The Darkside Of The Sun

ten years hit the ground a hundred miles to the north of Dom. The overheated shell burst into a thousand fragments that scythed the grass for yards around …
    The second landed to the west of the lake. The shell exploded violently and red-hot shards showered over a herd of puppies who, in response to an ancient instinct, were lying down safely with their padded forepaws over their heads.
    From behind one came a Phnobic curseword.

8
    Dom bounced across the grass. Shell was flying all around him. There was already a long burn across one shoulder where a shard had narrowly missed taking off his head.
    The ground in front suddenly dipped, and the lake stretched out in front of him. It was big. It was also cold, and probably safe. He gunned his sandals and took a standing jump.
    The dive was from a height, and ended a long way down. He turned in a shoal of bubbles and struck out for surface. His ears rang. He was still sinking.
    Unbelieving, he felt his feet touch the lake bottom. Goggle-eyed, he felt the water round his feet warm up as his sandals tried uselessly to push him to the surface. Drowning, he breathed a chestful of water.
    He was several fathoms down. He was breathing water. He took another breath, and tried not to think about it.
    The water is saturated with oxygen. It will sustain you .
    A large silver fish stared at him, and was away with a flick of its tail. Something like a ten-legged crab scuttled over his feet.
    Do not be frightened .
    It was a sound. Something was talking to him.
    ‘You are Chatogaster, then.’ He peered into the murky water. ‘They looked for an aquatic creature, but they looked in the seas. I can’t see you.’
    I am here. You are thinking in the wrong terms .
    The water shone with stars. They winked on above, around, below. He could still feel the water eddy around him, but all other senses told him that he was standing and breathing in interstellar space. Deep space. The centre of a star cluster.
    No, the hub of the galaxy .
    ‘It’s an illusion.’
    No, it’s a memory. Watch .
    At the hub of the galaxy where the stars rubbed shoulders and interstellar distances were measured in light weeks a planet was bathed in the violent light of a hundred suns. It was made of water.
    At the centre it was Water IV, the third strangest substance in the universe, and the surface boiled. Dom watched the facts form in his mind with the inexorable growth of crystals.
    For a few thousand years the planet glooped and woobled its watery path between the stars, trailing behind it across the galactic sky a shimmering rainbow of steam that photon pressure sculptured into vast ghosts. Then it exploded.
    Dom found himself ducking. A churning droplet of water, a whole sea, left the damp explosion and passed him, steaming, on its way to the galactic rim.
    And he knew with a second-hand certainty that the hot wet world had produced life. It was a life that knew nothing of Jokers. In the hot water improbable compounds had formed unlikely molecules, had …
    ‘You are the lake,’ he said.
    I am. How is my old friend the Bank?
    ‘He was fine a few days ago,’ said Dom. ‘Uh … do you shun publicity?’
    Not at all, but I like my privacy. The Bank was the only other lifeform extant when I arrived here. The sundogs know me. But I help them, I take care of their pups, and they are reticent about me .
    ‘Take care of their pups? You must be telepathic.’
    Not as you would understand it. But most creatures are largely water, and I am wholly water. They drink of me, and I become part of them – as I am part of you. Osmosis, you see. Don’t let it offend you .
    ‘I won’t,’ said Dom. He kicked a cloud of mud from the lake bottom, and tried to convince himself.
    Eight of our days ago the Bank sent me a messenger. The Bank is rock, I am water. We have an understanding .
    Dom smiled. ‘Isn’t there some story about a sapient sun out towards galactic north?’ he asked.
    Yes, it is true. He is strange. We are instituting a search for an intelligent gas cloud now, to complete the elemental quartet. However, the Bank told me that he was sending a person to aid my extension programme .
    ‘He didn’t say that to me – I was told you could help me find Jokers World,’ said Dom.
    Maybe we can help one another .
    ‘What do you know about the Jokers?’
    Nothing. Knowledge is not my province. My province is ...
    There was no precise word for it. A series of images flashed across Dom’s mind as