Sunborn (23 page)

    Ik looked around wildly for someone else who might help. Li-Jared was shouting at Jeaves. But Bandicut was bending over, hands to the sides of his head, murmuring madly.

*

   
The life-fire called
*
Brightburn
*
was aware of the tiny, quick visitors, and of another that was different. It felt very strange, this presence of the others. It was hard to know who or what they all were. And yet there was something about the presence that felt good and true, that gave
*
Brightburn
*
 a desire to make its acquaintance. And so, not knowing how to speak, she began reviewing her life, which would soon end, for her fires were burning low.

   
*
Brightburn
*
 began singing and remembering.

   
*
Brightburn
*
had been here long...very long. She was not the oldest, not by far—because the Firstborn had come before. But the Firstborn were all a memory now, lifedust scattered throughout space.
*
Brightburn
*
was of the Secondborn, and one of the oldest of the life-fires still living in Starmaker. Long before the trouble had begun,
*
Brightburn
*
 had been here. She had watched the clouds and storms of creation issue forth new life-fires, sister suns flaring into being. And among them, she looked for the ones that were true-life, like her.

   
For although some did not speak, many did. And together, they became a clan of life-fires.

       
With light they spoke

           
with heat

           
with coiling arcs of fire

       
Space itself quivered

           
with their shaking and their thunder.

   
Though
*
Brightburn
*
was not the first of the Secondborn to sing, or to tell stories, she may have been the first to tell stories
as
 songs, to spin tales and memories in word and thought and song.

   
She had passed on stories from the Firstborn, stories of the Earliest—who came even before the Firstborn, out of some other crucible altogether, who were already here when Starmaker was coalescing out of the gases and dusts of time. The Earliest had watched Starmaker form, and some even claimed to be the nucleus that drew Starmaker together.

   
But those memories, handed down in fragments, were never quite clear. Perhaps it was a failure of the memories, or perhaps the Early Fires had not been as adept at setting thought to words.
*
Brightburn
*
 rather thought of the Early Fires as being perhaps

       
Stronger but

           
less wise

               
barely aware

   
And yet, they had been here and seen it all begin. How often
*
Brightburn
*
had wished they had handed down their stories as
*
Brightburn
*
 was trying to do now—before her end.

       
Death approaches

           
thoughts grow confused

               
can the stories be told in time ?

   
Foremost were the stories of her own birth into life—her vivid, if splintered, recollection of her emergence into being, into thought.

    She remembered the first billowing burn.

    Remembered blossoming and burning hot.

    Remembered changing as she grew larger, hotter, yellow and white. (This was long before the swollen redness came over her, before the inner fires changed, before she grew cooler and larger.)

    She remembered the appearance of others like her, life-fires with intelligence and wit and song in their souls. Sometimes they sang together, especially when stories abounded of new births, new fires erupting from the glowing cloud. It was a time of joy and hope.

    There were stories of
*
Dazzle
*
and
*
Blaze
*
and
*
Deepburn
*
. Stories of the clan and the sisterhood, growing out of the many individuals. It was a time when so many of them thought to the future, dreaming and wondering what to expect from the cloud of light.

    And then, in a fraction of a lifetime, it all changed. A dark new presence came to Starmaker.

       
Something dark

           
and difficult

               
with rippling waves

                   
that tore at Starmaker herself

           
destroying

       
Why ?

   
Where it had come from,
*
Brightburn
*
 didn’t know.

    What had brought it here,
*
Brightburn
*
 didn’t know.

    But its presence was unmistakable.

    It brought uncertainty, and fear. And in time

       
insanity

           
and death

   
*
Brightburn
*
 did not know, could not fathom why. She herself was not struck in the beginning.

    But
*
Deepburn
*
 died shockingly young, flaring brightly and then sputtering down.

   
*
Crimson
*
 lost her memory, then her ability to speak.

    Then
*
Crimson
*
 died.

    And
*
Raybright
*
 stopped speaking, but did not die.

    And they all shook at times with the waves that came over them, waves that troubled them and made them feel unwell.

       
Why  ?

           
Why  ?

   
This thing that had invaded Starmaker did not make itself visible or present for anyone to see. But it tugged at the very fabric of space, hurt the life-fires in the belly, made them cry out with their thoughts.

    It never spoke.

    Never explained.

    Only killed, or changed.

    Or crippled the newborn, who had not yet learned to speak.

       
Wrong

           
it was wrong

   
*
Brightburn
*
could feel its presence even now. It knew where the Other was: up in the valley. In the rift, among the powerfully bright fires at the heart of Starmaker. There where
*
N-n-ck-k-k-k
*
’s belly was growing hard and tight and swollen with whatever the Other was doing to it.

    There the Other was preparing the greatest cataclysm ever, the one that might destroy all of Starmaker, though
*
Brightburn
*
 herself might no longer be here to suffer it.

   
*
Brightburn
*
 wished she could warn the others, the tiny ones.

       
For all the good

           
knowing would do...

       
O small ones

           
and strange one,

       
hear me

           
somehow

               
hear

*

   
Charlene-echo was no longer the same being who had once lived in the mind of a human. But the old instinct remained, to protect the ones it loved. When she heard the cry for help, she felt a pang for Bandicut, and for Charli, the one who reached out and spoke to her.

    
<<< Is it bad, what is happening? >>>

   
Charlene-echo asked.

    Charli answered,

   
/// Frightening, terrifying.

   
We are being pushed into something

   
we are not prepared for, not made for.

   
Please help! ///

   
Charlene-echo tried to understand. She felt that they/she/Deeaab were hearing something from the fiery one. It was not yet clear. Perhaps if time could be squeezed together a little more here, and stretched a little more there...

    And yet, if it was hurting those they were trying to help...

     <<< Antares and Ik?

    
Are they the ones? >>>

   
she asked. And she was answered by Charli, who was herself stretched to the limit even to have this conversation.

   
/// They hurt most.

   
But Li-Jared and John Bandicut, too. ///

   
Charlene-echo urgently conveyed the need to Deeaab. And Deeaab, who was no longer just a host, but a part of her now, heard the cry.

    But before he could respond, they felt something new: a rumbling in spacetime, a shock wave. It was another of those periodic disturbances that shook everything they touched. And now it was shaking the star, unexpectedly and hard. And through the condensed bubble of time Deeaab had created around the star, he immediately saw the danger. This star was on the verge of collapse, and Deeaab’s time bubble was squeezing years’ worth of energy into minutes.

    Deeaab turned, changing course. He could do nothing about the shock waves; he could do nothing about the fragile condition of the star; and it was too late to remove the time bubble. But he would do what he could to lead the smaller ones away, before it was too late for them.

*

   
Bandicut felt Charli snap back into his mind like a rubber band. He gasped and blinked up into the view of space. It was shaking. Or
he
was shaking; the entire ship was shaking. “Jeaves, what’s happening to us?” he yelled. There in the viewspace, where the large granulations on the red surface of the star seemed about to swallow them, he saw a barely visible shadow, but way down in the star’s photosphere. It was Deep, making a sweeping turn.

   
Jeaves called in a crackling voice, “Hypergrav waves! We’re trying to stabilize...” Bandicut held his breath, watching Deep. It took a few moments to be sure: Deep was leaving the star.

    Jeaves spoke again. “The shock waves are reverberating throughout the star. This could present unexpected danger, given its fragile state. Please stand by while I attempt to determine how we should respond.”

   
Bwang.
“Respond by
getting us out of here!
” Li-Jared shouted.

    “Deep is leaving!” Bandicut called. “Look!” He pointed to the moving shadow.

    “Yes,” Jeaves said. “But if we are getting information...”

    “
What
 information?” Bandicut yelled.

    Jeaves was in motion across the bridge. “Antares, can you report?”

    Antares was breathing hard, holding her hands to her head. She didn’t speak, didn’t seem
able
to speak. Bandicut, forcing himself to be calm, touched her shoulder. He could feel her struggle, but couldn’t tell what she was struggling
with.
 He looked up and glared at Jeaves. “She can’t report! Get us out of here before you kill both of them! Before you destroy the ship!”

   
Jeaves cocked his robot head for a moment, then said softly, “Hold tight.” As he spoke, Delilah spun away and vanished. Bandicut thought he saw a flicker of change in the view of the sun. The granulations on the surface began to shift sideways in the view, as though the ship were altering course. The sun began to grow smaller.

    Still touching Antares, Bandicut looked across at Li-Jared and Ik. “We’re leaving. Hold on. We’re leaving the star. Hold on...”

*

   
*
Brightburn
*
had never felt such pain. These waves were much worse than any that had come before. There was something
wrong
 in the way it was all happening, as though it were all too fast, as though the ending of life were somehow being crushed together, compressed into too short a time.

       
The death blow

           
too soon

               
too soon

       
Not ready