Sunborn

by Jeffrey Carver

  /// According to your stones,

  you need to give them breathing room.

  Privacy. ///

  Bandicut cleared his throat softly.

  /// I gather...three’s a crowd. ///

  Bandicut blinked, stung by the implication that this was somehow about Antares and Ik alone. Li-Jared had already gotten up and was pacing around the lounge. Maybe he had gotten the point already. Antares and Ik were in a strange embrace now; Antares was guiding Ik’s head onto her shoulder.

  /// His stones are in his head.

  Hers are in her throat.

  They may need close contact. ///

  /Right./ Bandicut flushed, nodded, and got up to join Li-Jared. After a few steps, he glanced back to see a translucent force-field, a privacy-curtain, shimmering around the space where Antares and Ik sat. /Right./

  /// I’m sure it’s fine. ///

  /Yah./ Turning away again, he saw Li-Jared watching him. “So,” he said, before Li-Jared could speak, “I hope Antares will be able to help fix his stones.”

  The Karellian rubbed his chest for a moment. “There’s more food on the table over there. Hraachee’an, I guess.” He gestured over his shoulder—but gazed at Bandicut with blazing, electric-blue eyes. “I am unsure what to think. About Ik. About what could go wrong. Do you think it’s just...damage...and not...?”

  Bandicut blinked uncertainly and shook his head. It was not like Li-Jared to be so tongue-tied. He was worried—really worried—about his Hraachee’an friend. “I don’t know, either. I really don’t.”

  Bwang. “The stones have done pretty well in the past. I think we can trust them to...and Antares...” Li-Jared’s voice trailed off, and he made a finger-twitching gesture that Bandicut took as a shrug, and then he turned around, studiously surveying the Hraachee’an lounge.

  “Yes.” And if it’s the Mindaru...

  /// We’ll still have to trust them,

  won’t we? ///

  Nodding, Bandicut followed Li-Jared to the small buffet table. And he tried to ignore the steady tightening of his throat.

  *

  Antares had never felt anything quite like the joining of her stones with Ik’s. Her stones had connected with John’s to enable communication; but this was deeper, a diagnostic connection. Her stones were probing Ik’s, seeking out the source of his trouble. It was a stuttering connection, trying to get past the damage in Ik’s stones, at once intimate and distant.

  Ik’s pain was a hollow, bony kind of feeling, impossible to soothe away with her empathic touch. But beneath his distress she sensed Ik’s sinewy strength. /Ik? Can you feel me here?/

  /Here. Risking. Your stones—/

  /They know what they’re doing. You must relax./

  /—can’t tell—/

  /Is it just the stones causing you pain, or is it more?/ Are you infected, Ik? Will I become infected from touching you?

  /So hard—cannot tell—/

  Antares felt a sudden rush of memories from Ik, as if he’d kept them bottled up and could hold them no longer: shock from the encounter with *Brightburn*; the awakening of memories of his own sun’s death; fear reverberating from the encounter with the Mindaru; the loss of Delilah. But beyond the fear, something more.

  *Damage to the core programming...investigating...*

  And all the while, rushing beneath those feelings were echoes of others: the loss of his Hraachee’an friends, waves of affection and concern for his friends here, a shivering bond growing toward Antares...

  She trembled in turn. /Ik, we’re all...with you. We won’t stop until you’re.../

  /I am fine./

  A hope? Be very careful...

  *Probing for evidence of infection...please wait...*

  Nothing she could do but wait. She tried to search her inner awareness for her stones, to gauge their progress; but she only felt a buzzing, and then a blurring sensation as though everything were shifting slightly out of phase. She felt frenetic, desperate activity, but she could decipher none of it.

  Wait. Be patient.

  She felt as if she had been patient for a very long time. She was floating, uncertain. But there was still that pain, coming in waves. /Stones, talk to me! What are you doing?/

  The reply, when it came, jolted her:

  *Search of the program-core complete. Mindaru infection present but in remission. We have isolated areas of damage, and are attempting repair and removal of infection. Remain alert...*

  *

  Bandicut and Li-Jared picked at the food and poked about anxiously. It was too bad Ik couldn’t enjoy the lounge with them. He might have explained what some of these strange-looking plants were, and why these three seats were attached to the walls, leaning at odd angles out into the foliage. He might have told them whether it was safe to pet the knobbly-skinned animal that sat in a tree gazing serenely into space, with unblinking orange eyes.

  But Ik and Antares remained behind the privacy-curtain. Twice, Bandicut started toward it. Each time he stopped. There was nothing he could do. Antares was better equipped. But he was scared of what could go wrong and hurt Antares as well as Ik.

  /// Scared that Ik and Antares are getting personal? ///

  /I didn’t say that./

  /// You were thinking it. ///

  /Maybe, on some level. But I didn’t say it./

  /// So you told me. ///

  /I’m concerned about my friends. Both of them./ He sat down on a bench, facing the buffet table. “Li-Jared, what can we do if there’s an infection from that...Mindaru thing...still on the ship?”

  “You mean—” bwang “—in Ik?”

  “That’s one possibility. And what about Antares? She’s in close contact. She could get it, too. Any of us could.”

  Li-Jared looked thoughtful, biting off a bread stick. “I think we had better start learning all we can about the Mindaru.”

  Bandicut considered that for a moment, then said, “Jeaves! Napoleon! Can we talk?”

  *

  Napoleon was reluctant to leave the bridge, and Bandicut and Li-Jared were reluctant to leave their friends, so after declining an offer from Copernicus to meld the two compartments into one, they settled on a holo-conference. The robots reported on the information they’d gained from the ships they’d passed in the Mindaru graveyard. Though they had found nothing definitive, there was a great deal that was suggestive. All three robots agreed that the Mindaru were almost certainly a pure AI, and quite possibly descendants of the combatant AI from the ancient wars.

  Bandicut found that more frightening than helpful. “Where the hell is it from? Not in ancient times. Now.”

  “I’m not sure that’s a meaningful question,” Jeaves said.

  “Well, does the cursed thing report back to its superiors, or is it a free-roaming agent?”

  “It may be a little of both,” Jeaves said. “We found no logs connecting that Mindaru installation to any higher control. But then, we only got snapshots. It seems most likely to be a group mind, or colony consciousness. But whether it links to others in real-time somehow, or is simply a free agent on a million-year mission, I can’t say. It does seem likely it’s one of many agents at large—which would be consistent with the activity we’ve observed moving outward through the galaxy.”

  Bandicut swore, and Li-Jared made twanging sounds under his breath. They both started to speak, and Bandicut jerked his head to prompt Li-Jared. “So,” said the Karellian in a tone that suggested that he was really getting fed up, “what’s this about them wanting to exterminate every lifeform in the galaxy? Which I assume includes us? What’s that all about?”

  The robots hummed and ticked for a moment, and then Napoleon answered. “That was a message that the oldest of the three ships we contacted kept repeating. It was really the only message it had, milords.”

  “Nappy—knock off the milord crap, will you?” Bandicut said in annoyance. Napoleon hummed and bowed acquiescence. Bandicut sighed. “Thank you. Now why would the Mindaru l
et it broadcast that information?”

  “Perhaps it doesn’t mind if we know its intent.”

  “It wants us scared?”

  “Perhaps, Cap’n,” said Napoleon. “At the same time, it’s clear that we survived at least partly because it wanted to study us before it destroyed us.”

  “But—” bong “—destroy us why?”

  Jeaves seemed almost to draw a breath and let it out. “I think it might be an anger that’s been held so deeply for billions of years that it’s part of the essential Mindaru programming.” Jeaves turned his head to Napoleon. “You were studying the details from the second ship...”

  “Rage,” said Napoleon. “That’s what I deduce. A self-righteous rage, and a pride bordering on hubris.”

  Jeaves sounded surprised. “You found that in the second ship’s—?”

  “No, I found a detail in the second ship’s logs that seemed to resonate with information from the Maw of the Abyss, which I glimpsed as we were leaving the Neri world. At the time it meant nothing to me—an image of an awesome power, raging against all of creation, or at least living creation. It was not the power that sent the Maw,” Napoleon said, anticipating Bandicut’s next question, “but a power the Maw knew tales of.”

  “Then why didn’t you—?”

  “I didn’t connect it until now, because it was classed by the Maw as a myth. A story. But this ship caught by the Mindaru was also owned by ‘the Others,’ the ones who sent the Maw on its journey. And it told me it had been caught by a myth. It was, more than anything else, astonished by that.”

  For a moment Bandicut could think of nothing to say. Li-Jared was twitching and rubbing his breastbone. Then Charli spoke, and she seemed breathless.

  /// There’s more to it than that,

  I’m almost certain. ///

  /Huh? What?/

  /// Something I just realized.

  I got it from Delilah when she was captive,

  as she was connecting with Deep.

  There is something practical in the

  purpose of the Mindaru.

  Deadly but practical.

  The Mindaru want to populate the galaxy

  with AI life like itself.

  That’s why they’re destroying stars—

  not just to eliminate organic life,

  which they view as a threat,

  but to build up the supply of heavy elements

  in the galaxy! ///

  /Uh.../ Bandicut rubbed his cheek thoughtfully, then told Li-Jared and the robots what Charli had just said.

  “They want more heavy elements to create more of themselves!” Li-Jared shouted, jumping up. “More hardware, more AIs. They want a universe friendly to them and hostile to us.”

  /// And heavy elements— ///

  “Heavy elements are created in supernovas. And...hypernovas,” Bandicut said. “Oh, Jesus...”

  *

  The conversation turned to a discussion among the robots of how the Mindaru might be trying to trigger the hypernova. They seemed to be getting nowhere, so Bandicut walked back to the privacy-curtain. “Copernicus, do you have any way of knowing what sort of progress Antares and Ik are making? Are they likely to be in there for a while yet?”

  The tree beside him said, “They seem very still, and their stones are communicating at a high speed. I think they may be there for quite some time yet.”

  Bandicut sighed. “Do you think we should stay here, in case they need help?”

  “Cap’n, I think you should go and try to get some sleep. You’ll be more help to everyone that way. I’ll call you if you’re needed.”

  “Are you sure?” He was, in fact, struggling to fight off sleepiness.

  “I’m sure,” Copernicus said. “Li-Jared, you too.”

  The Karellian looked up from a flower he was inspecting. “You may—” bong-g-g “—be right.” He dusted his hands and looked at Bandicut. “You, Bandie?”

  Bandicut nodded. “Let’s go.”

  *

  It was lonely in the sleeping room. Copernicus had fixed the room up with some Earthlike touches—a raised bed, pillows, and a comforter; but it felt too different. And it wouldn’t be right for Antares. He asked Copernicus to change it back. He dropped with a sigh onto the low sleeping pad.

  He found it impossible to sleep, though. Despite his weariness, he was now wide awake and restless. The lights were dimmed but not out, and he let his gaze run up one ghostly wall, across the ceiling, and down the opposite wall. Then he’d pick another spot and do it again. On about every third run, he imagined Mindaru in the wall. He knew it was nonsense, but it was alarming nonsense. He became angry at his inability to go to sleep, and that made him more awake.

  /// Do you want me to help?

  A little alpha wave or something? ///

  /I don’t need help./

  /// Yes, I can see that. ///

  Bandicut snarled softly and closed his eyes again.

  Eventually, he calmed down a little, and in time he must have dropped off to sleep, because he started awake when Antares slipped in beside him. “Hi,” he said.

  “John Bandicut,” she answered, her voice sounding strained. He woke up enough to realize that she was radiating strong emotions. Distress and relief and need and worry. It was hard to sort them out.

  “I’m here. Is he—is Ik okay?”

  “Put your arms around me.”

  “Huh? What’s wrong?”

  “Put your arms around me.”

  He rolled and did as she asked. Something in her gave then, and she melted against him, shivering with jangled emotions. He was definitely awake now. “John,” she whispered, and sighed into his shoulder.

  “Is it all right? Is Ik—are you—?”

  “I’m okay.”

  “Are you really? Are you sure?”

  “Yes, but Ik—it was hard. So much pain from watching stars die. Did you know he’s unusually sensitive to stars? His stones were damaged; my stones helped repair them.”

  He pulled back just enough to see her face. “Was that all there was? Damage from seeing stars die?”

  Antares shook her head. “The Mindaru—they infected his stones, too—not as badly as they did the AI, but enough to make it difficult for him to function. My stones worked long and hard. They think they rooted it all out.”

  “They think? Don’t they know?”

  “It’s impossible to know for sure. But they’re pretty sure.”

  “And you?”

  “I’m okay, but—” she sighed softly against him “—it was exhausting. To watch. And to share with Ik. I think it did draw us closer together.” She shivered a little. He couldn’t tell quite what she was feeling.

  At that moment, his own embrace felt inadequate. “Oh. I guess I—”

  “No,” Antares said. “You don’t see.”

  “Huh?”

  “He’s our friend. We must stay close to him—all of us. He may need help again. He probably will. We must be ready.” She hugged him more tightly. Her touch sang with need, fear, confusion, passion.

  His head was now spinning.

  “John...” Antares rested one thigh against his and hooked his calf with her ankle. “John, I think I need you right now.”

  His confusion ebbed away. “I’m here.” He slipped his fingers into her hair, stroked her soft mane, sank his hands into the thick, rich hair between her shoulder blades. Her stones were flickering in her throat. “I’m here,” he whispered.

  She practically enveloped him with cascading emotions. Grief and fear and gladness and urgent desire and restlessness and anxiety. “John, will you make love to me, please? Now? Slowly?”

  He closed his eyes and drew a long, silent breath. Then he touched Antares’s chin and raised her face to his. Her small nose quivered as she breathed; her eyes probed his with their black orbs, deep wells encircled by golden halos. He bent to kiss her, brushing his lips to hers. She pressed back with humanlike urgency, her lips not letting him pull away
. Her fingers tightened on his shoulders as she moved against him, and the waves of her emotions washed over him like an incoming tide.

  *

  For Antares, it felt like slipping from a tangled jungle into a cool, blue sea, like the sea of the Neri, salty and refreshing. With each of John Bandicut’s caresses, she felt a little more able to breathe after the frightening experience she had just been through, more able to open herself to his touch. She was aware of his jangled emotions, and she tried to offer solace, but right now she needed far more than she could give.

  This was all wrong, she knew, by all that her training had made a part of her; wrong that she should be joining this way; wrong that she would be taking so much right now, and giving so little. But I just gave all I had. I cannot give more, cannot be all things all times to all people. Not even one I love. And yes, I do love him. All that she had done for Ik was right, just as she had been trained. Why should she feel it a weakness that now she should need?

  John’s arms enveloped her, and that was what she needed. She shivered with pleasure at his erection pressed against her, and she shivered at his lips and hands touching her breasts and shoulders and back, and she shivered to feel his acceptance and his love, washing over and enveloping her.

  She wished it could last all night.

  *

  As Bandicut lay tangled with Antares in long afterglow, he studied her eyes, trying to locate a window into her emotions. She was nibbling at his fingers, with which a moment ago he had been tracing circles around each of her four breasts, noting how like and yet how different they were from human female breasts, smaller but with larger tips, nipples he supposed. Antares clearly enjoyed his touch. But now she was gently biting his fingers, stopping him from continuing the touching. Was she laughing? Or was it something else? He thought he sensed something welling up inside her. Worry. Fretting. Something was wrong. “What is it?” he asked.

  “John.” Definitely wrong. Was she wondering if she should have done this?

  “Yah?”

  “I have to go now.”

  He grunted, closed his hand, felt a stinging in his cheeks.

  “I’m sorry. I have to go back to Ik.”

  He swallowed and nodded. “I understand.”

  She raised herself on one elbow, making no attempt to cover herself. And yet something in the aura was gone. She was no longer open, no longer—what? Available? “Do you? I hope so. I needed...and I thought perhaps you needed...and I am glad...very...”