Sunborn (65 page)

   
Julie’s head reeled at the thought. The translator...
dead?
Not possible. It
had
to have survived. It was her connection to John and home and everything that had happened. She tried to hold it together until she had more facts, but against her will, she began to cry.
No, no, this is stupid, you can’t afford to cry now...

   
*Julie! Pay attention to your surroundings! Look forward, ten o’clock, high.*

   
/I am paying—wait, what
is
 that?/

   
What
it was became clearer as it drew nearer. It was a stupendously large artificial structure. Why should there be a structure of
any
 sort out here beyond the edge of the galaxy? And yet it was clearly artificial; it looked like a gargantuan chain, or segmented necklace. It sparkled a little here and there, but mostly it consisted of dark shapes, shadows against the gloom of extragalactic space.

    /Is it
inhabited
?/ she whispered, hardly daring to hope. And in the back of her mind, she wondered,
Did John come here? Did he see this, too?

   
*Some call it Shipworld. Soon you will learn more. Very soon.*

*

   
The structure grew incredibly fast, mushrooming before her eyes. The overall shape became lost to view, as the nearest segment filled up the sky. Details on the surface began to become visible. Soon those lines and sketches grew to reveal still finer detail of structure. Finally
those
 details revealed themselves to contain assemblies of bubbles, tiny windows, maybe even docking ports.

    Her pitiful remnant of a ship sped straight toward the side of the massive structure. Finally, when it seemed certain they would crash, a portal irised open before them. It blossomed in size; then she and her ship glided in and floated to a stop, in the midst of blinding, crisscrossing, swiveling beams of light.

    After a few seconds, the beams dimmed and went out, leaving her eyes dazzled. When she recovered from the glare, she saw...nothing much. The walls around her and her craft—if they really were walls—were a featureless blue-steel
blur
. They didn’t look solid, exactly, more like a fog. Julie sat bewildered on the skeleton of her ship and peered out of her helmet in every direction. /You want to give me a hint?/ she asked at last. There was, she realized suddenly, gravity under her.
Gravity.
 /Should I get off? Is there going to be something to stand on if I get off?/

   
*Yes.*

   
/That’s all you can say?/ Gathering her nerve, she started to swing her left leg around, to climb down from her perch. /I don’t mean to bore you with conversation./ She continued her movement, as though dismounting from a very tall horse, in her very cumbersome suit. When it came time to step down off what she thought was the lowest part of the ship (hard to see, with the damned helmet blocking her sight), she hesitated. She couldn’t see a thing but fog beneath her. /How do I know this isn’t a fifty-foot drop?/ A rush of fear flooded through her, and she clung, trembling.

   
*It’s safe.*

   
/Are you sure?/

   
*It is safe.*

   
Okay, she thought. Time to show them what we Earth women are made of. She drew a deep breath and reached down with her left foot. When she didn’t find anything solid, she grunted, pushed back, and jumped feetfirst. She dropped maybe a meter, then
slowed
—gently, to a stop. Looking down, she saw a blue fog curling over her boots. She was standing on the same misty “ground” as the ship. She felt heavy; the gravity was at least Earth-normal. She hadn’t felt that in a long time; it was going to take some getting used to.

   
*Turn around.*

   
Disregarding a prickling of fear, she turned. She didn’t see anything until she had turned completely—and then she jumped with a startled cry. Floating toward her was a tall, oval patch of glowing air—emerald-green in color, but shimmering blue around the edges.

    She took a step away from it, and felt her back pressed against the exposed girders of the ship. There was nowhere to go. Before she could protest, the oval passed over her, sparkling as it made contact with her spacesuit...

*

   
For a time that might have been seconds or minutes, she floated in a sapphire glow. She felt a strange sense of
separation,
 as though something in her were being pulled apart and put back together again. She wrapped her arms fearfully around her chest—and started again.

    Her spacesuit was gone. “What are you
doing
?” she shouted, clutching at her clothing, afraid it would be next. “I need that suit! I
need
 it.”

   
*Remain calm.*

   
She gasped, “How am I supposed to
breathe
?”

    Then she realized she
was
 breathing; there was air, and it seemed fresh and good. The glow surrounding her turned pale, nearly white, and she heard the stones again, as though at a distance:

   
*Normalization complete.*

   
She stumbled out of the glow, lost her balance, and fell forward, face-first into thick grass.

*

   
For a while she lay still, shaking in wonder and fear. Was she losing her mind? The smell of the grass was what brought her around.
Grass?
She raised her head and looked around. Grass, yes. Not quite like grass as she remembered it on Earth—the blades were thinner, softer, bluer. But grass, certainly.
Alien
 grass.

   
*You have been normalized.*

   
/Huh?/

   
*You will not get a rash from touching the grass.*

   
That made her get up in a hurry. /Uh. Right./ She brushed her hands off nervously, then suddenly realized—the gravity no longer felt oppressive. Something else occurred to her. /Does that mean I can eat the food here, too? Assuming there is any?/ Waiting for a response, she looked around. She was standing on a gently sloping, grassy hillside with a small knot of odd-looking trees clustered at the bottom. She was on an alien world.
An alien world.

   
*You will be able to eat the food.*

   
/Good./ She turned around again, to make sure she knew where the spacecraft was. Not that it was of any conceivable use anymore, but it was all she had.

    Or all she
had
had. There was no spacecraft behind her, nor any sign of the docking bay, nor any sign that there had ever been any of those things.
Jesus,
she whispered.
What is happening to me?
She felt a sudden, overwhelming sense of loss. What
hadn’t
been taken from her? Her life? Her world? Her
solar system?
They hadn’t even left her the shattered remains of the craft that brought her here? /Where is the translator? Is it gone, too? Is it dead? Please tell me
what is happening
 to me?/

   
*We cannot answer all of your questions. We hope the answers will come in time.*

   
/In time!/ She gave up and fell to her knees, shaking her head. Finally, heedless of her surroundings, she wept uncontrollably, in quaking sobs.

    After a time, when her tears were spent, she wiped her face on her sleeve and lifted her eyes to squint at the sky. /This isn’t a planet, is it? Is that an artificial sky up there?/ Of course it was; she’d passed into that enormous structure. The gravity was probably artificial, too. Had John come here?
Will I see him?
 What lay beyond this? she wondered. All she could see was the cresting knoll, and rolling land beyond.

    No, she realized suddenly—there was one more thing. A small animal had just poked its head up out of the grass, maybe thirty feet away, near the top of the knoll. It was peering in her direction. It resembled a prairie dog—or one of those African animals, a meerkat. It scurried a short distance toward her, then stopped, gazing at her with its head cocked. It chittered briefly, then cocked its head the other way. Its eyes were dark and unreadable. It chittered again, more slowly, as if trying to talk to her.

   
Julie’s heart thumped. The creature’s vocalizations gave her, unaccountably, a rush of bewilderment and hope—and an inconceivable grief and anger and longing for her own world—and then something that was almost a kind of joy. Why would she feel
joy
? Because something else was alive on this hill with her? Overcome by emotion, she gasped in a series of long, deep breaths, trying to calm herself.

    Finally, she straightened her back and beckoned the creature toward her. To her astonishment, it crept forward to within a couple of meters. It sat gazing at her, and made a sound that reminded her of a hamster. Holding back tears, Julie stretched out a trembling hand and whispered, “And who, my small friend, might you be...?”

Chapter 40

Home

    Ed disappeared, with a pop and a sparkle that looped around the commons, making Bandicut blink. A moment later came a much louder
pop
and a bright flash. Copernicus called out, “We’ve had an unexpected course deviation. The n-space slope we’re following seems to have altered toward Ed’s world!”
   
Bong.
“Didn’t you tell us Ed’s world was in orbit around
*
Nick
*
?” Li-Jared asked, gaze shifting rapidly back and forth between the view and the holo-image of Copernicus.

    “Yes, that’s—wait—wait—I’m having to recalibrate. The readings coming from ahead of us are very confusing.”

    Jeaves added, “I don’t quite understand it, either. But I think Ed has done something to enable us to
see
something, or maybe
lead
 us to something, that was hidden before. It’s not like anything I’ve ever seen.”

    As the robot spoke, the view of space began flickering and swimming. “I think we’d better get back to the bridge,” Bandicut said, jumping up. The others followed him, at a run. They all lurched down the passageway, as the artificial gravity fluctuated. It was like running on the deck of a small ship at sea. As they cascaded onto the bridge, Bandicut asked the robots for an update.

    “I’m still uncertain,” said Copernicus. The viewspace was just stabilizing, showing Ed’s world much as they had just seen it—cliff faces and volcanic outcroppings—but with something new. The view was going through some sort of transformation, turning transparent and separating oddly, as though instead of looking down on a planetary surface, they were gazing through finely layered transparent images stacked together, each one a little different—many,
many
 layers, shuffling and rotating and twisting like a kaleidoscope as they watched.

    It made Bandicut dizzy. “Coppy, can’t you—?”

    His words were interrupted by a sudden vibration in the deck. “What’s
that
?” Li-Jared asked. “Copernicus, are we about to fly
through
 that—whatever it is?” Indeed, they appeared to be speeding toward the bewildering image.

    “Uncertain. Our n-space readings indicate a clear passage ahead, despite what we see. Different from the usual, though. I think Ed is leading us toward an n-space regime that is...
quite
different...”

    “And we’re just
following?
” Li-Jared asked. “Aren’t you supposed to ask us for instructions?”

    “I am indeed, Captains. But in truth it’s the shape of n-space that is forcing us—”

    Li-Jared made a loud bonging sound. “Is anyone else thinking of that Mindaru trap we fell into once already?”

    “I do not believe this is the same,” Jeaves answered. “In fact, I think Ed is trying to—wait, there he is again.”

    Ed had just reappeared as a column of fire at the front of the viewspace.
“I will-l hel-l-p you go h-home!”
 he called.

    “How?” Bandicut asked.

   
“You are far-r, far-r-r by your-r means-s. But-t I will ta-a-ake you another-r way-y.”

   
“Ed!” Bandicut said, trying to make a gesture of caution. “We’re not really sure what you’re
doing,
 here!”

    Without answering, the column of fire spun itself into an almost-closed circlet of light, like a snake chasing its tail. It shot forward out of the bridge, and reappeared ahead of the ship, leading the way toward what was turning into a transparent-walled tunnel aimed at infinity.
The Long View,
 flanked by Dark, flowed after the fire as though pulled on a tether.

    The company stood together, for that one moment silenced by common wonder and apprehension.
“Hrahh!”
 Ik whispered.

    The thing that had once seemed like Ed’s world was spinning past them, stretched out of recognition. They were now shooting through a coruscating mix of rainbow and darkness.

    Bandicut’s stomach lurched, and he grabbed something to hold on to. “What the hell is going on?” he muttered. Beside him, Antares had slid onto a sofa, and was holding her head. The tunnel seemed to take a sharp turn, and they flashed around it without slowing.

    “Hrrrmm,” Ik said, and this time it sounded like a moan of distress.

   
We’re on a runaway train,
Bandicut thought.
But it’s running loose through the galaxy...

    Li-Jared shouted, “Would one of you robots explain this before we all die?”