Ivan Cat - The Burning Heart of Night

Karr did not waste any time looking for a clean uniform to go over the ghimpsuit. He had no Gattler, and acquiring one was his next priority. After several hours of hunting around the ship, he decided there were no more of the multitools in any of the usual storage dumps. However, he was able to jury-rig one from a stockpile of replacement cartridges and parts. All it had was cutting beam and needle shooting barrels, no surgical foam, adhesive, or ultrasonic projector, but with any luck it would serve Karr's purposes. With apprehension growing in his gut, Karr set off to find Long Reach's chain of large vertebrae and the superconductor core that paralleled them.

Somewhere between the spare parts storage containers and his goal, he felt a heavy impact to the back of his head and his world faded out.

The fires were out.

Humans, domestics, and Ferals huddled together on paddle-boards, skimmers, and skrag island fragments that dotted the ocean. Bruised and battered and wet, they made no sound. Only the labor cries of a single human female broke the dark night. The Burning Heart was gone. The great null-shadow had devoured it. And no one of either species was sure if that was good or bad, or what would happen next.

Dawn broke over the shell-shocked sentients, bringing warmth and glorious radiance, but also bringing Kthulah's armada. The great fleet encircled the survivors. The floating mountain that was the island of Gnosis bore down upon the clustered blockade-breakers and Prophecy violators, coming to visit its judgment upon them.

Karr awoke on his back, his head pounding, his wrists and feet burning. Overhead was a dome of cartilage, glowing a faint salmon pink. Beneath and puffing up around him, were warm pillows of neural tissue. He was in the brainroom. Lifting his head he saw human implanted control consoles, shorted out and lifeless now, which ringed the pear-shaped room. And he also saw the reason his extremities hurt; he was affixed to Long Reach's large cerebral cortex. Qi needles were driven right through his wrists and ankles, deep into the convoluted brain tissue. How strange was this, he wondered, as a small movement on his part brought extreme jolts of discomfort, to be crucified in the place where he had always felt the strongest bond between Pilot and fugueship? He had been brought to face the judgment of the ship he had so badly wronged.

But by whom?

Off in a corner, Karr saw his jury-rigged Gattler, carelessly discarded. Closer, pacing as best it could with what looked like a shattered leg, was Karr's jailer and accuser, the in-human.

"Big Null, Big Null," it muttered obsessively. "Must keep Big Null safe. Must, must, must."

Two things about the creature immediately affronted Karr. The first was its very presence. How could it have survived the long minutes submerged in the boiling water, and then the blast, albeit diffused, of the null-fusion reactor? The in-human had appeared half-dead before Karr knocked it into the well shaft to save Arrou. Now it looked positively undead. Its skin was seared black, cracking and showing pink and bloody wherever its hide bent or flexed.

The second thing that affronted Karr, in the extreme, was that the in-human was not collapsed in a fugue- coma . In fact it was moving around, talking, and Karr could understand it.

"This one must keep the Big Null safe," it muttered. "But how, when the Big Null does not want to be safe? How? In-robert does not know?"

"In-robert?" Karr heard himself repeating dully. "In-robert, in-robert...?" Why did that name sound so familiar? Why did it bother him so much? Then it hit Karr. "In -bob? Your name is in-BOB!"

The deranged creature swung its muzzle to face Karr. "Friends sometimes call in-robert that for short."

Karr couldn't take it anymore. He pitched a fit.

"I will not accept this! This is more coincidence than one Pilot can stand!" How could it be, to be plagued, over the span of twenty-seven light years and two subjective months, by not one but two insane creatures, one a human and one an alien, who were both immune to the paralyzing effects of fugue ? and both of whom were named Bob! What were the odds of it? One in a billion? One in a billion, billion? It could not be! "I do not accept this!" Karr screamed at the universe.

"In-bob does not accept it either," the creature said, with a pained look on the face under its awful mask. "In-bob must keep the Big Null safe. That is clear. The Big Null is Purpose. The Purpose must be obeyed. The Big Null must be safe. But the Big Null does not want to be safe. So how can the Purpose be obeyed? How can in-bob keep safe the Big Null if it does not want to be safe?"

Karr thrashed, despite the pain it cause his skewered feet and wrists. "Shut up! Shut up, you deranged creature! You're not making any sense!"

In-bob hobbled closer.

"It wants to die," in-bob said, distraught. "In-bob does not know why, but the Big Null wants to die."

The way the creature swung its head around the brainroom, as if looking around with its eyeless sockets, Karr suddenly understood what it meant by the Big Null. It meant Long Reach. A shiver coursed down his spine.

"How do you know that?" Karr asked quietly. "How do you know it wants to die?"

"It speaks to in-bob," the in-human said in an awed gurgle.

"It does not," Karr objected. "It doesn't speak. It has no vocal apparatus. And besides, it is a dumb

beast of burden."

"No, no," the in-human argued. "It has no mouth, but in-bob knows what it thinks. In-bob feels it."

The inhuman leaned against Long Reach's giant cortex, its Khafra paws splayed wide, as if prostrate before a god, its head bowed, earpits pressing into the soft tissue as if listening, like a human might listen to a seashell. "It is not dumb. It is Pilots that are dumb if they think that. The Big Null needs, feels, knows. Its thoughts are simple, but true, mostly... except that it wants to die." In-bob stood up, pursing his cone of teeth pensively. "And except that it won't let in-bob kill the Pilot." In-bob leaned over Karr and snapped his teeth petulantly. "It says Pilot is friend; that is why Pilot is allowed to call this one in-bob, for short. In-bob wants to kill Pilot anyway, but it says no."

"It does? It said that to you?"

"It feels that to in-bob," the in-human said, its muzzle curling in disgust as it explained further. "It feels better when it feels the Pilot. It isn't lonely when it feels the Pilot. It isn't afraid when it feels the Pilot. It wants the Pilot to be always and never go away. Foolish, foolish Big Null. Why does the Big Null want to die, Pilot? Why?"

"I don't know," Karr stammered, hardly able to speak.

Epiphany.

Karr's ship knew that he existed. It had feelings about him. It felt bad when he was gone and safe when he was near. It did not want him to die. Karr felt hot tears on his cheeks. He had always known that he loved his ship, but he had never known that it loved him too.

In-bob glowered, oblivious to the human's emotions. "Little Nulls are killing it. That must be it. That's what in-bob thinks. Little Nulls are sucking Big Null's life out. Little Nulls must die."

Abruptly, the in-human scuttled out of the brainroom.

Karr continued to weep. Epiphany followed epiphany. His ship wanted to die. The mad alien was right, Karr knew. In his own limited way, Karr also sensed the moods of his ship; he could not deny what he felt, crucified upon and half enveloped by his ship's cortex. Karr sensed sadness, but mostly acceptance, and even a little anticipation of the end to his ship's centuries-old journey through time and space.

It was an untenable situation for a Pilot. It was his Duty to do everything in his power to keep his ship alive. He wanted more than anything to keep his ship alive.