Sunborn (41 page)

   
/// I gather...three’s a crowd. ///

   
Bandicut blinked, stung by the implication that this was somehow about Antares and Ik alone. Li-Jared had already gotten up and was pacing around the lounge. Maybe he had gotten the point already. Antares and Ik were in a strange embrace now; Antares was guiding Ik’s head onto her shoulder.

   
/// His stones are in his head.

   
Hers are in her throat.

   
They may need close contact. ///

   
/Right./ Bandicut flushed, nodded, and got up to join Li-Jared. After a few steps, he glanced back to see a translucent force-field, a privacy-curtain, shimmering around the space where Antares and Ik sat. /Right./

   
/// I’m sure it’s fine. ///

   
/Yah./ Turning away again, he saw Li-Jared watching him. “So,” he said, before Li-Jared could speak, “I hope Antares will be able to help fix his stones.”

    The Karellian rubbed his chest for a moment. “There’s more food on the table over there. Hraachee’an, I guess.” He gestured over his shoulder—but gazed at Bandicut with blazing, electric-blue eyes. “I am unsure what to think. About Ik. About what could go wrong. Do
you
think it’s just...damage...and not...?”

    Bandicut blinked uncertainly and shook his head. It was not like Li-Jared to be so tongue-tied. He was worried—
really
 worried—about his Hraachee’an friend. “I don’t know, either. I really don’t.”

   
Bwang.
“The stones have done pretty well in the past. I think we can trust them to...and Antares...” Li-Jared’s voice trailed off, and he made a finger-twitching gesture that Bandicut took as a shrug, and then he turned around, studiously surveying the Hraachee’an lounge.

    “Yes.”
And if it’s the Mindaru...

   
/// We’ll still have to trust them,

   
won’t we? ///

   
Nodding, Bandicut followed Li-Jared to the small buffet table. And he tried to ignore the steady tightening of his throat.

*

   
Antares had never felt anything quite like the joining of her stones with Ik’s. Her stones had connected with John’s to enable communication; but this was deeper, a diagnostic connection. Her stones were probing Ik’s, seeking out the source of his trouble. It was a stuttering connection, trying to get past the damage in Ik’s stones, at once intimate and distant.

    Ik’s pain was a hollow, bony kind of feeling, impossible to soothe away with her empathic touch. But beneath his distress she sensed Ik’s sinewy strength. /Ik? Can you feel me here?/

   
/Here. Risking. Your stones—/

    /They know what they’re doing. You must relax./

    /—can’t tell—/

    /Is it just the stones causing you pain, or is it more?/
Are you infected, Ik? Will I become infected from touching you?

    /So hard—cannot tell—/

    Antares felt a sudden rush of memories from Ik, as if he’d kept them bottled up and could hold them no longer: shock from the encounter with
*
Brightburn
*
; the awakening of memories of his own sun’s death; fear reverberating from the encounter with the Mindaru; the loss of Delilah. But beyond the fear, something more.

   
*Damage to the core programming...investigating...*

   
And all the while, rushing beneath those feelings were echoes of others: the loss of his Hraachee’an friends, waves of affection and concern for his friends here, a shivering bond growing toward Antares...

    She trembled in turn. /Ik, we’re all...with you. We won’t stop until you’re.../

    /I am fine./

    A hope? Be very careful...

   
*Probing for evidence of infection...please wait...*

   
Nothing she could do
but
 wait. She tried to search her inner awareness for her stones, to gauge their progress; but she only felt a buzzing, and then a blurring sensation as though everything were shifting slightly out of phase. She felt frenetic, desperate activity, but she could decipher none of it.

    Wait. Be patient.

    She felt as if she had been patient for a very long time. She was floating, uncertain. But there was still that pain, coming in waves. /Stones, talk to me! What are you doing?/

    The reply, when it came, jolted her:

   
*Search of the program-core complete. Mindaru infection present but in remission. We have isolated areas of damage, and are attempting repair and removal of infection. Remain alert...*

*

   
Bandicut and Li-Jared picked at the food and poked about anxiously. It was too bad Ik couldn’t enjoy the lounge with them. He might have explained what some of these strange-looking plants were, and why these three seats were attached to the walls, leaning at odd angles out into the foliage. He might have told them whether it was safe to pet the knobbly-skinned animal that sat in a tree gazing serenely into space, with unblinking orange eyes.

    But Ik and Antares remained behind the privacy-curtain. Twice, Bandicut started toward it. Each time he stopped. There was nothing he could do. Antares was better equipped. But he was scared of what could go wrong and hurt Antares as well as Ik.

   
/// Scared that Ik and Antares are getting personal? ///

   
/I didn’t say that./

   
/// You were thinking it. ///

   
/Maybe, on some level. But I didn’t say it./

   
/// So you told me. ///

   
/I’m concerned about my friends. Both of them./ He sat down on a bench, facing the buffet table. “Li-Jared, what can we do if there’s an infection from that...Mindaru thing...still on the ship?”

    “You mean—”
bwang
 “—in Ik?”

    “That’s one possibility. And what about Antares? She’s in close contact. She could get it, too. Any of us could.”

    Li-Jared looked thoughtful, biting off a bread stick. “I think we had better start learning all we can about the Mindaru.”

    Bandicut considered that for a moment, then said, “Jeaves! Napoleon! Can we talk?”

*

   
Napoleon was reluctant to leave the bridge, and Bandicut and Li-Jared were reluctant to leave their friends, so after declining an offer from Copernicus to meld the two compartments into one, they settled on a holo-conference. The robots reported on the information they’d gained from the ships they’d passed in the Mindaru graveyard. Though they had found nothing definitive, there was a great deal that was suggestive. All three robots agreed that the Mindaru were almost certainly a pure AI, and quite possibly descendants of the combatant AI from the ancient wars.

    Bandicut found that more frightening than helpful. “Where the hell is it
from
? Not in ancient times.
Now.
”

    “I’m not sure that’s a meaningful question,” Jeaves said.

    “Well, does the cursed thing report back to its superiors, or is it a free-roaming agent?”

    “It may be a little of both,” Jeaves said. “We found no logs connecting that Mindaru installation to any higher control. But then, we only got snapshots. It seems most likely to be a group mind, or colony consciousness. But whether it links to others in real-time somehow, or is simply a free agent on a million-year mission, I can’t say. It does seem likely it’s one of many agents at large—which would be consistent with the activity we’ve observed moving outward through the galaxy.”

    Bandicut swore, and Li-Jared made twanging sounds under his breath. They both started to speak, and Bandicut jerked his head to prompt Li-Jared. “So,” said the Karellian in a tone that suggested that he was
really
 getting fed up, “what’s this about them wanting to exterminate every lifeform in the galaxy? Which I assume includes us? What’s that all about?”

   
The robots hummed and ticked for a moment, and then Napoleon answered. “That was a message that the oldest of the three ships we contacted kept repeating. It was really the only message it had, milords.”

    “Nappy—knock off the milord crap, will you?” Bandicut said in annoyance. Napoleon hummed and bowed acquiescence. Bandicut sighed. “Thank you. Now why would the Mindaru let it broadcast that information?”

    “Perhaps it doesn’t mind if we know its intent.”

    “It wants us scared?”

    “Perhaps, Cap’n,” said Napoleon. “At the same time, it’s clear that we survived at least partly because it wanted to study us before it destroyed us.”

    “But—”
bong
“—destroy us
why?
”

    Jeaves seemed almost to draw a breath and let it out. “I think it might be an anger that’s been held so deeply for billions of years that it’s part of the essential Mindaru programming.” Jeaves turned his head to Napoleon. “You were studying the details from the second ship...”

   
“Rage,”
 said Napoleon. “That’s what I deduce. A self-righteous rage, and a pride bordering on hubris.”

    Jeaves sounded surprised. “You found that in the second ship’s—?”

    “No, I found a detail in the second ship’s logs that seemed to resonate with information from the Maw of the Abyss, which I glimpsed as we were leaving the Neri world. At the time it meant nothing to me—an image of an awesome power, raging against all of creation, or at least living creation. It was not the power that sent the Maw,” Napoleon said, anticipating Bandicut’s next question, “but a power the Maw knew tales of.”

    “Then why didn’t you—?”

    “I didn’t connect it until now, because it was classed by the Maw as a myth. A story. But this ship caught by the Mindaru was also owned by ‘the Others,’ the ones who sent the Maw on its journey. And it told me it had been caught by a myth. It was, more than anything else, astonished by that.”

    For a moment Bandicut could think of nothing to say. Li-Jared was twitching and rubbing his breastbone. Then Charli spoke, and she seemed breathless.

   
/// There’s more to it than that,

   
I’m almost certain. ///

   
/Huh? What?/

   
/// Something I just realized.

   
I got it from Delilah when she was captive,

   
as she was connecting with Deep.

   
There is something practical in the

   
purpose of the Mindaru.

   
Deadly but practical.

   
The Mindaru want to populate the galaxy

   
with AI life like itself.

   
That’s why they’re destroying stars—

   
not just to eliminate organic life,

   
which they view as a threat,

   
but to build up the supply of heavy elements

   
in the galaxy! ///

   
/Uh.../ Bandicut rubbed his cheek thoughtfully, then told Li-Jared and the robots what Charli had just said.

    “They want more heavy elements to create more of themselves!” Li-Jared shouted, jumping up. “More hardware, more AIs. They want a universe friendly to them and hostile to us.”

   
/// And heavy elements— ///

   
“Heavy elements are created in supernovas. And...hypernovas,” Bandicut said. “Oh, Jesus...”

*

   
The conversation turned to a discussion among the robots of
how
 the Mindaru might be trying to trigger the hypernova. They seemed to be getting nowhere, so Bandicut walked back to the privacy-curtain. “Copernicus, do you have any way of knowing what sort of progress Antares and Ik are making? Are they likely to be in there for a while yet?”

    The tree beside him said, “They seem very still, and their stones are communicating at a high speed. I think they may be there for quite some time yet.”

    Bandicut sighed. “Do you think we should stay here, in case they need help?”

    “Cap’n, I think you should go and try to get some sleep. You’ll be more help to everyone that way. I’ll call you if you’re needed.”

    “Are you sure?” He was, in fact, struggling to fight off sleepiness.

    “I’m sure,” Copernicus said. “Li-Jared, you too.”

    The Karellian looked up from a flower he was inspecting. “You may—”
bong-g-g
 “—be right.” He dusted his hands and looked at Bandicut. “You, Bandie?”

    Bandicut nodded. “Let’s go.”

*

   
It was lonely in the sleeping room. Copernicus had fixed the room up with some Earthlike touches—a raised bed, pillows, and a comforter; but it felt too different. And it wouldn’t be right for Antares. He asked Copernicus to change it back. He dropped with a sigh onto the low sleeping pad.

    He found it impossible to sleep, though. Despite his weariness, he was now wide awake and restless. The lights were dimmed but not out, and he let his gaze run up one ghostly wall, across the ceiling, and down the opposite wall. Then he’d pick another spot and do it again. On about every third run, he imagined Mindaru in the wall. He knew it was nonsense, but it was alarming nonsense. He became angry at his inability to go to sleep, and that made him more awake.