Sunborn (44 page)

   
I think this star is in distress. ///

   
When Bandicut passed this information on to the others, Ik affirmed the impression.

    “Why?” Li-Jared asked. “Does the star say why?”

    Ik let out a long sigh. “I cannot say that it
speaks,
as such. Right now I only sense waves...ripples of feeling. No clear details. There is something very strange and disconnected in this, I don’t know what. I hope as we get closer...”

    They were still some distance away. Copernicus was making course adjustments, but the intense radiation flux forced him to navigate with caution. It would be a little while yet before they were close enough to the star for meaningful contact.

    “This radiation makes me nervous,” Antares said, gazing at the great arching walls of glowing gas that surrounded the ship in its passage across the cavern.

    “Understandable,” Napoleon said. “It is the radiation from the Trapezium stars that hollowed out this whole region of the nebula and gave us such a clear view. It is strong stuff.”

    “Is that unusual?” Antares asked.

    “Not really,” Napoleon said. “New stars often produce huge bursts of radiation—and when the shock waves hit other parts of the nebula cloud, they can do two things: trigger the birth of still more stars, or burn out a big cavity in the nebula surrounding it. It’s like a new power on the block, clearing the neighborhood of competitors, if I may use an Earth metaphor.”

    “Nevertheless,” Copernicus said, “these stars will be minor powers in the block, compared to
*
Nick
*
, if
*
Nick
*
 explodes.”

    “That’s very cheering, Copernicus,” Bandicut said.

    “We are nearly across the bubble now, so I would expect the quality of contact to improve soon.”

    “Rrrm, not soon enough,” Ik murmured.

*

   
Before another day had passed, they were drawing near to the uppermost star in the cluster.
*
Thunder
*
was now a billowing blue-white ball of immense size. Perhaps it only seemed so because of what Bandicut knew, but it also looked alarmingly
alive
 against the background of the nebula. The viewspace was now presenting a radically altered view for their benefit, since a “true view” would have blinded them instantly.

    Deep and Dark flanked
The Long View
 as they drew closer to the star. Charli was in contact with Charlene-echo, and Ik sat in a near trance, opening himself to whatever communication was possible. Antares sat nearby, ready to assist as needed.

    Bandicut felt as if he should be doing something. The flight controls were deactivated, since Copernicus was doing the flying. “Napoleon, are we scanning to see if anybody else is in the area?” If the Mindaru were involved, it wouldn’t do to be too cavalier about watching their backs.

    “As a matter of fact...” Napoleon paused and seemed to be checking something. “We’ve picked up an object in close orbit.”

    Bandicut felt a chill run up his spine. “Ah.”
Damn.
 “What do we know about it?”

    Napoleon clicked. “Not much. We’ll have to get closer if we want more data.”

    “How much closer?”

    “Uncertain, Cap’n. The readings are devilishly strange. It appears to be a very small object, less than a meter across.”

    “Really.”

    “But it seems more massive than its size would indicate.”

    “A
lot
 more massive? You mean, massive like collapsed matter?”

    “I think not. There are definite hints of a complex internal structure. More than that, I can’t say.”

    Bandicut frowned. /Any chance Deep could take a look?/ he asked Charli.

   
/// Deep has his, er, hands full already.

   
He’s establishing time-fusion,

   
so that we can talk to the star.

   
But Dark is trying to probe the object.

   
The word I’m getting via Charlene is that

   
it has n-space structure. ///

   
/Oh.../ He peered again and saw that Dark had indeed sped on ahead and was circling around some invisible point.

   
/// The object is not just floating in n-space.

   
Its form and structure appear to be

   
shaped from n-space. ///

   
/You mean like our ship?/

   
/// I think so, yes.

   
Except apparently there are some long streamers

   
extending from it. ///

   
Bandicut conveyed that information to Napoleon. The robot made a rasping sound. “It must have its structure better concealed than ours.”

    “What do you mean?”

    “Well, any fool could look at
The Long View
and say, of course it extrudes into n-space and uses n-space boundary layers as a hull.”

    “Any fool.”

    “But this object...well, the readings are a lot more ambiguous. I think maybe it’s a normal-space structure that’s been rolled up somehow into n-space, so that most of it is hidden. I can’t tell for sure. And I’m not picking up any suggestion of streamers. I wish there were a way for us to probe it directly.”

   
“Can you at least tell if it’s Mindaru? If it is, maybe we should be thinking of how to take it out—or at least stay away from it. You know what happened the last time we approached one of those.”

    “That’s a reasonable speculation,” Napoleon said. “But speculation nevertheless. Obviously, we don’t know what the results would be if we destroyed it, assuming we could find a way.”

    “I understand that. I was speaking hypothetically, Nappy.”

    Charli cleared her throat.

   
/// Mostly hypothetically? ///

   
Bandicut shrugged inwardly. /What do you suggest?/

   
/// Charlene-echo says Dark can’t go any closer

   
without setting off alarms,

   
assuming she hasn’t already.

   
I think we’ve got to go in and take a look.

   
And hope we’re less obtrusive. ///

   
/That’s what I was afraid you were going to say./ Bandicut relayed Charli’s thoughts to everyone on the bridge who was listening. But before asking Li-Jared to help him decide—and the Karellian looked as if he was anything but amenable to approaching a Mindaru object—Bandicut called out to Ik and Antares. “Are you getting anything from the star? Any sense of whether this object might be involved in the trouble?”

    Ik appeared lost in his trance, but Antares looked up and blinked her golden eyes. “It’s all quite vague. We’re still just making contact.”

    “If we move in to investigate this thing, do you think it will interfere with your contact?” Bandicut asked.

    “I think our movements will not cause a problem. If we do come under attack...well...”

    “Yah.” Bandicut started to turn to Li-Jared when Charli suddenly yelled something. He couldn’t understand, and had to ask her to repeat it.

   
/// That’s it! Damn it, that’s it!

   
I know what it’s doing! ///

   
/What? What’s it doing?/

   
/// I’ve been getting this hazy image of

   
this star being caught up in a web of some kind,

   
but it didn’t make any sense to me.

   
Ask Napoleon if he can do anything that would

   
make dark matter visible. ///

   
/Dark matter? Charli, we can’t
see
dark matter. That’s why it’s
called
 dark matter./

   
/// Just ask him. Or Jeaves.

   
If not dark matter, then n-space channels.

   
Ask them! ///

   
Bandicut put the question to the robots. Napoleon wasn’t sure, but Jeaves jumped in to say, “Exotic dark matter is nearly impossible to image in normal-space, but if it’s passing through n-space channels, then we should be able to do something to light it up. Yes—I think I understand now. Not again! Why didn’t I see that?”

    “What do you mean, not again?” Bandicut asked.

    But Jeaves was busy working with Napoleon to change the view. After a few moments, the image of the huge star flickered, then darkened as though a violet-black filter had dropped into place. Now it was no longer just the sun; threading from the surrounding space into it were a number of fine, glowing strands, a little like streamers of lightning playing from the center of a toy plasma globe. “That’s it, they’re feeding in the direction of the object,” Jeaves said. “But where are they going from there?”

    “What are those—?” Bandicut waved in bewilderment toward the streamers.

    “Still trying to fine-tune the sensors,” Jeaves said. “I believe Charli is right—those are streams of exotic dark matter being channeled through n-space. Wait a sec—here.” The view lightened and turned bluer, and now the threads were thicker and looked like ghostly streamers of something flowing.

    Li-Jared stood crouching with his hands on his hips. “Dark matter, eh?”

    “Are we all talking about the same thing—the undetectable stuff that keeps the galaxies from flying apart?” Bandicut asked. “Because if we are, then I really don’t understand what’s going on.”

   
Bong-ng.
“Neither do I,” Li-Jared said. “But you may be right. I hate to say it, but we may need to take a closer look.”

    “I
might
 understand,” Jeaves murmured.

    “If you know something, tell us,” Bandicut said.

    “It might be the way they’re attacking the star. But I could be completely wrong. Let me finish processing the information we’re getting before I speculate, okay? Can we ask Copernicus to bring us in closer? We’ll have to penetrate the star’s outer atmosphere to get near the object.”

    Bandicut cast a frustrated glance at Ik and Antares before nodding yes.

*

   
*
Thunder
*
was now a massive wall of light, filling most of the sky. The presumed-Mindaru object was floating in the star’s photosphere, so they had little choice but to go on in themselves. The n-space fields would isolate them, as usual; if the fields failed, they would hardly have time to know the difference.

    “I’m not sure what we’re going to do once we have this object where we want it,” Bandicut said, with a shiver of apprehension.

    “I’m not sure, either,” said Napoleon. “But it does appear to be of a different nature from the last.”

    “How do you know? I can barely see it.”

    “The last Mindaru object projected an n-space web that was clearly intended to trap and destroy spacecraft. This one appears to have other fish to fry.”

    “What sort of other...fish?” Li-Jared asked.

    Napoleon flickered. “It
appears
to be involved in—and possibly
creating
—conduits through n-space. Conduits carrying dark matter. I can’t tell yet where the conduits lead, but I think we might all have the same guess.”

    “
*
Nick
*
?” Bandicut asked.

    “That’s
my
 guess,” Napoleon said.

    Jeaves emitted a gentle sigh. “It would be consistent with a situation I once encountered, in which...sentient intervention...was causing a star to build toward supernova. It would have been very difficult to stop.” He seemed to draw himself up. “We must be extremely creative in our response.”

    “Exactly,” said Napoleon. “Captains, we really need to move in for a close-up look, if we are to have answers. Do we have your permission?”

    Bandicut glanced at Li-Jared, who assented with a flick of his fingers. “Sur-r-re. What have we got to lose? But be careful, all right?”

    “Aye-aye, Cap’n.”

*

   
It was very strange...

    Ik felt his body turning to gossamer, to a wispy translucence. He was evaporating from the bridge of the ship. What was happening? A wave of panic rushed through him, then faded as quickly. He was floating through spacetime. He flew toward Deep, and toward the swelling star.

   
The star.
It was a huge, luminous thing, filling the sky. It ought, logically, to have felt dangerous; but he did not sense heat from it, or radiation. Or danger. What he sensed was something,
someone,
 aware of his approach.

    Ik also felt a growing awareness of
time
—not as a flow or a past/present/future, but rather as a great diaphanous ribbon stretched out across...he didn’t know what to call it, eternity maybe, or the timeline of existence. Whatever it was called, the star occupied a much greater swath of that ribbon than he did. Millions of Iks, or Ik-lifetimes, could be stretched end to end within the ribbon that the star occupied. Clearly the star was alive and aware, but how could it possibly commune with one so tiny? It was, Ik knew, Deep’s work making that possible; the time-fusion sang through this vision like electricity through a wire.