Sunborn (59 page)

   
*Not long. Long enough. Can you pull the handle?*

   
She planted herself, sucked a deep breath, and pulled. The release opened. /Got it. Is that the last?/

   
*One more. Can you move more quickly?*

   
She grunted. /We getting close to the dive, are we?/

   
*We think we detect new organization forming in the alien object. Some of its mass is boiling off in the sun, but it’s pulling from us faster than it’s losing...*

   
/Say no more./ She began moving to the last handle that would jettison the cancerous monster. It seemed to take a very long time. Then her hand was on the handle.
Brace yourself. Pull.

   
It didn’t move.

    She pulled harder. Still nothing. /It’s not...I don’t know why...if I can’t get this.../ Biting her lip, she put both hands on the grip and braced her feet on either side of it, so she’d be lifting from a squat.
Pull!

   
*Let’s try this.*

   
The craft beneath her feet suddenly jolted, as if with a change in acceleration. The handle gave with a lurch, and she sprang involuntarily away from the hull with her feet, and an instant later was hanging on by the handle as her body flew out and twisted. She struggled to pull herself back and grab something solid. /Did it—did it work?/

   
*Look down.*

   
Something was shaking where she was holding on. She bent her head down to peer past her feet. /God damn!/ The cargo pod was sliding out of its docking adapter and separating from the service craft. Or rather, what was left of the pod was separating from what was left of the craft. It was a hazy ball of dust and light, drifting away from a badly moth-eaten hull. It all seemed to squirm in her vision.

   
*It’s trying to hold on. We’re going to make a slight change.*

   
As the stones said that, something happened in the spatial threading—and the spacecraft seemed to change velocity rather abruptly. Julie had a sudden sensation of the brakes being put on, while the detached cargo pod went flying ahead of them. Flying ahead of them into the fiery heart of the sun...

*

   
The sun. It
was
 most of the sky now, and the stones advised her that they would be making their entry over the next few minutes. She was going to have to ride it out, right where she was perched, on top of the remains of the cabin. She had moved closer to the translator. /There’s no way for me to get a message off to anyone now is there?/

   
*Not really. Look.*

   
She looked. The alien object had disappeared in the glare. But a point of bright light flared, dazzling even against the intense fire that dominated the sky. It blazed for about one second, then disappeared. /Was that it? Is it gone?/

   
*It is gone. We monitored its disintegration. A few more hours and it might have been able to protect itself. It wasn’t complete enough to survive the intense heat.*

   
Julie looked a little longer, then turned to look back at the dizzying view of the translator, where it was attached, squirming, to the skeletal remains of the spacecraft. /You sound sad./

   
*We’d hoped to take it with us to study. There is much we would like to know about its creators.*

   
/A shame,/ Julie said, making the most insincere statement of her life, as she tried to swallow her ballooning fear.
Take it with us, right.
 /Where is it we think we’re going?/

   
*Hold tight,*
 said the stones.

    With that, the ship plummeted into the heat and light and thundering inferno of the sun.

Chapter 36

In the Fire of a Star

    Racing to the bridge, Bandicut and Antares found Copernicus working with filters on the sensor images, and Li-Jared pacing back and forth in front of the viewspace, apparently trying to decide what he was looking at. All Bandicut could see was a blazing sun mostly hidden behind the limbs and struts of their captor. “Is that
*
Nick
*
?” he asked, thinking of Napoleon out there, somewhere, inside the star. Wouldn’t Napoleon be surprised to know they had traveled here from
*
Thunder
*
.
    “It is,” said Copernicus.

    “What—rrrm—is it doing to us?” Ik asked, arriving just behind them.

    “
*
Nick
*
is doing nothing to us,” Li-Jared answered. “But that
thing
 out there seems to be bringing us to its parents.” Li-Jared raised his chin a little, gazing first out ahead of them and then back inside at Copernicus. The Karellian looked as if he hadn’t slept. He swayed as he asked Copernicus, “Can you replay the image we saw before?”

    The viewspace flickered, and showed them farther from the star. For just an instant, as the angles changed, something became visible past all the struts and legs, a shadowy object at the edge of the star’s atmosphere.

    “Hrah!” Ik exclaimed.
“That’s it, that’s the control center! That’s what we saw through *Thunder*’s eyes!”

    Bandicut tensed; his hands balled into fists. Was that where the entire dark-matter-channeling operation was controlled—the place he and Napoleon had tried unsuccessfully to find?

    Ik turned to Antares. “That’s what you saw, isn’t it?”

    Antares cocked her head at Ik. A strange expression passed like a shadow over Ik’s face, only for an instant. “Ik, are you okay?” Bandicut asked. “Are you sure it’s the control center?” The Hraachee’an looked puzzled by his question and bobbed his head. “Good,” Bandicut said. “Then we’re going right where we need to be.”

    “Glad to hear
that,
” Li-Jared muttered. “What now?”

    Bandicut drew a breath. “We find a way to disable it, I guess.”

    Copernicus restored the current view, which didn’t show much. “I am still monitoring for any change in the sentinel’s grip on us,” the robot said, “but so far I have found no weaknesses.”

    “I don’t think escape is our goal right now,” Bandicut repeated. Antares touched his shoulder; he felt her thoughts, urging him to persevere. In his head, meanwhile, Charli was scanning for their allies.

   
/// I feel Charlene-echo nearby. ///

   
/Did they both follow us here? Deep and Dark?/

   
/// I believe so.

   
But I don’t know if they have a plan, either. ///

   
“What?” Antares said, watching him.

    “Charli says Deep and company are out there.”

    “Can they help us?”

    “Wouldn’t we all like to know.”

*

   
An hour later the ship lurched, and Copernicus announced, “Our captor has dropped us out of n-space.”

    “Is it moving us to a dock?” Bandicut asked.

    “Not that I can tell. But we’re still being held.”

    Bandicut strode forward and pointed to the upper left of the view. A patch where the sun had been visible was now partially blocked by a shifting darkness. “Is that the Mindaru control center structure?”

    “Yes. We’re being probed, by the way.”

   
Bwang.
 “Probed by what?”

    “Magnetic, gravitational, neutrino-beam, X-ray, gamma ray, tachyon...”

    “Is that all?” Bandicut asked.

    “No, I am also detecting AI threads trying to penetrate my system.”

    Ik’s eyes seemed to harden, and he stepped forward, growling softly. Antares, eyes narrowed, stayed close to him. Bandicut felt a twinge of her sudden concern.

    Li-Jared was bristling. “Can you shut them out?”

    “Yes, but here’s the problem—we must study them if we want to find a way to stop them,” Copernicus said. “Jeaves and I have developed a set of what we believe are robust protective protocols.”

   
Bong.
“Robust, you say? Strong enough to withstand an assault from
that
?” Li-Jared sounded doubtful.

    Jeaves answered. “Let’s just say, if the assault is strong enough to overwhelm our defenses, we will have already lost. Does that reassure you?”

    “Not much,” Bandicut said.

    “My point is that we have a pretty good defense.”

    Bandicut glanced around, noting that Jeaves’s reassurance seemed to be meeting with a mixed reaction. Ik’s eyes glinted—with worry? “What do you think
its
 game plan is?”

    “One presumes,” Jeaves said, “that it wants to study us as well, perhaps before destroying us. It did go to the trouble of bringing us all this way. So—”

    “I am detecting a loosening of the gripping arms,” Copernicus interrupted.

    “Are you ready to break?” Li-Jared danced forward into the viewspace.

    Before Copernicus could answer, there was an abrupt change outside the ship. The sentinel arms pulled away, revealing a blinding light from the star, which the filters chopped back at once. Between the ship and the sun was a curtainlike thing of black and dazzling silver; it almost, but not quite, enveloped
The Long View.
Bandicut squinted, trying to decipher what he was seeing. Mindaru control station, enforcer, star destroyer—maybe all at once—it rippled like a silver-and-shadow ghost between
The Long View
and the roiling sun. The star’s light seemed to shine partially through it. “What
is
 that? Physically, I mean.”

    “I cannot measure much,” Jeaves said. “But if this really is the control center—”

    “What do we do, now that we have it right where we want it?”

   
/// Be very, very patient, I should think.

   
Wait for a proper opening. ///

   
Antares shot him a quizzical gaze. Bandicut repeated Charli’s comment.

   
Bwang-g-g.
 “Charli’s right,” Li-Jared said, startling him.

    Copernicus tapped twice. “Actually...I had already arrived at that conclusion, and so I did not attempt a breakaway just now.”

    Li-Jared spun, eyeing the robot.

    “Hrah-h-h,” Ik drawled.

    Antares touched his arm. “Is it the star? Are you in contact?” She closed her eyes. “The time-fusion is starting. I can feel it. That’s what Deep is doing...”

*

   
Ik felt at once that
*
Nick
*
’s pain was different from
*
Thunder
*
’s.
*
Nick
*
 had a fierce knot in the pit of his stomach, a knot that was growing steadily harder and tighter. And it was going to kill him if it wasn’t removed soon.

    That’s life, Ik thought—and then caught himself with a jerk. Why had he thought
that
? He wanted to offer assurance to the star. /We are trying. Trying as hard as we can,/ he whispered. It didn’t seem like much.

    To his surprise, there came an answer:

       
Trying  ?

           
How ?

       
It grows

           
gnaws

               
kills

       
Seeks death

       
Where is hope ?

           
How ?

               
How can I ?

       
How ?

   
Which left Ik groping for an answer.

       
Soon

           
will end soon

       
I feel-l-l

   
And Ik sensed a long, reverberating sigh that seemed to carry from one eon to the next. If there was any hope in the sigh, he could not feel it. He wasn’t sure he could offer any, either.

*

   
Deeaab had an idea. It was an extreme solution, more extreme than he would have chosen.

    Deeaab and Daarooaack had entered this universe from a place far away—at least, when considered in a certain way. Viewed in another way, their universe of birth was no farther than the backside of a wave of sunlight. They had arrived through a discontinuity in the membrane that bounded this spacetime from others. The universe they had left behind was winding down toward its death, dark and chaotic and increasingly formless. It was a place, Deeaab thought, that would suit the Mindaru very well.

   
Deeaab spoke to Daarooaack.

   
“This entity kills and kills, and will kill everything it can reach. We must put an end to it. Do you see a way?”

   
Daarooaack was moving about at a distance from the starship and the enemy object, trying to find a weakness.

   
“None that does not involve great risk, and probable failure.”

   
Deeaab agreed. And yet...

     <<>>

   
The quarx-echo lodged in Deeaab’s heart spoke with a kind of assurance Deeaab had not heard from it before.