Sunborn (61 page)

    ——

    ——

    Multiple discontinuities. Combines roaring, machine-monsters bearing down on him.
Why? Why this again?
Had he always known he would someday be facing a threatening machine like this?
Blackie barking frantically, not knowing the danger!

Blackie was going to die and it was his fault...

   
Or was he? No, he was warning me. Saving my life. I had to trust Blackie and follow him.

   
——

    ——

    Star fuming and building pressure, almost at the perfect point for the release. Almost. And then would come the cataclysm and cascading shock wave.

    ——

    ——

    ——

    Charli was trying to get his attention, calling from a distance. Weren’t they supposed to be quiet here? Where were the rats? Were the stones keeping them away? For how much longer?

   
/// Can you hear me, John?

   
Deep needs you to persuade it now. ///

   
Bandicut blinked slowly, like a lizard. /Can Deep kill it?/

   
/// Something else.

   
When you persuade it to blow up the star. ///

   
/What else?/

   
/// The less you know, the safer. ///

   
He could feel himself slipping toward the edge again, driven by anger and frustration. And fear. Oh yes, fear. /You want me to do this thing, tell me what it is!/

   
/// John, can you not trust Deep? ///

   
/Trust Deep? Yes, but—/ Dear God, where was Antares now? She was somewhere off at a distance, keeping an eye on Ik. And Ik? Was he talking to the stars again? What was Li-Jared doing? And poor Napoleon, somewhere down in the star? They were all counting on him to do the right thing in here.

   
/// John! Can you not trust Deep? ///

   
He felt his breath, ragged, and remembered.
Trust Blackie to lead me from the danger.
/I trust you, but my friends out there trust me,/ he whispered. /So
I need to know,
and you’ll just have to help me keep it from the Mindaru.
What are you planning to do?
 Talk fast./

*

   
It was simple, really. When the Mindaru released the dark matter, it would cause an abrupt increase in gravity at the core of the star—triggering a core collapse. This much Bandicut already knew. And following core collapse, the star would explode in a cataclysm—unless Deep and Dark were precisely ready. Dark, at the core, would use that abrupt spike in gravity to punch a hole out of this universe and into a dying one next door—a hole in the “brane” layer, the membrane gap separating the two universes. Only gravity could make that hole, and the core collapse would provide the punch.

    Timing at that point was critical. Dark would hold the hole open, dumping all the dark matter into the other universe. And Deep, seizing the Mindaru control center, would hurl it down through the opening, as well. Let the dying universe have the Mindaru and the dark matter. And with the dark matter gone, and the hole closed again, the core explosion would self-extinguish before it got far enough to destroy the star. The gravity-spike would vanish as quickly as it had begun. If they were fast.

    Simple. He just had to convince the Mindaru to release the dark matter. And he had to do it before Napoleon—if the robot were still alive—found a way to lob those grenades and do it first, the wrong way.

*

   
/And I would persuade the Mindaru by—?/

    He didn’t get a chance to finish. At that moment, the Mindaru mind-probe rats burst through the screen the stones had been holding up, and Bandicut’s words turned into a scream.

    He fought back, throwing up the most vivid image he could...

*

   
Antares felt Bandicut’s scream in her heart. “John!” she cried, rushing to him. He sat rigid, eyes clamped shut. “What is it?” When there was no answer, she stood behind him and placed the palms of her hands against his temples. She could feel turmoil and fear boiling out of him like vapor. /John, speak to me! What’s happening?/

    Images flickered: crawling creatures barely held at bay, conversations rising and falling, the stones laboring to keep the walls of silence in the crucial places...and deep down, great billowing membranes floating together in space and time, and fusing momentarily...

    That image was shut off and a new one appeared, and this one was laid open to the probing Mindaru. It showed the star blossoming and exploding.
If you don’t do it now, you’ll never have the chance,
was the thought she heard reverberating into space, into the hearing of the Mindaru.
Release it now!

    /John—are you mad?/ she whispered, suddenly terrified that he had been taken over by the Mindaru. /
No!
/

*

   
Ik felt it almost at the same instant Antares did.
John Bandicut is telling the Mindaru to destroy the star!
And at that moment, he felt something strange and unpleasant, as if he were twisting apart into two people. One part of him began to rise and turn, to lunge, to stop Bandicut from betraying them.
He is the one who is infected, it is not me at all!
 Appalled at this discovery, Ik tried to move, but he could not; he was paralyzed.

    The other part of him erupted with unexpected joy at the thought.
*He has been captured, too; he is working with us; you must let him; you must aid him.*
Ik was dumbstruck by this thought, and helpless; the Mindaru infection had resurfaced and seized control of his stones.
*You must prevent the female from stopping him.*

    Now Ik lunged—but for Antares, not for Bandicut. “Hrahh, you must let him do it!” he cried, seizing the Thespi and dragging her away from Bandicut. He felt her stones touch his, with a tremendous flash. They recognized the Mindaru activity and reacted instantly, with a combative strength that astounded him. He threw her to one side and released her physically to break the contact.

    “Ik, stop!” she cried from the floor. “You’re being controlled by the Mindaru!”

   
B-gong-ng-ng.
 “What is this?” Li-Jared shouted, advancing on him.

    Ik clacked his mouth shut and turned to grab the control console. He couldn’t fly the ship, but he could link to the AI. He squeezed the contacts and his stones shot their tendrils into the computer system. Copernicus and Jeaves were ready, and the stones didn’t get far; but they didn’t need to. They just needed to flash out a message to the roving Mindaru thread:
*Bandicut speaks the truth. There is one inside the sun who can sabotage the plan. Trigger the collapse now!*

    By the time that thought was complete, Jeaves had shouted a warning that Ik was a captive of the Mindaru. Ik looked up just as Li-Jared hurled himself into Ik, tackling him. Ik was surprised by the Karellian’s strength. But it didn’t matter now—the message was out.

*

   
Bandicut’s mind was a place of fury and chaos, the stones maintaining certain barriers, his own volition pouring out images and directed thoughts, straight to the Mindaru probes that scrabbled and scratched for entry. His selected thoughts shone brightly, allowed out by the quarx and the stones.
You will never have the chance if you don’t act. Because we got there first. If you do not act, you will lose.
And brighter than any of the words was an image of Napoleon, somewhere in the star, impatiently stroking his n-space disrupter grenades...ready to rip open the field holding the dark matter at the star’s core. The release wouldn’t be shaped right; it would destroy the symmetry of the critical mass; it would prevent the hypernova.
If you want that hypernova, you’d better act now.

    Bandicut felt Antares’s distress, but there was no way to explain now. He had to get the message out, and.../
What the hell?
 Is that Ik I hear?/

   
/// Yes—he’s in the system, or his stones are.

   
They’re still infected by the Mindaru! ///

   
/Then we have to warn—/

   
/// They know.

   
Keep your head down and finish the job. ///

   
Blanking his thoughts, he once more projected the image: Napoleon preparing to detonate his grenades, deep in the star. After a minute, Charli broke into his thoughts:

   
/// Deep and Dark are going to try to break

   
the field that’s holding you captive.

   
When they do, turn on your n-space propulsion

   
and drive toward the core of the star

   
as fast as you can. ///

   
/Toward the
core?
/

   
/// To look as if we’re trying

   
to sabotage their plan. ///

   
As he thought his approval, he felt the stones open a channel through the AI connectors to Copernicus and Jeaves, relaying the instruction.

   
/// Remember what Deep is good at,

   
and be prepared...///

*

   
The time was right, Deeaab decided. The enemy had been given enough hints. Now they would force the matter. It would take careful slicing of the continuum, to separate the ship of the ephemerals from the enemy, but Deeaab and Daarooaack could do that. Daarooaack was terrified of failing again, but Deeaab encouraged her. He called out:

   
“Shear the field.”

   
Daarooaack spun in and flashed neat as a blade between the ephemerals’ ship and the enemy. It was enough to break the spacetime distortion that was binding the two together. The ship began to float free.

    Deeaab spoke to the quarx-echo within itself.
“Tell them now.”
 As he did so, he stretched out and touched the enemy. And with his touch, he froze the flow of time within a bubble surrounding the enemy structure. Just for a moment.

*

   
The quarx-echo spoke:

     <<< Gentlemen, start your engines. >>>

*

   
Bandicut shouted through the link and through the air:
“Go! Now!”

    The ship, released from the Mindaru’s grip, sped away into the fury of the star.

*

   
The Starburster Mindbody was jarred by a sudden disruption in its holding field. The captive was escaping. Its propulsion field flicked on, and the ship started to accelerate.

   
...discontinuity...

   
The Mindbody knew that
something
 had happened. Somehow the captive ship had traveled much farther than any projection or understanding of its motion could place it. The Mindbody knew it had to apply corrective action at once.

    But something else caught its attention—several things.

    The vessel was driving hard—not to
escape
from the star, but to penetrate
into
 the star. A suicide mission?

    Intelligence gathered by the probes indicated that the bio entities had an agent already deep in the star’s body. Their intent was to sabotage the balanced critical mass in the heart of the star.

    They might have the ability to prevent the starburst.

    All these considerations flashed through the dense algorithms of the Mindaru entity, along with the critical-mass status. The dark matter gathered was sufficient. Not with any reserve, but sufficient.

    It must be done now. Any delay could be fatal to the mission. Without further deliberation, the Mindbody flashed the signal down the synaptic link: release the field holding the dark matter. Let the collapse begin.

    No need to recapture the intruder. It, as well as this Mindbody outpost, would shortly be incinerated, then reduced to subatomic particles.

Chapter 37

Plunge into Darkness

    Deep in the fire of the star, from the sheltering n-space bubble, Napoleon watched what little he could see. Too much time had passed since John Bandicut had gone back to the ship; at least, Napoleon hoped he had made it back. By now, Napoleon judged, they should have had time to do what they needed to do. Unless they had failed.
    Napoleon watched the dark matter flowing into the n-space reservoir. By his estimate, there was already enough dark matter there to kill the star in a cataclysmic explosion. It seemed likely, then, that it was up to him. He hadn’t actually been looking to be a hero when he pushed Bandicut toward safety; that had just been a rationale. And perhaps heroes did not choose their roles as he’d thought, but simply found themselves in a position where it was up to them.

    He held one of the three n-space disrupter grenades in a metal hand, mulling the possibilities. He wasn’t sure they would go off, even if he managed to put them where he wanted them. And if they did...they were so small, what was the chance they would have any effect? And yet he saw no other option. If they created a tear in the dark-matter reservoir, they would probably kill the star—but maybe without the hypernova. His friends would die. He would die. But they were all going to die anyway, if the star went up as the Mindaru planned. And along with them, all habitable worlds within two thousand light-years.