Sunborn (21 page)

    So he thought he would explore the ship a little more. He’d been wondering, with more than casual interest, where the ship’s nerve center was. Not what they called the bridge, which as far as he could tell was nothing more than an observation deck, but the
nerve
center—wherever the hell the ship was
controlled
 from. It had a built-in AI; surely there was an interface where he and the AI could have a chat! He was going to see if he could find it.

    The corridors continued to be strangely glowing passageways, but at least they were staying put now, and were redder in the living area. Li-Jared strolled into the bright orange sections they had explored briefly. He passed several compartments that he had already seen, and poked his head into each just long enough to reassure himself that they hadn’t changed much. Then he slipped into the hangar deck to take a look at the little shuttle that was docked there. It was shaped like a flattened, elongated egg. It was also sealed shut, so he gave up on trying to get a look inside. He exited the hangar, determined to push on to the yellow-glowing section of the ship.

    Pausing at an intersection, he heard a familiar ticking sound. “Copernicus?” he called. A moment later, the robot rounded a bend in the corridor and wheeled up to him. “Good evening, sir,” Copernicus said, bobbing his forward end in greeting.

    Li-Jared cocked his head, peering at the robot. “What are you up to at this hour, my friend?” He continued to feel a fondness for John Bandicut’s robots, though he also had doubts about their newfound predilection for romance fiction. He thought it might be leading them to some strange notions about human and other sentient behavior.

    “I am merely patrolling the corridors, checking to see that nothing is amiss,” Copernicus said. “Are you aware of any problems?”

    “I guess not,” the Karellian said. He rubbed his chest thoughtfully. “Tell me, how is your reading going? Are you learning a lot about the behavior of organics?”

    “To be sure,” answered the robot. “It seems that humans are prone to extremely impulsive and unpredictable behavior, when driven by love. Wouldn’t you say?”

    “I’m sure I wouldn’t know,” Li-Jared said, quickly losing interest in the subject. He paused, and on a sudden impulse added, “Say, Copernicus, would you be willing to help me find something?”

    “That would depend, I suppose, on what you hope to find,” answered the robot, blinking a single diode.

    “Nothing big. Just an input to the shipboard AI.”

    “There are many such places,” Copernicus said.

    “Good. Would you be willing to show me?”

    “Why not?” said the robot. “I presume you would like a voice or keypad interface, rather than a straight jack-in?”

    “I suppose,” Li-Jared said, and together they continued down the glowing corridor. “How are you doing with the library research we asked you about? Have you found anything about the survivors of that ancient war?”

    “Nothing conclusive,” Copernicus said, rolling along beside him. “We did find some very old narratives from a nomadic race called the Fffff’tink, about a dreadful, invasive inorganic lifeform called the Mindaru. We are examining the texts now to see if the Mindaru might be connected to the ancient survivors.”

    Li-Jared looked at him in interest. “You think these Mindaru might
be
 the survivors?”

    “Time and research will tell, we hope.” The robot stopped and turned to face a small recess in the wall. “Here, I believe, you should be able to converse with the shipboard AI. Shall I establish a link?”

    Li-Jared’s hearts quickened. “Please do...”

*

   
The next morning, Bandicut came out of his quarters rubbing his eyes. Antares was still sound asleep. But Bandicut had not slept well: too much thought expended coming to terms with the new Charli. The first thing he saw was Napoleon coming down the corridor. “Good morning, Cap’n. Are you ready for the coming encounter? We should be arriving by late tonight or early tomorrow.”

    Bandicut scratched his head. “I don’t know about
ready
. How about you? Have you and Coppy come up with anything?”

   
Click.
 “We have been extending our knowledge of the ship, and of the mission profile, mostly.”

    “That’s a pretty vague answer, Napoleon.”

   
Click click.
 “I will try to be more specific, Cap’n. Copernicus and I have been searching the ship’s libraries for information concerning the adversarial beings known as the Survivors, or possibly the Mindaru.”

    “Do you hope to find information Jeaves hasn’t given us?”

    “Not so much that, Cap’n, as hoping we’ll find some correlation with things we learned about the Maw, and about the boojum, and so on. We thought we might find patterns that others, without the same knowledge, might miss.”

    “That makes sense, I guess.”

    The robot bobbed his head slightly, raising himself to a greater height. “Thank you, Cap’n. Also, we have been interacting with some of the shipboard AI interfaces, seeking to improve our capabilities. We may be called upon to assist in operating the ship at some later time, when the AI gives over more of the decision-making to you.”

   
“I see. So we can come to you if we have questions about the ship?”

    “Indeed. Li-Jared has already—”

    Bandicut frowned. “Already what?”

   
Click click.
Napoleon jerked his head a little to one side, then back. “He was exploring some of the AI interfaces. It was within the permissible guidelines.”
Click.
 “Perhaps it would be better if he told you himself.”

    Bandicut stared at Napoleon, wondering what the robot was
not
 saying. “Perhaps it would.”

    “Yes. Now, I see m’lady is waiting, Cap’n. So perhaps I should remove myself and allow you to carry on your affairs of the heart.” Napoleon nodded pointedly toward Antares, who was just emerging from the room behind Bandicut. She caught his arm, and he drew her close to kiss her lightly. By the time he turned back to Napoleon, the robot was sauntering away down the hall.

   
“What was all that?” Antares asked.

    Bandicut shook his head. “I’m not sure, really. But I think we might want to ask Li-Jared when we see him.”

*

   
There was no chance to speak with Li-Jared before they were called to the bridge. Deep had disappeared into the growing glare of the star ahead. They were already flying through the star’s particle wind and gravitational influence, and they had begun to slow their high-speed passage through n-space as they entered what could be a planetary system. Bandicut was starting to feel a knot in his stomach, where his feelings of anticipation were colliding with a rising uneasiness.

    They were going to approach this star—how closely, he wasn’t sure—for a purpose that didn’t quite compute, from his point of view. They were going to attempt communication with a star. They hadn’t even mastered communication with Deep yet.

    What had been a dazzling point of light was now growing to a ball of fire. They were watching on the bridge through a series of adjustable “filters,” which were really just modifications in the way the image was brought in through the n-space fields. In some of the views, the corona could be seen flaming like a magnificent halo around the sun; in other views, they could see tiny granulations on the star’s surface, and what looked like the black volcanic openings of sunspots, but were really just slightly less incandescent regions on the surface. Other views showed them the looping whorls of the star’s magnetic fields, and an occasional fiery arc of gases following the field lines out into space.

    That was all very scenic, and not too alarming, since they were still at a good distance, perhaps the distance of Jupiter from Earth’s sun. On the other hand, it was a larger star than the Sun, and Bandicut started to sweat a little when Jeaves switched to a higher magnification that swelled the image to a size that took up much of the viewspace. Switching filters, Jeaves advised, “Here is a neutrino view of the interior of the star.” Bandicut stared with a mixture of wonder and fear at the fires in the star’s core. It looked like the magnified pulsations of nuclear reactions. It looked insanely hot, dangerous, and otherworldly. He was certain it could vaporize their ship in an instant. It reminded him of a glimpse Charlie had once given him of his true appearance—a glimpse of powers and energies different from anything he could ever imagine.

   
Shaking his head, Bandicut looked away from the view. He was surprised to see Antares supporting Ik, who was visibly upset by the sight. With what appeared to be considerable effort, Ik spoke to the Jeaves-holo. “
Hrahh.
Can we change that view, please?” His voice was strained, with an unusual urgency.
Fear?

   
“Certainly,” said the robot. “I’m sorry if that is...well, I intended it to be informative. Is this better?”

    The image shrank by half, and the pulsing bursts of energy subsided, replaced by a field of ghostly light, not so much from within the star as surrounding and enveloping it. Bandicut could faintly perceive an outward streaming movement in the light.

    “What is that?” Ik said, his voice as tight as before.

    “That,” said Jeaves, “is a display of the star’s solar wind, all of the high-energy particles streaming outward into space. As you can see, we’re passing through it now. It is very tenuous here, but will become steadily stronger as we move inward.”

    Ik nodded stiffly. “How close are we going?”

    As Ik spoke, Li-Jared strode onto the bridge, looking distraught. “Yes, how close
are
 we going?” he cried.

    Ik shifted just his eyes. “Hrah. We wondered where you had gotten to.”

    “I’ve been talking to the shipboard AI,” Li-Jared said. “And you know what it told me? It told me we may be flying
right into
that star.”
Bong.
 “What about that, Jeaves?”

    “Well, it depends,” Jeaves answered. “We don’t really know how close we might have to get to establish communication, assuming we
can
do that. But be reassured—the ship
is
capable of flying into the body of the star, if it proves necessary.”

    “Great,” Bandicut muttered softly, with a glance at Antares.

    “It only depends on our n-space bubble remaining intact.”

    “
Excuse
 me?” Bandicut said, not knowing whether to laugh or shout.

    “You understand, yes?” Jeaves said. “Our survival is
always
dependent on the integrity of the n-space bubble—whether we’re in deep space or making a close approach to a star. We can’t go two kilometers, or two minutes, without the n-space fields.”

    “Are we supposed to find that reassuring?” Antares asked.

    Jeaves looked vaguely put out. “The field generators are very reliable, and have backups.”

    “No doubt,” Bandicut said. “But are you telling me that going into the body of a star wouldn’t put unusual stresses on the n-space bubble?”

    “Possibly,” the robot said. “But not as much as you might think. The n-space bubble by definition removes us from the region of greatest stresses.”

    “What about all the heat? Wouldn’t it build up? How does the ship get rid of that?”

    “It doesn’t have to, because the heat simply passes us by. The only component that’s really at risk is the probe that might be extended into normal-space. It
does
pick up heat, but it’s piped away into a cold layer of n-space, so there’s no violation of thermodynamics.”

    “Has anyone ever actually tried it?”

    “Indeed, yes. There have been cases in which beings very much like yourselves have used far more primitive n-space fields as protection while penetrating the interiors of stars. In one case, the fields even survived pre-supernova conditions.”

   
Bandicut blanched.
“Supernova?”

    “
Pre
-supernova.”

    “I’m so sorry. So you’re saying they got out before the star blew?”

    Jeaves twitched slightly. “Well...no. But we’re not expecting supernova conditions.”

    “Then
what?
”

    “My friends,” Jeaves said heavily. Was that impatience creeping into his voice? “Our mission depends in many ways on the versatility of this ship. Please don’t sell it short.”

    “Hrah.” Ik, looking paler than usual, pointed ahead toward the star. “I hope you are correct. Because we’re flying toward this star
very fast.
”

    Ik was right. The disk of the star was growing perceptibly as they stood watching. Perhaps they had not slowed as much from interstellar speed as Bandicut had thought. It looked as if it would be just a matter of minutes before they plunged into the star. Surely that was an illusion. Still...“Jeaves, how long before we reach the star—and who is in control right now?” Bandicut asked.

    Was that another hesitation? “At our present speed,” Jeaves said, “we could theoretically enter the star’s atmosphere in about two hours. Whether we
will
 or not depends on what we learn as we get closer.”

    “So who—?”

    “And the shipboard AI is running the vessel, with input from Delilah and me.”

    Bandicut and the others looked at each other. Ik seemed frightened in a way that Bandicut had never seen before, Antares appeared alarmed, and Li-Jared looked mutinous. Bandicut cleared his throat. “Let me rephrase. Who makes the decision whether or not we actually
fly into the sun
?”

    The hesitation was longer this time. “Delilah is right now probing for ways to make contact with the star-consciousness,” Jeaves said at last. As he spoke, the view changed to a ghostly image that reminded Bandicut of an X-ray holo of the sun. At the fringe of the glowing sphere, a shadowy fleck was visible, very close to the surface, or possibly just beneath it. “Our plan,” Jeaves continued, “is to follow Deep as close to the star as necessary.”