Darting, she caught up with the enemy and engulfed it. She tried to pull it onto a new course, but it felt like...she wasn’t sure what. It felt like nothing she had ever known, a solid un-life, but an un-life that behaved and reacted like life. It squirmed; it was hard to hold, too compact, too dense. It was trying to follow the quicklife in a tight loop around the sun. Daarooaack tried widening the object’s arc; but somehow it slipped out of her grasp and steered even tighter to the sun.
Daarooaack dove after it. The currents of space and time were tricky here. She seized it again, caught it in her downward swoop, and tried this time to carry it straight down into the core of the sun, where surely it could not survive. Deeper and faster she took it. But again it spun in an unexpected direction and slipped from her grasp. This time, however, she had given it speed in the wrong direction. It was now cutting an even tighter arc through the sun, and it was gaining fast; it was now nearly upon the ephemerals’ ship.
And it was now too close for her to intervene without risking her friends. Daarooaack veered away in fury and frustration.
*
“I think Dark just tried to help us,” Copernicus said.
Ik and the others turned to look. “Oh, mokin’ A,” Bandicut said. A black cloud, presumably Dark, was flying up and away from them. The Mindaru was now emerging from the glowing mist of fire, and was a lot closer than before, and growing fast.
“I believe Dark just tried to drag the sentinel into the sun,” Copernicus said. “Unfortunately, it failed.”
“Worse, the Mindaru has managed an even tighter loop than ours,” Jeaves reported. “It’s gaining fast. I can only suggest to fly evasively if you can.”
Ik could see that Copernicus was trying, but the Mindaru sentry was closing rapidly. It now loomed over the viewspace balcony like a great crablike thing, all angles and extensions. Parts of it seemed darker than night; other parts blazed brighter than the star behind it. Long, jointed appendages erupted from it and arched forward, as though to pluck them each right off the bridge. Ik stepped back involuntarily, and grabbed in the air for support as Copernicus attempted a last, desperate course change. “Hrachh!” he cried. “Copern—”
But before he could finish calling the name, a crashing jolt passed through the ship, sending Ik slamming into Bandicut, and all of them sliding across the deck. As Ik struggled back to his feet, he looked up to see a flashing array of shadow-and-light, great jointed claws of metal or energy, encircle and snap closed around their ship.
Chapter 34
Captive
The Mindaru entity known locally as Starburster was wrestling with an unexpected challenge. Instreaming data told of multiple invasive activities nearby—all threatening the mission of creating a massive overload of exotic matter in the star at the heart of the nebula. The Starburster Mindbody strove to weave together an understanding of the situation. Organic life-structures were attempting to disrupt the matter-gathering enterprise. Default response called for parasitic lifeforms to be caught and examined. One set had just in fact been captured, possibly the same lifeforms that had recently eluded one of the outer sentries.
Their presence had caused minimal harm, but not trivial. One thread of the Starburster mass-gathering project had been compromised. It was a small percentage, but worrisome because it was unexpected. They could not be allowed to survive, but it was essential to learn more about them, especially their places of origin.
The inner sentinel would arrive soon with the captives. Two other, quite different, entities were approaching, however—cloudlike spatial discontinuities that displayed certain lifelike characteristics. Their nature and purpose were unknown. One had briefly interfered with the sentinel, but the interference had turned to the sentinel’s advantage. For now, the Starburster Mindbody would simply monitor the strange beings; it had no means of acting against them.
Behind all of this lay the mission of the Survivors. The Survivors were relentless in pursuit of their goals, and so therefore were the Mindaru, their servants. The Starburster Mindbody would stay here until the work of the Survivors had been done. Eons of work had already been completed; but eons more remained, before the transformation of the galaxy would be complete.
*
Daarooaack watched in dismay as the hostile entity closed its long pincers and physically seized the quicklife ship. The entity began at once to drag the ship onto a new course.
Daarooaack called to Deeaab: “I could not stop it. I cannot separate them. What can we do?”
Deeaab drew in from the other side, and they flanked the hostile one as it pulled the quicklife vessel onto a course toward the imperiled star, the one the ephemeral Bandicut, through Charli-echo, had identified as *Nick*.
As they shadowed the joined spaceships in flight through the layers of otherspace, Deeaab gently probed and tested the surrounding fabric of spacetime.
“Too risky to try to separate them now. Let us follow. An opportunity may arise...”
*
Bandicut reacted in disbelief to Copernicus’s report. “It’s taking us to *Nick*? Why?”
“Unknown, Captain.”
“It may be,” Jeaves said, “that it simply wishes to assure our destruction when the star explodes.”
Bandicut considered. “Or maybe it’s taking us to Mindaru Central for an interrogation. I wonder if there’s any connection between that and the control center Nappy and I tried to get to.”
Ik rubbed the side of his head. “Perhaps the place I saw?”
“Would you recognize it again?”
“Hrrm, I think so.”
“And if we are interrogated, what then?” Antares asked, her eyes glinting. “Communicate with it?”
Bandicut shook his head. “I don’t think that’s a viable idea.” /Take it out, is what I was thinking. If we could./
/// You really think we could destroy it?
With a few n-space disrupter grenades? ///
/No, not really./ Bandicut grabbed a handhold as the deck trembled again. “Coppy, what’s happening? Are you shaking us free?”
“Testing the restraints,” said the robot. As if to punctuate his words, the deck shook again. “I was trying to disrupt the n-space bubble the Mindaru has generated around us.”
“I don’t think we’ll succeed at that as long as it has a physical lock on us,” Jeaves said. “Why don’t we wait to see if it loosens its grip later.”
“You think we should...rrm...”
“Play dead?” Bandicut said. “Instead of rattling the bars of our cage?”
“Yes,” said Jeaves. “Of course, we don’t know what it’s going to do when it gets us there. Things could go quickly from bad to worse.”
“So we need to be alert for even the slightest weakening,” Bandicut said.
“Because if we miss it, we might not get another chance. Yes.”
Li-Jared glared at Jeaves, then at the shadowy, indistinct shape of the thing that had seized them, obscuring most of the view outside the ship. “If it’s alert you want,” he growled, “it’s alert you’ll get. Copernicus, can you be ready to make an instant move, without looking as if you’re ready?”
“Of course,” said Copernicus.
Jeaves made a sound of approval. “But we had better be thinking of a backup plan, if we fail to escape.”
Ik made a rasping sound. “Do you mean what I think you mean? How shall I put it—?”
“Whether we should blow ourselves to kingdom come, and hope to take it with us?” Bandicut asked.
“Hrrm, yes.”
“Precisely what I meant,” said Jeaves. “Because that frankly seems the most likely outcome.”
*
Antares had no desire to dwell on that probable outcome, though she had to concede there was little they could do beyond, as John put it, rattling the bars of their cage. Once they had discussed and scrutinized every detail of what they had been through that day, it became painful to remain on the bridge, futilely rehashing unlikel
y strategies. Ship-day wound to a close with Copernicus estimating that they would arrive in the vicinity of *Nick* in about two days.
“If I might make a recommendation,” Copernicus said, “it would be that you all get some rest.” Antares thought Copernicus was a very wise norg, and eventually they all returned to their quarters, except Li-Jared, who was still too agitated to rest.
Antares, back with Bandicut in their quarters, found that she also was too wound up to think of sleep. While John went to bring some food back from the commons, she sat cross-legged on the sleeping pad, mulling all that had happened. As the minutes passed, she realized she was having difficulty focusing. She was struggling to shake free of what felt like a cloud of unreality enveloping her. She felt as if she had not quite broken with *Thunder*.
She started out of her daze when Bandicut returned with a platter and a jug, which he set on the small sideboard. She leaned to peer at the selection: an assortment of rolls, cheeses, and fruit. John filled a small goblet with a purplish wine from the jug and handed it to her, then poured one for himself. He popped a small ball of cheese into his mouth and sat down beside her. Raising his goblet, he clinked it to hers. “Cheers,” he said, and took a swallow. “I suppose I’d better not drink too much of this. No telling when we’ll need our wits about us. But still...it looks as if we’re going to be prisoners for a while.” He took another swallow.
“Uhhl,” Antares murmured, taking a sip and gazing at Bandicut. They had been separated for what felt like a long and very intense time. Now she found it as difficult to reenter his emotional world as she did to leave the emotional realm of *Thunder*. She felt the torn edges of John’s psyche, wounded by failure and the loss of Napoleon, and afire with fear of what was to come. John Bandicut, I am here, she tried to say, but her attempt at communication felt awkward and insufficient. Can you hear me? Can you feel me here? She reached out and squeezed his arm. “John?”
He started at her touch, flashing a grimace. He glanced down at his plate with an obvious lack of interest.
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” Antares said. Share. I’m missing something. Are you? She ran her fingers over the back of his hand.
A whisker of a smile played at his features, and she sensed, for a moment, an opening. “I don’t know. A lot of things, I guess.” He rubbed his jaw.
Antares angled her head. “Charli. Tell me what Charli has to say.”
Bandicut’s eyes went out of focus for a moment. “She’s worried, like me, that she’ll never see Napoleon again. But”—he blinked—“she thinks we’ll get out of this somehow. Hah!”
Antares straightened. “You don’t share that belief?”
Bandicut took another sip of wine. “It’s hard to see how. We’re trapped here. And even if we escape, I don’t see how we’re going to stop the thing.”
“What about Napoleon?”
He shrugged. “Maybe he can do something—but that’s such a long shot, him and those little grenades. Like trying to bring down an elephant with a mosquito.”
She didn’t understand the simile exactly, but got the gist. “Have you given up, then?”
“Me?” He shook his head and laughed. “Nah. Though I’ll be damned if I know why.” He frowned. “What?”
Antares had squeezed his hand and now gazed into his eyes, trying to decipher his emotions as they rose to the surface. They seemed more protected than before. Naturally enough. But there was a storm going on under the surface. Was it because of Napoleon? Or his failure to find a way to stop the Mindaru? She wanted to find a way in. “You...are feeling very...” She could not find the word, even in her own tongue.
Bandicut tipped his head back and closed his eyes. “Torn. Split in two. I can’t make sense of things on the scale of the stars, or even Ed. Certainly not the Mindaru. But the human scale seems so...inadequate.”
Antares waited for him to say more, but when he didn’t, she asked, “Can I help?”
He cocked his head, looking uncertain.
Antares muttered softly to herself. It was difficult; his thoughts were so fragmented, so restless. She caught a familiar memory stirring beneath the surface, and for a moment she could not place it; then it came clear:
His life in danger, in the field. And along with him, a small animal, a dog. Why did he keep coming back to this? There was something else. Another memory. Darker. More terrible. And yet something bright in it. Fire. A building on fire. A dreadful memory...a friend. A friend who died.
/John,/ she whispered, hoping he could hear her through the connection of their stones. /Is that what’s haunting you?/
If he heard her, it didn’t show in his expression. Perhaps a tiny twitch in one eye. But she felt his response. /Tried, I tried. There was nothing I could do to save him. I couldn’t./
/Who was it? Why are you thinking of him now?/
Bandicut blinked. His inner voice was strained with the memory of an old pain. /Nick. It was Nick I couldn’t save./
“Nick?” Antares repeated aloud. “The friend you thought of when *Brightburn* told us about *Nick*?”
“Yes, I...don’t...” His emotions were a blaze of confusion. “How did we get onto Nick, for God’s sake? He was a friend when we were teenagers. He died in a fire...that someone else started.”
Antares took his hand between both of hers, trying to quiet the inner blaze. “I found the thought in your mind. Does our situation remind you of Nick?”
His eyes widened. “Yes. My God.” For a moment, he could not speak. Then he seemed to deliberately gather himself and crease his face, as though to put everything back into order. His emotions threatened to close off again.
She squeezed his hand. “Bandie, let it go. What’s behind it?” She began to shake a little, as her own fears and demons threatened to come out and join his. No! Mine can wait. She exhaled slowly, letting her senses flow back toward his. He was struggling with the pain of remembering his friend’s death; but at the same time, an edge of determination was pushing through the haze and confusion, a determination that what he had let happen to the one Nick would not happen to the other. His breathing slowed and deepened along with hers, and for an instant she felt the warmth of her friend and lover return.
It lasted only moments. And then all his pain and bewilderment seemed to come back in a rush. Something else was weighing on him, something she hadn’t found yet. It was pushing back in as relentlessly as an incoming tide.
She tried to reach to the knowing-stones burning in her throat, to see if they could help her find a clearer vision. /Stones? Can you help me reach John Bandicut?/
She was surprised to sense something like confusion there, too. Finally: *We are trying...difficulty with his stones...they are overloaded with data. Data from the Mindaru.*
/Mindaru!/ Antares blinked. /What kind of data? Is he aware of it? Are his stones infected?/
*Not that we can detect.*
She drew a sharp breath. “John...did you...get some information when you were in that place? Something new? About the Mindaru?”
He was clearly straining, brow indented, eyes narrowed. “No, I—” And then his eyes widened and a look of astonishment rippled over his face. “Oh, my God—!”
*
Bandicut felt a sudden rush of static, as though from a bad neurolink. Dizzying, but not a neurolink. /Charli—?/
/// I’m not sure what.
John, the stones are going nuts. ///
/What do you mean?/
/// Antares is right.
They have a lot of new data. ///
Stunned, Bandicut tried to refocus his thoughts, to see what the stones were doing. It was nothing he could make sense of.
*Experiencing difficulty in interpreting...*
/Uh...Charli, can you enlighten me?/
The quarx answered slowly.
/// I’m having a hard time following.
It’s the download from our connection on that station.
They’ve been trying to decipher it
ever since.
Let me see if they can
produce an intelligible stream for us.
Hold on. ///
Bandicut waited. And then it started. Half visible, half heard, half felt, half understood without words...
The Mindaru were indeed agents of the once-decimated remnant of the ancient war, agents of an entity known as the Survivors. The Survivors: highly evolved descendants of tiny fragments of code long thought destroyed, as Jeaves had described. The Survivors apparently lived (best guess) within compact dimensions revealed only in “extreme space”—most likely in close proximity to, or inside, super-massive black holes.
The goal of the Survivors (best guess) was the creation of more black holes—expanded habitat—by triggering supernovas and hypernovas throughout space, particularly in stellar nurseries. Where better to set up starburster chain reactions: each cataclysm producing new rounds of starbirth / stardeath / birth / death / bam / bam / bam? And all of these bursts of stardeath seeding the galaxy with heavy elements, the better to continue building agents (or descendants?) such as the Mindaru. The Survivors’ existence (best guess) was both fast and slow. Eras of history might pass for them and their descendant AIs while Bandicut was stirring his coffee. And yet, at the same time, their view spanned the lifetimes of galaxies...
Bandicut absorbed all of this in stunned silence. But there was more.
The download contained other details, including the recipe for a galaxy-class hypernova. It was not just a matter of gathering exotic dark matter from the surrounding space and dumping it onto the core of a star. That would wreak havoc—instability and psychosis—and eventually kill the star. But to set off a hypernova and a starburst chain, the star must be carefully selected, and the buildup of dark matter crafted with the artistry of a thermonuclear bomb.
The n-space containment at the center was key. It walled off everything including the gravity from the concentrated matter. The buildup required centuries of patience, until critical mass was achieved. Only then would the signal go out—drop the containment, release the matter, and expose the star’s core to the crushing gravity of all that mass. Timing was crucial. Mess up the trigger, and the whole thing would sputter like a firework gone wrong.
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