The Dark Side of the Sun Read online

  The dive was from a height, and ended a long way down. He turned in a shoal of bubbles and struck out for surface. His ears rang. He was still sinking.

  Unbelieving, he felt his feet touch the lake bottom. Goggle-eyed, he felt the water round his feet warm up as his sandals tried uselessly to push him to the surface. Drowning, he breathed a chestful of water.

  He was several fathoms down. He was breathing water. He took another breath, and tried not to think about it.

  The water is saturated with oxygen. It will sustain you.

  A large silver fish stared at him, and was away with a flick of its tail. Something like a ten-legged crab scuttled over his feet.

  Do not be frightened.

  It was a sound. Something was talking to him.

  'You are Chatogaster, then.' He peered into the murky water. 'They looked for an aquatic creature, but they looked in the seas. I can't see you.'

  I am here . You are thinking in the wrong terms.

  The water shone with stars. They winked on above, around, below. He could still feel the water eddy around him, but all other senses told him that he was standing and breathing in interstellar space. Deep space. The centre of a star cluster.

  No, the hub of the galaxy.

  'It's an illusion.'

  No, it's a memory. Watch.

  At the hub of the galaxy where the stars rubbed shoulders and interstellar distances were measured in light-weeks a planet was bathed in the violent light of a hundred suns. It was made of water.

  At the centre it was Water IV, the third strangest substance in the universe, and the surface boiled. Dom watched the facts form in his mind with the inexorable growth of crystals.

  For a few thousand years the planet glooped and woobled its watery path between the stars, trailing behind it across the galactic sky a shimmering rainbow of steam that photon pressure sculptured into vast ghosts. Then it exploded.

  Dom found himself ducking. A churning droplet of water, a whole sea, left the damp explosion and passed him, steaming, on its way to the galactic rim.

  And he knew with a second-hand certainty that the hot wet world had produced life. It was a life that knew nothing of Jokers. In the hot water improbable compounds had formed unlikely molecules, had ...

  'You are the lake,' he said.

  I am. How is my old friend the Bank?

  'He was fine a few days ago,' said Dom. 'Uh ... do you shun publicity?'

  Not at all, but I like my privacy. The Bank was the only other lifeform extant when I arrived here. The sundogs know me. But I help them, I take care of their pups, and they are reticent about me.

  'Take care of their pups? You must be telepathic.'

  Not as you would understand it. But most creatures are largely water, and I am wholly water. They drink of me, and I become part of them - as I am part of you. Osmosis, you see. Don't let it offend you.

  'I won't,' said Dom. He kicked a cloud of mud from the lake bottom, and tried to convince himself.

  Eight of our days ago the Bank sent me a messenger. The Bank is rock, l am water. We have an understanding.

  Dom smiled. 'Isn't there some story about a sapient sun out towards galactic north?' he asked.

  Yes, it is true. He is strange. We are instituting a search for an intelligent gas cloud now, to complete the elemental quartet. However, the Bank told me that he was sending a person to aid my extension programme.

  'He didn't say that to me - I was told you could help me find Jokers World,' said Dom.

  Maybe we can help one another.

  'What do you know about the Jokers?'

  Nothing. Knowledge is not my province. My province is ...

  There was no precise word for it. A series of images flashed across Dom's mind as Chatogaster tried to explain. Intuition was too coarse a term; there was something in it of a leaf's knowledge of how a tree grows; there was something warm, dreamy, arcane ...

  May I rifle your memory? I shall need to. Thank you. You may experience a dream-like sensation, however, I will leave your mind as I would wish to find it.

  Later the lake said: Generally speaking there is no dark side to a sun. Let us start with the Joker towers. Their casing at least is probably a giant molecule. Their use is not known, although they absorb power and appear to yield none. I feel bound to say that there is no apparent reason for their existence, any more than there is for a man, for example.

  It would seem that this assassin is out to prevent you from discovering this World. He may in fact be hastening your discovery by forcing you along paths you might not otherwise take.

  Let us consider the Jokers themselves. That they existed cannot be doubted. They have left artifacts, the greatest of which are the Chain Stars, which proves they had power and perhaps bravado; they left the Centre of the Universe on Wolf, which suggests they had an understanding of the underlying truisms of Totality; and they left the Tomorrow Strata on Third Eye, which I believe means they at least experimented with time travel. There is a fundamental mistake, though, in assuming that the Jokers are the sum of their creations. These may have been toys, relics of the Jokers' youth. Astronomical evidence suggests that if they evolved on a world it may well be dead and gone by now. The fact that Jokers World has not been found within the 'life-bubble' does not lead me to believe it is hidden. I find I believe it is not there. It must be obvious that 'the dark side of the sun' is an idea rather than a place.

  'It had crossed my mind,' admitted Dom. He was sitting in the ooze, watching the light dance on the surface overhead. 'Is it a poetic image?'

  Poetry is the highest art. The Jokers must have achieved it.

  Dom sighed. 'I had an idea at the start that it was just a matter of finding some cute explanation like - well, like Hrsh-Hgn's.'

  That is in fact very poetic, and quite possible. But it ...

  Another lapse into intranslatability. An itch; a sense of wrongness, traditionally embodied in the almost physical pain some people experienced in seeing a picture hung crooked and being unable to right it; a feeling of discord.

  Th at would make them like Creapii. Environment conditions the mind, and the Jokers did not think like Creapii. However, the Creapii are indubitably the most advanced race at present. I suggest you study them. In the Creapii is a clue to the Jokers.

  'So I won't discover a world.'

  / did not say so. But the idea is more important. Do you not say 'the world of the common wasp', or 'the world of the poet'? They are worlds, and only incidentally include some reference to a physical reality like a planet.

  'I think I see,' said Dom, getting up. 'The world of the Jokers may be just a way of looking at the universe?'

  Precisely.

  'I shall visit the Creapii.' He tried to remember. 'I think the High-Degrees have just opened a study raft on the Chain Stars, haven't they?'

  So I understand. Since the High-Degrees represent the most advanced Creapii and specialize in the study of other life forms your choice of destination is a good one.

  Dom prepared to swim to the surface, but stopped. 'There was something you wanted me to do?'

  I t is a great favour. You are Chairman of Widdershins, a world largely composed of water?

  'On the surface, yes. Over ninety percent, including the marshes.'

  I would like to emigrate.

  Chatogaster explained. Band was a pleasant world, but lacked stimulation. He could communicate with the liquid content of sundogs who had as pups drunk from the lake, and hence through their own telepathy - which was no more than a by-function of their massive brains - learn from the minds of travellers. But Chatogaster wanted to spread out. He needed no ship. If Dom could take the little container that had held his drinking water, and let it be filled, enough of Chatogaster could be taken to Widdershins to let the great Tethys ocean become Chatogaster as well. He was persuasive.

  I could take care of your fish, and police your sea-lanes. I could provide surf with the muscles of the tide, and an inspiration for your
poets. Who drinks of me drinks of the well of the universe. Please.

  Dom hesitated, and the lake saw why.

  I h ave no power. I may aid, but I cannot fight. What should I want with conquests? I am...

  Untranslatable, but images of a mind rather than a force; an idea formed in water rather than a creature; a certainty that the lake was speaking - not the truth, because that suggested it could lie, and Chatogaster could not lie . . .

  'I may be overruled by the Board but,' he opened the little bottle that had been in his carryall, 'step right in.' An air bubble escaped from the bottle.

  Thank you.

  A kick carried Dom easily to the surface. He broke water and struck out for the shore.

  Crackdown appeared to have ended. One or two eggs spiralled down as he scrambled up the slope, but they exploded a long way off in the south. A few damp pups, no bigger than a man, were taking their first shaky steps.

  Here and there older pups were baying at the sky, long snouts pointing trembling at the clouds. The reddish hair on their cone-shaped bodies was sleeked down. One near to the lake was shuddering.

  'Pssst!'

  Hrsh-Hgn and a robot with a large Three on its chestplate leapt out of the grass. Without pausing in their stride they each grabbed him by an elbow and the three of them tumbled back towards the lake.

  The air began to smell of methane, a fruity foul smell that caught in Dom's throat.

  'Hrsh! Isaac got you, then? What's happened to Isaac? You're Isaac? What happened?'

  The robot was half covered in soot, and there were superficial metal runs down one arm. The phnobe nodded absently and peered back across the plain. The nearest pup was trembling now, violently, and a thin plume of vapour was coming from three swollen glands around its broad rump.

  'The robot was bitten by a dog,' murmured Hrsh-Hgn, 'It'ss been ssomewhat exciting up here. Cave Canem!'

  They hit the grass. An explosion dug a crater in front of them. A hot wind whipped over the sweetgrass, driving a boiling cloud of greasy black smoke. In an instant a false night fell.

  Above it the sunpup wobbled into the air on three blinding blue flames. Slowly, following the route its ancestors had taken a million years before to escape a hostile world, it rose above the plains.

  It gained speed and height, blew a smoke ring, and was

  still accelerating when Dom lost it in the distant cirrus.

  Calculations:

  Hrsh-Hgn manipulated a small slideball.

  'I'm relieved to ssay it could not work,' he said.

  'There are two suits in the One Jump,' said Dom. 'One ought to fit you.'

  Two miles away a sunpuppy rose baying on a spreading cone of smoke.

  'Look at it this way,' began Isaac persuasively, 'If we attack Madam with whirling memory-swords she'll stop playing and start blasting. I daresay she won't see Dom hurt but . . . what do you rate your chances?'

  'Better a boiled lamb than a roasst sheep.'

  'There's no fuel in the One Jump,' said Dom.

  'Not a drop,' added Isaac.

  'It's the only way.'

  Another puppy thundered upwards on a vast ventral explosion of gas. Hrsh-Hgn watched it go, his big rheumy eyes betraying a storm of mixed emotions.

  'But I am no good with animalsss!' he wailed.

  It was defeat. Dom and Isaac looked at each other and nodded.

  Fifteen minutes later the Drunk sank into the grass by the empty yacht. Joan surveyed her bodyguard impatiently.

  'Twenty of you and they got away!'

  'The Class Five robot precipitated an illogical series of events,' explained Twelve.

  'He was a Class Five mind. He told us to count to three,' added Nineteen helpfully.

  'Then he hit us,' said Twelve.

  'When we get back to civilization I'll see to it that the robot is lobotomized,' said Joan grimly. 'Why did we ever start building human robots?'

  'The Class Fives were constructed because of their...' began Twelve, and was intelligent enough to stop when Joan looked at him.

  Four more robots trudged in, carrying the prone bodies of Three and Eight.

  'I feel sad,' said Twelve.

  'May they rust in peace,' echoed Nineteen.

  'When they're recalibrated I'll make sure they go down a class,' muttered Joan. 'Right. The rest of you spread out. We won't leave till they're found.'

  Ten miles eastward three sunpuppies blasted upwards. They wobbled a little, trying to stabilize the extra weight, then soared towards the stars.

  Hrsh-Hgn wailed that he appeared to be in a fast-decaying orbit, but you couldn't hurry negotiations with a sundog.

  She hung above them, and her name was Gully-Triode-stroke-Pledge-Hudsons-Bay-Preferred.

  'The pups did reach orbit safely,' said Dom patiently.

  'Nevertheless, it was a despicable act, Man. The safety of our young is of paramount importance to us.

  Dom thought very quickly.

  'I carry the seed of Chatogaster,' he intoned.

  Any friend of the lake is a friend of mine, Buster. Possibly a large payment into the sundog account would make amends for the crime which happened to be witnessed by Us alone. What is your name?

  'Dom Sabalos.'

  The name has a familiar ring. We have heard it recently. However. The Chain Stars are on the rim of the bubble. It will be a long time in interspace.

  'The robot can take it. My friend and I have our suits. My friend is nearing re-entry,' said Dom, adopting the sun-dog's clipped style.

  It was a long, long time in Interspace.

  Dom told himself that he knew that they were safe inside the sundog's field; but that didn't stop him from holding on to the beast's hide until his hands ached. The suit provided a strong depressive that made the naked images merely unpleasant. Hrsh-Hgn had passed out. Isaac had shut down most of his circuits.

  It was a long time.

  9

  'They should not exist. They are theoretically possible, but so is balancing a needle on the end of a hair. Faced with something like the Chain Stars a man must either bow the knee, or else get good and worried.'

  Charles Sub-Lunar, Galactic Excursions

  Dom wondered what was so impressive. That was when the Chain was still twenty AUs away, and side on.

  Then the Creapii shuttle came in closer.

  Imagine a doughnut, three million miles across. Imagine another. Link them.

  The Chain Stars. And tumbling around them, Minos - a planet formed from thousands of asteroids, dragged across the light years and fused into a world. That was another Joker achievement, the Maze on Minos.

  The cabin was empty except for shape-adaptable seats and the screen. From outside it had appeared gigantic, several times bigger than an average cargo ship and surprisingly streamlined. Dom knew that most of the bulk must be shielding, plus an engine big enough to lift the ship up against the crushing pull of a sun. But the streamlining puzzled him.

  Until he realized. Even suns have atmospheres.

  The glowing, linked rings grew rapidly in the screen, until the outer edges slipped away. It was no comfort to know the image was just that, an image darkened and screened down until it was merely bright. Instinct said they were plunging into the heart of a star.

  'Born of the sun, we travel a little way towards the sun,' misquoted Isaac, tactlessly. Dom relaxed, and laughed. He thought he could hear a muted thunder, not unlike the roar of star flames. It was impossible, of course. It was just that he thought he could hear it. Of course, it was impossible.

  Finally all definition was lost, and the screen became a painfully white rectangle. Hrsh-Hgn was trembling with a phnobe's instinctive fear of naked sunlight. Dom pictured the ship coasting over a glowing sea, one with no horizon, and stopped his imagination resolutely when he thought of all the little mechanical things that could go wrong.

  Something was drastically wrong with the raft when it appeared.

  Artists and the eye of imagination portr
ayed a raft only a few steps removed from the log platforms that dagon fishers used, with perhaps a few Creapii slithering nonchalantly across the deck, and it was open to the - sky, with a class of a yellow ocean a long way beneath. But even High-Degrees could not survive in the open except on near-cinders stars, and the Chains Raft was one of the first on a hot star. It was just a blank hemisphere, hovering flat side down in what appeared on the screen as a thin mist.

  The shuttle docked gently, and a section of wall slid back to reveal a circular grey tunnel. A friendly mechanical voice invited them to follow it. Dom led the way, warily.

  The sound he heard hit him like a club. He ran forward, unbelieving.

  It was the sea.

  His Furness CReegE + 690° rolled down to the beach on bright caterpillar tracks. He was big, much bigger than the low-degree Creapii that lived on Widdershins. His egg-shaped suit was golden. A fawn pranced by his side, and a small blue singing bird was perched on his tentacle. His Furness stopped at the surf line and waited patiently.

  Dom felt his toes touch the sand and waded through the waves. Some of the strangeness of the Creap was gone now. He knew that he was looking at a creature who was the leader of the most advanced sub-species of a race ten times as old as men. Was the featureless ovoid looking at him? What did it see?

  An armoured tentacle handed him a towel. It was rough and smelled of lemons.

  'A pleasant swim?' The light tenor voice materialized without visible means of support.

  'Thank you, yes,' said Dom. He opened his hand, and showed the Creap a small purple shell.

  'Trivia monarcha sinistrale,' said the Creap. 'The Widdershine ink cowrie. Beautiful in its simplicity. How did you find my ocean?'

  Dom looked back at the waves. The surf was faked. The horizon was a masterpiece of illusion, and was a hundred metres from the shore. An artificial sun set in a splendour that was real. An evening star hung in the crimson glow.

  'Convincing,' he said.

  The Creap laughed pleasantly, and led him slowly up the beach.