Sunborn (58 page)

   
*Focusing bursts of solar radiation on the object, hoping to disrupt it.*

   
/And did you?/

   
*Unclear. It deflected some of the energy out through the side of the hull.*

   
/Was that why you wanted me out of the way? Jesus, mother of—!/ She glanced back at the sun.
Are we going to make it? Are we going to dump this thing in the lap of the sun? Or is it having us for toast?

   
*It will be close. We’re going to lose more of the ship going in.*

   
She shut her eyes. /Can I back out now? No—forget I said that. If we’re going to die, let’s make damn sure we take
it
 out with us!/

   
*That’s our intention.*

   
Julie turned to face the sun. Screw the glare, she’d trust the filters. She could clearly see sunspots on the face of the sun now, like irregular black moles, and the curling turbulence of an electromagnetic storm. One day to go. /Is there any hope we can still drop it in and try to get away?/

   
*Uncertain we
can
jettison. Our powers are being strained. Containment and speed are our sole priorities.*

    Julie closed her eyes to slits. Maybe
you
can’t jettison with your fancy fields, she thought. But that thing’s in a mechanical cargo pod.
I just wonder...
 She called to her spacesuit heads-up display for information on the layout of the craft.

*

   
Time passed more quickly than she’d have thought possible. By the time she’d figured out most of what she needed to know, she was very tired, and the sun loomed large in the sky. She must have dozed off, because the sun’s disk seemed to have grown when she wasn’t looking. She remembered holding her bent arm up to the sun, and being able to span the sun’s diameter with her forearm from elbow to fingertips. That was no longer true. The sun was now swollen to cover a third of the sky.

    By this time, she thought, the skin of the ship ought to be glowing like a horseshoe in a blacksmith’s fire. It wasn’t, so she guessed the translator—or the spatial threading—was protecting it from the heat. She peered cautiously over the edge of the cabin roof to see what condition the ship was in now, and was shocked to see dancing rays of light and sparkling dust billowing steadily from below. /What’s that mean that I’m seeing?/

    The stones answered gravely,
*You will not be able to return to your cabin.*

    /You mean it’s being destroyed?/

   
*Unfortunately.*

   
Damn.
Damn.
And now...just knowing that her living space with all of its amenities was gone, she felt a sudden, urgent need to pee. Forget it, kid. Hold it. That’s how you’re going out. Try not to pee in your pants when you fall into the sun.

   
*Does this help?*

   
The pressure in her bladder suddenly went away. She blinked, and thought for a moment she saw a glitter in the distance. /As a matter of fact, it does. What did you do with the pee?/

   
*We removed it.*

   
/Damn.
Really?
 Did you dump it on that thing’s head down there?/ That would give her some satisfaction at least, pissing on the thing that was trying to kill her.

   
*What an odd notion. No—we didn’t want to give it the mass, so we vented it to space.*

   
Julie sighed in disappointment. She felt oppressed by the sun, vast and sullen through the filtering field. How much longer? She had a sudden vision of just the three of them left, falling in a cluster into the sun: the mass-gobbling alien object, the writhing translator, and her in her force-field bubble.

   
*Not so far from the truth. Look to your right.*

   
She looked. Where the translator had been nestled into the framework of the ship’s midsection, it was now far more exposed. The portion of the ship’s hull beneath it had been eaten away, and it now looked like what it was, a very strange, semi-iridescent object hitching a ride on the side of a steel framework. Its perch was disintegrating in a soft haze.
God damn it. God damn that thing!

   
*Understand, the translator is not a fighting machine, and never was. It can manipulate space, but was not created to do battle against a malicious foe. If it had, the Fffff’tink might have survived.*

   
The Fffff’tink? She caught a mental glimpse of a civilization self-destructing, a civilization that both the translator and something called a quarx had labored to save. And now the fight had moved...to this little craft, a battle to save
her
 civilization.

   
*We only have to hold a little longer.*

   
She gulped a breath, staring down at the half-eaten hull. /Aren’t we close enough to the sun now that we could drop it like a bomb, then get away before it destroys us? Could it escape at this point?/

   
*Probably not. But to release it, we would have to relax our containment fields. And we dare not risk that, not yet.*

   
Julie stared thoughtfully into space for a moment, then resumed studying the diagrams in her heads-up display.

*

   
Had she dozed again? She was definitely tired. Being out in the hot sun in a threading field must do that to you. The sun now filled most of the sky. She was very thirsty. She sipped from the suit’s meager water supply and surveyed the wreckage of the ship at her feet. Perhaps it was time to put her own plan into action.

    /I need to move down toward you,/ she said.

   
*Do you mean toward the translator?*

   
/Yes. Can you protect me while I move?/

   
*We can, but...it is less safe.*

   
/I thought you said “safe” wasn’t a word that applied here./

   
*What are you planning?*

   
She began readjusting her tether lines and inching her way toward the back of what was left of the cabin. /I’m planning to drop a payload into the sun. The hard way. By hand./

   
*Please clarify.*

   
Julie wondered if John had had to talk his way around the stones. /Watch and see. I’m just going as far as that little ledge down there./ She pointed a gloved hand toward a jutting metal step on the side of what was left of the cabin. The thing she wanted to reach was supposed to be accessible from there. It took some careful maneuvering, but eventually she was perched—awkwardly—not more than a meter from the venting plasma. She peered into the shadows. There it was: a large, upside-down U, a handle that looked as if it might take both hands to pull. Tough in zero gravity.

   
*Julie?*

   
She centered herself in front of the handle. Bracing herself with one hand, she gripped the handle with the other, and pulled.

   
*This is a manual release for the cargo pod.*

   
/Right./

   
*You can’t release it just by doing this, you know.*

   
/I know./ The handle budged, ever so slightly. She relaxed a moment, then strained again. It moved a little more. /There are three more spaced around the cabin section. I’ll take them one at a time, and release the last one when we’re sure we’re close enough to the sun. Can you help me?/

   
*We’re uncertain about this.*

   
/I trusted you, now you trust me, okay? I promise not to jump the gun. Now let me get this done and move on to the next one!/ She pulled again, and this time the handle came, rotating out and away from the hull’s surface. She felt something, a slight clunk, as the latch released.

   
*Julie...*

   
/Just tell me when it’s safe to cut it loose, okay?/

    She felt some far corner of the stones acquiesce as she began making her way to the second release. It seemed the translator was unwilling to force her into something she didn’t want to do. It might be in charge, but it insisted on working
with
 her rather than in spite of her. That was good. Because she had a lot to do here. The sun, she could have sworn, was swelling visibly. She wanted to have a little bit of her pride left as she plummeted to her death.

    /We
are
 going to die, right?/ she asked matter-of-factly, as she attached her tethers in front of the second manual release lever.

   
*That is a possible outcome. Just now we want to focus solely on ensuring the destruction of this object.*

   
/Could flying it into the sun make it stronger?/

   
*We have considered that possibility. We believe it has not yet reached a stage of being able to transform solar energy into propulsive energy. It is laboring to survive. The bursts of solar heat we have focused on it are taking a toll. It is suffering.*

   
Julie considered that. /Are
we
 suffering from the heat, too?/

   
*Not as much.*

   
/Good./ Gripping a handhold with her left hand and placing her right on the second release lever, Julie pulled with all her strength, and with a great gasp that echoed in her helmet, hauled the handle to the open position. /You said it
might
 develop the ability to fly out of here on solar energy—if it sucks enough material from us to sprout wings or something, right? So aside from what I want, it might be better to boot the thing off into the sun if we can, anyway? Right? To deprive it of more of our matter?/

   
*Possibly so. In its current state, we do not believe it could survive outside our threading field. You may be right.*

   
I’ll be damned, she thought. I may be right. Even if I am about to become toast. Unfastening and refastening her tether lines, she began making her way across the top of the spacecraft. Beneath her, the cargo pod seemed to be vibrating. Half the releases were open. Was the sun bigger than it was ten minutes ago? Who cared?
Gonna be a hot time in the old town tonight. Yeah.

   
She was maybe halfway to the third release mechanism when the stones’ voice penetrated her consciousness:
*Please respond!*

    /Hah—?/

   
*Are you in distress?*

   
/What—?/

   
*Julie Stone! Are you in distress?*

   
/What...distress...?/

    She blinked away sweat from her eyes, and realized that her heart was pounding, and she felt a little lightheaded. /Fine...I’m fine./ Except for a dizzy, sweltering euphoria. The sort of feeling one might get if one were spinning around. Or too hot. Or going hypo...hypox...
hypoxic
...

    She blinked hard and tried to focus. She was holding one end of a tether in one hand, and the other end was attached...where? To her waist. That was right, wasn’t it? One to the hand, one to the waist...? She felt herself floating...

   
*Attach the tether! Now!*

   
She looked at the tether in her hand, looked down at the cleat from which she was slowly drifting away. That did not seem right. She was turning slowly, coming to face the wall of the blazing sun.
No...gonna float away...not even have the ol’ translator to die with.
 A jerk at her waist brought her back. The second tether had come to its end and stopped her escape. But she was rotating now, swinging around, out of control.

   
*Pull yourself in! Do you need more oxygen?*

   
Panting, she grabbed for the other tether, and nearly wrapped it around her neck as she struggled to arrest her movement and pull herself back. /Oxygen? Might be good./

   
*We are trying to analyze. We think your regulator has malfunctioned. We are trying to—*

   
She felt a sudden gust of wind inside her helmet. She drew greedily on it, like a deprived smoker on a cigarette. /Jesus, that’s—/ And then it stopped, and she gasped again. /Why’d you turn it off?/

   
*Can you adjust it inside your suit?*

   
/I—maybe—/ She pushed at her chin control and felt a little more air coming. /Is that—am I—uh!/ She slammed into the side of the cabin, and grabbed for something to hang on to. She slid downward. Toward the cargo pod. Again she grabbed. Missed. Her feet were dangling toward the cloud of disintegrating matter coming out of the ruptured cargo hull. Nothing else to grab.

   
*Pull the tether in your other hand!*

   
/What?/ She yanked hard with her left hand, surprised to find a tether still in her grip. With a jolt, she began to float back toward the roof of the cabin. /OK. OK. OK. What about my air?/

   
*You were running low. We have set up a transfer from another tank. Hold on.*

   
Like emptying my bladder, but in reverse?
 She tried to pull herself back to where she’d been, and finally got her second tether hooked on a cleat. The airflow started to feel okay, and her vision was clearing up. She hadn’t even noticed the tunnel vision before. She breathed in great lungfuls of air. Jesus, that was close. When she felt steadier, she resumed moving toward the far side of the cabin. /How long was I out of it?/ How much bigger was the sun?