remaining link to John. Maybe that was why, in what started as a personal statement to the young Dakota, she finally just started talking and didn’t stop until she’d described everything that had happened, from her first meeting with the translator till now. The message might or might not ever get to Dakota, but at least she was going to get it all on the record. She talked for quite a long time...
*Do you wish to transmit to your ship or directly to Earth? Our chances of clear reception to the ship may be better.*
She came back from a reverie that had followed her recording. /Uh? Can you do both?/
*We will try. Please remember that this is experimental. And we may have no way to hear an answer. Are you ready?*
Julie thought a moment and nodded. /Yes./
*Very well.* Pause. *All four messages are sent.*
/Thank you./ Julie sighed deeply, reclined her seat, and went promptly to sleep.
*
When she woke, the console was flickering with instrument readings. “What’s going on?” she asked in a hoarse voice.
The long-range imaging screen came on. It seemed to show only a dark star field. As she looked more closely, she saw a tiny object in the center of the screen, twinkling and turning. “What’s that?”
*Our quarry. A highly enhanced image. The actual object is quite small, and dark. We are still calculating its mass, but measurements indicate it has a diameter of one point four millimeters.*
/One point four millimeters?/
*Correct. Mass indeterminate. Readings vary from several tons to one grain of sand. Readings may be inaccurate.*
Julie stared at the screen, trying to divine what the stones were talking about. /Can you give me the simplified version?/
*Supposition: the object contains encapsulated nano-structure intended to enable it to reconstitute itself into a machine that can attack your homeworld.*
/You mean it’s going to make a weapon? Or become one?/
*Affirmative: method uncertain. It may simply gather and control mass. It is not hard to destroy a world, given sufficient mass and orbital energy. Observe Miranda, moon of Uranus: blasted to pieces millions of years ago, then drawn back together by gravity. Probably a natural disaster, but it could have been a test run for the Adversary.*
/Why would they want to do that?/ she whispered, a chill creeping in between her shoulder blades.
*To prevent humanity from advancing to the stars.*
/How much of this do you know for sure?/
*About their intent: much, but not all. About the object: we can detect complex structure within it, but not read details. Analogy: we can observe that your cells possess DNA, without being able to map its instructions.*
Julie blinked. /How did you even find it?/
*We detected its spatial threading signature.*
/Of course. How foolish of me. How are you planning to stop it? The same way as the comet?/ She closed her eyes as she asked the question, trying to shut out the image of a suicidal collision.
*No, it’s harder to d
estroy than a simple comet.*
She wrestled back her dread. /How, then?/
*We are planning to grapple it.*
Julie imagined slinging long chains around the grain-sized object. /Uh-huh. Then what?/
*Then we are planning to drop it into the sun.*
*
Hours passed, and they drew close to the object at last. It was too small to be seen out the window, but in the screen it looked like one of those electron microscope images of a speck of soot or pollen. Julie’s nerves were on fire, waiting for something to happen.
*It may try to evade us by threading space. May we suggest you fasten your seat restraints?*
Julie grunted and groped for the buckles. On the screen, the target suddenly started to move in small, darting movements. She felt a vibration pass through the deck. The ship became momentarily transparent. Fear flashed through her from head to toe. “What the hell was that?” she yelped, crouching down in her seat.
There was no answer. The ship became solid again. But then it squirmed forward, stretching and contracting with a quiver. Julie’s heart was jumping. She felt dizzy. On the screen, the target was jumping around wildly. Shift. Squirm. Flicker in and out of solidity.
“Stones! Talk to me!”
She felt a surge, and the ship stretched long, then longer, and with a sudden outrush of breath, she felt herself suddenly streaming forward. When she focused, terrified, on the screen, she saw the target swelling in size. She gulped a breath, and in that instant, the object vanished from the screen, and she felt a shudder through her seat. /What was that?/
The stones answered at last. *Capture. We have the Adversary in our capture-field, in the cargo pod of your ship.* A new image blinked onto her screen: the same object, enveloped in a purplish glow. The inner walls of the cargo pod gleamed faintly around it.
Her heart was pounding. She didn’t know where to put her fear. /How did you do that?/
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