Star Blaze (26 page)

“Fascinating,” said Bram. “I had heard rumors—whispers from Orion's clouds. I've been searching for this pair and all the time they were on the
Spirit of London
. The galaxy works in mysterious ways.”

“General Nymac was looking for them too,” said Clara. “The Andromedan fleet was hunting them.” Johnny guessed the Emperor knew she was talking about their brother. It hurt to use his real name when he was trying to destroy their Sun.

“As I feared,” said Bram. “They, too, are young, but were they to fall into Nymac's hands or, worse still, the Nameless One who commands him, the damage may be irreparable. They could take over the galaxy and enslave everyone. Tell me all you can about this Erin and his sister—did she have a Starmark too?”

So Johnny and Clara told Bram nearly everything they could think of about the strange pair and their solar sailing ship, the
Falling Star
—how Erin had stopped Johnny's heart beating on the bridge, but how his sister had resuscitated Alf after a fold without rebooting him, and then healed Johnny's nose after it had been broken. And how Erin must have used his power to force Sol's self-destruct sequence to begin. The Emperor was troubled as to how such a thing could have happened to a ship he thought secure, but Johnny couldn't see any other explanation.

When they'd finished, Bram sat in silence for a couple of minutes, eyes closed. Johnny stood, shaking out the pins and needles from his legs and walking to the very edge of the lake. Clara joined him. Together they watched their reflections in the rippled surface. Behind, Bram stirred, jumped to his feet as easily as a young man and came to stand beside them. He bent down and scooped another handful of chronons which, in his
palms, grew six golden spikes. The Emperor cast them into the air above the golden lake where they hovered for a while, a hexagon of golden stars, before slowly drifting down and rejoining the lake.

“I will send you Captain Valdour and a fleet of ships,” said Bram. “It will more than suffice—he is a fine, resourceful officer and your detection system will ensure the Andromedans do not gain a foothold. And I will go to Alnitak to see if these stars truly adorn the skies from that system. Bur first we must heal Sol and take you home.”

“It's different … peaceful here,” said Clara. “Can I try what you did to make the Milky Way?”

She bent to scoop up a little of the golden liquid herself.

“No!” said Bram, sternly, and where Clara was reaching the liquid receded, as though repelled, making a semicircle of gold with her at its center and leaving absolutely nothing in its place. It was a vast void of nothingness, stretching down for as far as Johnny could see. Clara peered into the depths and overbalanced. Johnny grabbed her and pulled her away from the edge, allowing the fluid to return to the side as though nothing had happened.

Bram tried to smile. “Of course you like it here—your mother built it,” he said, “but you are still so very young that one touch of the Fountain of Time and you might even cease to be at all.”

“Mum? How?” Johnny asked.

“I don't know how,” Bram replied, “but I think I know why.” Johnny knew so little about their mum that he was hungry for even the tiniest smidgeon of information about her. “This surface was once perfectly smooth,” the Emperor went on, “until after she sent you forward through time from Atlantis. We came here together that same day, forty thousand years ago, when she first showed me Titan's secret. She told me the disturbance in the cosmos after what she'd just done was very
great, so she'd used the fountain, and the lake, to soften it. It was very important for her that you got home.”

“I wish she was here now,” said Clara.

“So do I,” replied Bram. “So do I.”

Finally, once the dandelion-head shuttle was safely back in the
Calida Lucia
's cargo bay, Clara had her wish to practice folding. She, Johnny and Bram stepped through an arch-shaped opening onto the deserted and dead bridge of the
Spirit of London
. It was dark and cold. Johnny's breath condensed into a white cloud as it left his mouth. He put his hands into his pockets but somehow it didn't make him any warmer. Secretly, he knew he'd been hoping for a miracle—that Sol would have magically healed herself and the words “Hello, Johnny” would have welcomed him onto his ship. Sadly, the only sound was squeaking, as Clara used her sleeve to wipe the condensation from the Plican's tank. The strange creature opened an eye, as though proving to his sister that it was still alive.

Bram surveyed the scene. “Johnny—I have something to show you,” he said. “You may find it disturbing, but you must see it.”

Johnny nodded.

The Emperor walked over, placing a reassuring hand on Johnny's shoulder. “It is one of Sol's memories—the
Calida Lucia
believes it to be important.” From nowhere, a second Johnny appeared, sitting at the center of the bridge. “Do not be alarmed,” said Bram. “It is a simulation … a recreation of what Sol believes took place.”

“Can he see us?” Clara asked, peering uncertainly round the Plican's tank. The Emperor shook his head.

“Ship,” said the other Johnny, stretching out in the comfort of the captain's chair. “I demand you do something for me.”

“Yes, Johnny,” replied Sol.

For a moment, it was as if everything was back to normal, but then Johnny realized Sol's soothing voice was also part of the recreation.

The other Johnny continued, “The thing is I want you to blow yourself up … kill yourself … not right now, of course.”

“I don't understand,” said Sol, the lights flashing on her vocal display as she spoke.

Both Bram and Clara turned to the real Johnny, who was gesticulating for them to look back at the figure in the chair. “It's not me—it's Erin,” he hissed. “Look at him. It's like he's never sat in that chair before.”

“You don't need to understand,” said the seated Johnny. “Think of it as a test. To prove how far you will go to follow my orders.”

“You know I will do anything you ask me to,” Sol replied. “Even this, however much it grieves me.”

The real Johnny had taken his hands out of his pockets and his fingernails were digging into his palms. If he could have throttled the impostor sitting in his chair, he would happily have done so.

“Whatever,” said the hateful figure, “but that's not all. You will only begin the self-destruct after you have emerged from the next fold; you will not discuss this instruction with anyone else; and, in the event that I should attempt to countermand the order, know that I am testing you. You must not stop the countdown for any reason. Is that understood?”

“It is, Johnny,” said Sol. “May I at least discuss …”

“This is not a debating society, ship,” said the other Johnny. “One more thing. The moment you take off on your final journey, you will drain the fuel cells of your shuttlecraft—there will be no survivors.”

“Johnny—you know I will die if you ask it, but I cannot believe you want Clara and …”

“Silence!” roared the figure in the chair. “You dare defy me?”

“Of course not, Johnny.”

“Then you have your orders—that will be all.” The impostor rose and turned as if leaving the bridge before the scene froze.

Bram walked forward and peered at the statuesque Johnny. “He does look like you,” said the Emperor. “And a DNA analysis shows that only you, Clara, your mother and Bentley have ever sat in that chair.”

“You've got to believe me,” said Johnny. “I promise
this
is not me—it's Erin.” As he said “this” Johnny waved his arm through the projection which disappeared for a moment.

“Of course I believe you,” said Bram. “That is axiomatic. It's just that the evidence is compelling. Convincing Sol may be more difficult than I had hoped.”

“Surely she should be able to tell,” said Clara. “This other Johnny's too … neat … and clean.”

“Thanks very much,” said Johnny, though he realized it was true. The projection in front of him had his Cassiopeia-emblazoned tunic top tucked inside his black trousers, which he hoped he never did. And he could almost see his reflection in his double's shiny black boots.

“You're welcome,” Clara replied, smiling innocently.

“
Calida Lucia
—if you can, probe Sol's memories and show me this Erin.” At once a frozen image of the boy king appeared on the bridge close to the lifts. “Fascinating,” said Bram, examining the hexagonal markings surrounding Erin's face. “I can sense his power growing, but it is unclear to me how he would have fooled your ship's DNA sensors.”

“But what about Sol?” Johnny asked, stepping between the Emperor and Erin's hologram. “Can you heal her?”

“You're right—that is the matter in hand,” said Bram. “I'm afraid my answer has to be ‘nearly.'”

“Nearly? What does that mean?”

“It means she will have to revert to an earlier state … of consciousness. If we reconnected her with her current mindset, I do not believe I could stop her self-destructing. You mustn't feel bad about the action you took, Johnny. I see now it was the only way to save your ship's life.”

“So what
can
we do?” asked Johnny.

“If Sol's the good ship I think she is,” Bram replied, “she will have built a mind cache.” In response to Johnny and Clara's questioning looks, he went on, “snapshots of her being at previous points in time. This memory of Johnny … of Erin in the chair,” the Emperor corrected himself, “has a date stamp. If we restore Sol to a point before then, she can recover, but it will be a great trauma and she will need looking after.”

“How do you mean?” asked Clara.

“Every second Sol senses vast quantities of information, processing and evaluating it and performing more calculations than there are atoms in the universe. She thinks deeply. When she recovers, there will be a discontinuity in the data—like a vast, ominous black hole she cannot ever enter.”

“It's got to be done,” said Johnny. “I'll make it up to her and explain everything that's happened.”

“I know you will,” said Bram. “Your ship is in good hands.”

“Where's the cache?” Johnny asked. “Let's do it now.”

The Emperor turned to Clara. “Sometimes folding
is
the only way.” Johnny's sister smiled again, but looked uncertain. Bram continued, “Your Plican friend is the gatekeeper, but I trust it will let you pass.”

The smile on Clara's face broadened. “That's brilliant,” she said, as the realization struck, before rushing over to the tank at the center of the bridge. She placed her hands on the curved cylinder and closed her eyes. Next, the tank disappeared. In its place was nothing … and everything … at the same time. “Welcome to hyperspace,” said Clara.

It might have been Johnny's imagination, but when his sister opened her eyes they looked as if they had many more silver flecks than normal. He hoped she could still see properly.

“Follow me,” she said, smiling and stepping into the nothing. She disappeared.

“Come,” said Bram, placing an arm around Johnny's shoulder and steering him into the void.

It was like looking at a world reflected in a shattered mirror, broken into a million fragments, set against a swirling backdrop of pink, purple and black. The Plican existed here and was huge. How stupid, Johnny thought to himself, to presume a creature that could fold space was confined to its little tank on the
Spirit of London
. Instead it protruded into all these other dimensions, myriad tentacles capable of manipulating every one—three of the arms were writhing toward Johnny, Clara and Bram.

“Don't be afraid,” said Clara, as one of the huge sucker-covered limbs wrapped itself around each of them and plucked them, not forward or backward, or left or right, or up or down, but in a different direction entirely. They were carried through just one of the dimensional fragments, a cone-shaped space that seemed to go on forever, yet folded back in on itself. There, spiraling through its heart was a beautiful, sparkling double-helix, built from the different mind states Sol had asked the Plican to store here. Johnny shivered, remembering what he had done the last time he had seen one of these glorious crystal snowflakes. The folder retracted its tentacles, releasing them.

“Come on,” said Clara. Seemingly without effort, she began to move toward the glittering structure, yet she remained in her original position. It was as if she was everywhere at once along the path she was taking.

Bram followed and exactly the same thing happened to him. Johnny had no choice but to push off from the nothing he was
standing on and join the others in inspecting the stored minds. As Sol had aged, her different mind states had become bigger. The first caches were only the size of a pea, if size had any meaning here. The later ones, near the end of the spirals, were a meter or so across, more like the mind Johnny had forced himself to sever from the rest of the ship. In this place, Johnny could understand their structure, how they were folded in on themselves, dimension upon dimension, saving space yet still storing the vast sum of all Sol's experiences to date. Here, Johnny could follow and understand those dimensions perfectly. He could see the timeline of his ship's experiences—her memories—all the way to her near destruction. He picked out the spot before the reconstruction he'd just witnessed, back on the bridge in the regular universe. A tentacle from the Plican appeared from nowhere, wrapped itself around the particular crystal and detached it from the double-helix. It spoiled the symmetry, like having a tooth missing in a previously perfect mouth. The folder offered the glittering structure to Clara, but she shook her head before pointing in Johnny's direction, and it pressed the mind into his arms.