ability, they can probably control gravity as well. We haven’t seen that before, I think, so it might be something they can only do on a large scale: a broad brush, so to speak. Everything we’ve seen so far — the disassembly of the rocky worlds, the Dyson motor around the gas giant — all that was watchmaker stuff. Now we’re seeing the first hints of Inhibitor heavy engineering.’ ‘Now you’re scaring me,’ Thorn said. ‘Entirely my intention.’ She smiled quickly. It was the first time he had seen her smile that evening. ‘So what is it going to be?’ Khouri asked. ‘A machine to make the sun go supernova?’ ‘No,’ the Triumvir replied. ‘We can rule that out, I think. They may have a technology that can do it, but it would only work on heavy stars, the kind that are already predestined to blow up. That would be a formidable weapon, I admit. You could sterilise a volume of space dozens of light-years wide if you could trigger a premature supernova. I don’t know how you would do it — maybe by tuning the nuclear cross sections to prohibit fusion for elements lighter than iron, thereby shifting the peak in the curve of binding energy. The star would suddenly have nothing to fuse, no means to support its outer envelope against collapse. They may have done it once, you know. Earth’s sun is in the middle of a bubble in the interstellar medium, blown open by a recent supernova. It intersects other structures right out to the Aquila Rift. They may have been natural events, or we might be seeing the scars left behind by Inhibitor sterilisation events millions of years before the Amarantin xenocide. Or the bubbles might have been blown open by the weapons of fleeing species. We’ll probably never know, no matter how hard we look. But that won’t happen here. There are no supergiant stars in this part of the galaxy now, nothing capable of undergoing a supernova. They must have evolved different weapons for dealing with lower-mass stars like Delta Pavonis. Less spectacular — no use for sterilising more than a solar system — but perfectly effective on that level.’ ‘How would you kill a star like Pavonis?’ Thorn asked. ‘There are several ways one might go about it,’ the Triumvir said thoughtfully. ‘It would depend on the resources available, and the time. The Inhibitors could assemble a ring around the star, just like they did with the gas giant. Something larger this time, of course, and perhaps functioning differently. There’s no solid surface to a star, not even a solid core. But they might encircle the star with a ring of particle accelerators, perhaps. If they established a particle-beam flux through the ring, they could create a vast magnetic force by tightening and loosening the ring in waves. The field from the ring would strangle the star like a constricting snake, pumping chromospheric material away from the star’s equator towards the poles. That’s the only place it could go, and the only place it could escape. Hot plasma would ram away from the star’s north and south poles. You might even be able to use those plasma jets as weapons in their own right, turning the whole star into a flame-thrower — all you’d need is more machinery above and below the poles to direct and focus the jets where you wanted them. You could incinerate every world in a solar system with a weapon like that, stripping atmosphere and ocean. You wouldn’t even need to dismantle the entire star. Once you’d removed enough of its outer envelope, its core would adjust its fusion rate and the whole star would become cooler and much longer-lived. That might suit their longer-term plans, I suppose.’ ‘That sounds as if it would take a long time,’ Khouri said. ‘And if all you’re going to do is incinerate the worlds, why waste half a star doing it?’ ‘They could dismantle the whole thing, if they wished. I’m merely pointing out the possibilities. There’s another method they might consider, too. They dismantled the gas giant by spinning it until it flew apart. They could do that to a sun, too: wrap accelerators around it again, this time in pole-to-pole loops, and start rotating them. They’d couple with the star’s magnetosphere and start dragging the whole thing along with them, until it was spinning faster than its own centrifugal break-up speed. Matter would lift off the star’s surface. It would come apart like an onion.’ ‘Sounds slow, too.’ Volyova nodded. ‘Perhaps. And there’s another thing we need to consider. The machinery that’s being assembled out there isn’t ringlike, and there’s no sign of any preparatory activity around the sun itself. The Inhibitors are going to use a different method again, I think.’ ‘How else do you destroy a star, if pumping or spinning it won’t work?’ Khouri asked. ‘I don’t know. Let’s assume they can manipulate gravity to some extent. If that’s the case, they might be able to make a planet-mass black hole from the matter they’ve already accumulated. Say ten Earth masses, perhaps.’ She held her hands slightly apart, as if weaving an invisible cat’s cradle. ‘This big, that’s all. At most, they might have the resources to make a black hole ten or twenty times larger — a few hundred Earth masses.’ ‘And if they dropped it into the star?’ ‘It would begin eating its way through it, yes. They would need to take great care to place it where it would do the maximum harm, though. It would be very difficult to insert it exactly in the star’s nuclear-burning heart. The black hole would be inclined to oscillate, following an orbital trajectory through the star. It would have an effect, I am sure — the mass density near the black hole’s Schwarzschild radius would reach the nuclear-burning threshold, I think, so the star would suddenly have two sites of nucleation, one orbiting the other. But it would only eat the star slowly, since its surface area is so small. Even when it had swallowed half the star, it would still only be three kilometres wide.’ She shrugged. ‘But it might work. It would depend acutely on the way in which matter fell into the hole. If it became too hot, its own radiation pressure would blast back the next layer of infalling material, slowing the whole process. I’ll have to do some sums, I think.’ ‘What else?’ Thorn asked. ‘Assuming it isn’t a black hole?’ ‘We could speculate endlessly. The nuclear-burning processes in the heart of any star are a delicate balance between pressure and gravity. Anything that tipped that balance might have a catastrophic effect on the overall properties of the star. But stars are resilient. They will always try to find a new balance point, even if that means switching to the fusion of heavier elements.’ The Triumvir turned to look out of the window again, tapping her fingers against the glass. ‘The exact mechanism that the Inhibitors will use may not even be comprehensible to us. It doesn’t matter, because they will never get that far.’ Khouri said, i’m sorry?‘ I do not intend to wait this out, Ana. For the first time the Inhibitors have concentrated their activity at one focus point. I believe they are now at their most vulnerable. And for the first time, the Captain is willing to do business.‘ Khouri flashed a glance in Thorn’s direction. ‘The cache?’ ‘He’s given me his assurance that he will allow its use.’ She continued tapping the glass, still not turning to face them. ‘Of course, there’s a risk. We don’t know exactly what the cache is capable of. But damage is damage. I am certain we can put back their plans.’ ‘No,’ Thorn said. ‘This isn’t right. Not now.’ The Triumvir turned from the window. ‘Why ever not?’ ‘Because the exodus operation is working . We’ve begun to lift people from the surface of Resurgam.’ Volyova scoffed. ‘A few thousand. Hardly a dent, is it?’ ‘Things will change when the exodus operation becomes official. That’s what we always counted on.’ ‘Things could get very much worse, too. Are you willing to take that chance?’
