Sunborn

by Jeffrey Carver

<<< Is it bad, what is happening? >>>

  Charlene-echo asked.

  Charli answered,

  /// Frightening, terrifying.

  We are being pushed into something

  we are not prepared for, not made for.

  Please help! ///

  Charlene-echo tried to understand. She felt that they/she/Deeaab were hearing something from the fiery one. It was not yet clear. Perhaps if time could be squeezed together a little more here, and stretched a little more there...

  And yet, if it was hurting those they were trying to help...

  <<< Antares and Ik?

  Are they the ones? >>>

  she asked. And she was answered by Charli, who was herself stretched to the limit even to have this conversation.

  /// They hurt most.

  But Li-Jared and John Bandicut, too. ///

  Charlene-echo urgently conveyed the need to Deeaab. And Deeaab, who was no longer just a host, but a part of her now, heard the cry.

  But before he could respond, they felt something new: a rumbling in spacetime, a shock wave. It was another of those periodic disturbances that shook everything they touched. And now it was shaking the star, unexpectedly and hard. And through the condensed bubble of time Deeaab had created around the star, he immediately saw the danger. This star was on the verge of collapse, and Deeaab’s time bubble was squeezing years’ worth of energy into minutes.

  Deeaab turned, changing course. He could do nothing about the shock waves; he could do nothing about the fragile condition of the star; and it was too late to remove the time bubble. But he would do what he could to lead the smaller ones away, before it was too late for them.

  *

  Bandicut felt Charli snap back into his mind like a rubber band. He gasped and blinked up into the view of space. It was shaking. Or he was shaking; the entire ship was shaking. “Jeaves, what’s happening to us?” he yelled. There in the viewspace, where the large granulations on the red surface of the star seemed about to swallow them, he saw a barely visible shadow, but way down in the star’s photosphere. It was Deep, making a sweeping turn.

  Jeaves called in a crackling voice, “Hypergrav waves! We’re trying to stabilize...” Bandicut held his breath, watching Deep. It took a few moments to be sure: Deep was leaving the star.

  Jeaves spoke again. “The shock waves are reverberating throughout the star. This could present unexpected danger, given its fragile state. Please stand by while I attempt to determine how we should respond.”

  Bwang. “Respond by getting us out of here!” Li-Jared shouted.

  “Deep is leaving!” Bandicut called. “Look!” He pointed to the moving shadow.

  “Yes,” Jeaves said. “But if we are getting information...”

  “What information?” Bandicut yelled.

  Jeaves was in motion across the bridge. “Antares, can you report?”

  Antares was breathing hard, holding her hands to her head. She didn’t speak, didn’t seem able to speak. Bandicut, forcing himself to be calm, touched her shoulder. He could feel her struggle, but couldn’t tell what she was struggling with. He looked up and glared at Jeaves. “She can’t report! Get us out of here before you kill both of them! Before you destroy the ship!”

  Jeaves cocked his robot head for a moment, then said softly, “Hold tight.” As he spoke, Delilah spun away and vanished. Bandicut thought he saw a flicker of change in the view of the sun. The granulations on the surface began to shift sideways in the view, as though the ship were altering course. The sun began to grow smaller.

  Still touching Antares, Bandicut looked across at Li-Jared and Ik. “We’re leaving. Hold on. We’re leaving the star. Hold on...”

  *

  *Brightburn* had never felt such pain. These waves were much worse than any that had come before. There was something wrong in the way it was all happening, as though it were all too fast, as though the ending of life were somehow being crushed together, compressed into too short a time.

  The death blow

  too soon

  too soon

  Not ready

  It was hitting *Brightburn* in the belly. She felt the pain and weakness there the most.

  Is this the time ?

  the end ?

  I must try at the last

  must share

  The small ones and the strange one were all turning and fleeing, and she did not blame them.

  But she must try one last time to tell them. Show them.

  Chapter 15

  Out of the Star

  Antares was in pain, and struggling, and she didn’t know why. Everything was coming apart around her, all of space and time, and was she supposed to hold it together? Her mind was spinning with forces and threads of life she could not understand. Deep was doing something, and the star was doing something...there were voices, all verging on comprehensibility. She felt Ik struggling beside her.

  Voices...who are they speaking to? /Stones, help me!/ But the stones could not.

  She felt intensely alone.

  I must hear this star...something it is trying to tell me...

  But they were moving away now.

  “John Bandicut?” she whispered. Was the sun getting smaller? She closed her eyes, breathing deeply, then looked again. Yes, definitely smaller.

  “Antares? Can you hear me?” John’s voice was close; he wanted her to turn. She was afraid to, afraid she would lose the last remaining connection with the star.

  But it was too late; it was vanishing, like a fog burning away. Except she thought she understood something now, some understanding from the star. She stared at the fiery orb, trying to grasp the thought before it could slip away. Something about Deep. But then it was gone, like a memory of a dream.

  She fell into John’s arms with a gasp and pressed her face to his shoulder, unable to talk, as John murmured over and over, “We’re moving away now, we’re moving away...”

  *

  Deeaab could feel the instability growing, and he shifted course to move as quickly as possible out of the body of the sun. At the same time, he felt something else—an upwelling that was not physical, but coming rather from the star’s mind or spirit, as if it were trying consciously to reach out, to convey something. Deeaab had not sensed this particular star’s thoughts directly before, though he had felt the unmistakable presence, as they’d passed into it. This star had felt mute, but now shadowy images were rising from it. Was *Brightburn* trying to speak?

  <<< Look, do you see it? >>>

  See what?

  <<< I see a shape. It’s communicating.

  It looks like...the shape reminds me of Starmaker. >>>

  The cloud?

  <<< Do you not see the shape of the nebula?

  And in the center, past the four bright stars

  that Bandicut calls the Trapezium,

  I see a knot of turbulence.

  And that is— >>>

  Where the trouble is located? Where we are to go?

  <<< Where the one called N-ck-ck-ck-ck lives,

  and perhaps the thing that is attacking Ed’s world. >>>

  Deeaab could only just make out the shadowy impression of images, but he could see what the Charlene-echo part was saying, and was willing to trust that part of himself to interpret.

  But in the meantime, he could feel something else happening inside the bubble of time that surrounded the star. It was another series of shock waves from the distant disturbance. They were hitting the star, hitting the region of time-fusion, where Deeaab had compressed the star’s time to allow communication with the ephemerals. As the shock waves entered the time-bubble, they were concentrated and amplified—and to Deeaab’s horror, they were extinguishing the star’s inner fires. *Brightburn* was dying.

  The Charlene-echo part of Deeaab was momentarily confused.

  <<< Why is it happening so fast?

  Because of the change to the time-stream? >>>

  Yes. *Brightburn* was beginning to swell outward at an acc
elerated rate. And the tiny ship carrying the ephemerals was only beginning to turn away.

  *

  Bandicut was immensely relieved to see the star receding. It felt far less threatening as a glowing basketball than it had as a wall of fire. He and Li-Jared had managed to get both Ik and Antares sitting down, and were now trying to calm them enough to talk.

  Ik was the most shaken, but he was starting to find his voice, a bare rasp. “I don’t—hrah—don’t know what happened to me. I don’t know why—” He brought his hands up, pressing his opposing pairs of thumbs together, then suddenly jammed a knuckled fist to each side of his head. He drew a hissing breath. “I’ll be...fine. Give me...a moment.”

  “All right,” Bandicut said softly, and turned back to Antares. “How are you doing?” he asked, bending to see her face.

  “I’m not sure,” she whispered. She seized his hand and squeezed it. “John, I...felt...the mind of the star. I felt it.” Her eyes, bright gold and black, met his—and for a moment, he felt a fierce, electric connection. Then her focus shifted, and she was suddenly far away. But the emotion of her encounter with the star continued to reverberate through him like the sound of a bell. She was awestruck, terrified, and moved by what she had felt.

  /// Find out what she learned! ///

  /I’m trying./ Bandicut leaned closer to Antares. “Can you tell me what you felt? Or heard? Was there communication?”

  Antares ran her hands through her thick hair. “Not precisely. But voices. I heard voices. I don’t know exactly what they were saying. But it...the star sensed me, John. I know it did. And it was trying to say something to me.”

  “What about Deep? Was Deep part of the communication?”

  Antares’s eyes seemed to haze over. “Deep was there, doing something that made it all possible. Stretching time, somehow, I think. I couldn’t feel Deep’s thoughts, exactly. But I’m sure Deep and the star, Deep and *Brightburn*, exchanged some knowledge.”

  Bandicut’s hand tightened on her. “Do you know what kind of knowledge?”

  “No, I—” She struggled for a moment. “Wait. Yes. There were images. I believe Deep knows the way to *Nick* now. I’m almost certain *Brightburn* showed him the way.”

  For a moment, everyone was silent, looking at Antares—even Delilah, who’d dropped down from the ceiling to hover nearby. The deck continued to shake beneath them, but it was becoming an almost familiar sensation, like the engine of a boat. Jeaves spoke over it, to make an announcement. “Deep has left the star’s atmosphere, and is accelerating on a course very close to ours, heading toward—wait a moment!”

  Everyone stiffened, waiting for him to continue.

  The next thing they saw was the viewspace blossoming with crimson light, and *Brightburn* swelling rapidly from a distant ball of fire to a sphere of glowing gas that once more filled the view. “Are we falling back in?” Bandicut asked, trying not to shout.

  “No,” Jeaves said in a tight, quiet voice. “*Brightburn* is undergoing rapid expansion to supergiant phase.”

  *

  Antares felt two distinct, but simultaneous, waves of fear. One was her own at the sun that was exploding right behind them. The other was *Brightburn*’s presence suddenly in her mind again—*Brightburn*, in shock and fear at what was happening. *Brightburn* was dying, and in rapidly advancing stages. The star’s fear and sadness were far clearer now than the feeling she’d had before; the emotions were stark in her mind. Whatever Deep had done to enable their connection was not over; it had rejoined with greater strength.

  *Brightburn* knows she is dying, and she doesn’t want to, not yet.

  Antares’s own fear was insignificant in comparison. Her thoughts quaked with the star’s outcry:

  Waves

  waves

  waves

  cannot resist

  longer

  The words were a bewildering orchestration in her thoughts. Most of it she couldn’t understand. But an unmistakable fact came through: this star was being overwhelmed by a force too great even for its massive size and power.

  Antares’s thoughts ballooned with images and thoughts. She felt plunging pain in her core, where the last of the fires were guttering, snuffed by the hypergrav shock waves. She felt a searing pain just below her skin, where the fusion-fires still burned, and were now pushing the outer shells of the sun farther out still; she felt the heat of those fires expanding to incinerate anything in their path. She felt a warm, cottony breath exhaling from her skin, blowing into space, puffing out an enormous shell of gas, an exhalation of surrender—not to death just yet, but to time and inevitability.

  Antares watched the staggering energy billow from the dying star’s core, time clearly distorting as she followed the progress of the star’s death-explosion. Its dying cry reverberated...

  Why-y-y

  y-y-y-y

  y-y-y-y-y ?

  And then it could no longer speak.

  Antares felt a sadness such as she had never felt before. She wept for the star, for the life taken too soon. And she burned with anger at the cruelty of its being taken by a distant and cold interloper, its name and purpose unknown.

  Not all of the life was gone yet; she felt other images flickering out of the star’s failing consciousness: the flares of thought of other suns, the memory of stars bursting forth into life, and of some of them sputtering into an early death. She saw, through a sight very different from her own, the contours of Star Home stretching away into the distance, its great glowing clouds, and its clusters and chambers of stars; and deep within that place where even now new stars were coming into being, she was aware of the deadly pull of the star-killer. She knew little of it; but she felt it, like a cancer eating at the heart of this place that was her home.

  All of this wheeled around Antares’s head like a landscape out of control; she felt as if she were falling, spinning. And then it all began to go out of focus, and to fade. She tried to hold on to the images, to see more—but it was no use. *Brightburn* was finally, irrevocably, fading from her reach.

  *

  Bandicut saw Antares’s eyes blink and move about rapidly, like a human in REM sleep, and then flick open to stare at him. “I—” she began, and then immediately sank, as her knees weakened.

  Bandicut supported her. “What is it? What happened?” he asked, steadying her as another tremor passed through the ship. “Was it *Brightburn* again?” As he said it, his gaze shifted to the swollen sun. It wasn’t getting visibly larger, but that, he thought, was because they were hurtling away from it at reckless speed, through n-space.

  “Yes,” Antares whispered. “*Brightburn* is dying, but I felt her much more closely this time. And I saw images in her thoughts.”

  Bandicut listened, stunned, to her description. My God. Shakily, he drew a breath. “Well, I...right now, I’m wondering if we’re going to be swallowed up in that fireball—or are we going to get out of here so all that information can do some good.

  For a moment, that question hung in the air. Then Jeaves spoke. “We will not be engulfed,” he said. “We are accelerating rapidly through n-space as we speak, and we can outrun any expansion of the star, barring unexpected problems.”

  That stopped Bandicut. “Barring—what? What kinds of problems?”

  “Unexpected problems,” Jeaves said impatiently. “Which means, I don’t expect them.”

  “Well, then—”

  “But look here—look at *Brightburn* now. Watch it for a minute.”

  Bandicut shifted his gaze again. It looked as though the star had grown smaller. “Why? What’s it—holy shit, Jeaves. What’s happening? Is it shrinking? Are we moving away from it that fast?”

  “Yes, it’s shrinking,” the robot answered. “And no, it’s not just because we’re moving away so fast—although we are.”

  “Then why?”

  “We believe it’s because Deep—well, because Deep is no longer creating the fusion of time that made all this possible.”


  Bandicut shook his head. “I’m not sure I—”

  “You understand that Deep squeezed months, maybe even years, of *Brightburn*’s time together into an interval that would match your visit, so that you could converse. Yes?”

  “Um...sort of. But I don’t understand how—”

  “I don’t, either. But the point is, we were watching *Brightburn*’s death in compressed time.”

  Bandicut stared back out at the shrinking sun. “And now?”

  “The time-fusion is relaxing, and the events that were squeezed from your future into the present are returning to the future. *Brightburn* is indeed going through an end-of-life expansion, but you might watch it over the next few years, or few hundred years. We are not in danger of being caught in its shock wave.” Jeaves gave a dry chuckle. “We have plenty of other worries. But not that one.”

  Bandicut blinked at him. “That,” he said, “is very...very...weird.” As he slowly caught his breath, he added, “So then, where exactly are we heading now?”

  “Out of this star system and on course for the heart of Starmaker Nebula,” Jeaves said. “Following Deep, who we believe—” and the robot paused to nod to Antares “—knows where he’s going.”

  Chapter 16

  Earthward Bound

  The boosters felt like outstretched hands beneath Julie, lifting the small shuttle toward Triton orbit. The launch was gentler than she’d expected. She turned her head against the cushion and peered out the window as Triton’s frozen surface of nitrogen and methane fell away beneath her. The landscape began to slant away as the shuttle rolled into flight attitude. Her last sight of Triton was a puff of a nitrogen eruption against the horizon. Then all she saw was blackness, and stars.

  The acceleration increased gradually as they climbed toward orbit around Neptune’s largest moon. She sighed back against the headrest and closed her eyes. Though the shuttle carried a handful of passengers, she’d avoided conversation, preferring the silence of her own thoughts. Her thoughts were dominated by the enigmatic translator, riding in the cargo hold beneath her. Julie would oversee its transfer into the hold of MINEXFO’s interplanetary transport, Park Avenue. And before the day was out, the transport’s engines would light, sending them on their way home to Earth.