Sunborn Read Online Free Page B

doesn’t look even remotely like a cone./
        /// Not literally, perhaps. ///
        The quarx detoured into a brief discourse with the stones. Finally it spoke again.
        /// The stones believe it is a hyperdimensional cone.
        What we see is merely a cross-section of its body
        where it intersects our spacetime continuum. ///
        /You got all that out of what we just heard? This thing is a  living...hyperdimensional?...cone? What does that mean ? Does it have a name?/
        /// The stones are still working on that. ///
        Bandicut nodded dizzily. He wondered if his friends were seeing these tortured landscape images, too. Were his translator-stones communicating with theirs, conveying all that they were unraveling? He saw new movement in the jagged mountain landscape—twinkling movement, of indistinct shapes. Other hypercones? He heard something like...a buzz of conversation? There was a rhythm to the sound, and to the movements. The pulse of life on this being’s world?
        The hypercone spoke again, and now he managed to make out some of the sounds. Its voice was like sand flowing down a series of resonating steps, changing pitch with each step: “Ehh-h-hed...g-gonn-nn-t-to-g-get-t-t hhh-helll-ellp-p-p-p.”
        Bandicut blinked. /Did you catch that? It sounded like—/
        /// Ed-gone-to-get-help? ///
        /Yes. Is that its mission?/
        *Attempting clarification,*  whispered the stones.
        Bandicut closed his eyes, trying to focus. Then:
        *We have refined the translation. That is its name. You may try to speak.*
        Bandicut blinked his eyes open. The hypercone’s outer rim was now blue. What do you say to a fried egg? “Hello...Ed-gone-to-get-help. Would it...be okay if I called you ‘Ed’?”
        The cone shivered faintly. “Eh-hd. Yeh-hss. Long-ng naaame difffff-icult-t.”
        Bandicut drew a slow breath. “Yes. My name is... John .”
        “Johhhnnn.”  The cone sounded like a French horn, full of harmonics, as it repeated Bandicut’s name. Its outer portion shimmered.
        “That’s right.” Bandicut paused. So much to ask. What first? “Where...do you come from, Ed? And what is it you came to speak about? To ask help for?”
        The cone started to quiver. “S-sshowww...”
        The visual images became steadier, but at the same time began to glow more brightly. The dull orange and maroons of the mountains turned luminous, becoming intense with heat, difficult to look at. Fire licked at the sky overhead. The beings twinkling along the rock faces, beings whose shapes he could not comprehend, were moving more quickly now. There was a dissonant buzzing in the air.
        /// I sense distress. ///
        /Definitely. But why? /
        /// Uncertain...///
        Bandicut became aware of Antares whispering, “There is great fear. I don’t know of what. But those...whatever they’re called...”
        “Cones. Hypercones.”
        Antares’s eyes suddenly filled with concern; her hazy gold irises dilated into a thin gold ring surrounding large, jet-black pupils. “They fear for their lives.”
        Ed began changing color again. The quivering beneath Bandicut’s hand intensified. The deep blue of the outer ring was developing a magenta swirl. Ed spoke again, breathily, with a sound like a large pot of thick liquid boiling. “Day-hay-hayn-jerr. Dayn-jerr.”
        “Danger?” Bandicut asked. “What kind of danger?”
        “Dan-gerr ffrom the s-skyyy.”
        Bandicut felt Antares’s hand tighten on his arm, as the sky behind the mountains flickered and danced. He glimpsed what looked like a sun, roiling and fuming. That doesn’t look too stable, he thought.
        “Ed? Is that sun a danger to your homeworld?”
        The cone trembled. “Alll...alll in dangerr. S-s-sun sh-shaking-ng. Many-y-y suns-s-s.”
        “ Why?  Why is your sun shaking?”
        The creature