Sunborn

by Jeffrey Carver

  Before the translator finished, no fewer than ten comets were blinking, the closest between Saturn and Uranus, and the farthest near the outer edge of the Kuiper Belt.

  For a few heartbeats, they all stood in silent shock. Then the captain asked, “Why so many?”

  “Redundancy. The more comets sent inbound, the greater the chance of a comet strike on the Earth. And the more comet strikes, the greater the chance of destroying humanity.”

  They stood in shock for an even longer time.

  Finally Lamarr spoke. “That would be...devastating. Are you saying you can stop it from doing all that? With our ship?”

  “If we can stop it near its present location—yes, we likely can stop it from doing all that. Afterward, if we are successful, we can resume your course—and if you wish, even speed you home more quickly.”

  Lamarr had trouble drawing a full breath. “How far away did you say this object was?”

  “Approximately twenty astronomical units.”

  Julie calculated rapidly in her head. How far had John traveled in his headlong flight? Neptune was about forty AU out from the sun, and he’d made it all the way in past the sun and in a loop behind it. So what the translator was saying was plausible if you believed what John had done, and completely implausible otherwise. Lamarr was staring at the floor, scratching the back of his neck. Reassessing John’s claims?

  The captain cleared his throat. He was pressing a finger to a receiver in one ear. “Hold on, please. I sent a message to headquarters last night. We have an answer coming in right now.” He nudged Henry toward a wall console. “Could you go read it to us, please?”

  Henry scrolled up the text, then read aloud: “We have reviewed your report. We cannot approve a mission change at this time. Please forward complete tracking data and all available information on the hypothetical object. In the meantime, observe all safe operational practices. Your first priority is to bring the translator safely to Earth. Huntington, John D., for MINEXFO Operations Command.” Henry turned. “That’s all of it, sir.”

  Captain Iacuzio nodded slowly. “Thank you, Lieutenant Cohn.” He drew a breath. “Well, there you have the official response. You’ll note that they’re very concerned for your safety.” He nodded toward the translator.

  The movements of its spheres became more agitated. “We cannot overemphasize the urgency of this. The new measurements make it clear—we must change course, and soon.”

  “Can’t you transmit the information?” the captain asked. “You’re asking for a big leap of faith here. To them, we’re proposing to sacrifice a valuable ship, passengers and crew, and the first extraterrestrial visitor we’ve ever had, for the sake of a futile gesture.”

  One of the translator’s globes flickered. “We have transmitted the data. But it will not come in time. We do not ask that they approve of the mission, but that you approve of it. The time for hesitation is past.”

  Captain Iacuzio’s brow creased with thought; his eyes closed to slits. “You’re asking me to disobey my orders and risk fifty-four souls, not counting yours.”

  “To save your home planet. Yes.”

  “But with no evidence! Either of the danger, or that this thing can be done!” The captain was finally letting his exasperation out.

  Lamarr raised a calming hand, then spoke, but more softly than usual. “You must understand the captain’s position. Can you not show us some proof?”

  “Your sighting logs of Neptune Explorer reveal that John Bandicut traveled much farther to intercept that comet, and in a similar time frame.”

  “Well, we found those sightings...ambiguous. Still, given the stakes, I would have to say yes to your request. But tell me—why do you need our ship, or us, at all?”

  The globes spun hypnotically. A dozen heartbeats passed. Then: “For two reasons. One, we require a solid vessel for the spacetime manipulations we must perform. Two, we assist your world with one condition: we require the willing personal participation of at least one member of your civilization.”

  Julie could not speak; her heart felt as if it had stopped. She had been expecting exactly these words. But expecting them was not the same as hearing them spoken.

  Captain Iacuzio stepped forward. His face had changed; he had reached a decision. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I would like to say yes, I really would. If it were just me, I’d do it in an instant. But I simply cannot put this ship and its passengers at such risk. Not without clearer proof. I’m very sorry.”

  “In that case, it may already be too late to save your home planet. We, too, are sorry.”

  Julie felt a stab in her heart. She met Arlene’s devastated gaze for a moment, and Henry’s—and finally even Lamarr’s. She had not expected him to come around.

  But it was the captain’s voice she heard, saying softly, “The rest of you will speak of this to no one. We don’t need a panic on our hands.”

  “But, Captain,” Arlene began.

  “But nothing.” Iacuzio looked straight at the translator. “Surely there must be another way...”

  Chapter 24

  Into the Heart of Starmaker

  The Long View had vanished through the hole in n-space, exactly as Delilah had intended. It was a rewarding feeling, one of the most satisfying in her hundreds of years of life as a rengaalooo, halo. And by far the most wrenching.

  In the thing that mattered most, she had succeeded. She had helped her people escape from the dreadful grasp of the Mindaru. And that was good. It also filled her with grief—because she had not escaped, not even into death. Time for that had run out.

  The Mindaru logic core, seeing what she’d done, had responded instantly. The Long View was gone, but the Mindaru had Delilah, and it snapped the confinement shut like a trap.

  Delilah knew she was finished. No more was she rengaalooo, soon to metamorphose into k-k-k-k-reee, shadow-person. In that instant her future was gone.

  There would be no escape into death. This was worse. Her memories began to wink out and reappear elsewhere, in the Mindbody complex. Her identity was not dying, but dissolving and becoming part of something large and terrible.

  Deep, she thought with the last gasp of who she was, will you remember our last contact? Hold on to what you have of me...

  *

  When Bandicut’s head cleared from the wrenching twist of the n-space passage, the first thing he realized was that Delilah was gone from his thoughts. The second was that the viewspace had come on again, and The Long View had tumbled out of that strange, warped passage away from the Mindaru object, and was now sailing through clear, luminous n-space toward a cluster of four brilliant stars. And stretched behind and all around the cluster was the glorious, star-spangled cloud of the Starmaker Nebula.

  Then a third thing came to him. He turned to Napoleon. “What did you mean when you said, ‘Oh, shit!’ a minute ago?”

  Napoleon clicked a few times. “Apologies for the language, Cap’n, milord. But I was startled by a piece of information that came to me from one of the ships in the graveyard.”

  That made him blink. “A piece of information from a dead ship made you say, ‘Oh, shit’?”

  Napoleon clicked more rapidly. “Milord, I do apologize for the outburst. But I had just completed the translation. What the library of that ship was saying was that the Mindaru Complex is, as I suspected, a huge hive-mind of artificial intelligence.”

  “Yeah? So—”

  “And it is implacably bent upon the elimination of all organic life from the galaxy.”

  “Uh—” Shit. Bandicut swallowed hard against the knot that suddenly threatened to rise up from his stomach. “All organic life? From the galaxy?”

  “Yes, um—Cap’n.”

  “But why?”

  “No explanation was offered. I have some speculations on the subject, but I think perhaps that should wait, if you don’t mind. Right now, if we don’t finish getting the AI restored, we could be in worse trouble than we just got out of.”


  Jarred, Bandicut remembered the fourth thing: Copernicus had shut down the AI. His companions were all staring at him, having just heard what Napoleon had said. Did they think he had knowledge that would get them out of this? “Nappy, uh—what do we have to do to get the AI running? I thought when we got the view back here, that meant—”

  “It meant Copernicus restored that particular function, Cap’n. The AI is still down, and Copernicus and I are handling the housekeeping tasks.” Napoleon gestured to Copernicus, still plugged into the far wall.

  Bwang. “Where is Jeaves?” Li-Jared asked suddenly, pacing. “He vanished when the AI went down.”

  “Actually, he switched off even before that,” Napoleon said. “He was coming under attack and was in danger of being corrupted by the Mindaru, so he sealed off and went into safe mode. He doesn’t have the same defenses we have, and he had no time to explain.”

  “Oh,” Bandicut said, not sure whether to be glad or worried.

  The bridge lights abruptly dimmed, then brightened. A few seconds later, they did it again.

  “Are you doing that, Napoleon?” Bandicut asked. “Or Coppy?” Copernicus was flickering, but he hadn’t spoken.

  “Cap’n—” Napoleon raised one mechanical finger “—it’s Copernicus, trying to reboot the AI. He says...he’s tried nine times with various parameters, and it hasn’t worked.”

  Bandicut shivered. Without the AI, they were as good as dead. They couldn’t run the ship for long without it—and even if they could, there was no way they could complete their mission, or get home. The only question was which would kill them first, a fatal malfunction or the Mindaru?

  Napoleon cocked his head as though listening. “The problem seems to be that only a portion of the AI’s physical core is working. Apparently the attack damaged some of the underlying strata. Copernicus is now developing an alternate approach...”

  Bandicut found himself suddenly thinking of all the ways these robots had changed and grown since they’d started this strange journey with him. He gazed at the horizontal can on wheels that was Copernicus and wondered, with some awe, what was going on inside his metal shell. Antares stepped close and squeezed his arm.

  “We’ll know more shortly,” said Napoleon. Before Bandicut could ask him to elaborate, the robot added, “I think it’s working...”

  The lights on the bridge flickered again, and the holo-views blinked out, then recomposed themselves. The next voice Bandicut heard was Copernicus’s. But it came, not from the robot’s own speakers, but from the bridge speakers—and it sounded flatter and more somber than Bandicut remembered. “Captain and crew, milady and lords, the AI has been reconstituted. It appears to be functional, and in control of the ship. However, you may still call me Copernicus, if you prefer...”

  It took everyone a few seconds to react to that. Charli spoke first:

  /// John, he’s joined himself to the AI. ///

  /What’s new about that? He’s been helping out all along./

  /// Not just helping out. He’s actually—///

  “I’ve melded myself with the shipboard AI,” Copernicus continued. “Too many components were damaged; I couldn’t fix them. But I could replace them...with myself.”

  Bandicut was shaking his head now. “This is too—do you mean you copied parts of yourself into the ship?”

  “Negative, Cap’n. There was a need for active control, without delay—and the existing hardware would not have served. The part of the AI that was still working is now part of me, and is mostly in my hardware. I believe it may have to be a permanent arrangement, Cap’n. But it was necessary.”

  Bandicut fought back a rush of dizziness. “Am I—?” Was he losing Copernicus? “Then you’re not...you mean you’re a permanent part of the ship, now?”

  “Yes, Cap’n, I think so. I’m still me. But I’m something else now, too.”

  Li-Jared strode toward the robot. Bong-g. “Then you’re...” He hesitated, uncharacteristically at a loss for words. His head weaved from side to side for a moment, as though he were trying to triangulate on the robot. “Are you running the ship now? Can you hold it together?”

  “And,” said Bandicut, “did you get rid of the intruder? The Mindaru?”

  “I’m fairly sure that I can, and that I did,” Copernicus said, still speaking from the walls. “When I shut down the AI, I isolated and zeroed out a lot of memory space. Of course, we must all remain vigilant...”

  “Coppy, you’ve—” Bandicut’s voice caught as he interrupted the robot, and he could only finish his thought silently: You’ve sacrificed your identity...

  /// To save us. Yes. ///

  Bandicut swallowed hard, nodding to Charli. Beside him, he could feel Antares echoing his sadness. And Ik seemed puzzled, perhaps not entirely sure what to think or feel. “Well...thank you, Coppy. I guess, while you’re getting the feel of the ship, maybe the rest of us had better figure out what exactly we’re hoping to do next...”

  *

  It was only a little later that Jeaves reappeared, as a small, still holo hovering in the air. He reported that the internal realm seemed safe again. “I apologize for leaving so suddenly,” he said. “But I thought you’d rather have me absent than infected by the Mindaru.”

  “Hrrm, yes,” said Ik.

  Li-Jared made a twanging sound. “And are you?”

  “What?” Jeaves asked.

  “Infected by the Mindaru.”

  “I believe I am free of infection,” Jeaves said without expression. “I have asked Copernicus to run a scan.”

  Li-Jared shot an anxious glance at Copernicus.

  “I believe he is free, insofar as one can tell,” the robot said. “I can’t spare the bandwidth to give him a full-motion holo-presence right now. Forgive me, but...shouldn’t we be looking at what’s ahead of us? Our escape from the Mindaru trap moved us a good distance toward our destination, and I think we can see some pretty interesting features in front of us now.”

  Bandicut squinted forward. They were indeed flying through a spectacular region, a volume of luminous space walled by distant gaseous clouds. On the far side, the diamond-shaped group of four blazing stars beckoned them forward...or perhaps guarded the next passage, depending on how one chose to view it.

  Copernicus continued, “As you can see, we are in a region of extreme ultraviolet and X-ray activity. We are crossing a large bubble, essentially a cavern of open space that has been hollowed out of the nebula—burned away by the intense radiation from the four large stars ahead.”

  /// I believe this is the region

  which your astronomers call the Trapezium,

  at the heart of the Orion Nebula.

  Is it not? ///

  Bandicut cocked his head, studying the four stars. /I think so. The angles are different, so it’s hard to be sure./ “Napoleon, that is the Trapezium we’re flying toward, right?”

  Napoleon bobbed his head. “I believe so, milord. We’re coming into the nebula from behind, so to speak. But after correcting for that, this cluster seems to match well with Earth-based star charts for the Trapezium.”

  “It’s certainly energetic.”

  “Under normal circumstances, I would say it is dangerously energetic,” Copernicus said, a hint of warning in his voice.

  At that moment, Ik slapped his hands to his temples and cried out in pain. “Hrahhh!” He lunged forward toward the viewspace, then suddenly dropped to a crouch, groaning. The others ran to him. “S-stones!” he managed to cry, before choking to silence. He kept his hands clamped over his temples, as if holding his head together. His face was contorted by pain, his eyes drawn together.

  “Let Antares help him,” Bandicut said urgently, restraining Li-Jared, whose eyes were focused brightly on his friend.

  Antares already had one hand on Ik’s arm and another on his shoulder, her eyes shut, concentrating. After several seconds, she said, “He’s in pain, but I think it’s easing. Something in his knowing-stones, I can’t tell wh
at.” Speaking to Ik, she said softly, “Can you tell us what’s wrong?”

  Very slowly, Ik raised his head. “Rrrmmmm,” he gasped with obvious effort. He lowered his hands cautiously. “It is...better. I am...sorry, it...” He paused, struggling to breathe. “A struggle. Something in my stones, trying to express itself. Not sure what.”

  Li-Jared leaned close. “My friend, was it trying to hurt you?”

  “I...don’t think so.” Ik sighed. “But it...I think perhaps the passage near that sun, and—” he looked up, catching Antares’s gaze “—and the death of the sun—and then this Mindaru thing we just went through...”

  “What, Ik?” Bandicut asked. “What did those things do?”

  “Not sure. Hrah. Injured, maybe. Damaged.” Ik shook his head, as if to clear the remaining pain. With his long fingers, he massaged the area around his stones. “I think—they were fighting to clear these things.” He breathed slowly and softly for a minute, until his face returned to normal. “I believe I am...able to function now.”

  Bwang. “Well, that’s good,” Li-Jared said. “Because we need you functioning, my friend.”

  Before Ik could respond, another voice filled the bridge, this one reverberating like a series of timpani. “I-I-I wassss afrrraid-d-d-d youuu had beeeeen lossssst-t-t!”

  Bandicut nearly jumped out of his skin. “Ed?” he called. “Ed—is that you?” He swung from side to side, searching.

  “There!” said Antares, pointing to the ceiling.

  The hypercone was almost directly over his head, like a hanging, transparent stalactite. It was vibrating visibly, and glowing with a pale green light that pulsed as it vibrated. Bandicut reached up, felt a pronounced tingling in his fingers, as though they were encountering an electrical field, and stopped short of touching the being. “Are you okay, Ed?”

  “Pleasssse...c-c-c-can you stop-p-p the ins-s-s-tability in that-t-t star-r-r?”

  Bandicut felt his breath go out in a rush. He opened his hands as if seeking answers. “We’re going to try, Ed. If we can figure out which—and how—”

  Before he could stammer any further, Ik interrupted him by howling, “Hrahh-luu-luu-luu! It will be a—” rasp “—hypernova! That is what it is doing!” Ik sprang up from his crouch, snapped to attention, and pointed straight ahead. “That way! If we keep going, we will find it. The Mindaru hypernova!” Then he clamped his hands to his temples again, reeling in pain.