Sunborn (18 page)

    “
*
Nick
*
, then,” Li-Jared said. “That okay with everyone?”

    Antares nodded her head. “Maybe eventually we’ll get a chance to ask the star itself. Although if any of you knows how to speak to a star, I’d like to hear how it’s done.”

    “That time may come soon,” Jeaves said.

    “Do
you
 know how to speak to a star?” Antares asked.

    “Not precisely, but...I
heard
 a star speak once. It was long ago, and I don’t think we would want to reproduce the conditions that led to it, since they involved a supernova—but perhaps there is some useful information I can recall from the event. I will think on it.”

    “Ed said we should speak to one called...
Bright
-something,” Bandicut said.

   
“He said
*Brightburn*,
” Jeaves said, giving his own spiking intonation to the name.

    “Well, do we know which one is
*
Brightburn
*
? Is there any way to know which star is which?” Bandicut poured himself another cup of coffee, waiting for Jeaves’s answer. Ik cocked his bony head to one side, murmuring his own puzzlement.

    Jeaves’s sparkle-cluster eyes seemed to gleam with concentration. “I think we can only find out by asking.”

    “Asking?”

    “It may be fortunate that Deep is here. I don’t know all that Deep can do. But if he has spoken to stars, as the shadow-people said, it is possible he might be able to help us.”

    “Um...how?” Bandicut asked.

    Jeaves made a gesture not unlike a shrug. “There are so many things that could make talking to a star difficult. The problem of getting close. The problem of how you would actually make contact. And of course, the problem of time—”

    “Time?” Antares asked.

    “I’m speculating. But don’t you imagine that a being whose lifespan is measured in millions of years must experience the passage of time rather differently from you?”

    “Hrrm,” Ik said as Li-Jared paused in his pacing.

    Jeaves continued, “How long does it take a star to complete a full thought? An instant? A thousand years? I don’t know. The event I mentioned, when I briefly experienced contact with a star in the moment of its death—I had a distinct sense that its experience of time was...well, I can only say...
different.
”

    “So from this we draw the conclusion—?” Bandicut began.

    “That it was different,” Jeaves said. “Figuring out what that means is a problem we’ll have to solve when we get to it.”

    Bandicut moved his jaw from side to side, thinking. “So what you’re saying is, we’re going to need...a bridge...if we’re going to communicate with stars. And you think Deep might be the one to do that?”

    “That’s where my money is,” said the robot.

    Bandicut sighed softly. Seeing Deep up close last time had cost Charlie his life. Bandicut wasn’t eager to try that again. And yet, his head was full of images that Charlie had given him, right before the end. Tantalizing images of what Deep saw, or maybe felt. But was it possible to touch Deep without killing or hurting someone else? “I don’t know, Jeaves,” he whispered finally. “I don’t know how we could do it.”

    Antares stirred. “I could try again.” Seeing Bandicut’s alarmed reaction, she added, “Perhaps this time, with the benefit of my past experience, and some time to prepare, it will not be so hard?”

*

   
They were still finishing their breakfast when Jeaves interrupted to say, “I think we’d better get to the bridge. Deep has changed course.” Antares felt a sudden band of tightness in her chest as she hurried with Bandicut and the others.

    Deep was now clearly in view, ahead and to the left of their course. There was something else visible as well—a very bright, red star ahead, shining from within a thin veil of dust and gas. It lay between them and the distant nebula, though Antares could not tell how far in front of the nebula it was. It had already grown from a pinpoint of light to a tiny, round shape, peeking out past the local nebular material. Antares thought it was beautiful.

   
“Is this it?” Bandicut asked Jeaves. “Is that the star we’re headed for?”

    “I’m not sure,” Jeaves admitted. “That star does not seem to be connected to any of the disturbances, but Deep has turned toward it.”

    “Do you have any idea why?” Bandicut asked. “Or how we might find out?”

    Antares closed her eyes.
Don’t we already know how to find out? We have to talk to Deep.

    Jeaves said something she missed, but when she opened her eyes, everyone was looking at her. Drawing a slow, centering breath, she said, “Uhhl, yes.”
Not exactly the preparation time I was hoping for.
 Exhaling with deliberation, she stepped forward onto the balcony and knelt, surrounded by the stars, as she would have for a Thespi joining. John Bandicut came up behind her, and rested his hands lightly on her shoulders. She shook her head and gently removed them. “Just stay close,” she whispered. She closed her eyes, bowed her head, and reached out.

    She was stunned by how much she found immediately.

    The path in front of the ship was filled with shimmering, indistinct presences. Deep was the closest, but too far away for real contact. The star was in her field of awareness, too—even farther away, but still a potent presence. It was distinctly more than an inert physical object, though what beyond that she could not say.
Alive? Intelligent?
 The sensation was unlike anything she had felt before. Beyond the star, elsewhere in the nebula, she felt vaguer and more distant, but similar sensations.

    Drawing another centering breath, she pulled back from the extreme distance and focused again on Deep. Did it want contact? Something
changed
in the space around her, and she felt a sudden closeness to the mysterious cloud, an opening that hadn’t been there a moment ago. Did Deep do that? She reached farther. She felt something shifting, fluid, dangerous. Deep was opening and closing in swirls, revealing momentary glimpses of feelings and images—but only for a heartbeat at a time.

   
A familiar touch...

   
Now it was gone.

    The details blurred. Was she trying too hard, hoping to find things? Or afraid to? She imagined herself on Thespi Prime, and calmed herself and extended the wave of quiet outward, not knowing how Deep would respond to it.

    At first, no change. Then a curtain whispered open, just for a moment, revealing a glimpse of...
something
...a shivering sense of longing, and loneliness. The curtain closed. A moment later it rustled open again; another glimpse, a brief sensation of staring down endless, echoing corridors of time and space. She reeled with dizziness. The curtain closed; but when it opened a third time, she felt a wrenching pang of
loss
, incomprehensible loss, followed an instant later by a great tide of joy, as some astounding barrier gave way, a barrier at the very edge of reality.

    Antares’s mind swam. No joining had ever been like this. But she was submerged now; she doubted she could pull free even if she wanted to. There was more:

    Glimpse of a brief, bitter fight to the death with an entity, a
machine
that threatened some approaching beings, ephemeral life. The fight ended with a tang of victory and the acrid dust of destruction. Antares was left trembling. She and the others on
The Long View
 were the ones approaching, the ephemerals.

    Then the curtain shifted, and this time lingered open.

   
Familiar presence...

   
It took her a heartbeat or two.
Charlene?
She was jolted back into herself for an instant, reliving her own feelings of loss, a shadow of John’s. She gulped and eased herself back outward. It seemed impossible; she had felt the quarx being torn away from Deep and restored to John, just before she died. And yet...

   
(Charlene, is that you?)

*

   
Bandicut had been feeling twinges of
something
 ever since they had come to the bridge. But he hadn’t been able to identify it—and until now he had assumed it was nervous fatigue, after the fugue. He was trying to keep his apprehension at bay as he watched Antares reach out toward Deep. He forced himself to breathe slowly and deeply. If he could lend any kind of calming influence in the presence of the unknown and dangerous, surely it might help.

    Each time he tried to calm his own thoughts, he almost immediately felt the twinge again.

   
What am I feeling? Is it Antares, remembering Charlie?

   
No. It was someone else. Stirring in his mind.

    A tiny voice, deep in his thoughts.

    His heart rate spiked. He breathed deeply and raggedly, struggling to calm himself. /Charlie?/ He had not expected this. He’d really thought she was gone for good this time. /Charlie, is that you?/

   
/// Confused...///

   
/Charlie!
My God!
/

   
/// Help...me...? ///

   
The voice was very faint. /Can you hear me? Are you Charlie?/

   
/// Who? Charlie? ///

   
/Quarx./ Bandicut shut his eyes, tried to shut everything else out, tried to focus on this one thing that was happening in his mind. As he did so, he felt Antares struggling, too—and somehow it felt similar.

    The voice came back a little stronger. It seemed more female than male.

   
/// Quarx. I am quarx. ///

   
/Yes.
Yes!
/

   
/// Who are you? Are you quarx? ///

   
/No.
No!
 I am human. I am John Bandicut./ He felt a rushing urge to shout aloud with joy, and also to cry with grief for the Charlie he’d lost. But this new presence felt very tentative, and frightened, so he tried to subdue all that.

   
/// You called me—///

   
/Charlie. I called you
Charlie,
because all the quarx before you were called Charlie./ He would get to the
Charlene
 part later. /Is that all right?/

   
/// I...not sure. ///

   
Bandicut forced himself to take it slowly. So much to convey, and learn. He so desperately wanted Charlene back. /I know it is confusing. Please—try to search your thoughts, and see if you remember me. Or any of your predecessors. You are quarx. You have many lives./

   
/// Yes, many. Very many...///

   
Bandicut waited, heart pounding.

   
/// I remember something large...

   
dark...powerful...///

   
Bandicut drew a sharp breath. What was she remembering? Deep? The Maw of the Abyss? The boojum?

   
/// I remember a destroyer of worlds...///

   
Bandicut held his breath, frozen.

   
/// Long ago, it...I think it...

   
destroyed my own world. ///

   
He found himself wordless. There was an inexpressible sadness in the quarx’s voice. Not for her own past lives, but for her lost home, millions of years ago.

   
/// I feel something else...here.

   
Large, powerful. It is very close. ///

   
/Yes,/ Bandicut whispered.

   
/// Is it the same as...the destroyer? ///

   
A hundred shouts tried to get out at once.
I don’t know. It killed the Charlie before you.
 /I don’t think so, no./

   
/// And I?

   
Am I the only...quarx? ///

   
Bandicut trembled. /Yes,/ he whispered.

   
/// Then I...must act. ///

   
/Uh?/ He didn’t know what to say. He felt as if he were teetering on the brink of something large and uncontrollable. This new Charlie was different; he could sense it already. Her initial tentativeness was disappearing; he could feel an emerging quickness and impulsiveness. She was boiling over with an agitated need to learn, and quickly. Too fast! She was rippling through arrays of memory in his head. Dissatisfied with that, she strained to see what lay beyond. She was like a bird hatchling, flapping its wings before it was ready. She noticed Antares, but slipped past her, trying to catch a glimpse of Deep. Not a good idea! /Charlie, wait—be careful! It’s dangerous to approach!/

    The quarx responded with surprising forcefulness.

   
/// I must know what that is—

   
that thing out there! ///

   
/I know! I know you need to learn these things. But give yourself time! Get acclimated. Get to know me. Find out what the dangers are before you—/

   
/// But I feel time is—I feel it fleeing! ///

   
There was a sudden wiry strength in the quarx’s voice, and an urgency that startled him.

   
/// I feel the peril.

   
I must seek out and learn...///

   
/Charlie, wait!/

    But before he could think of anything—indeed, there
was
 nothing he could do—the quarx hurled herself outward to make contact with Deep. He was stunned to feel her pull the physical strength from his own body—too much, too fast! Two heartbeats later, he crumpled to the deck as the quarx stretched out to do the very thing that had cost the life of Charlene before it.