Sunborn (13 page)

    Bandicut blinked, feeling a momentary wave of dizziness.

   
/// Oh my, yes. ///

   
With a whirring sound behind them, Napoleon strode onto the bridge, followed by Copernicus. “Cap’n? We are sensing unusual stressors in the n-space field—”

    Bandicut swung around. “N-space field? When did
you
start sensing n-space fields?”

    Napoleon moved his upper body from left to right, flexing in his midsection like a long coil spring. Bandicut didn’t remember his ever doing that before, either. The robot seemed to be scanning intently. Finally he answered. “It’s an enhancement the shadow-people gave us.”

    Bandicut blinked. “What kind of readings are you picking up?”

    Napoleon stepped closer to the front of the bridge. “Many n-space disturbances. With multiple sources. Wouldn’t you agree, Copernicus?”

    “Many,” Copernicus agreed.

    “What do you mean? Is it Deep?”

    “Possibly,” said Napoleon. “But we are also detecting hyperspatial gravity waves similar to the ones we experienced at the waystation. Their source may be a second object out there.”

    “Jeaves, can you tell us anything?” Bandicut called.

    “No, but—hold a moment.” Jeaves was interrupted by a single, jarring rumble through the floor, followed by a flickering of the starscape. The effect was dizzying—and in the midst of it, Delilah flew out of a wall with an urgent ringing sound.

    (Image breakup. Necessary to strengthen the n-space channels for a clearer view. Possible risk. Two objects, purposes unknown.)

    “Uhhll,” Antares said, hugging herself. “If you magnify the way you did before...”

    (May be necessary to obtain information.)

    Antares ran her fingers through her hair. “All right. If it is necessary.”

    (Beginning now. Prepare for disturbances.)

    Bandicut’s stomach suddenly floated. The image zoomed inward. As the cloud grew before his eyes, so did the feeling of lightness. /Are you feeling this?/ he whispered.

   
/// Oh yes. ///

   
Now there was something strange, something alive, tickling at the edges of his mind. But was it Deep or the other thing? He felt a dark shroud of anger, coming toward them.

    Antares murmured, “Not anger.
Malice.
 I don’t know which one—”

    “Delilah! Jeaves! If these things come after us, can we defend ourselves?” Bandicut shouted.

    Delilah dropped, ringing like a steel drum. (We are attempting to shield the ship against—)

    The halo never completed her sentence. A tiny black spot swooped into view, flying in a sharp arc toward them. Everyone gasped in unison. It grew quickly—not to become huge like the cloud, but large enough to look like
something,
 a probe or spacecraft. Bandicut felt a sudden wave of intense cold. It wasn’t physical, exactly; it was a feeling that this thing, whatever it was, was sucking heat and life right out of them, and out of all of the space surrounding them. He couldn’t move, but could only watch the black object zigzag violently, careening toward them. And close behind it rushed the roiling blackness of Deep.

    Antares was staring fiercely, trying to parse the feelings cascading around her. “Deep,” she whispered, “is trying to destroy—”

    The black object shot across their bow, and Deep went after it, changing shape, his interior flickering. A tremendous shudder passed through the deck; the bridge lights wavered, and the viewspace went watery. Delilah shrieked something about hull integrity.
“Everyone stay where you are!”
 Jeaves barked. The balcony and viewspace began to contract.

   
Gong!
 “What’s happening to the ship?” Li-Jared cried.

    “Instability in the n-space fields!” Jeaves said. “We’re locking down.” Then his holo blinked out as his voice trailed off into a series of staccato barks.

    The cold deepened, became nearly unbearable.

    Bandicut felt a sudden inner wrenching, as though something had grabbed hold of spacetime and
twisted
it. He reached out for Antares, but his hand went the wrong way and at the wrong speed, and he groped...
slowly
...in empty space. /Time...something...wrong...with...time.../

   
/// Yes-s-s-s...///

   
He could see, out of the corner of his eye, everyone on the bridge veering and twisting in slow motion...and then as suddenly as it had started, it ended.

    But in the much-reduced viewing window, the black object had slowed nearly to a halt. Bandicut had just a moment to feel dread—
it’s going to attack!
—when the billowing curtain that was Deep folded around and enveloped the object. A flash of purplish light escaped, and then Deep roiled again and glided away from the ship. The intense cold suddenly vanished, and in its place was a powerful, nearly overwhelming feeling of
presence.
 Bandicut reeled.

   
/// That’s astounding. I feel...///

   
Struggling to catch his breath, Bandicut managed to ask, /You feel...what?/

   
/// A clear sense of satisfaction. ///

   
“Hypergrav waves have stopped,” Napoleon reported. “The small object is gone. N-space fields are stabilizing.”

    Bandicut stared in wonder as Deep appeared to turn and wheel back in their direction. Had Deep come all this way to take out that other object? And now, was it coming back to do the same to them?

    Bandicut murmured to Antares, “What do you feel?”

    Antares shook her head. “It’s very alien. I can’t tell.”

    Delilah fluttered across the top of the bridge-cavern, ringing. (Deep is intersecting with our n-space fields. Close encounter is imminent.)

    Deep loomed...then
shrank,
abruptly...shrank in the space of a heartbeat to a small, intensely black point hovering directly in front of their view. The star field was distorted, as though spacetime were being twisted around a pole. Gusts of air swirled through the bridge. Bandicut felt dancing pinpricks in the backs of his eyes. His knees buckled, and he nearly went down.

    Charlene cried out,

   
/// Oh Jesus! I feel...really strange, John. ///

   
/What is it, Charlene?/

   
/// I don’t know, I...

   
I’m being pulled...into Deep...///

   
Bandicut was trying to keep from falling over. “My God...” The bridge was ballooning out into a huge bubble, stretched into open space. The floor where he was struggling to stay on his feet seemed to reach far out into the emptiness...into the twisting fabric of spacetime. It wasn’t just space, though—something was wrong inside his head.

   
/
Charlie?
 Are you all right?/

    The quarx’s voice came from a hundred miles away.

   
/// John, I can’t...I don’t know where I am...///

   
A sudden silence filled his head. /Charlene?
Charlie!
 Are you there?/

    Just a whisper of wind.

   
/Charlie!/

   
Light and darkness churned before him.
Deep.
 “Help!” he whispered, reaching out for Charlie and finding nothing. Next to him, he felt Antares hunched over, felt her distress raking over him like stinging fabric. But he couldn’t reach to her, not now.

    /
Charlie!
/

    This time he heard—or felt—a faint reply. It seemed to come across a terribly great distance, and only with extraordinary help from the translator-stones. The quarx’s voice echoed faintly:

   
/// John...? ///

   
/Come back!/ Bandicut whispered inwardly—and then screamed aloud,
“Deep! Have you taken Charlie?”

    He felt a long, low moan that seemed to shake the entire ship. Bandicut stood tight with fear. And then he felt a sharp jolt in his chest, his heart, his mind—and the sudden stinging awareness of Charlie reappearing in his thoughts.

   
/// John—! ///

   
The voice was weak, but it was coming from his own head. Charlie was back. But she was hurt.

    /Charlie—Charlene—what is it, what’s happening?/
Am I going to lose you?

   
/// Don’t know...I’m not...

   
John, I was inside Deep...don’t know how, why...

   
all strange...powerful...incredible...

   
John, I’m losing my grip...///

   
/Charlie, don’t!/

   
/// I feel as if I’m not all...here...///

   
/What happened are you hurt did that thing pull you out of me?
Jesus
, Charlie!/ Bandicut was gasping for breath. He felt as if his heart were about to pop. He could feel Deep still around him, with a hold on Charlie.
/No!/
Losing Charlie to someone else was worse than losing her to death. Death the quarx could recover from. But if she went away...

   
/// John...so much to tell...///

   
She was hanging by a thread. She was trying to summon memories, images...something, anything to show him.

    /Steady—
just take it easy.
/ Bandicut shut his eyes, trying to keep
himself
 steady. /What can I do? How can I help you?/

    The quarx was struggling to answer. A shower of images burst into Bandicut’s mind, images of the inside of a cloud, an intense fluctuation of spacetime, images that were like droplets of fire, each bearing a trace of memory—of universes colliding, of galaxies growing, of whispered conversations with stars. It was bewildering. Charlene was struggling to speak, but he felt her slipping away on a treacherous rope...

    /Charlie, don’t go—/

   
/// I’m trying...I wish I could...

   
John, catch as much as you can...oh, damn. ///

   
Bandicut felt a lurch, as though the quarx had lost her footing on a tightrope, and was dangling, twisting. There was another explosion of tiny images, expanding and bursting into his consciousness; images of great loneliness, and of slipping through rifts in spacetime, and of confronting dark and menacing machines...

    And then an abrupt implosion as it all came collapsing back to a point again, then vanished. The connection with Deep was broken. And with it, something that Charlie needed, some part of her she needed to stay alive. He felt her slipping away...

   
/Charliiiiie!/

   
The quarx’s last words came as the faintest whisper:

   
/// I’m sorry...///

   
/Charlene—!/

   
/// Bye, John. ///

   
His breath went out in a rush. He doubled over, hugging himself against a flash of pain inside. A great emptiness welled up inside him where the quarx had been. He shook in spasms, weeping silently. /Don’t go, Charlene. I can’t do without you! Don’t go!/ But there was no reply, no echo of the quarx’s thought or feeling.

    Charlene was gone.

    Struggling to draw a breath, he looked up. The bridge was slowly returning to its normal shape. The dark point had billowed back out into a cloud, and was backing away. And Charlie was gone.

    And on the floor beside him, Antares lay unconscious.

Chapter 9

A History Lesson

    It was as though a larger-than-life Thespi choir were singing underwater. The voices were at once immediate and distant in Antares’s mind. What were they saying? Something terrible had happened, something that had sent her with a silent scream into this place. From outside there was an eruption of light and darkness, and something great and strange and angry clashing with another, smaller, almost as powerful.
    It was a dreamy awareness; all she could really tell was that the smaller of the two entities had died, crushed out of existence. Vast curtains of light swayed and shifted in her mind, like an aurora gone mad. Then everything darkened.

    It didn’t last, though, the darkness. Soon she felt something else: a pulling and tearing, stabbing beams of light, inner light. And
pain.

    Deep, penetrating pain.
Whose?

    Loss, and separation.

    Charlie’s voice echoed—from across a great gulf. Indistinct, afraid, confused.
Charlie has left John Bandicut and entered—joined somehow with—the dark and terrifying cloud. How can this be? And what about John—?

    Time passing confusingly.

    Later, she was aware of another connection, Charlie returning to John. But it did not feel normal; the fit was all wrong; Charlie was too badly injured, and the rejoining could not succeed. Charlie cried out in pain; there were more stabbing beams of light; another cry of pain, this one from John Bandicut:
Charlie, what are you—no, Charlie, don’t leave!
But Charlie was fading...too far, too fast...
fading out of existence...

    Then even Antares’s unconscious awareness slipped away.

*

   
Everyone was talking at once, including the robots and the halo. Everyone except Bandicut, who crouched on his haunches holding his head and blinking back tears, half trying to see Antares and half trying to shut everyone and everything out.
Charlie’s gone. Charlene. Gone. Why now?
 /What did that goddamn thing do to you, Charlie? Tried to steal you away./ But there was no answer; Charlene was gone. She’d died.