Sunborn

by Jeffrey Carver

  Jeaves had cocked his head at Ik’s words. “From your description of the Maw, I wonder if it could be from the same complex of civilizations. It is surprising how many places in the galaxy such remnants turn up.”

  Bandicut was chilled by a sudden thought. “You don’t suppose our translator is related to those things, do you?”

  “I would be very surprised,” said Jeaves. “I do not know the story of the origin of the translator. However, I believe that its actions are more likely to be directed toward remediation of the war influence than in concert with it.”

  *Correct, if an understatement,* the translator-stones muttered quietly in the back of his mind.

  “We do not know too much of the history of those ancient civilizations,” Jeaves said. “But we do know there was a war so devastating it severely diminished a major galactic culture, millions of years before any of our peoples were even a twinkle in the genome. It took place in a region of the galaxy that spanned thousands of light-years.” As the robot spoke, a holo-image of the galaxy appeared, floating above the table. A red glow highlighted a coin-sized region, a modest distance from the center of the galaxy. “The region is dense with stars, so the war zone probably encompassed hundreds of thousands of star systems.”

  Antares’s breath went out in a hiss, and Bandicut felt her heartache wash over him. Ik stirred. “So many?”

  “Yes. And the effects of the war rippled outward beyond the actual war zone.” As Jeaves spoke, a pale orange ring expanded from the red area. “Refugees fled, seeking to escape the conflict, sometimes in the process overrunning innocent inhabited worlds.” Now a violet ring expanded slowly outside the orange ring. “An even wider space was affected by wandering remnants of the robotic fighting forces, as well as by star-system-altering devices whose intended function we do not know. Construction, perhaps.”

  “Hrrm, construction for what purpose, I wonder,” Ik muttered, reaching for another Hraachee’an-style food bar.

  “We do not know,” said Jeaves.

  “Rrr, how do you know the things that you know, then?” Ik asked, before biting down with a clack.

  Jeaves seemed to hmm to himself for a few moments. “The details have been gathered across the ages by the Shipworld masters and others, from a large variety of sources. Some of the civilizations that have been seeded on Shipworld are survivors of the great war, and they have brought their own stories with them.” Jeaves raised his hand in a cautionary gesture. “Of course, stories change over time, and some are made up to begin with, so there is much that is uncertain. Many conflicting tales have been mingled as the stories were gathered. And yet...”

  Li-Jared’s eyes flashed. “How do we know which parts of your story are real, then?”

  “Partly by the common threads. On rare occasions, actual artifacts of the war have been gathered, and information extracted from their memory stores.”

  “So,” Bandicut said, “things like that device Deep destroyed have been captured and studied?”

  “Nothing so large. If we have an opportunity to capture such a device without endangering our mission, we might consider it. It could provide valuable information.”

  Bandicut shivered as Ik asked, “What details about this war do we know?”

  Jeaves paused and looked around at each of them as though they’d finally gotten to the heart of it. “Let us consider one story that has come down to us in many versions. Quite a number of the details are chillingly consistent among the versions, and for some events, we have additional persuasive evidence. I’m going to ask Delilah to assist. I suggest you put down your food and drink. Parts of this might be disturbing.”

  Delilah dropped from the ceiling with a single harp-strum. Before Bandicut could so much as blink, he felt the room twist, as he slipped into the halo’s learning trance...

  *

  How many thousands of years into the war this happened—or how many millions of years in the past—no one knew. The planet, possibly called Thanatolla, had repeatedly been the focus of bitter fighting. It was the nerve center of the most efficiently ruthless robotic killing machines in the war, and its very existence instilled terror.

  (A holo-window opened, revealing images of a world devoted exclusively to military might, most of it machines under the control of machines. Nanomachines tore down and built up, and nanomachines swarmed and fought...)

  Despite many attempts to destroy it, Thanatolla survived, as the tides of strategic balance shifted hundreds of light-years this way and hundreds of light-years that way. Several times bombardment from space had sent it to the brink of biological and technological collapse, and each time it had returned—struggling for centuries just to survive, then rebuilding to greater power than ever.

  Some viewed its potential for power as useful and malleable, and fought not to destroy it but to turn it to their own purposes. To others, its artificial lifeforms were so virulent as to defy any justification for its survival. It was nothing less than a disease afflicting all of civilization. Indeed, Thanatolla may have been the ignition point of the whole war.

  In the end a coalition of forces undertook a desperate mission: a years-long thermonuclear bombardment, to cease only when the threat was utterly eradicated, the planet Thanatolla sterilized, biologically and cybernetically.

  (Another window revealed the planet from orbit, flash, flash, flash, turning the atmosphere into a poisonous, ruinous blanket...)

  History did not record the identity of the attacking force, but so determined were they that they placed telepaths in orbit, telepaths whose job it was to monitor life on the planet’s surface as nuclear fire rained down on it.

  (Another window: glimpses of beings in elaborate installations, isolated as they opened their minds to the telepathic choir, the death-agonies of millions, as the unceasing rain of warheads fell...)

  Most of the telepaths were insane by the end, but it was they who provided final assurance that the job was done, that no sentient life survived, and so far as they could tell, no life of any kind. What was left was a radioactive wasteland, utterly uninhabitable. Even so, monitoring forces remained in orbit until, with the passing of time, the tides of the fading war swept them away, too.

  (The windows closed; all that followed was reconstruction and supposition.)

  Only robotic monitors, long forgotten, noted the reemergence of life a half-million years later—cyber-life, remnants of shattered nanomachines that had survived in some form, in some minimal way. In the radioactivity, the reemerging life mutated and evolved and grew, with only trace memories of what had gone before. And yet, buried perhaps in a collective unconscious composed of a billion individually meaningless fragments were shadows of memory—of the war that had destroyed them.

  Perhaps they learned from the memories, but what they learned was unknown. Over the eons the surviving lifeforms grew, unwatched and forgotten. If a few surviving probes noted the reappearance, they had no one left to report to. In time the survivors’ descendants migrated off their world.

  And what became of them?

  Were they related to the machines that now threatened Starmaker?

  No one knew.

  “But we know this,” Jeaves said as the trance fell away and the company again faced each other over the table. “There are powerful adversaries in the galaxy today. And if there were no connection with the ancient wars, we would be surprised...”

  *

  Back in their quarters, Bandicut and Antares sat quietly on the bed, their backs to the wall, leaning shoulder to shoulder. Neither of them felt much like talking. After a time, Antares took Bandicut’s hand. “No new Charlie?” she whispered.

  He shook his head.

  Antares rested her head against his shoulder. He sighed softly and pressed his cheek to her hair, and tried to blink the mist from his eyes. Finally he closed his eyes and smelled the rich piney scent of Antares’s hair, and let his thoughts slip away to wherever they might go...

  Deadly peril from th
e stars.

  Fear.

  Charlie. (Will she return?)

  Antares.

  Earth. Home. The Sun.

  Ed the hypercone, and his strange, imperiled world.

  Julie Stone. Julie, I miss you.

  Antares...the smell of her hair, the soft movement of her breathing...

  Making love with her on the world of the Neri...

  Awkward, exciting.

  Feeling her touching him with her thoughts, feelings; joining her emotions to his.

  Wanting to know her, to share his pain, thoughts, needs.

  Becoming slowly aroused...

  Wanting her.

  *

  Antares felt a great weight of grief for John and his loss. Still, she was comforted by his solid presence against her, his shoulder under her head. His warmth radiated into her, his breathing lifted her head and let it down again. His sadness and fear surged around her like sea foam; but even in his fear, he was a solid and comforting presence.

  With time, though, she felt an itching arousal, a tightness in her midsection; and she wondered, can it be right to feel such arousal now, in a time of such danger and grief? Her first instinct was to hide her feelings from him; but these feelings arose from echoes of his emotions. And wasn’t that precisely as it should be? Wasn’t it a proper condition for Thespi arousal—as a Thespi Third, if her role was to assist in joining—or even for true joining, since there was no one else here to join with John Bandicut?

  She felt uncertain. She felt his emotions shifting from dread to moving memories to hungry desire, all uncontrolled. She sought to calm his rush of feelings, to soothe him. She realized she was pressing both of her left breasts against him in invitation, and wanting to. Memories bubbled up: of their union before, among the Neri. Desire surged through her to feel that again.

  He turned and whispered something to her, and she whispered back, not really hearing his words or even her own. His lips found hers, and she experienced a moment’s hesitation; and then the pleasure of the memories of that human gesture came back, and she returned the kiss, feeling his desire and solace, and sharing it. His tongue touched her lips, and she shivered with their joined pleasure.

  His emotions still churned; but as his arms encircled her, and she pressed a hand to his stomach, and then lower, she remembered, and knew what she wanted. She felt him rising physically toward her, and she closed her hand around him through his clothing, and echoed his sigh of release and pleasure. He feels comforted...this is right...

  And her full Thespi powers awakened and unfolded, touching one strand of soul to another as she shivered and gave herself to him with growing passion.

  Chapter 10

  Packing for Departure

  The mental transition took Julie Stone the better part of the night. The translator wants to go to Earth. Well, okay. /You could have told me that before, and it would have saved me a lot of trouble in the meeting,/ she muttered, trying to sleep.

  *We had not heard. The translator has now gathered the data it needs.*

  /Data about—?/

  *Status update following the elimination of the comet. Astronomical data.*

  /Oh.../ And with that, she was asleep.

  *

  She didn’t wait for the meeting the next day, but sent a message to Lamarr, Jackson, and Takashi, saying that she had received word: The translator is ready to travel.

  Her appearance at the meeting was canceled, and she was instead told to report to Cole Jackson, the Survey Operations director.

  “This is good news for you,” Jackson said, adjusting his eyeglasses as she stood before his desk studying her new written orders. “You’ll get to ride to Earth with the thing. It’s bad for me, because I have to stay here and face the Coalition team when they arrive. And let me tell you, they’re going to be some pissed.”

  “Yeah,” Julie said, reading the proposed schedule. “I imagine they are. Wouldn’t be surprised if they considered it an act of war.” Her eyes widened. “You want me out there tomorrow, crating it? Have you been preparing for this all along, without telling me?”

  Jackson shrugged. “There was a general belief that you might object. Anyway, you’ve got four days to get it crated, lifted to orbit, and aboard the Park Avenue for departure. Lamarr and the MINEXFO group want to be on their way as soon as possible before the Coalition gets here. It’s all been worked out.”

  Julie glanced up. “They all know, right, that it’s not like people from the other groups won’t be waiting for us when we get to Earth?” She shuddered at the welcome they would receive, if they were perceived as absconding with the only alien artifact ever found.

  Jackson shrugged. “Maybe. But you’ll have three months to pick its brains in the meantime. And maybe get it on MINEXFO’s side.” Jackson took off his glasses and smiled. “Anyway, it already likes you. Now, shouldn’t you be down in the ready room? The excavation-prep team is scheduled to roll in an hour.”

  “Excavation prep? An hour? Was anyone planning to give me a heads-up before a bunch of people blundered out there again?”

  “I just did. You’re to go ask the thing nicely if we can put it in a box for the ride.” Jackson stood, hitching up his trousers. “Now, shouldn’t you be going?”

  She was already running out the door.

  *

  “Julie, we’re all set back here. You can go ahead and make contact when you’re ready.” The voice in her spacesuit helmet belonged to Kim, her supervisor. She turned to look behind her in the floodlit ice cavern, where Kim and an assistant were waiting to record the meeting. Fifty feet over their heads, on the frozen surface of Triton, the prep crew were bringing in the first pieces of drilling and hoisting equipment. Tipping her head back to look up, she thought, If this were Earth gravity, I’d be waiting for that stuff to land on top of me.

  Shuffle-walking forward on the translucent ice surface, she approached the translator. It was standing right where it had been the first time she had seen it, and probably where it had been when John first fell through the ice to land beside it. The device was a little taller than she was: shaped like a top, but consisting of a squirming collection of black and iridescent spheres, all moving in what looked like continuous Brownian motion. As she stood before it, she had the feeling that it was busy thinking deep thoughts. She hoped it would spare a few ergs of its concentration for her questions.

  “Hello,” she said.

  For a moment, there was no indication that the translator was even aware of her presence. Then she heard the reply in her mind, with a sound ever so slightly deeper than the stones: *We are prepared for the journey.*

  Julie nodded slowly, not wanting there to be any mistake. “I just want to be clear. The last time we tried to move you, it was not...very successful.”

  *We were not prepared then.*

  She hesitated, suddenly conscious of the fact that her words were being recorded, but the words of the translator were in her mind, and nowhere else. “Then I can confirm you are...prepared?”

  *Yes. But we require that you, Julie Stone, accompany us.*

  Julie cleared her throat and repeated, for the recording, what the translator had just told her. “Then may I report to the crews up on the surface that you’re ready for excavation? We would like to pack you into a protective crate, for shipment aboard one of our spacecraft. Will that be satisfactory?”

  *Yes.*

  Julie felt as if her world were spinning.

  *

  The prep crew took careful measurements, and the next day they were all out there again, with a complete arsenal of hoists and excavators. Julie stood to one side, watching the crews jockey the vertical boring machinery into position. The plan was to drill a wider shaft on the side of the cavern farthest from the translator, where the operation would pose the least danger in the event of a cave-in.

  Standing on the gray-white Triton surface of frozen nitrogen, methane, and assorted oxides, barely illumined by the wan sunlight, Julie found
her thoughts gravitating toward feelings of cold. There were at least thirty people out here with her, and only about ten of them actually had a job to do at the moment. She peered up into the star-pricked blackness, where the ghostly planet Neptune, cerulean with white swirls, floated like a moody goddess. A point of light moving slowly across the sky was undoubtedly Triton Orbital, where the interplanetary transport Park Avenue was docked, awaiting its precious cargo. That station was where John Bandicut had boarded and hijacked Neptune Explorer, before flying it halfway across the solar system to stop a comet.

  She felt a slight vibration under her feet, and jerked back to the present.

  “Hey! Who the hell did that?” someone shouted on the comm.

  “What? Did what?”

  “Look! Right there! It just appeared!”

  Julie turned around, trying to find the source of the commotion.

  “Things like that don’t just mokin’ ‘appear’!” the first voice hollered. “I coulda’ driven right off the edge!”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Would someone report?” shouted an annoyed supervisor. “What the bloody hell’s going on?”

  Julie joined the crowd near the boring rig, and was stunned to see what everyone was yelling about. A perfect, four-meter-wide ice ramp now sloped in a straight line from the surface down into the cavern. The roof had vanished from the cavern altogether. The translator was visible at the bottom, standing alone in a pool of light under the starry sky.

  /How the—?/ Julie began, then shook her head and looked around to see that pretty much everyone was either turning in circles, looking to discover what supermachine had done this, or staring dumbfounded down the long ramp.

  *It was a simple translation of the ice molecules,* said the stones, in her head.

  Julie blinked. /You mean you moved the ice? Is there a big ramp-sized pile somewhere?/ She swung around, searching the landscape.

  *The molecules were translated into the surrounding and underlying ice. The ground you’re standing on is a little denser now.*