Cryptobiosis is a metabolic state of life that’s almost indistinguishable from death. The wood frog, as an example, develops a kind of antifreeze in its blood, allowing it to survive frozen in ice. Tardigrades have been frozen to within one degree of absolute zero for months on end and survived. The eggs of brine shrimp (sold as sea monkeys) can remain viable even when desiccated. Scientists have revived yeast used by the Pharaohs of Egypt. Space is a hostile environment, but it is not impossible for life to survive, especially if that life lies dormant and cocooned within an asteroid.
An̆duru had a complex reproductive cycle. How likely is that to evolve? Great question. I’m glad you asked.
On Earth, parasites that inhabit the intestinal tract have a problem that’s similar to An̆duru’s. How do you get from one nice, warm, cozy place to another? Instead of planets, we’re talking about guts, but the principle is similar in that there needs to be a workable strategy or the parasite will go extinct. Hookworms accomplish this by laying eggs that come out in feces. But having someone accidentally stand on the newly hatch larvae is still a long way from another stomach. The larvae have to burrow through the skin. The bloodstream, though, still isn’t the gut. So how do they get to their nice, warm, cozy home? They get pumped to the heart and out to the lungs. From there, they bore through the air sacs into the lungs themselves. Humans then cough them up into the throat where they’re swallowed and—voila—they’re back home in a gut where they can reproduce.
Sounds crazy, right? Toxoplasma gondii is even more bananas. It can only reproduce in cats. So it has a problem. How does it get from one cat gut to another? Cats are renown for being fastidious with their excrement. Enter the mouse. Mice eat cat poo. But a mouse gut isn’t the nice, warm, cozy home Toxoplasma gondii’s looking for. Ah, but cats love eating mice. Toxoplasma gondii exploits this and drives the mice insane. Yep. Toxoplasma gondii manipulates those tiny rodent minds so they’re no longer afraid of cats and—voila—the cycle is complete.
Given time, natural selection can solve the most intractable problems with clever solutions. Could a seed pod like An̆duru actually exist? It’s not outside the realms of possibility.
Again, thank you for supporting independent science fiction.
Writing is hard. It’s like running a marathon blindfolded. Novels often surface for a brief moment before slipping beneath the waves of obscurity. If you’ve enjoyed this story, please tell someone about it.
I’d like to thank my wife for putting up with my crazy ideas. Oh, she suggested adding the sections about Jorge, giving us the perspective of an everyday person in another country instead of just a bunch of high-flyers in the White House. I think that adds an extra dimension to this story. My thanks also go to my editors, Ellen Campbell and David Jaffe. Technical assistance came from Per Hansen, who has worked with Lockheed Martin and Blue Origin. Per helped fine-tune a number of points around the launch and flight of the fictional Iris mission. I’d also like to thank the following beta-readers for helping refine this story further: Ben Honey (NASA), Didi Kanjahn, Bruce Simmons, Petr Melechin, and LuAnn Miller. These guys are super-fans! Their help in polishing this novel is deeply appreciated.
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Peter Cawdron
Brisbane, Australia
Wherever Seeds May Fall (First Contact) Page 35
