Sun of Suns

CHAPTER TWENTY

COOL AIR WASHED over Hayden's face. For a second he reveled in that, drawing in deep breaths and running his hands over his sweat-stained scalp. Then he turned to Aubri.

"She's not been shot." Carrier was already there, turning her over in midair like something he was inspecting at market. He was right, there was no blood.

Was it the assassin-bug she carried inside her? Had Aubri crossed some invisible line, or begun to say something that had triggered it? For a moment Hayden was sure that such a thing had happened, and that she was dead.

Then Carrier put his hand on her forehead. "Hot. Her pulse is a bit fast. She's not sweating; looks like she fainted from the heat."

Aubri coughed weakly and opened her eyes. "Oh, my head," she murmured. She looked around herself in confusion. "How did we get back to—oh." She pawed at the air, seeking something to hold on to. Hayden put out his hand and she took it, oriented herself upright with respect to the two men. "We're in Candesce."

"And we have a schedule to keep." Venera was waiting impatiently at a nearby doorway. The military bike hung in the air next to her, popping and pinging as it cooled. Hayden counted bullet holes as he pulled Aubri past it; there were at least twenty. A glance told him that the fuel tanks hadn't been punctured, but he wasn't sure about the burners or fan.

"Come on," said Venera. "Mahallan, are you awake enough to do your job?"

"Yes yes," said Aubri peevishly. But Carrier shook his head.

"She needs water and cold compresses," he said. "We don't want her making mistakes at a crucial moment."

Venera drew an ornate watch out of her silk tunic. "We have an hour," she said. "And I'm grudging you that."

They went to explore. It was easy for Hayden to tow Aubri, who seemed feverish and vague; if they'd been under gravity she might not have been able to walk.

"Familiar enough design," Venera said as they moved down a bright, white-walled corridor. The interior of what Aubri had called the visitor's center was divided into numerous chambers and corridors, but only in a loose sort of way by walls and floors that generally did not quite meet. Instead of the enclosed boxes one found under gravity, here were rectangles of pastel-colored material that were suspended in midair to suggest rooms and floors without limiting mobility. In many places you could slip over or under a "wall" into the next room, or glide through a gap in the floor into a room "below." Electric lights in many colors floated here and there, casting shadows that softened the edges of the space. This sort of plan war common in freefall houses and public institutions—but in those places you could always see the ropes or wires that kept the rectangles in place. Hayden could see no means of support for this place walls.

The rooms were in turn subdivided by screens into different functional areas: eating and cooking alcoves, entertainment centers, even shadowed nooks for sleeping. It didn't take them long to find fresh cold water for Aubri. She splashed it over herself and began to look more alert.

"This place could house hundreds," said Carrier. "Are you sure no one ever comes here? It all looks a bit too well kept."

Aubri laughed. "After maintaining the suns of Candesce, taking care of this place must be light work."

"But light work for whom?"

"For what, you mean. Nothing we're likely to meet while we're here, Carrier. Nothing human."

He looked uneasy. "It's too empty in here. I don't like it."

Hayden searched the cupboards for something to help Aubri. To his surprise he found them well stocked, but the packages and boxes were lettered in an unfamiliar language.

Aubri was shrugging off any more help anyway. "I'm feeling better, Venera. Let's do what we came to do." She glided out of the kitchen alcove and slid through the loop of a large couch sling in the living area next door.

Venera frowned at Aubri. "Well then, what are you waiting for? Where's the… bridge, command center, or what have you?"

Aubri gestured at a blank picture frame that took up much of the ceiling. "It's wherever you want it to be, Venera. Watch." She spoke several words in a language Hayden had never heard before, and the picture frame swirled with sudden inner light. Then it seemed to open like a door or window, and Hayden found himself staring into the gleaming interior of Candesce.

Lit by some magical un-light, Candesce's interior teemed with motion like the little creatures Hayden had seen once when he looked through a teacher's microscope. The suns themselves resembled diatoms, spiky and iridescent; though they were quiescent, all around them things like metal flowers were opening. Their petals fanned like the hands of mannered dancers, hundreds of feet wide, to reveal complex buds of machinery that must have hibernated in tungsten cocoons during the day's heat. Bright things poured out of them like seeds from a pod—or bikes from a hangar.

Other things were moving too—long spindly gantries delicately picked crystalline cylinders out of the air and stuck them together end to end. Hayden glimpsed more machinery inside th cylinders.

"What are they doing?" he asked.

"Repairing," said Aubri in a distracted tone. "Rebuilding. Don't look at anything too closely, you could break it."

Hayden sent her a worried glance; he noticed Carrier squinting at her as well. But she looked more alert and lucid than she had a few minutes ago. Hayden decided to let her strange comment go.

"There!" Aubri pointed. Hayden squinted, and saw two catamarans peeling away from the awakening machinery. The Gehellen had been unable to follow their quarry into the Sun of Suns, and were giving up the chase. Maybe they intended to wait for morning outside Candesce's unnerving heart. Well, they would face that possibility when it came.

He turned his attention back to the unfurling non-life of Candesce. Hayden was looking for something, and after a few minutes he spotted it. One of the salvage ships from the principalities was nosing cautiously into the zone of mechanical activity. It flew a flag he'd never seen before, but he ignored that and its strange lines and watched where it was going.

"Well?" Venera was asking impatiently. "Where are the controls Mahallan? Hadn't you better get started?"

"Shush, Venera," said Aubri. "I've already started."

Hayden had heard that all the suns in Virga made use of discarded components of Candesce. He wasn't sure what he was expecting to see, but was still surprised when the principality ship swung in close to one of the big translucent cylinders as it was being hoisted near a sun. Some complex exchange had just taken place between the cylinder and one of the flowers; a door had opened in the crystal and swarms of metal insects swirled between it and the "flower." Now another hatch opened in the tesselated side of the sun, and another exchange began.

As it did, the hangar doors of the principality ship flew open and men in sargasso suits—star shapes at this distance—flung them-selves into the stream of packages. They wrestled something away from its insectile courier; he could have sworn he'd seen the arcs and bands of that device before, in the half-constructed heart of his parents' new sun.

But wouldn.''t the metal bugs object? It seemed suicidal folly to try to steal from them. He waited for the swarm to turn and attack the men. After a long moment it began to happen: the remaining drones let go of their cargoes and turned toward the humans, who seemed oblivious to the threat.

Get away, get away, he willed them, even as the steel insects opened their claws and flung themselves at the men.

"Hayden, whatever you're doing, stop it," said Aubri. She was waving her hand in front of his eyes.

"Huh? I'm not doing—look at the ship, there!" He pointed.

Aubri turned and looked toward the principality ship. "Oh. You didn't, did you?" She sounded disappointed. "Let's stop that."

At the last second, the metal insects veered away from the men. "Hayden, stop it," said Aubri. "Look away, Hayden." She grabbed his shoulder and spun him around.

"What are you—"

"Hayden, we're looking into a command mirror. Don't you know what that is?" Aubri saw the blank looks on three faces and sighed. "No, you don't. Sorry. Listen, the command mirrors are the control system for Candesce. Whatever you look at in the mirror, that thing will do what you imagine it doing—insofar as it's capable of it and only inside Candesce. Hayden, you disrupted the movement of those cargo handlers by worrying whether they would stop what they were doing."

Venera laughed. "You made the bugs attack those men! You're meaner than I thought."

"Hey, I didn't mean to—"

"Command mirrors are sensitive," said Aubri. "Maybe it would be better if none of you looked into it for a while. I have to figure out which component of Candesce to switch off. It could take me a few minutes."

The three natives of Virga left the couch and returned to the food-preparation area. "How are we going to know if she's done the job or not?" whispered Carrier. Venera rolled her eyes.

"It's pretty late for you to worry about that. Chaison and I talked about it months ago. Mahallan's not the only person who knows something of old technologies; we had a professor at the University build this." She reached into her tunic and brought out a simple metal tube. It had a switch on its side and a single glass eye, like a bull's-eye lantern. "When I throw this switch, nothing happens. If Mahallan does her job, I'm told that a light will go on inside the tube when you switch it." She flipped the switch. Nothing happened.

"Does she know about this thing?" asked Carrier. Venera snorted derisively.

"No. Why would I tell her?" Idly, she turned the switch again.This time, the glass eye immediately glowed red. Venera yelped in surprise and let go of the rod, which tumbled slowly in the air between them. "Well," she said. "Well, well, well."

Hayden watched as the two of them hovered over the tube, talking excitedly. Venera's little indicator didn't impress him; he was thinking about his experience with the wish-mirror. The glass panels were scattered throughout this building; he tried to remember the words Aubri had used to light hers.

"Listen," he said, "the bike is full of bullet holes. If somethings broken we need to know now, while there's still time to fix it. I'm not sure this place is going to still be safe for us once the suns start coming back on." Mother and Father had talked a lot about radiation; he remembered that. Even if it remained cool in here throughout the day, it might be lethally radioactive while the suns were operating.

Carrier was nodding. "Go check it out, then."

Hayden took one more look at Aubri. She was perched in midair, staring at the glowing images on the screen. Her face was masklike, expressionless.

Heart pounding, Hayden slipped under a wall and away from the plots of Slipstream.

"WHEN YOU'RE OUT of ideas, just give another order." Chaison Fanning recalled the cynical advice of one of his academy teachers as me helmsman moved to execute his latest command. The expeditionary force was sweeping the air around Sargasso 44 using sophisticated spiral search patterns. He had all the bikes out hunting for contrails. It was all he knew to do. Meanwhile he retained a mask of professional calm, as though he'd expected this and had a plan. He had no plan. There was nothing left but to run for home.

"Bike brigade sixteen reports no sightings, sir," reported the semaphore team. Chaison nodded. There was nothing but gray mist outside the forward portholes. The clouds on the edge of winter were to have been his greatest advantage if he'd succeeded in luring the Falcon Formation ships out of their den. Ironically, that dense pack of wraithlike mists was now obscuring any chance he had of finding where the enemy had gone.

The light outside the portholes was fading: night was coming to Falcon. The Formation synchronized its day and night cycle with Candesce, so the Sun of Suns must be going out now too. If Aubri Mahallan had done her job, in a few minutes the subtle distortions of space-time ringing out from Candesce would cease. This night, technologies long banned in Virga would become possible here again. Radar might now work.

The radar man Mahallan had trained was looking at him expectantly Chaison gave a half-smile. Why not? "Begin radar sweep," he said, chin on his fist. It was nice to know that his voice was still calm, despite his desperate disappointment.

Even now the newly minted Falcon dreadnought might be bearing down on Rush. There was nothing in Slipstream that could stop it. The pilot richly deserved to be deposed—Chaison knew he would get no argument from his men on that score—but Falcon Formation would eat everything if it conquered Slipstream. They had done it before: art would be repainted according to the arbitrary standards of the bureaucracy, literature rewritten to match the ideology of the Collective. Architecture would be chipped away and eventually, even the language itself distorted to match Falcon's vision of a perfect world.

A horrible sick feeling filled Chaison. He wondered if the citizens of Aerie had felt that way when the pilot had uttered his ultimatum to them.

A younger Chaison Fanning would never have considered such a thing.

"It's working!" He shot the radar man an annoyed look. "Sorry, sir. I mean, we have a signal. The screen is clear! Look."

Despite himself Chaison was intrigued. Aubri Mahallan had made toy versions of the system that showed how things were supposed to look. Now as he unstrapped himself and glided over he saw little glowing smudges on the two green circles of the display, very similar to the ones Mahallan had displayed. She had drilled the bridge staff in the meanings of the various shapes, and so Chaison had no difficulty in recognizing the other ships of the expeditionary force as spindle-shaped lozenges of lighter green. The two screens showed the results from rotating beams that were at right angles to one another. Comparing them, you could roughly guess at the position of objects in three-dimensional space.

The bridge staff were all staring over his shoulder. Chaison ignored them. "What's that?" he asked, pointing at a broad smudge well behind the centerpoint that represented the Rook.

"I believe that's the sargasso, sir."

"Hmm." He stared at the display for a few seconds. "All right then," he said, "if these shapes are us," he pointed, "and that shape is the sargasso," he pointed again, "then what, exactly, is that?"

Right at the edge of the displays, a collection of tiny dots scintillated. One by one they were leaving the screen, which suggested they were moving very quickly.

Chaison and the radar man looked at one another. Then the admiral jumped back to his seat. "All hands! Prepare for maximum acceleration! Recall all bikes! Semaphore team, order all ships to activate their radar! Tell them, if you want to have a place to spend that treasure you're wearing, then follow us now!"

AFTER CHECKING OUT the bike and spending an hour or so repairing it, Hayden drifted back into the corridors of the station. He dithered over whether to look in on Aubri—but she had insisted that only she could find a way to excise the dark thing coiled in her throat. He didn't want to interrupt her in that crucial task. No, he had his own responsibility, and he had best fulfill it.

He found a small room far from the place where Aubri was working. It was dark here, but there was a command mirror on the wall. He strapped himself opposite it and tried to remember the words Aubri had spoken to activate hers.

It took several tries, but soon the rectangle began to glow. "Huh." Hayden couldn't believe he was actually here, in Candesce, doing something no one had ever told him was even possible. Controlling the Sun of Suns itself.

The twisting ballet of Candesce's night machines revealed itself to him and he scanned the air for the things he sought. It seemed like many years since he had played in the half-built sun while his mother ordered construction crews about. Not that long a time, in adult terms. He remembered the day the precious inner components had arrived, shipped at horrendous expense and in secret from the principalities of Candesce. The crates with their exotic stamps and lettering were more interesting to Hayden than their contents, but he-remembered those as well. Now, he examined the interior of Candesce looking for similar mechanisms.

From what he'd seen earlier, Hayden had surmised that the crystalline cylinders were factories of a sort, manufacturing new pieces for the suns. Now as he examined them—the display zooming into fine focus if he wished it to, zooming out again just as easily—he began to understand the logic of the Sun of Suns. Those tiny glittering clouds spiraling into the cylinders, they were the bugs Aubri had called tankers, only here they swarmed by the million. They were bringing in supplies. Inside the cylinders and unfolded metal flowers, the metal foremen and laborers of Candesce forged new wicks for the sun, and when they were done they handed them off to other machines that installed them.

All that Hayden had to do was locate the pieces he wanted and then imagine them being brought here. Park them outside the door, he commanded. With mounting excitement he watched as his orders were obeyed.

No wonder no one was allowed in here! You could destroy Candesce on a whim from this place; and if Candesce went, so would go all of Virga.

The thought was disturbing. Hayden's excitement soured as he watched the slow parade of machines sidle through the air toward the visitor's center. This was too easy—there was too much power to be had here. It made him wonder what Venera Fanning would do once this episode was over. Or what the Pilot of Slipstream would do if he demanded and received the Candesce key from the Farmings.

After assuring himself that the machines were doing as he'd asked, Hayden left the little room. He flipped over and under walls, around floors, hurrying back to the entrance and his bike.

Double-check the bike to make sure it was flight-worthy. Tie the sun components he'd found into the cargo net and tie it to the back of the bike. And then… rehearse what he was going to say to the others when they saw what he'd acquired.

They would need convincing—particularly Carrier. His plan was to get to the man through his mistress, Venera. If he could convince her that these components were his just payment for his part in this adventure, then maybe she could restrain Carrier.

He flipped around a corner and spotted the entrance.

It was open.

Hayden slowed down and cautiously drew his sword. Had the Gehellens somehow managed to force the door? That didn't seem likely; why now, after so many centuries? Or maybe—the thought gave him a chill—maybe now that it was unlocked, anyone could get in here. He hadn't thought of that. Were the Gehellen airmen inside?

Hayden could see the first of the packages he'd ordered bobbing in the darkness outside. Despite his worry, the sight made him smile. He looked around the room. There was the bike, seemingly untouched. There was no one else in sight. He moved carefully toward the door.

Carrier swung in from outside to brace himself on the two sides of the entrance. Night was at his back. "So there you are," he said. "I wondered what exactly you were going to try. Of course, I had no doubt that you'd try something."

"This doesn't concern you," said Hayden.

"A new sun for Aerie does concern me." Carrier drew his sword.

THE ROOK ROARED through blackness with exhilarating recklessness. Chaison imagined statutes and naval regulations fluttering in the ship's wake, centuries of rules about how fast to travel in cloud all broken in an instant. He pushed the Rook to one hundred miles an hour, then two hundred, and watched the dots of the Falcon Formation navy grow into circles, then distinct ship shapes.

The bridge crew were white-faced. Travis perched next to Chaison, his lips drawn thin while his fingers gripped the edge of the chair. Logic said they would run into something at this speed—but of everyone in the bridge, it was the radar man who was now the calmest. "Bear two degrees to port, five south," he would say, or "six degrees starboard right now." The pilot, flying blind, obeyed with frantic sweeps of the wheels.

"Getting secondary signals," said the radar man abruptly. "Just like she said."

"All right." Chaison smiled grimly. "You know what to do."

Falcon's fleet was creeping slowly through an ocean of cloud; nobody could tell how far the mist extended. He didn't need the cloud, of course, it was night anyway. But if they could strand the target vessels of the Falcon fleet in opaque fog they would still be vulnerable when daylight returned.—If the battle still raged at that point.

Meanwhile, he had to deny the enemy all their other assets. "Line up on those bikes," he said. '"Ware our other ships, they'll be doing the same. We're going to scrape the sentries off Falcon's fleet like old scabs."

The engines whined as they accelerated one more notch. There was a sudden dark flicker outside the portholes and then bang! The ship twitched to the impact, but ran on.

Chaison winced. They were running over the Falcon Formation's sentry bikes. As when the Tormentor's bikes had flown ahead to watch for obstacles—unsuccessfully, in that case—the Falcon fleet was feeling its way by sending them ahead and to the sides. Lacking radar, the bikes were its only means of safe travel through darkness and cloud.

Another crash against the hull, and another. On the radar Chaison could see the shapes of Rook's sister ships overtaking the dots of Falcon bikes, which simply vanished as they passed.

Ahead was the huge but indistinct blob that must be the new dreadnought—a weapon of terror no one from Slipstream had ever seen except in blurry photos. Ironically, they were unlikely to see it now. If all went well the men of Slipstream would never make visual contact with the enemy they were destroying.

The Rook swept out and around in a great circle. Chaison was reassured to see no clear air ahead as they came around for another pass. "Prepare to deploy mines," he said.Then, "Brake, brake!" He heard the flutter-chop of the braking sails being thrust out of the hull and then he was nose-down, Travis clinging to the back of the chair as the Rook groaned and began to decelerate. "Engines off!"

In sudden silence save for the rush of wind and the whuffing breath of the braking sails, the Rook slid past the invisible dreadnought and directly into its path.

"Deploy mines! Out out out now now now!"

There was the sound of wind in open hangar doors, and a distant rattle like some monster clearing its throat.

Then thunder.