Sunborn (11 page)

    “What have you found?” Bandicut asked Napoleon.

    “Spacetime phenomenon coming into range, Cap’n.”
Tick tick.

    “Spacetime phenomenon?” Bandicut turned, following the robot’s movement. “What kind of spacetime phenomenon?”

    “John, look there.” Antares pointed out into space.

    Bandicut squinted. “At what, the nebula?” It filled about half of the visible sky.

    “In front of the nebula. Something really dark. I think it’s moving this way.” Antares strode out onto the outer bridge near Copernicus, to get a better look.

    Bandicut followed her uneasily, still trying to see it. That faint patch of darkness? “There?” he asked, pointing.

    “Uhhll. It
is
 moving this way.”

    “It looks almost like a smaller nebula,” said Ik.

   
B-gong.
 “Nebulas don’t move like that. It’s moving like something with purpose.”

    Copernicus turned in place, then rolled by, humming, to confer with Napoleon. “We are measuring alterations in the spacetime metrics, in that direction. Possibly related to the moving patch.”

    Bandicut glanced at the robot. “How can you even tell what’s happening to spacetime out there?”

    “It’s not easy, but we are doing our best, Captain,” Napoleon answered. “We are attempting to mathematically subtract the effects of our spatial threading.”

    There was a click and a garbled voice from the walls. It was Jeaves.
“...am trying...voice algorithm...can you hear me now?”

    “What’s wrong with your voice?” Ik asked.

   
“Apologies...incompatible...voice AIs...”

   
“Give it to us in text,” Bandicut said.

   
“No, wait. I think I’ve got it. How’s this? Can you hear me
 now?”

    “Yeah, that’s good.”

    “Finally. The ship’s AI wasn’t designed with a compatible voice interface. I think we’ve got it solved.”

   
Bong.
 “Happy for you,” said Li-Jared. “Are you going to tell us what this is that’s coming at us?”

    “Yes. That dark patch you see is not a nebula, but an extremely complex spacetime fluctuation, as Napoleon and Copernicus noted. I wanted you to have a look at it as early as possible. I think it might be to our advantage to attempt contact, when it gets closer.”

    “Contact?” Bandicut glanced nervously at the others.

    Ik made a sound deep in his throat. “Hrrm. A spacetime fluctuation, which we should contact? John Bandicut, this robot Jeaves has a strange sense of humor.”

    Bandicut frowned. “I haven’t noticed that it has
any
 sense of humor. Jeaves?”

    Jeaves’s disembodied voice answered, “I believe that what you see is a being, and not a simple astronomical object.”

    “Uh—okay. And how would we—?”

    “I am not entirely certain. But Delilah is something of a spacetime fluctuation herself. She may be able to help, when the time comes.”

    “I see,” said Antares. “And when will that be?”

    “Possibly within the next ship-day. Maybe two. But you may experience preliminary effects.”

    Preliminary effects? Bandicut turned back to squint into space. “Can we get a clearer image?”

    Delilah circled down from the ceiling. (What would you like?)

    “Can you magnify?” asked Ik.

    The halo didn’t answer, but the view zoomed in abruptly. The dark object was now clearly visible against the distant nebula; in fact, it looked as if they were about to plow right through it. It was roiling, turbulent, black smoke. The view zoomed in still farther, and now it looked more like a weird curtain, curling and billowing in a breeze. Bandicut felt a sudden wave of dizziness; his stomach dropped out from under him. /What’s happening?/ He felt himself falling, and grabbed for support on a railing.

   
/// Ohhh...///

   
Bandicut steadied himself; his breath was coming hard and fast. /You too?/

   
/// Yah...don’t...know what...///

   
Bandicut turned his head—slowly—to look at his companions. “Do you guys—uh—?” All of the others were swaying or groaning. Antares held her head.

    “Hrrrr-ahhhh! Can we...change the view back, please?” Ik rasped.

    Chiming softly, the halo restored the more distant view. Bandicut let his breath out slowly as the dizziness subsided. He reached out to touch Antares. “You okay? Was there—?”

    “Uuuoooll, yes,” she murmured, rubbing her temples. “Did you feel it? The presence?”

    “I just felt like I was going to keel over.”

   
/// I felt its presence. ///

   
“It is alive, and it is sentient,” Antares said. She still had both three-fingered hands pressed to her temples. “I think it was aware of us, but I cannot be certain.”

    Bandicut turned to the halo. “What just happened? Why did we feel faint like that?”

    (That was unexpected. Possibly, you were sensing the being’s influence on the surrounding continuum,) Delilah murmured.

    “But I thought you were just magnifying the image.”

    (Not simply magnifying. Extending our own spatial-threading field to improve the resolution. Apparently we created a linkage to those distant fluctuations.)

   
Bandicut didn’t entirely follow, but decided to let it go. “Then what can you tell us about this...entity?”

    (Rather little. Our remote sensors have detected it—or something like it—in the past. We have no evidence of harmful intent.)

    “Hrrm, your robot friend urged us to contact it,” said Ik. “Was there a reason?”

    Li-Jared’s eyes narrowed to vertical gold slivers, with a tiny bar of gleaming blue across the middle. “It was not pleasant to experience. Will it continue to make us feel ill, as it gets closer?”

    (We hope not. We will attempt to compensate. And you may find that you can adapt.)

    “What do you think?” Bandicut asked Antares.

    Antares’s lips were pressed together, her eyes slitted like Li-Jared’s, but horizontally. “I do not know what to make of it.”

    Ik stretched out a hand. “Could you feel if it intended to harm us?”

    Antares pushed her hair back from her face, and her eyes relaxed a little. “No. I felt a strong presence—but what kind, I do not know. It was very strange.”

    “Strange,
friendly?
Or strange,
hostile?
” Bandicut asked.

    “I do not know.”

    Bandicut spoke to the wall. “You haven’t said anything, Jeaves. But you brought us here to see it.”

    “Yes,” said the wall. “This spacetime being is known to the shadow-people. They advised me to try working with it.”

    Bandicut frowned. “That’s not much to go on.”

    “No. It was a parting conversation. But the shadow-people are quite intuitive about others. I trust their instincts.”

    “Is there any way for us to ask them? I mean, there are no shadow-people aboard, right? Do you have any way to communicate with them?”

    Delilah descended again, trilling. (What do you wish to know?)

    “Well—I’d sure like to know if they could tell us more. Is there any way to reach them?”

    (I can share certain elements of their knowledge with you.) The halo abruptly expanded, and something strange appeared in its center—a gray, twisting darkness. For an instant, a shadow-person seemed to writhe there, and a shrieking violin sound split the air.
(Whreeeek! Whreeeek!)
 And then the shadow-voice began to be modulated in a way that sounded as if it were trying to form words.

    “Hrrm, can anyone understand it?” Ik asked.

    /Can you tell what it’s saying?/ Bandicut asked Charlie.

   
/// The stones are trying to decipher. ///

   
Indeed, the stones in Bandicut’s wrists were buzzing with activity. /And—?/

   
*The haloes, you understand, are a life-cycle stage of the shadow-people,*
said the stones, startling him.
*The halo is drawing upon a memory. It is remembering the name of the cloud. We are attempting to translate.*

    There was a rumbling in the air, and then Bandicut heard,
(Dee-eeee-eeee-aaab.)
 The reverberations seemed to continue, even after the voice stopped speaking.

    Ik tried to echo the sound in his throat. “I’m not sure how to say it,” he said.

   
(Dee-ee-ee-aap.)

   
Bandicut grunted. “It sounds sort of like
Deep,
 the way a blue whale might say it.”

    Charlie considered for a moment.

   
/// I think you have the right idea.

   
It’s a kind of groan,

   
as if it’s straining to reach out

   
across time, or space.

   
‘Dee-eee-eee-up,’ maybe. ///

   
Bandicut tried, but it hurt his throat. Finally he said, “Deep. Can we just call it Deep?”

    Ik gave a quick nod. “That, hrrm, seems close.” He turned to Delilah, in whom the vision of the shadow-person still fluttered. “Is ‘Deep’ a satisfactory translation?”

   
(Reeeek! Ye-e-e-ssss.)

   
“And...what kind of thing is it?” Bandicut asked. “Can it communicate with us?”

   
(Reeeek!)

   
“Can it help us? Can we talk to it?”

   
(Whreeek! Un-n-ssurrre.)

   
“Then why—?” Bandicut gestured in frustration.

   
(Whreee-eee-eee...)
 Delilah contracted spasmodically as the shadow-image within emitted a series of frantic violin riffs.

   
“Delilah, what is it—what are we supposed to do—?”

    The shrieks faded, and the halo returned to its normal appearance. (We are uncertain. But the shadow-people have sensed the presence of this thing, Deep, before. And they have heard stories...)

   
“Stories?”

    (From far back in time. Stories of Deep, or beings like it, who spoke with stars, and retold their stories. We know little of its actions beyond that.)

    “But we are flying to meet it.”

    (Where we are going, we would meet it anyway. We can only wait...see...hope...)

    Bandicut felt his stomach tightening. Wait and see? He looked at his friends, then back at Delilah, who was floating away. “Is there anything else? Is that what you brought us here to see?”

    Delilah answered, (We wanted you to know what was coming,) and then vanished through a wall.

    “Hrrrm, and now that we know?”

    “We can have nightmares about it,” Antares said softly.

*

   
No one felt much like going back to sleep to have nightmares, so they gathered in the common lounge for breakfast, and to discuss what might be coming, and how they might prepare. Everyone was feeling off balance, Bandicut realized—not just him. It was not just apprehension about this Deep creature, but also the reminder that so far they had about as much say in this mission as puppets on a string. They had—in a leap of faith—agreed to come, yes. But they still had no detailed information, nor were their views being solicited. They didn’t even know, exactly, who was in charge. Was it Jeaves? The shipboard AI? The halo?

    Li-Jared was the most vocally annoyed, and he waved a pair of breakfast rolls around like small clubs as he voiced his dissatisfaction. But the usually unflappable Ik was not far behind. Even the two robots seemed agitated; they kept moving in and out of the lounge, checking things with their scanners, as though determined, by gathering data, to bring sense to their confused state. Antares had clearly been most affected by the contact with Deep. She sat in silence, eating cheese and fruit, drinking an emerald-green tea, and keeping her thoughts to herself.

    Bandicut finally brought up something that was nagging at him. “This might seem trivial, but you know—we’re doing something that a lot of people might consider bad luck.”

   
Bwang.
 “What’s that? Listening to a human-speaking robot?” Li-Jared asked, rubbing his black fingers energetically on his chest.

    Bandicut’s mouth opened. He wasn’t sure whether to be amused or insulted. “Don’t try to hide your feelings, Li-Jared. Do you trust robots or not?” He glanced at Napoleon and Copernicus, who were inspecting the base of the wall that curved around the dining tables.

    “I trust
them,
” Li-Jared said. “It’s Jeaves I don’t trust.”

    “Well—” Bandicut shrugged “—I don’t blame you. But that wasn’t actually what I was talking about. I was thinking how we’re flying in a ship without a name.”

    “Hrah. My people, too, would find that odd,” said Ik. “Uncomfortable.”

    Antares cocked her head. “I don’t understand. What is the purpose of naming the ship? There is only one ship.”

    Bandicut shrugged. “To give it some personality, I guess. Doesn’t a ship feel a little like a living thing to you?”

    She cocked her head even more. “Should it?”

    “Sure. Every ship has its own quirks, its own personality.”

    “I know a good name,” Li-Jared said glumly. “How about the
One Way Trip
?”

    “Hrrm, Li-Jared my friend, even for you, this is a gloomy view of things.” Ik clacked his teeth together thoughtfully. “Although, on the other hand, I can’t think just now of a better name.”

    “How about
The Long View,
” Bandicut suggested. “You’re always encouraging us to take that. Well—now we are.”

    Antares laughed huskily. “Judging from our experience back there on the bridge, it’s an accurate name.”