Sunborn (66 page)

   
/// I think I...///

   
Before Charli could finish, Jeaves called out, “Ed’s homeworld is a little different from what we thought!” He paused as they whirled through a spiral. “It’s the tip of a hyperdimensional
tree
. It stretches and branches all through spacetime.”

    “Is this, uhhl,
good
?” Antares gasped.

    “I don’t know! If Ed’s world touches many places at once, it explains why he was able to contact us at so many times and places.”

   
Bandicut was starting to get his feet back under him. The tunnel was not so clearly visible now, and their movement had smoothed out. /A tree?/

   
/// A difficult metaphor.

   
I have seen this sort of thing before, I think.

   
A multidimensional tree waving its branches,

   
touching here and there,

   
throughout the galaxy. ///

   
Bandicut, uncomprehending, passed that on to the others. Li-Jared stretched his arms out in disbelief. “Why stop with the galaxy?”
Bwang.
 “Why not the whole of creation?”

    “I don’t think it’s infinite,” said Jeaves. “Probably anchored to the gravitational curvature of large masses. Which could be why it had trouble with
*
Nick
*
—with all the disruptions.”

    “And,” Bandicut said, “we are in this tree now?”

    “I believe so,” said Jeaves. “Look how much distance we’re covering!”

    “Uhhl, I can’t tell
what
 we’re passing!” Antares muttered, forcing herself back to her feet.

    “I can’t with any accuracy, either,” Jeaves admitted. “But we may have an opportunity here.”

    Please don’t say that, Bandicut thought, wanting to clamp his eyes and ears shut against whatever the robot was about to say.

   
/// You don’t want an opportunity? ///

   
/I just want to go home. I want to relax in a nice, quiet place with...Antares. In a hot tub. And not think about any of this anymore./

   
/// Did you almost say “Julie,”

   
just then? ///

   
Bandicut’s face burned. /No. Maybe./ He breathed slowly. /Maybe I want both./

   
/// I just want to understand. ///

   
Jeaves was still talking. “...May be an instantaneous connection to other parts of the galaxy. If we’re able to use it for travel, or communication...”

    “What—”
bong
 “—the star-spanner isn’t fast enough?”

    Before Jeaves could answer, Copernicus cried out a warning. The deck suddenly shifted like a surfboard on a wave—and smack in front of the ship was a coiling mass of light. Ik gave a throat-wrenching gasp, and Bandicut felt Antares clutch his arm. They all grabbed for support again.

    “I think we just branched from one limb to another in the hyper-tree,” Copernicus reported. “Hang on!”

    The lighting on the bridge flickered, then darkened to a dying-ember red—and finally went out altogether, leaving only the light of the coiling thing before them. It was growing larger, and it looked very dangerous.

   
“Coppy!”
Bandicut called, aware of the fear in his own voice.
Tap tap.
No answer.
“Napoleon?”

   
Click.
“Sorry...Cap’n...trying...”

    Bandicut started for the control panel, but there was another surge, and the deck seemed to
ripple
. The hellish light out front brightened until it dazzled—and Antares cried out in pain—and for an instant Bandicut thought he glimpsed Dark out there in that light—and even imagined he glimpsed
two tiny points of light streaking out toward Dark.
 Dark seemed to do something, and the hellish light suddenly went out, plunging them into darkness, and silence.

*

   
The darkness lasted for several heart-pounding minutes, before the lights flickered back up and Copernicus spoke. “Magnetar, folks. A
highly
magnetized neutron star. That was...a very dangerous moment.”

    “Dangerous?”
Bong.
“You don’t say! How did that happen? How did we come to be at a
magnetar
?”

    “I’m not certain,” Copernicus answered. “But the magnetic field destroyed about thirty percent of our internal circuitry.”

    “How did you get us away from it?” Antares asked.

    “I did not. Another force did.”

    Li-Jared’s eyes flared in confusion. “Dark?”

    “Possibly. I am not certain.”

    “If we are entrained in this network,” Jeaves said, “we may have no direct control over our choices of destination. It may be that we simply arrived
randomly
 at that magnetar. Or it may be that Ed—or perhaps Dark?—is trying to steer us, and removed us from that peril. Is Dark still with us, Copernicus?”

   
Tap tap.
 “Yes. Captains, this might sound strange—but is it possible that Dark just acquired translator-stones?”

    There was a startled silence. Then Antares said, softly, “Yes.” Bandicut spun to look at her, remembering her outcry, and found her holding her throat with one hand. “I am unhurt. Just...shaken.” Her eyes narrowed, meeting his gaze. She turned to Ik and touched him. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why the new stones went to Dark, and not you. But I think Dark responded when I cried for help. I think Dark got us away from that...magnetar.” She folded herself into Bandicut’s arms, shuddering silently.

   
Ik
hrrm’
d very softly.

    “Approaching something else,” Copernicus said.

    Bandicut and Antares turned together. And then...

*

   
A dense star cluster appeared in front of them, and they soared through it, banking and curving like an airplane. Bandicut felt a distinct sense of questioning, as though someone were waiting for a reaction.
Is this your home?
 seemed the unspoken question.

   
No,
 was the unspoken answer, and they fled the place.

*

   
The view blossomed into a panorama of alien-looking structures, some floating in a debris field, some shattered on the surface of a nearby moon.

   
/// Oh my God, no. ///

   
/No, what?/

   
/// It’s the ruins of the Rohengen.

   
I was there; I saw them destroy themselves.

   
No, tell them no! ///

   
Bandicut blinked and shouted, “Charli says
no,
 get us out of here if you can!”

    The view blinked away.

*

   
It flickered back. This time, a view of an astonishing frozen landscape—tremendous soaring cliffs of pure ice. Water ice? Nitrogen? Methane?

    No.

*

   
Blink. Floating hulks, against the luminous gas clouds of Orion. A spaceship graveyard. The prison yard of the Mindaru, the place they had narrowly avoided once before...

   
“No!”
 shouted five voices, one of them inside Bandicut’s head.

*

   
Wink. A collection of floating spaceships again, but different. There was no nebula, and the spaceships were now a extended collection of linked structures, all silver and spidery, looking as if they stretched in a
long
 arc, perhaps all the way around their local sun. Several small, bright slivers coiled and looped their way around the structure, like sea creatures. Bandicut felt a chilling presence of the truly alien.

    No.

*

   
A switch tripped. Enormous long banks of circuitry, pulsing with energy and channeled thought. Artificial intelligence, staggeringly large. An outpost—or the heart?—of the Mindaru? A pervasive feeling of menace.

   
“NO!”
 As one.

*

   
Somewhere, Ed the hypercone muttered,
“Not-t-t right. Not-t right-t-t! Musssst help-p them find-d...”

    And that was when Charli realized, and whispered,

   
/// Trying to look in our thoughts

   
for the right picture!

   
That’s how he’s choosing,

   
by looking in our thoughts. ///

*

   
There was a sense of a page being flipped over, and a new view...sparkling violet light, pulsing in darkness like tiny splinters. A sudden stirring of longing...

   
/// John, this is so much like...///

   
/What?/ The pang in Charli’s voice was heartrending.

   
/// It reminds me intensely of my...home. ///

   
/Your—/

   
/// It’s not, but look how it— ///

*

   
Gone. And in its place, the orangish-glowing structure they had seen once before. How long ago, when they were first setting out?

    The interstellar waystation. Or what was left of it. It was in pieces, shaken apart by the hypergrav waves.

    Then it was gone, too.

*

   
A dozen other places appeared, and disappeared. Twenty maybe. Thirty. And then...

    It emerged gradually out of the immense darkness of space: the misty, glowing panorama of the galaxy, sprawling before them. Bandicut sensed that they were at an extreme reach of the branches of the Ed-tree. Antares gasped and squeezed his hand.
Is it really?

    And then the ship rotated with exquisite slowness, to reveal a series of enormous, connected jewels stretched across the emptiness of extragalactic space, like a long necklace...

    “Uhhll—”

    “Shipworld,” Bandicut breathed. He squeezed Antares’s hand as he caught sight of Dark, with two glints of light.

   
/// Home, ///

   
whispered the quarx,

   
/// Yes? Home away from home. ///

   
/Yes./

    “Yes-s-s-s,” murmured Ed, from somewhere in the darkness.

Epilogue

JEAVES DIARY: Conclusion, Starmaker Mission: 384.18.9.4

What a strange, strange closure. The sight of Shipworld has filled me with as much wonder as it did the other members of the company. I did not expect to return. I did not know how, or if, I could bring the company back here, even with the best outcome. Ed! What a creature, and world. I hope we meet him again.

   
I have in a sense come full circle. Once, long ago by my subjective time, I witnessed the destruction of a star in a supernova. I did not cause it, but neither did I prevent it. Indeed, a part of me became a part of the remnant of that deed. Here, by contrast, I helped to save a star. I knew a little better what I was doing this time, but maybe not that much.

   
We have saved a stellar nursery of considerable value—a cradle of new stars—as well as many individual worlds. And we have learned much about the Enemy. The Mindaru. The Survivors. Not nearly enough, but much.

   
Do they know yet that their project in the Starmaker Nebula has failed? Does it distress them? Or do they not even check in for millions of years at a time? Are they so implacably cold and hostile that no setback matters for long, or is there some part of them that questions and wonders? Some part that we could one day communicate with? Or are they hunkered down too deep, beyond reach in their crushed dimensions, in their black holes, or wherever they have hidden?

   
I do not know. This mission cannot tell us.

   
One day we will have to learn, though. I don’t know whether to hope for that day to occur in my time or not.

   
I just know that it must.

About the Author

Jeffrey A. Carver
was a Nebula Award finalist for his novel
Eternity's End
; he also recently authored
Battlestar Galactica,
a novelization of the critically acclaimed television miniseries. His novels combine thought-provoking characters with engaging storytelling and range from the adventures of the Star Rigger universe (
Star Rigger's Way, Dragons in the Stars
) to the character-driven hard SF of
The Chaos Chronicles.
Sunborn
(forthcoming November 2008) is the fourth novel in the Chaos series, which begins with
Neptune Crossing
and continues with
Strange Attractors
and
The Infinite Sea.

A native of Huron, Ohio, Carver lives with his family in the Boston area. He has taught writing in a variety of settings, from educational television to conferences for young writers. He has created a free web site for aspiring authors of all ages at
http://www.writesf.com
.
Learn more about the author and his work at
http://www.starrigger.net
.