The Triple Stars Trilogy

Chapter 7

“Oh, come on,” said Selene. “This has to be a trap. That"s completely obvious. We can"t even think about going to find this Heliolith. Concordance even thoughtfully provided the coordinates. What sort of divine entity provides galactic positioning data?”

Selene, Ondo and Lilith stood on the cartography deck, a three-dimensional representation of the system in question filling the room around them. Lilith was clearly captivated, sweeping her hand repeatedly through the sun then studying her fingers as if she expected some of the star to have come off on her.

Once again, Ondo did the annoying thing where he regarded Selene with disapproval over the top of his multiglasses. “This comes down to whether we believe there is any truth to the Omn story. If there"s only Concordance and the rest is a delusion, then, yes, it"s clearly a trap. But if, as I believe, the ancient lifeform that Toruk referred to really does survive, then I"m not so sure. This Being he mentioned is clearly not the Tok, and it"s also not the Morn.”

“Even if that"s all true, why would it make travelling to this new system any safer? Whoever"s behind it, they"ve clearly given us intriguing details to chase after in order to hook us.”

“Yes, except Malleus puzzles me. The change we see in him isn"t only down to good biomedical attention. You heard what he said: this felt different to his usual communications.”

“Oh, great, feelings,” said Selene. “That"s fine, then, let"s fly into a Concordance trap.”

“What is a Heliolith anyway?” asked Lilith. She was still stroking her splayed hand through the sun as if hoping to comb the mysterious object free. “I mean, I get the word: sunstone, right? But that makes no sense. Stone would obviously boil away inside a star. Even we primitives know that.”

Ondo walked to the sun, standing beside Lilith. The star was a red giant, old but luminous, its flaring outer layers hazy. “It"s possible this object was once outside the sun and was engulfed when the star expanded. We"ve seen evidence for such structures elsewhere.”

“Which doesn"t explain why they then called it a Heliolith,” said Selene.

Ondo performed his thoughtful, let"s be open-minded look. “True, but we"ve also seen structures deliberately placed within stars, specifically the stellar mass weapon cones that Surtr showed us. You must concede that the interior of a star would be a good place to conceal something, and to mark its whereabouts. Just because we don"t know how to build such structures doesn"t mean the Tok didn"t.”

“More magic,” said Selene.

“Are you saying the communication system Concordance have at their disposal is magic?”

“Maybe. I"m still not completely convinced about it.”

“They tracked us using the bug embedded in Malleus"s gut,” said Ondo. “The device must have been functional. You made me get rid of it for that very reason.”

He was right, of course. He could be so annoyingly correct at times. She pressed on. “They haven"t come looking for us despite us having the Augury.”

He nodded his head, conceding the point. “Perhaps that"s older technology that they don"t have complete control over. Or perhaps they know exactly where we are, and this whole thing is a trap, as you say. You can"t have it both ways.”

“You"re the one having it both ways. First you claim that Omn is actually some malign species, the same thing as the Morn, and now you think that they, or possibly it, are helping us.”

“My theories evolve as new evidence emerges.”

“What evidence? All I hear are stories and wishful thinking.”

“Look,” said Lilith. “Sorry to intervene in a family argument. I"m clearly at a disadvantage here as you two have much greater knowledge of all this, but is there any way to tell if this mysterious object that Malleus described even exists? Aren"t there, I don"t know, stellar surveys and the like?”

“Nothing that would reveal the object"s presence within the sun,” said Ondo.

“Okay, so, why don"t we go and look? Selene explained how she checks out a system for the presence of this Concordance before she approaches. We go there and do all that. If it looks clear, we head to the sun and search for the anomaly. If not, we run.”

Despite all Selene"s stories, the newcomer from Earth appeared to have little fear of Concordance and what they could do. From the expression on her face, it was clear she was full of delight at everything that was happening to her. The thought of a mystical, ancient artefact hidden away inside a star thrilled her utterly.

“Which is exactly what Concordance would want us to do,” said Selene. “They"ll hide away, wait for us to get so near the stellar mass that we can"t run up to FTL, then come for us. They may even be hiding away inside the sun themselves.”

Lilith wasn"t to be deflected. “Let"s send in some kind of a probe, then: give it shields powerful enough to go inside a star. You can do that, right?”

Ondo looked delighted at Lilith"s words. “Yes, we could stretch the technology to achieve that for a limited time.”

“So, let"s do it.”

Ondo didn"t reply, looking to Selene with eyebrows raised.

“Okay, fine,” said Selene at last. “Let"s walk into their trap.”

The sun"s transformation into a red giant had left its orbiting rocky planets utterly barren. Selene could detect no remains, no sign of civilisation upon any of them. The more distant worlds had fallen away from the sun as it shed its mass, while the nearer ones had been seared and scoured by the intense heat. Had there ever been people there? If so, had they known what was coming as their sun swelled and burned? For all she knew, the system was the site of another Tok atrocity.

She dropped the Dragon out of metaspace a billion kilometres above the system"s ecliptic plane. At that distance, the remaining planets were dim dots, discernible only to the Dragon"s perception. The raging red sun dominated local space. There was no sign of any ambush, no indication of electromagnetic communication, but she was largely blind. This was a dead system, one Ondo had never seeded with nanosensors.

“I think we should go in quickly,” said Ondo. “I"m not sure we have the time to sit and monitor the system for weeks.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because of what Malleus told us. His conversation was abruptly cut off. My working hypotheses is that he was communicating with someone or something other than Concordance, and that the Augurs noticed and interceded. If that"s the case they"ll obviously try and work out what messages were passed, and if they can do so, they"ll come here.”

She didn"t like it; now they were hurrying blindly into a trap. Still, some of Lilith"s enthusiasm had taken root in her. If this mysterious Heliolith was some ancient artefact that could answer their questions, it was maybe worth taking the risk. It wouldn"t be the first time she"d attempted such a thing.

They burned a couple of hours seeding space around the system with nanosensors to give themselves some protection, as well as firing some into the star. Waiting to return to pick up the telemetry was the hardest part. Ondo used the time to prep Lilith for her surgery, scanning her brain and showing her the details of what he intended to do.

Selene, meanwhile, strode around the Dragon trying to keep her mind occupied. She found Malleus in the apex observation deck once more.

“You should have flecks embedded in your brain, too.”

Malleus looked suspicious. “Why?”

“They"re a convenience. It"s not demonic possession; we"re not trying to harm you.”

“Artificial augmentation is wrong.” He didn"t sound completely convinced. Where did he draw the line? Did he object to Ondo wearing multiglasses, or clothes to keep himself warm? Most likely Concordance"s geas against artificial modification was left over from some earlier age when the tech was unreliable, dangerous. Or maybe they feared those with amped-up transhuman abilities.

“That doesn"t stop the Void Walkers having flecks in their brains.”

“They"re already damned. They can travel through the outer darkness and leave their souls behind because they have nothing to lose and Omn"s forgiveness to gain.”

Mention of the Void Walkers reminded her of a question she"d been meaning to ask him. “Tell me what you know about the Void Wraiths and about the Morn.”

Malleus frowned briefly at her question. He looked troubled. Even haunted.

“I don"t know what those things are,” he said.

“Really? You"ve never heard either name before?”

Malleus shook his head slowly, as if making a show of sifting carefully through his memories. “I know the Void Walkers, of course, but I"ve never heard them called Void Wraiths. Are they the same thing?”

“I"m talking about a swarm weapon for which we"ve seen evidence, another way of devastating global populations. What do you know about it?”

“Truly, nothing.”

“Are you lying to me?”

“No.”

This was getting her nowhere. “Have it your way. So, tell me this: do you think we"re walking into a Concordance trap here? Are we being set up?”

“I honestly don"t know,” said Malleus. He shook his head slowly, as if nothing made very much sense to him anymore.

“This whole thing with the Augury, and Omn saying you have to help us – is that some part of a plan?”

Malleus shook his head but didn"t look at her. “I told you the truth. Omn spoke to me. It felt very different. He was pleading with me, crying out for help.”

“Why would a god do that?”

“I don"t know.”

“Down on Earth, that Walker: how come he was there? How did he find me?”

“Mid-tech planets like that often have Void Walker missionaries assigned to them, to monitor and assess. If the planet develops viable FTL technology, then Concordance intervenes. The Walker may have been there for years, watching and waiting, unbeknown to the indigenous population.”

“Bit of a coincidence he found me.”

“He would have seen traces of your lander arriving and come to investigate.”

“Concordance will know he"s dead. They"ll come looking.”

“Eventually, yes. It depends how frequently they expect an update from him.”

“Can they track us via the Augury?”

“I don"t know. Perhaps not if you don"t touch it.”

“Do you really think we sucked out your soul by taking you away from Borial?”

“I … yes.”

“You don"t sound so sure. You"re still you, aren"t you?”

His gaze flickered to her and then back to the stars. “I truly felt different. It was as if my real self was lost, unreachable. In its place was only this terrible void. An anguish that consumed me.”

“You"re describing perfectly standard symptoms of depression. Hardly surprising given what you"ve been through.”

“Perhaps.”

“But now? You said felt. You"re more yourself again?”

“Yes, I think so. It is hard to explain.”

This time she didn"t goad him about his beliefs. That was the last thing he needed. “Well, that"s good. Perhaps Ondo"s treatment has helped as well.”

“Perhaps. Or perhaps I have been given a rare and precious gift by Omn.”

So that was how he figured it. “You"re thinking … your soul was returned to you via the Augury?”

“It seems miraculous, but yes, I believe that"s what happened.”

She touched him on the arm, then turned to leave him, not letting him see the amused smile upon her face.

When they were ready, they jumped back in-system to consume all the telemetry harvested by the nanosensors. There was no sign of suspicious activity; the system looked completely dead.

They moved towards the star, reaching the broadcast sphere of the probe they"d fired into it. They studied the data coming back from it in silence. There was always a surprising amount of structure to the interiors of stars: cells and currents of superheated plasma. The probe picked up no sign of anything solid.

“You said it would take time for the sensor to circle around,” said Lilith. She clearly longed to find a primeval relic from the galaxy"s earlier days.

Ondo nodded his head. “There"s still time to pick something up.”

Selene didn"t reply. The raging red star filled the display in front of them. They were far too near the huge mass to safely initiate a metaspace jump; with Eb gone, the Dragon did not appear to be capable of such a manoeuvre. She felt exposed. If the massed ranks of Concordance arrived now, they"d have no choice but to try and battle their way out. For about the fifth time she conversed with the Dragon, making sure drive and weapons systems were as ready as they could be. Plotting a course away from the mass was pointless as they had no way of predicting Concordance"s attack patterns. She pre-set some trajectories anyway.

One of the nanosensors, two hundred million kilometres from their position, returned an alert. Something was moving out there. Anxiety thrummed through Selene. The message had taken nearly twenty minutes to reach them. There could be a whole ring of Concordance ships around them for all they knew, trapping them, pinning them to the star. Her heart raced as she watched the data streams, expecting a mass of sightings to come flooding in.

“Ondo. We need to leave.” She had the Dragon"s drives running up to full, a course plotted in the opposite direction to the reading. The alert had cut out, and no more sounded. Had Concordance somehow circumvented the nanosensor array? That would leave the Dragon completely blind.

Ondo turned his attention from the star to study the data from the sensor. “I think we"re in the clear; it looks to me like a spinning asteroid catching the light from the sun.”

“You can"t be sure of that.”

“I"m fairly sure.”

They replayed the feed from the sensor together, the Dragon"s systems enhancing the video and slowing it at the precise moment. A burst of light briefly filled the frame.

“It could be a drive flare,” said Selene.

Ondo shook his head. “Wrong shape, wrong direction.”

“Then maybe it was the sunlight glinting off a Concordance vessel. They go in for that gleaming white look.”

“Not if they"re trying to sneak up on us, surely. I think we"re safe.”

Neither spoke for another ten seconds, their attention fixed on the data streaming in from the array. One more alert, however dim or ghostly, would be enough to trigger an immediate evac.

It was Lilith, still studying the data from the solar probe, that broke the silence. “Uh, guys. You should see this.”

On the screen from the solar probe, a solid black dot sat amid the flowing lines of ionised gas.

“That"s a solid object, isn"t it?” she said. “That is what I"m seeing, right?”

The density and spectral analysis readings were quite clear. The red giant did harbour a solid object within it. A speck of matter, a seed, a pearl, within its superheated bulk.

“The Heliolith,” said Ondo. “It"s real.”