Sunborn (19 page)

*

   
Charlie, is that you?
What Antares felt in response to her question was a wordless reply that
felt
 like the quarx—and yet wasn’t quite the same: more like an echo, several times removed. How strange.

    As Deep drew closer, the opening that felt like Charlene swirled closed; but other openings appeared, revealing glimpses of stranger things, twists and turns in space, and great balances of power and energy, all churning turbulently beneath the surface of Deep. Antares reeled at the sensation. She felt as if she had taken the forbidden
kasa
hallucinogen during a Thespi meditation, and her mind was spinning out of control. Then the opening closed and the feeling passed.

    Behind her, John Bandicut was stirring. She sensed powerful emotions. She didn’t dare pause to ask what he was feeling. She forced herself to focus on the being she had come to meet.
Deep, if you can...we must try to exchange thoughts...but slowly, please! Slowly...

    Another breath of air gusted through an opening, and suddenly she again felt something very much like the presence of the quarx.
Charlene?
Her voice reflected outward, and back, and in its own peculiar echo, she felt somehow that the answer was yes, and no...

    Deep suddenly seemed much closer, surrounding and engulfing her. Once more she felt her control slip away, and with a hot flash of fear, she plummeted into a realm where knowing and unknowing became indistinguishable.

Chapter 12

Two Minds

    Ik sprang forward in consternation as first Bandicut and then Antares collapsed to the deck of the bridge. “Hrahh!” he barked, kneeling between the Thespi and the human and placing a hand on each. “Jeaves! What is it doing to my friends? Is this going to happen every time they approach this creature?” He glared up at the growing image of Deep.
    “I am not certain,” Jeaves replied. “But ship’s monitors indicate that their life signs are strong. I recommend against interfering. However, I am asking Delilah to investigate.”

    Ik bent to examine Bandicut and Antares. Both were breathing, and neither was changing color. Beyond that, what else could he do?

   
*They are both physically unharmed.*

   
Ik started. His stones had been so quiet of late, it had not occurred to him to look to them for assistance. /What about their mental state?/

   
*More difficult to assess. But they should be aided by their stones.*

   
Ik grunted, and looked up as Delilah descended toward them. He rocked back on his haunches to give the halo room to work. Delilah’s glowing ring expanded slowly, until it encircled both Antares and Bandicut. It began to produce a soft sound, like the wind whistling through stone passages in a high place. Ik felt a momentary dizziness. “What is it doing?”

    “Learning,” Jeaves said. “If your companions are injured or do not survive, we will want to know why. I suggest you move back.”

    “Hrrm. I suggest you worry more about how to keep these two people safe, and ask Delilah what she can do about
that,
” Ik growled. He had no intention of moving from his friends’ side.

    Li-Jared, behind him, was pacing around the bridge, muttering to himself. He cast an occasional, worried glance in Ik’s direction. Ik didn’t know what Li-Jared was thinking, but if that cloud out there made a threatening move, Ik was pretty sure he could count on a yell from the Karellian.

*

   
For the quarx, it all seemed to make a terrifying kind of sense. She had come back to life with a startling degree of clarity about previous incarnations, clear enough memory—once she’d gotten over her initial shock—to know that having this much memory was unusual. Was it just coincidence, or had the manner of her last death yanked her back for some unusual need or purpose? Maybe it had something to do with that terrible dark thing hovering at the edges of her awareness. Was she here to confront the monster that had destroyed her world? Or for something altogether different?

    She had a mental snapshot of that scene, but also many others reverberating in her memory. Hosts and friends ranging down through the timeline—the Fffff’tink, and the Rohengen, and the Osos, and the ones whose name sounded like a vibrating guitar string, and the human, who actually would have understood a guitar string. And so many more. The memories reverberated like voices in a crowded room. She could hardly sort one from another, or even be sure she could distinguish her own memories from those of her host.

    Did every life start this way?

    So many relationships...she desperately wished she could take time now to look back at them all, and understand who had meant what to her. But that wasn’t possible; there was a deadly dark thing waiting out there, and she needed to confront it.

    But...was this being called
Deep
 that thing? She didn’t think so, although Bandicut feared it. Indeed, he felt it had cost her her last life. Nevertheless, Deep might have some knowledge of the terrible thing, and it now also had knowledge of quarx.

    All these thoughts took approximately as long as ten of John Bandicut’s heartbeats.

    And then she suddenly
remembered
Deep, really remembered it, not from Bandicut’s memories but from her own. She remembered
visiting
 Deep, and being caught up in a fantastic tangle of images—memories reaching as far back in time as her own—glimpses of places that were, she realized with startlement, possibly not of this universe at all. There was a gap following that—but she remembered flying back to rejoin with Bandicut. And she remembered dying.

    All
that
 took several more of Bandicut’s heartbeats.

    It left her reeling, and she retreated for a while to speak with John and get to know him again.
Charli,
 he called her, or so she chose to hear it. He had known several Charlies; she could be a Charli.

    Her initial tentativeness and fear were not feigned; she really did feel shy in the presence of this person to whom she was instantly, intimately connected. But she was also determined. She sped through Bandicut’s thoughts and memories, learning, even as he was inviting her to take a look.
I was brought here for a reason. I am sure of it. I must not let my fears deter me.
The look through John’s memories was fascinating, and she vowed to return. But right now, it wasn’t what she needed to learn.
That
 was over there in the one called Deep. It had killed her, touching Deep before, but maybe it wouldn’t this time. Deep had touched the dark one, or some agent of it. Deep knew things she needed to know.

    John Bandicut already sensed her intention, and wanted to stop her launch outward to Deep.
I’m sorry, but I can’t stop. There’s too much at stake.

    She took a quick look around to take in her surroundings, the ship and the friends gathered here. Then—afraid, but determined not to fail—she leaped out into space. She touched the outer fringes of the dark cloud, and then, with a shiver, the real presence of the thing. She was startled by the mood she sensed: curiosity and urgency, but no hostility, no intention to destroy.

    She reached out again: diverse strands of thought. There was the part that had destroyed the dark agent, one strand among many. She could find no language. She continued looking. To her surprise, she felt the presence of someone who, like herself, was trying to find her way into Deep from the outside.
Who is this?
She seemed rather like the human—different, but familiar.
Thespi?

   
So many strands. Here was one rooted in the very fabric of space and time, and apparently able to exert influence over both. And here was one that stretched out in many different directions, to make contact with others. And here was one that was almost...
quarxlike
.

    She felt a ripple of surprise.
Quarx?
 Her prior incarnation had died. So what was this? Another quarx inhabiting Deep?

    Cautiously, she reached out to the presence. She had no memories of any contact with another quarx since the death of the homeworld. It felt very strange even to think of it.

   
/// Hello? Can you hear me? ///

   
The other presence stirred. Its response sounded a little like her own voice, an echo.

     <<< Hello? >>>

   
She waited for more, then tried:

   
/// Are you quarx? ///

   
The pause swelled to a bursting point. Then:

     <<< I...think so. I’m not certain.

    
Who are you? >>>

   
Feeling a combination of disbelief and excitement, she answered,

   
/// I am known to my host as...Charli.

   
But my real name is—///

   
She released a series of wails—ending in a long, shuddering shriek.

    The other sounded puzzled.

     <<< I am known as Charlie also.

    
And this is my real name— >>>

   
The sound reverberated from a greater distance, but was otherwise identical to the name she had given.

    A stunned silence followed. Finally she said, softly so as to ensure that she was not actually producing an echo:

   
/// Do you know John Bandicut? ///

   
And the voice that could not be an echo, but sounded like one, came back:

     <<< Of course.

    
He knows me as Charlene. >>>

   
That
 sent the stars reeling around her, and she had to resist the impulse to pull away in shock.

   
/// You are Charlene?

   
John Bandicut believes you died.

   
I believed you died.

   
You must have, because I am the one

   
who followed. ///

   
The echolike voice hesitated, before answering:

     <<< I did...

    
At least, I felt that I was dying.

    
Even now, I don’t feel quite...alive.

    
I don’t know why I am here. >>>

   
Another pause.

     <<< Did he mourn me when I died? >>>

   
The new Charli reflected on the memories she had viewed and said softly:

   
/// Yes, he did. ///

   
A soft acknowledgment came in answer, and for a few moments silence filled the space around them. Charli drew Charlene’s memories to herself, trying to understand and find a place for her. The moment of Charlene’s death was clear, and yet not. There was a sharp break—no, more like a
rent
—in Charlene’s memory. But instead of ending there, it was followed by a blur. And then, somehow, this Charlene-
echo
 was caught up in Deep’s web of consciousness.

    The Charlene-echo seemed to sense her struggle to understand.

     <<< I came to Deep to learn,

    
but I went too far.

    
The visions...overwhelming.

    
I tried to bring them back to John Bandicut.

    
But it hurt, terribly, and he was suffering.

    
I’d been torn away. >>>

   
Charli glimpsed the memory, the agony of John Bandicut at the loss of his quarx. Something in Charlene had been hurt beyond healing. Death was upon her; she felt herself dying even as she tried to return. And then?

    A blur.

   
/// Why are you here?

   
Are you...
really
Charlene? ///

    Silence hung between them, until the other said,

     <<< I’m not certain.

    
I have memories, but... >>>

   
Charli listened carefully, trying to hear the nuances, and feel the thoughts of the other. It felt different from the Charlene she thought she should feel. Was this really just a ghost, an echo of the real Charlene? Maybe the distinction didn’t matter.

   
/// Can you communicate with Deep now?

   
Can you speak, and be understood? ///

   
The answer came in a strained whisper, as if her question had pushed the other back into a place of darkness and uncertainty.

    
<<< A little. Yes. >>>

   
Charli pressed.

   
/// Then will you help me? ///

   
And the answer seemed to whisper from a great distance: