Starplex

He stared into the darkness, eyes wide open.

* * *

Once the Rumrunner had docked, Longbottle went off to eat, and Jag returned to the bridge. The Waldahud was now keeping erect by use of an intricately carved cane—still better than reverting to four legs. Keith, Rissa, Thor, and Lianne had all had a night’s sleep, and Rhombus—well, Ibs didn’t sleep, a fact that made their long lifespans seem doubly unfair. Jag usually stood in front of the six workstations to give reports, but this time he walked back to the seating gallery and collapsed into the center chair, letting the others rotate their stations to face him.

Keith looked at the Waldahud expectantly. “Well?”

Jag marshaled his thoughts a moment, then began to bark. “As some of you know, stars are divided into three broad age categories. First-generation stars are the oldest in the universe, and consist almost entirely of hydrogen and helium, the two original elements. Less than 0.02 percent of their composition is heavier atoms, and those, of course, were produced internally through the stars’ own fusion processes. When first-gens go nova or supernova, the interstellar dust clouds are enriched with these heavier elements. Since second-generation stars coalesced from such clouds, a full percent or a bit more of a second-gen’s mass comes from metals—‘metals’ in this context meaning elements heavier than helium. Third-generation stars are even more recent; the suns of all the Commonwealth homeworlds are third-gens, as are all stars being born today, although, of course, some first-gens and a lot of second-gens are still around, too. Third-gens consist of about two percent metals.”

Jag paused for a moment, and looked from face to face in the room. “Well,” he said, “that star”—he gestured with one of his medial arms at the green orb in the holo sphere “has about eight percent of its mass as metals, four times as much as even a typical third-gen. The thing has enough iron in it that you could actually mine it.”

“What about the green color?” asked Keith.

“It’s not really green, of course, any more than a so-called red star is actually red. Almost all stars are white, with just a hint of color.” He gestured with his medial limbs at the starfield around them. “PHANTOM routinely colorizes the stars in our holo bubble, assigning them colors based on their Hertzsprung-Russell categories. The star out there just has a greenish tinge. The absorption-line blanketing due to its metal content is stronger than the backwarming, and that weakens the star’s output in the blue and ultraviolet. The result is more of the star’s light coming out in the green region of the spectrum.” His fur danced. “I would have said a star with so much metal content would be impossible in our universe at its present age if I hadn’t seen one with my own four eyes. It must have formed under very peculiar local conditions, and—”

“Forgive the interruption, good Jag,” said Rhombus, “but I’m detecting a tachyon pulse.”

Keith swiveled in his chair, facing the shortcut.

“Gods,” said Jag, rising to his feet. “Most stars are part of multiple star systems—”

“We can’t take another close passage,” said Lianne. “We’ll—”

But the shortcut had already stopped expanding. A small object had popped through. The gateway had grown to only seventy centimeters in diameter before collapsing down to an invisible point.

“It’s a watson,” announced Rhombus. An automated communications buoy. “Its transponder says it’s from Grand Central Station.”

“Trigger playback,” Keith said.

“The message is in Russian,” said Rhombus.

“PHANTOM, translate.”

The central computer’s voice filled the room. “Valentina Ilianov, Provost, New Beijing Colony, to Keith Lansing, commander, Starplex. An M-class red-dwarf star has erupted from the Tau Ceil shortcut. Fortunately, it emerged heading away from Tau Ceil, rather than toward it. So far, no real damage has been done, although we had trouble piloting this watson past the star and into the portal. This is our third attempt to reach you. We did manage to contact the astrophysics center on Rehbollo for advice, and they had the incredible news that a star has popped out of the shortcut near them as well—a blue B-class star, in their case. I am now contacting all other active shortcuts to find out just how widespread this phenomenon is. End of message.”

Keith looked around the bridge, bathed in green starlight. “Christ Jesus,” he said.

Chapter IX

“I say we’re under attack,” announced Thorald Magnor, getting up from the helm position, and walking over to the seating gallery to sit a few chairs to the right of Jag. “We’ve apparently been lucky so far, but dropping a star into a system could destroy all life there.”