Sunborn (46 page)

    The robot clicked briefly. “Not very specifically, Cap’n. There appear to be large masses of solid-state circuitry, and possibly some moving parts. I cannot determine the function of any of it.” A little later, he added, “I recommend I turn this analysis over to Jeaves, and prepare to enter the space myself.”

    Bandicut nodded, working his jaw for a moment. “I probably should prepare to go with you. In case it seems necessary.”

    “Cap’n, I don’t see the purpose in risking your life,” Napoleon said, and his words were echoed a moment later by Copernicus.

   
“The purpose is: if we can’t interpret what’s inside there, and determine what the hell it’s doing, then we aren’t going to be able to stop it, are we?”

    Jeaves spoke up. “Do you think you could do that better than Napoleon? Enough better to justify the risk?”

    Bandicut glanced at Antares and Li-Jared, both of whom were staring at him. “Not really. But—” he tapped the side of his head “—Charli might. And don’t forget my stones. Between us, yes, I think we have a better chance.”

    “Bandie,” Li-Jared said, “it would really make more sense for me to go—”

    “No, it wouldn’t. I mean, it might if we were talking about sending the smartest person. But Charli has memories that are connected to this business. And she’s smarter than both of us combined. So no—if anyone goes, it should be me.” Bandicut put a hand on Li-Jared’s coarse-haired shoulder. “You know it’s true.”

   
Li-Jared’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t answer.

    “Folks,” Copernicus said. “Sorry to interrupt, but we just lost the signal from the probe.”

*

   
Things were happening in Ik’s mind, things he didn’t understand. He felt as though he had come to a cliff edge, and gazed out onto a nighttime vista of stars, and become aware of something or someone much larger than himself moving and thinking and feeling in that vista. His sense of time, and space, and the boundaries of his body were all changing. He had lost nearly all awareness of the ship around him, and wasn’t even completely sure it was still there, or that he was on it. He felt as if he were floating on a river of time, a stream flowing from time’s beginning to time’s end. He had always been on that stream, but now something was different; he was
stretching
 along the stream. He could see many parts of it, though the end stretching into the future was obscured.

   
The sensation was dizzying. Behind him, sharing the view, was the great, luminous presence of the star, and also the darkly mysterious cloud of Deep. He couldn’t
see
 either of them, but he knew they were there, sharing this space. What he saw, they saw; what he felt, they felt.

    His vision began to change again. He was starting to glimpse what
*
Thunder
*
saw in the time river...cold gas swirling and condensing and forming into balls of proto-stellar matter. The globules remained that way, like eggs, until a shock wave from a supernova slammed through the clouds, compressing the gases and igniting fusion.

   
*
Thunder
*
was reliving these moments, replaying them with perfect fidelity...as a new sun burst into life. With it came a dazzling brightness, and a billowing wind of radiation, blasting and scouring surrounding space. The shell of searing radiation hit other knots of coalescing gas—and some of them blew apart to the winds—and some of them, compressed by the shock wave, also collapsed and fused, and thus even newer stars were born from the chaos. And in many of them,
thought
 emerged.

    The stars whispered among themselves, telling tales, tales of the passage of years, of transformation, of newlife becoming oldlife and oldlife becoming death. Sometimes death came in cataclysms, and sometimes sooner rather than later. Some suns burned hot and fast, living their lives with intensity. One such was
*
Thunder
*
. She knew her life would be measured by its blazing brightness, not its duration.

    Even so, there had come to be a wrongness at work, stars dying young, dying because they were invaded, infected. There was a killer among them, poisoning the birthing grounds. A killer small and deadly...

    Ik absorbed all of this in a billowing, wordless cloud. He felt a sense of timelessness in his knowing, a sense in which he felt he had
always
known these things, and always
not
 known them. And a sense in which he had always, and never, asked the question he now found himself speaking to the star: “We are here to help. Can you tell us how to stop this killer?”

    To his astonishment, a response came:

       
Lives

           
created

               
lost

       
So many things passing

           
passing away

   
The words jolted him, coming fully formed through his stones. He was momentarily speechless. The stones had found a translation key.

    “We are here to help,” he repeated. “We want to help.”

    There was a sudden change in the air; he couldn’t say what it was exactly, but the winds whirling around him seemed to have changed direction. And he heard more words, embedded in the sound of a clear bell, ringing deep from the bottom of an unfathomably large space:

       
Grieved

           
We are grieved

       
Filled with pain

           
So much pain

               
Why are you here ?

           
Are you here to cause more pain ?

               
More death ?

   
Ik was staggered by the suffering and anger. Why
should
 it trust him? He could only repeat what he had said before. “We have come to help. Do you know how?”

       
We are uncertain

           
What you are

               
What are you ?

   
“I am Ik. Call me Ik.”

    The star’s reply began with a softer kind of gong, and then...

       
Ik-k-k...

   
Ik rocked back, stunned by the confirmation that it really had heard him.

       
Why are

           
you here  ?

       
Are you sent by
*
N-n-ck-k-k-k
*
  ?

   
Ik breathed in through his ears, his excitement growing. If he could convey their intentions; if they could genuinely communicate...“We have spoken with
*
Brightburn
*
.
*
Brightburn
*
told us of
*
Nick-k-k
*
.”

       
*
Brightburn
*
 is dying

   
“Yes,” Ik said. “But she told us of
*
Nick-k-k
*
.”

    The ringing and gonging of the star began to grow louder and faster.

       
*N-n-ck-k-k-k* is dying

           
The serpent passes

               
through us

       
Help

           
Help

               
Help

                   
Help

       
Yes  ?

   
Ik whispered, “Yes . . .”

*

   
“Any idea where the airlock is?” Bandicut asked Napoleon.

    “I will take you there, while Copernicus sends another probe in,” Napoleon answered. “We have made no decision that you will enter the object, are we agreed on that?”

    Bandicut chuckled darkly. “Yes, Napoleon.”

    Napoleon stood between Bandicut and the door leading from the bridge. “Cap’n, just so we are clear about this. I have, at your request, stopped addressing you in the manner of respect that you are due. But that does not mean I have abandoned my fealty to you and your company. I will not let you needlessly put yourself in danger.”

    Bandicut opened his mouth but didn’t know how to reply. Finally he said, “Thank you, Napoleon, I appreciate that. But trust me, I have no intention of entering that damn thing unless it’s absolutely necessary. Now, can we go?”

    Napoleon bowed and turned to the door.

    Bandicut looked back at Antares and Ik; it seemed unlikely that they were aware of what he was doing. He told them the plan anyway. “I’ll be near the airlock, watching the second probe go in. If you learn anything, let me know. If...I have to go in...I’ll try to stay in contact, but make whatever decisions you think are best.”

    Antares blinked slowly and squeezed his hand. “Use care,” she murmured. “Ik is speaking to the star.” It took a moment for her words to penetrate.
Ik is speaking to the star.
 He blinked, dumbfounded, as he watched Antares return to whatever realm she was inhabiting with Ik.

    Finally he turned his gaze to Li-Jared. “I guess you’re in charge here. Pay attention to Ik and Antares, okay? They’re...speaking to
*
Thunder
*
.”

    Li-Jared made a soft hacking sound. “Yes,” he murmured. “Be careful, Bandie John Bandicut.”

    “Yah.” He strode off the bridge, following Napoleon.

    The airlock was, surprisingly, only a short distance away. Jeaves followed them on audio, reporting on the progress of the second probe.
“Nothing yet that we didn’t see with the first one.”

    “What equipment have you got for me if I need to board? You said something about n-space disrupters—whatever those are. I don’t suppose we have any high explosives, do we?” Bandicut asked. He had never touched a high explosive in his life, but right now, it seemed like a good idea to have some.

   
“The small n-space disrupters might be more useful than you think,”
Jeaves said.
“But we’re not a warship. Mostly what we have is our intelligence, a certain ability to manipulate n-space, and Deep and Dark.”

    “Mm.” Bandicut looked around to see where Napoleon had brought him. They were in a small compartment, the right-hand wall lined with storage units, the left wall blank. In front of him was a round portal with a window in its center. He stepped up to peer through it. He could just make out the interior of a narrow tube, large enough for something about the size of a grapefruit to pass. He couldn’t see very far into it. “What are we learning from that second probe?”

    Napoleon raised a mechanical hand and touched a flat, metallic surface on the left wall. “Let’s see if we can pick up the transmission.” A moving picture appeared. It was a fish-eye-lens image from the probe. Strange-looking structures on all sides swelled and distorted as the probe moved through the interior of the Mindaru vessel. “There’s not much I can interpret from that.”

    “Can’t you get any—?”

    “Wait!” Napoleon pointed. “Look!”

    Bandicut was looking, but it took a few moments before he could make out what Napoleon was pointing at. Just coming into view, past a lot of jumbled, shadowy shapes and structures, was a faint horizontal halo of light, like the first light of dawn hazing up over a line of buildings. “What is it?”

    “Unknown, Cap’n.”

    “Well, can you get a—”

    Before he could finish his question, the image swung dizzyingly, then broke up and went blank. The voice of Copernicus informed them,
“We have lost contact with the second probe.”

    “Any sign of what the trouble was?”

   
“None, Captain. No prior indication of trouble.”

   
Bandicut swore. He felt a knot in his stomach. /The probes are failing. Does that mean we should go in, or that we’d be crazy to go in?/

   
/// I hate to say it, but...///

   
/Yah./ He tipped his head back and called to Copernicus, “Do you have
any
 clues? Because Napoleon and I are getting ready to go in.”

   
“Unfortunately not,”
Copernicus answered.
“The signal weakened rather abruptly, and then went out. I’m afraid I can offer no advice on the possible risk to you. Captain, I think you should consider letting Napoleon go alone, at least to begin with.”

    “Negative, Coppy. We don’t know when that star could blow, and the probes aren’t getting the information we need. I’ll look out for Nappy and he’ll look out for me. Right, Napoleon?”

    “Unfortunately, I cannot argue,” Napoleon said. “But I do plan to improve our chances of maintaining contact, by dropping small transmitter-relays along the way.”