Sunborn (5 page)

    Some who thought.

    Who felt.

    Who knew.

    According to the stories passed down through the ages, the first to achieve consciousness were named
*
Dazzle
*
and
*
Glare
*
—not by themselves, but by others who followed. They lived brightly and died brightly, in new supernovas that salted the clouds with heavy elements to enrich the worlds to come. None lived now who remembered
*
Dazzle
*
and
*
Glare
*
 firsthand, but the story of their lives had not been forgotten. Thought by some to be more myth than reality, they nevertheless remained—whether actually or symbolically—the progenitors of their race.

    Generations followed, one upon another.

    In time, knowledge turned into wisdom, and the community of stars prospered through the long, slow turns of the galaxies.

    Until much later, when the change came, with the arrival of the intruders...

*

   
Antares found it all rather hard to follow, but she understood clearly that there were not just living, sentient stars in this story. There were
families—histories
—of sentient stars. It reminded her of her own people, except on a vastly greater scale. These histories wound their threads through billions of years, with creatures she could barely comprehend—living stars! And there were so many of them, with such rich lives.

    But something had gone terribly wrong. And that something had come from the outside.

    At first it seemed only a strain in the sea of dust and energy in which they lived. But existence in the nebula was practically
defined
by strains, by shock waves, by enormous turbulences that gave life and took life away. Many eons passed before the changes were noticed. But there was a presence here that no sun had ever felt before. Changes were occurring in newborns—some emerging as lifeless balls of fusion-fire, others aware but dangerously unstable. Some of the older stars were growing confused, possibly psychotic.

    That was how it started. Then came premature supernovas—which, as often as not, took not just one life, but many. And not just the lives of stars, but of worlds hundreds of light-years away, scoured sterile by the radiation—inhabited worlds, worlds filled with people. Not Thespi, maybe—but people.

    Antares found the stories strange, yet also moving. But what, she wondered, could it have to do with the four of them here? It was one thing to hear about sentient stars, but quite another to think they could actually interact with them.

    And as for
helping
them...

    She empathized; given her nature, she could not help doing so. But what could they possibly
do
?

Chapter 4

Food for Thought

    By the time Jeaves called a halt, the haloes had filled Bandicut’s head with enough background information to leave him reeling. He was feeling numb when Jeaves suggested they return to the lodge where they had spent the previous night. “You could all use a good night’s rest.”
    “You think?” Bandicut muttered.

    “You need time to absorb the information. A ship is being prepared. But it isn’t ready for departure yet, in any case.”

    “Ship?” Ik boomed as they trooped together up the desert trail. “What ship? Who’s preparing it?”

    “Exploratory vessel. The shadow-people are modifying it. They provide maintenance for the entire station.”

    “The shadow-people I trust. I’d like to know more about this ship, though. Do we have time to think about your, hrrm...request?” Ik asked.

    “We’ll talk in the morning,” said Jeaves.

    They approached what looked like a hanging bead curtain, with waves of heat shimmer rippling up its strands. Was this the same transport device they had come through during their walk-around tour of the station this morning? Bandicut hesitated, but when Jeaves ushered them through, he let the curtain part around him. He felt a slight warming and stepped, followed by the others, into a now-familiar forest clearing. In the center of the clearing stood the lodge. The building, with gray stone walls, wooden beams, and a shingle roof, reminded Bandicut of Earth. Wood smoke issued from a wide, brick chimney. Last night, bringing them here, Jeaves had explained that he’d designed the look of the lodge himself, trying his best to make it comfortable. But, he’d admitted, he had more knowledge of human architecture than of Thespi, Karellian, or Hraachee’an. He’d gotten the exterior right, anyway, Bandicut thought.

    Antares, Li-Jared, and Ik entered through a heavy wooden door. Bandicut paused for a last word with Napoleon and Copernicus, who would spend the night reconnoitering the area. “See what you can find out, all right?”

    “Wilco,” said Napoleon.

    “And be careful.” Finally, Bandicut followed the others inside. The interior seemed to owe more to human medieval fantasy than to anything Bandicut had ever encountered on Earth itself. The main common room was a broad, dimly lit, low-ceilinged area, with flames cracking from a log in a huge fireplace set in the far wall. Wisps of smoke hung in the air above a cluster of benches, sofas, and low tables near the fire. This was where they’d dined last night and this morning. It already felt a little like home.

    Ik and Li-Jared had made their way to the fireside sofas, with Antares right behind them. Soon they were all sitting before the log fire, with plates piled with food, and a variety of drinks: a mug of ale for Bandicut and another for Ik, who wanted to see what Bandicut’s favorite beverage tasted like. Antares had a reddish nectar in a tall glass, and Li-Jared held a milkshake-like concoction. One or two of the living haloes floated in and out of the darkened room, not speaking to them but making a kind of music that sounded like a blend of steel drum and harp.

    Bandicut took a deep draft of ale, pleased by its rich malt flavor and hoppy aftertaste. He lowered the mug with a sigh, grateful to contemplate something simple for a while. “What do you think?” he asked Ik.

    “Most bracing,” Ik pronounced, stroking the two thumbs of his left hand together along his hard-surfaced lips. “If this is a sample of your Earth drinks, I believe I approve.” With that, he turned his attention to the dinner on his plate.

    The food was a respectable reproduction of Hraachee’an food bars, whole-grain bread rolls, cheese, and apples; and various fruits and other samplings of Hraachee’an, Karellian, and Thespi foods. They ate quietly for a time, before Antares broke the silence, wondering aloud what the others had thought of the haloes’ presentation. Li-Jared sputtered for a moment, but Ik answered first. “Truthfully,” he said, “I find it hard to fathom this business of living stars.”

    Li-Jared blinked, the bright blue and gold of his eyes going dark, then blazing again. “Well, remember, Ik, your people had only just ventured into space when your sun exploded—”

    “I hadn’t forgotten,” Ik said, his deep-set eyes narrowing, giving him an even more skeletal appearance than usual.

    Li-Jared drummed his fingers in exasperation. “I just meant that you had not had time to become intimately acquainted with your own star, or others. Would you have
known
 it if your sun were sentient?”

    “Rrrm, what I was going to say was, I am willing to
entertain
 the notion of sentient suns.”

    “Well, I hope you aren’t entertaining the notion that we might
go
 there!”

    “I do not know. But, Li-Jared—” Ik turned his left hand palm-up, his long, bony fingers extended “—if there are whole worlds in danger, and there is something we can do to help—”

    Waving his arms, Li-Jared jumped up and stalked around in a fury. “Moon and stars—why must it be us,
always us
? We saved Shipworld! We saved the Neri! Are we the only ones in the galaxy who can do these things? Do we just keep doing it until one day we die?” He wheeled around and glared into the fire, his back to Ik.

    As Ik stirred, Bandicut tried to say something. But his voice caught; it jarred him to see the two argue—and the truth was, he agreed with both of them.

    “Friends, please—” Antares began, and then she too seemed at a loss for words.

    Finally Ik stretched out his long limbs. “I can only guess, hrrm, there are some things only we are in a position to do.”

    Li-Jared’s eyes narrowed visibly. “Yah, maybe we’re just handy and maybe we’re just—”
rasp
 “—suckers.”

    “Hrah, maybe so. But maybe the need is still there.” Ik turned to Bandicut. “Hrrrm, Bandie, would you join me in having another one of these ales?”

*

   
Antares was beginning to wish she’d never started the conversation. It all felt like too much to think about right now: whether to go, or not go, on a dangerous mission to do something about
sentient stars.
Or worse, some mysterious agent attacking sentient stars. And wondering whether they were going to have a choice in the matter, any more than they had chosen to plunge into the ocean of the Neri world. Antares was very fond of Li-Jared and Ik; but she suddenly realized that right now, she needed
not
to be listening to this. The arguments were clamoring in her mind like a thousand voices...

   
She rested her head against the sofa back and shifted her gaze to the fire. As she watched its dancing flames, she thought,
How strange this little company is. I have known these people such a short time, and they are such a part of me now. To think how much I trust them! And John Bandicut—we’ve had so little time to really get to know each other. I wish we could put everything else aside for a while.

    Though her gaze was turned away from the others, she was aware of John Bandicut’s physical presence beside her. She was almost close enough to detect his feelings, but they were more like an aura, a shadow she couldn’t quite grasp.
Time...I just need some time...

*

   
Li-Jared had sat back down, but still looked disgruntled, as Ik returned from the food table with two full mugs of ale. Bandicut accepted one and took a swallow.
Ahh.
 Sighing, he glanced at Antares. She was turned toward the fire, but her eyelids were half shut. “You okay?”

    “I wish to sleep soon.” She shifted her eyes toward him. “John Bandicut, will you join me?”

    “Of course.” He took another swallow, then paused to eye his nearly full mug. “Do you mean now?”

    She whispered a chuckle. “I can wait.”

    Bandicut took another gulp, then caught her eye again.
She means now.
 He raised his mug ruefully toward Ik. “Would you mind if we continued this later?”

    Antares leaned toward Ik and Li-Jared. “My friends, would you forgive us?”

    Ik sipped his ale and clacked his mouth shut. “Indeed. Rest well—both of you.”

    Li-Jared tapped his chest with his fingers and snapped, “What is to forgive? Ik and I will continue the—”
brr-dang
 “—learned discussion. Good night.”

    As Antares rose, Bandicut took a last, long swallow of ale. He joined her in threading past the tables to the back of the room, where Jeaves was waiting. He floated ahead of them down a short hallway. “I wanted to make sure you were not in need of anything...”

    “Nothing, no,” Antares answered.

    “Then I will take my leave. We will discuss these matters further in the morning. Good night.” Jeaves left them at the door to their quarters.

    They entered a modest-sized room that contained a resilient, matlike floor and a single sleeping pad large enough for two people to stretch out on comfortably. The door materialized closed behind them. Bandicut sat on the sleeping pad and looked up at Antares. “You okay? Just tired?”

    “And overwhelmed.” She came and sat beside him, smoothing out the red, satiny fabric of her pantsuit. He squeezed her hand. “So much to think about,” she said, her breath hissing out. “Can we talk about something other than thinking stars, and missions to places we might rather not go to?”

    “Sure.” He was certain she did not have physical intimacy on her mind, but he felt her empathic touch at the edge of his thoughts. “Anything in particular?”

    “I don’t know. Bandie John Bandicut, so much has happened to us, so quickly. How long have we actually known each other?”

    Not that long. Only a short time on Shipworld, in the midst of chaotic and near-catastrophic events, before they were hurled to the Neri world—and similarly perilous events—until the Maw of the Abyss hurled them away again.

    Antares made a soft murmuring, almost purring sound. “And here we are, being asked to intervene in cosmic events. Stars with lifetimes of millions of years! What could we have to do with them? What could they have to do with us, even if they are awake and intelligent?”

    “I don’t know,” he murmured.
I thought we weren’t going to talk about this.

    Antares leaned her head on his shoulder; her thick mane of auburn hair tumbled over him. “It’s just so hard even to know how to think about these things. I could grasp it when the Neri were in danger. And I could grasp it, on Shipworld, when the iceline was in peril from the boojum—and you and your friends, too. But stars and worlds?” She raised her hands in a gesture of helplessness.

    “Is it too hard to imagine their pain?”

    “To
imagine
their pain? No. But to feel their
actual
pain—that would be very different. I do not know how I can become a part of that.” She raised her chin, and her golden-irised eyes caught his. And he suddenly realized, this wasn’t just about making a rational decision: smart mission, dumb mission. This was about
being part of something
.

    “Then—”

    “I feel as if I need to grasp this before I can even consider what we should do.”