Sunborn (45 page)

    And through that singing, faintly, came the voice of
*
Thunder
*
, very different from
*
Brightburn
*
. Ik could not make out words or expressions from
*
Thunder
*
, but he did detect a feeling, he thought. It was a strong emotion, an undertone to the electric song.

   
*
Thunder
*
 knew they were here. And she was not glad to see them.

*

   
The gases of the star’s photosphere glowed whiter and bluer and brighter, ever brighter. They were gliding through
*
Thunder
*
’s atmosphere. Bandicut knew it was a translated image—they were still in n-space and would hardly have seen that view even if the ship had had windows—but he nevertheless felt his throat tighten as he watched. Ahead of them, the Mindaru object was now visible as a dark speck. When magnified, it was still an indefinable shape, a severely pixelated image. Standing nearby on the bridge, he sensed that Ik and Antares were being drawn further and further into contact with the star. He wished he knew what they were seeing and hearing. /Can you follow any of it?/

   
/// Only a little.

   
I get the feeling this star is angry. ///

   
/About—?/

   
/// About small, invading bodies. ///

   
Sorry he’d asked, Bandicut turned and spoke to Napoleon. “How close do we need to get to that thing? And do you see any danger signs?”

    “As close as possible. And none so far.”

    No danger? That seemed unlikely. “Can you tell yet what it’s doing?”

    “I can confirm the flow of dark matter through a channel in n-dimensional space.” A window appeared in an upper corner of the viewspace, revealing a false-color image in God-knew-what wavelength. Several ghostly streamers converged on a clear bubble surrounding the Mindaru object, then diverted inward into the star in one stream. “This would not be detectable from normal-space using any means familiar to us,” Napoleon said.

    “So the dark matter is being directed into the body of
*
Thunder
*
?” Li-Jared asked.

    Jeaves answered, “Yes, but I don’t believe that is its final destination. Our scans cannot penetrate far enough to confirm, but I believe the flow is being redirected to another star.”

    “To
*
Nick
*
?” Bandicut asked.

    “I can’t think of where else. My guess is that dark matter is accumulating in
*
Nick
*
’s core,” Jeaves said. “Precisely how, I’m not certain. But that buildup is probably what’s causing the hypergrav disturbances. The intent must be to push
*
Nick
*
 to the point of hypernova.”

   
/// That’s exactly the point, ///

   
Charli said, and there was anguish, grief, and anger in her voice.

    Bandicut blinked in surprise. /How are you so sure?/

   
/// Because...

   
that’s how my homeworld was killed. ///

   
/Charli? Are you sure?/

   
/// An hour ago, I wasn’t.

   
But the memories that have been

   
coming back to me...

   
I know now, I remember it. ///

   
Bandicut swallowed hard, thinking. /You mean—that the Mindaru destroyed your homeworld?/

   
/// Our sun was...like *Thunder*.

   
Made to contribute to the explosion of

   
a neighboring star. ///

   
Bandicut closed his eyes. /And then wiped out by the supernova?/

   
/// Yes. Cosmic murder.

   
So this setup is not only giving *Thunder* a bellyache,

   
it’s threatening the life of every star nearby,

   
and doing it deliberately. ///

   
Bandicut gulped. “Okay, Napoleon,” he said at last. “Take us as close as we need to go. Let’s see if this thing has a weak spot.”

    “Aye, Cap’n. Doing so now.”

*

   
It took several hours for Copernicus to maneuver
The Long View
 close enough to give them a good view of the thing. It was a black, prickly sphere, like a floating mine. So far, there had been no sign of hostile activity, which was puzzling. “It’s possible,” Jeaves said, “that this device is designed to perform just the one task. The others we’ve encountered may have been sentries and protectors.”

    “And they may have big brothers nearby,” Bandicut muttered.

    “So how do we distract this thing from its one true task?” Li-Jared said, scratching his breastbone. He had been very quiet throughout the approach, apparently unbothered by their plunge into the sea of fiery radiation. Bandicut didn’t know whether it was good or bad for Li-Jared to be so calm.

   
“Well, we don’t have any ship-to-ship weapons on board,” Jeaves said. “Just some small arms. I believe we have some n-space disrupter grenades, and that sort of thing.”

    “So-o-o...?” Bandicut asked.

    “We probably need to dock,” Jeaves continued. “Board it. Shut it down from the inside, if possible. What do you think?”

    “That you’re nuts?” Li-Jared said.

    “Probably,” Napoleon said. “We should be close enough to dock within the hour. Shall we prepare our boarding party?”

    Bandicut could only stare at him.

Chapter 28

Boarding Party

    There were at least sixty reasons Bandicut could think of
not
to attempt a boarding of the Mindaru satellite—or whatever it was—starting with the fact that they were inside a star, and if the Mindaru didn’t kill them, the star probably would. But the Mindaru was a marauding murderer that had to be stopped, and he couldn’t think of any other way to stop it.
    “No indication of defensive force-fields or hostile weaponry,” Napoleon reported. “It may be that the fact that it’s in the atmosphere of a star was considered defense enough.”

    “Yah,” Bandicut said. “Or maybe its big brother will be paying us a visit.”
So who’s going in? What am I saying, the thing is the size of a beachball! Unless we have some really tiny probes...

    “I have identified a possible service-entry port,” Copernicus reported. “I am going to attempt a semihard dock, and attach a boarding tunnel extrusion.”

    “Coppy, the thing is tiny! How are we supposed to—?”

    “We will have to drop into three-space,” Copernicus continued. “This may cause a change in the aspect. In any case, we have automated probes that will fit nicely through that port—assuming we can get it open.”

    Bandicut’s heart was suddenly pounding with relief; or maybe it had been pounding all along and he hadn’t noticed. /Thank God, we don’t have to turn ourselves into spaghetti to get into the thing./

   
/// For the time being.

   
But a probe isn’t going to be able to interpret

   
what it sees the way your stones might.

   
Or I might. ///

   
Bandicut scowled but didn’t answer. Napoleon was already saying, “Depending on what the probe finds, it is logical that I would be the next to go. Shall we proceed with rendezvous and docking?”

    There was a sudden vibration in the deck, and the image in the viewspace changed subtly, as though the sensors had shifted to a different wavelength. The Mindaru satellite appeared darker, closer, and more ominous.

    Copernicus announced, “We have dropped into three-space, folks. Normal-space, if you prefer—though of course we still have the n-space layering of the hull for protection.”

    “Then why—?”

    “To simplify station-keeping and docking with the other vessel.”

    Bandicut glanced around nervously. “Then shall we go ahead and—”

    There was a perceptible bump, then a click. “We are docked,” said Copernicus.

*

   
Ik was both surprised and moved by the upwelling of sound around him. It reminded him of the Maw of the Abyss from the Neri ocean-world as it distorted and twisted gravity in a futile attempt to complete a stargate operation. It was also like the rushing of wind he’d experienced in one of the sectors of Shipworld where huge air masses swept, moaning, over a hot desert. And it reminded him of the star-spanner that, long ago, had pulled him and his little ship to safety from his exploding sun.

    /Hello?/ Ik tried to say, and the result was a translation into a gentle
gong-ng-ng-ng-ng-ng-ng
 sound, reverberating into space. To his astonishment, there came in reply a deeper, almost seismic groan. Words? Or at least syllables? Were the stones translating?

   
*We are attempting...it is difficult...*

   
Besides his own stones working frantically to understand the star, he could feel Antares’s stones trying to help...and all the while, he could feel the
presence
 nearby, the star trying to understand what this new thing was. There was still anger, Ik thought, and fear or alarm. The star didn’t know what they were, but it knew small intruders were harmful.

    /Hello,/ he offered again, and hoped that this simple sound, and the benevolent wish behind it, might somehow be conveyed to the star.

   
Gong-g-g-g-g-g-g.
 And with the sound, an expanding wave front of crimson-orange light.

    Ik felt a sudden burst of activity in his own head, a buzzing that ricocheted back and forth from one side of his skull to the other—the stones, consulting with each other on the exquisitely difficult problem of translation.

    A fresh groan welled up from the star. A response to his hello? Maybe. But he was a long way from verbal communication. That, Ik thought, might take a very long time.

*

   
For Deeaab, this was a more difficult time-fusion than any he had yet attempted. Time, in this region, flowed in subtly different streams and currents; it was altered by the many channels of n-space that the Mindaru had created. The sun clearly was in distress, no doubt because of the strange matter burning through those channels. Charlene-echo said that it seemed angry. The faint memory-echo of Delilah said that it was in pain. Perhaps both were true.

    Deeaab considered taking immediate action, perhaps disrupting the n-space channels by direct force. But neither echo supported this thought. The results could be unpredictable; and in any case, he could not disrupt all of the channels at once.

    Instead, he focused on what he was good at—bending time and trying to help the large life and the slow life to talk. He just had to accept that it was going to be hard.

*

   
“The boarding tube is pressurizing,” Copernicus reported. “The probe is ready. We are attempting to crack the code on the access hatch.”

    “You’re still watching for defensive threats, right?”

    “Of course, Cap’n.”

    “Good. Uh—listen, as you probe this thing, check to see if conditions are suitable—you know, in case one of us has to go in.” Bandicut shut his eyes; he couldn’t believe he was even thinking it, much less saying it.

    “Certainly, Cap’n. But does it make sense for you to risk yourself if our probes can explore the area? Napoleon can go if we need greater capability.”

    Bandicut drew a breath. “Just call it a premonition. Maybe we won’t have to, and that would be great. This is purely hypothetical.” He realized Antares was looking in his direction. Even though she was mostly focused on the star, she apparently had heard him.

    Copernicus said, “Code resolved. The port is opening. Probe now entering the Mindaru vessel. Readings are coming back.” Napoleon pointed to a display window in the viewspace, where they could see the camera’s eye view of the probe floating into the dark interior of the alien device. Angular shapes of machinery loomed in the probe’s lights.

    “What are we getting?”

    Napoleon answered. “Atmosphere is confirmed, one-half sea-level Earth normal. Thirty percent argon, seventy percent helium. If you should decide to go in, you would need to take air, assuming you’d like oxygen.”

    “I accept the recommendation. What else?”

    Napoleon took a moment to study the telemetry. “Local illumination is starting to come on, Cap’n, seemingly in response to our probe’s presence. Also, it would seem that the interior space is expanding to allow room for movement. Interesting.”

   
Bwang.
 “Why would it do that?” Li-Jared asked, looking more troubled than pleased.

    “Perhaps it is designed to accommodate servicing visits,” Napoleon suggested. “It may be like our ship, and able to expand at need.”

   
/// Excellent.

   
That will be very helpful in the event

   
we decide to go in person. ///

   
/Mm./ Bandicut squinted at the images coming from the probe. “It’s pretty hard to tell what we’re looking at here. Nappy, can you decipher any of it?”