Jack McDevitt: POLARIS

Unlike the researchers in the Sentinel and the Rensilaer, they were no more than casual observers. No work was being done, no measurements taken, no records kept, by any of them. They were there simply to enjoy the show, which consisted of slices of feeds from all three ships and from dozens of probes and satellites. They would sit quietly, or noisily if they preferred, and watch. Survey and the scientific community were saying thanks for their assorted contributions.

The Polaris wasn’t designed as a research vessel. It was a supplemental carrier, a luxury vehicle (by Survey’s spartan standards) that transported VIPs whom the director wanted to impress. Usually, these were political figures. This, however, was a different sort of occasion.

The images of Delta Karpis and the white dwarf on the wall screen were better than anything they could see with the naked eye. Still, Boland, who was a psychiatrist, noticed they all had a tendency to station themselves near the viewports, as if that were the only way to be really present at the event.

Huge explosions erupted periodically from the surface of the sun and vast waves of glowing gas were flung into the darkness of space.

A streak of white light ripped outward from the dwarf. “Looks like a piece broke off,” said Urquhart.

“Not possible,” said Klassner. “Nothing’s going to break off a neutron star and float away. It was gas.”

Boland was the youngest of the passengers. He was probably forty, with black hair, trim good looks and a self-confident demeanor that never failed to turn women’s heads. He had started out doing mind wipes and personality reconstruction for violent criminals, converting them into contented-or at least, law-abiding-citizens. But he was best known for his work in the neurological sciences, and for the Boland Model, which purported to be the most comprehensive explanation ever devised of how the brain worked.

Delta Kay’s remaining worlds moved serenely in their orbits, as if nothing unusual were occurring. Except for the innermost, which had been a gas giant so close to the sun that it literally sailed through its outer atmosphere. That was Delta Karpis I.

It had no other name, and now it was gone, swallowed by a flare. They’d seen it happen. It had plunged in, but only a couple of its moons had emerged on the other side.

When the dwarf arrived, a year ago, Delta Kay had possessed a planetary system containing five gas giants, six terrestrial worlds, and a couple of hundred moons. The outermost was still there, a world of blue crystal and brilliant silver rings, with only three satellites. Boland thought it the loveliest celestial object he’d ever seen.

Kissoff was also still relatively untouched by the disaster. Its oceans remained placid, and its skies were quiet except for a hurricane in one of the southern seas. It was just getting started, but it would not have an opportunity to develop. Most of the other worlds had been dragged from their orbits and were now outbound. Delta Karpis IV had been a double planet, two terrestrial worlds, each with a frozen atmosphere. They’d been ripped apart and were now headed in almost diametrically opposite directions.

The dwarf was smaller than Rimway, smaller even than Earth. But it packed more mass than Delta Kay, and Boland knew that if somehow he could reach the surface of the object, he would weigh billions of tons.

At 2:54 A . M ., the dwarf and its shining ring slipped into the chaos and disappeared.

At 2:54 A . M ., the dwarf and its shining ring slipped into the chaos and disappeared.

Urquhart said he didn’t care what anybody said, something that small couldn’t possibly avoid getting swallowed by the conflagration. Tom Dunninger commented how it could just as easily have been a sun warming one of the Confederate worlds.

“It’s a sobering moment,” he said. “Makes you realize nobody’s safe.”

The comment seemed pointed, and Boland wondered if he was sending a message.

Huge explosions ripped through the stricken sun, and the AI reported that temperatures on its surface were soaring. Its basic yellow-orange hue was fading to white. Wild forest fires had broken out on Kissoff. And enormous clouds of mist were rising out of the oceans. Abruptly, the picture went blank.

“Lost at the source,” said the AI.

Delta Kay V was adrift, sucked in toward the collision. It was normally icecovered, with only a wisp of atmosphere. But the ice had melted, and its sky was full of thick gray clouds. Two of the satellites orbiting the gas giant Delta Kay VII collided. Its rings, brown and gold like a sunset, began to shimmer and break apart.

Maddy’s voice sounded over the link: “The Rensilaer is saying the sun’ll put out as much energy during the next hour as it has over the last hundred million years.”

The Sentinel reported that it was taking more radiation than it had been prepared for and was withdrawing. Its captain told Madeleine, in a transmission mistakenly relayed to the passengers, to be careful. “That’s bad weather out there.”

Madeleine English stayed on the bridge. Usually she did not hesitate to join her passengers in the common room when circumstances allowed, but at the moment conditions demanded she remain in the pilot’s seat. She was a beautiful woman, with blue eyes, lush blonde hair, perfect features. But there was no softness in her, no sense that she was in any way vulnerable.

Mendoza asked whether they were too close.

“We’re at a safe distance,” Maddy said. “Don’t worry. At the first sign of overload, we’ll skedaddle.”

One hour, eight minutes after it had vanished into the inferno, the dwarf reappeared. It had plowed directly through the sun, sailed through, according to the experts on the other ships, like a rock going through fog. The solar stream that had reached out toward it during its approach had collapsed back into the turbulence, and a new one was forming on the opposite side, dragged out of the dying star by the enormous gravity. Then a titanic explosion obscured the view.

“I’m closing the viewports,” said Maddy. “You’ll have to settle for watching the feeds now. If it goes prematurely, we don’t want anyone blinded.” Dunninger napped. And even Mendoza. Nancy White looked tired. She’d tried to get some rest during the day, but it didn’t matter. Circadian rhythms were what they were, and it happened that ship time coincided with Andiquar time, so it really was close to 4:00 A . M . She had taken something to stay awake. Boland didn’t know what it was, but he knew the symptoms.

Boland was startled by the tug of the ship’s engines. Madeleine appeared briefly at the door to report that it was getting “a little bit hot outside,” and she was going to withdraw to a safer distance. “Everybody belt down.”

They secured Mendoza and Dunninger without waking them. And then Boland settled into his own harness.

Incredibly, it didn’t seem as if the dwarf had even slowed down. It was still dragging the entrails of the sun behind it. The scene reminded Boland of a cosmic taffy pull.

The senior expert on stellar collisions was on the Sentinel. He’d predicted that the sun would collapse during the course of the event. Final demolition would occur, he said, when the various forces generated by the passage of the dwarf had time to penetrate the outer layers. Delta Karpis was more massive than their home sun by about a quarter, more massive than Sol by a third.

Maddy piped in the voice of one of the experts from the Rensilaer: “Any minute now.”

They woke Mendoza and Dunninger.

“It’s starting to go,” said Klassner. “What you’ll see first is a general collapse.”

Moments later, that character-switch came over him, and he was someone else. He looked first puzzled, then sleepy. Boland watched his eyelids sag. Within minutes, Klassner was asleep.