Proxima Dreaming

by Brandon Q Morris

  “Thank you, Gronolf Carriontooth,” the system replies.

  May 9, 19, Eve

  The horrible sounds stopped yesterday. Since then, there has been silence. Eve is curled up in her chair, listening. It is amazing how quietly the life support systems operate. Both on Messenger and later on Valkyrie she was always surrounded by noise. Yet here it is quiet, like in the tent on the sled on the ice sheet of the dark hemisphere, when Marchenko took a break. Sometimes she used to hear Adam smack his lips in a dream, or whisper something incomprehensible. And occasionally the icy wind had caught the tarp of the tent.

  An eternity seems to have passed between the nights on the sled and today. Yet they have only been in this alien building for eight days. The day before yesterday she triggered something the effects of which she still cannot gauge. Undoubtedly some gigantic object is now approaching Proxima b. At least it looks like that on the projected 3D map. She rechecked this yesterday. According to her rough estimate, it will take another week to get here. She does not even dare to imagine what will happen then.

  And it doesn’t matter anyway. She has lost Adam. She has lost Marchenko. The worst option would be for her to spend the next 50 years alone in this building. Eve knows she could never kill herself. If that giant sphere out there were to take over that task, it would be fine with her. Eve licks her dry lips. She should go and get water again. The only sure source she knows is inside the aliens’ sleeping chambers. There probably is some water in the common rooms also, but she can’t find the energy to go looking for it. She would rather keep George company—the shriveled and mummified giant frog in the chair across from her.

  “Should we go and get water?”

  Sometimes she also talks to him. He answers by using slight, almost invisible gestures. Now he shakes his head—the upper end of his body where the four eyes are located. It is more a sagging cone than a round head, but using the standard term is more practical.

  “You are right. It’s not worth it.”

  Did he just nod? It looks like it. Of course she does not assume that George’s species would use the same gestures as humans. Yet he might have learned to nod by watching her.

  Suddenly a distant growl can be heard through the walls. She has never heard the roar of a hungry lion, but it must sound like this.

  “What was that, George? Any idea?”

  George stays rooted to the spot. He is either frightened himself, or he focuses on the noise.

  “Did you hear that, too? Or am I only imagining it?”

  No reaction. The alien obviously does not want to make a decision.

  “ISU, can you confirm the noise?”

  The sensor units on the ground rise up. They look like large ants putting their heads together.

  “Confirmed,” says the unit on the right side. This must be ISU 4, Eve remembers.

  “Do you know where it came from?”

  The unit on the left wiggles toward the wall. “From this direction,” it says.

  “What is located there?”

  “The aliens’ sleeping chambers are that way.”

  Eve jumps up and looks around frantically. The noise did not sound as if it was caused by a technical process.

  “George, did one of your friends wake up? Just tell me!”

  She gives the alien a stern look, but he is not impressed by it. Then she walks to the wall and places her ear against it. She cannot hear anything. The material cools her hot cheek. Eve kneads her fingers and walks back to the chair. She imagines an alien entering the control room. On the one side, the alien would see a dead comrade, on the other side an ugly, living foreign creature—herself—which to him would appear physically inferior. Would this alien now react calmly, examine his dead friend, notice that he died a long time ago, and then try patiently to establish contact with her? Eve laughs anxiously. She needs to find a hiding place.

  Not yet, though—she still has a bit of time. First she sits back down in her chair. Who says the alien will really come here? Perhaps he is weakened and won’t be able to make it here. She should not do anything rash now. In reality, what does it matter whether she dies today or a week from now? The strong—if it is still strong—giant frog will probably kill her quickly and painlessly.

  She puts her arms on the armrests, but what looks casual when done by George is downright uncomfortable for her. Her lips are still dry. If she would... she remembers the way from the sleeping chambers to the control room. She went through the ventilation duct. If anybody were to visit her, he would use the normal path. She just has to use the air duct to return to the sleeping capsules and she will have her choice of the safest hiding places in this building. And in addition she will be able to quench her thirst. This sounds like a sensible plan. Eve jumps up.

  Brightnight 36, 3876

  “Lighting.”

  The system obeys his command and it gets brighter around him. At the foot end of the chamber there is an emergency food supply which he devours. He is in the sleeping hall, at about halfway up the wall of chambers. He is a bit afraid of the way, but he is also looking forward to once again meeting the others.

  Gronolf starts moving. Every step is painful. However, he notices that the pain decreases after a while. He has to regain his fitness soon. The control room called: It doesn’t need a pale shadow of him, it needs the real person. Gronolf moves up the rising path with slow steps. This is more strenuous than walking downward, but he needs the exercise. The light moves with him. Like an old man, he uses a touch-hand to hold on to the railing. He is glad nobody can see him now.

  He looks at the skin on his arms. It is brown and wrinkled. He does not just look like an old man, he is one. ‘Cycle 3876,’ the system said. He had slept for a very long time. While the hibernation slows the aging process, it does not stop it. Gronolf tries to find his last memories from before. They are evasive and always flee his grasping thoughts. What might have happened here? If he can trust his memories, he must have entered the sleeping chambers as a young man. That would be... unfair, because then he would have slept through the greatest and most important period in his life. He feels queasy in his secondary stomach. Women claim that it is the seat of emotion. Yet that is unscientific. Everyone knows that emotions are nothing but electrical impulses in the thinking layer, the ‘brain,’ below the skin.

  No. Those memories must be somewhere. He will find them again. He surely must have had a fantastic life. He was the strongest of his plex! Gronolf hits the wall with his right load-hand. The largest of the three fingers leaves a scratch in the hard material. The higher he gets, the warmer and more humid the air becomes. It is not supposed to be this way. And now there is also a strange smell. Gronolf cannot remember ever smelling anything like this. He tries to analyze the molecules. Before his draght, when he still swam in the ocean, it would have been easier for him, but his sense of smell is still useable. What reaches his smell-folds is definitely the stench of decay. Yet it is not the normal aroma of death. Gronolf stops and closes his eyes in order to focus better. Yes, definitely... it is dead sperm. The smell comes from above. He is feeling hot and starts walking faster. What has happened here?

  Two levels higher he finally sees it. One of the sleeping chambers has opened. One of his comrades lies on the couch. Gronolf stands next to him and looks at the corpse. He recognizes him as Rugnar. Rugnar comes from a younger plex and was the third-best of that litter. Gronolf also sees what causes the stench. Rugnar’s sperm pouches ruptured—the most valuable things he possessed, his future children. What happened here is not right. When a man dies, his sperm slowly dries up. Rugnar cannot have died naturally. Why did his chamber open, and was that the cause for his condition? He will have to find out why the capsule was opened, who was responsible for it. Gronolf tries to push it back in, but he fails. This means the chamber was opened by an override from outside. Gronolf touches the belly of the dead Grosnop. Now that he knows it is Rugnar, he no longer minds the stench.

  He stands up, turns
around by his comrade’s couch, and walks downward toward the control panel. He watches him with his rear eye until the light behind him switches off. He has to hurry. Something is going on that probably is also responsible for Rugnar’s death. It does not look like a simple technical error.

  Once he is down below he sees the control panel for the chambers. It is open, which is odd... and it was opened manually, by brute force, rather than with the usual ultrasonic command. The capsule that contained Rugnar has been selected. Somebody seemed to have opened a random capsule, no matter what the status display indicated.

  Anger rises in him and his load-arm muscles harden like just before a fight. He leans forward and looks for Rugnar’s chamber. No, his comrade was already dead inside the chamber. According to the status display, he died of old age. That can’t be true! Rugnar’s skin looked much fresher than his own, even after death. And the sperm pouches should have dried up long ago in that case, though he is not sure about that. He has never seen an adult male Grosnop who did not empty his sperm pouches beforehand. Even if he was not selected for fertilization, the protein is considered much too valuable to be wasted this way.

  He won’t find any answers here. Gronolf calls the system via ultrasound. Two meters to the left of the control panel the wall opens. Behind it is a chamber lit indirectly from the left and right. Gronolf enters it.

  “Control room,” he says.

  The wall closes again. Now the chamber starts to move. Some of the smell travels with him. Gronolf briefly closes his eyes and crouches on his strong feet.

  May 9, 19, Adam

  The ice passage—presumably created by Marchenko 2— ends suddenly. Adam scans his environment. He seems to have arrived in a large lake dug into the ice. The scanner also tells him the alien building is directly above. He has to be careful. Marchenko 2 probably took longer than he did, so Adam should catch up with him at some point. Then he will have to be prepared. Therefore he first swims slightly above the bottom of the ice lake. His helmet light illuminates the floor, which seems to be covered with trash. Suddenly he discovers a circular pattern. This can’t be a coincidence! Trash wouldn’t just sink to the bottom like that. Was somebody trying to leave a message for him, or is it a trap by Marchenko 2?

  Adam sees a particularly large piece of scrap exactly in the center of the circle. He cautiously approaches, then hesitates. He is almost certain Marchenko 2 created this circle and placed the object in the middle. But why? He cannot know that somebody is following him, so it ought not be a trap. More probably, the AI placed such a noticeable pattern around the piece in order to easily find and pick it up on his way back. Then it must be something interesting, at least interesting enough to mark it with such a circle.

  Adam dives all the way down. The object is as flat as a flounder. He touches it. It seems to be made of metal. On the sides are the remnants of six legs in total. Aside from lacking two leg-attachment sites, it reminds him of a scorpion’s body that had its legs and tail torn off. And indeed, he then sees something like the remains of a tail at one end of the body. Obviously, though, this is a technical product and not an animal. Was it perhaps constructed by his Marchenko, the real one? If it was not made by aliens...

  Adam examines it from all sides. If it once had a tail, there must be data connections into the now-severed body part. Perhaps he could find out what this thing saw? It looks like Marchenko 2 did not take the time to do that. This might give him an advantage. He would prefer to test his idea right here and now. It won’t work in the water though, due to short-circuits.

  Adam looks through his tool bag and finds a piece of thin plastic with an area of about one square meter. As a test he blows some bubbles of his breath into it. Perfect. The material is airtight! He puts a piece of scrap on each of the four corners. Then he fills the plastic completely, creating an air-filled dome. This is going to be his workshop, even though handling things inside there won’t be so easy.

  First he gathers his tools outside the dome. He needs at least two cables and a universal adhesive. In the tool bag he finds a longer piece of insulated wire, from which he cuts two pieces. Then he looks for possible data connections at the rear end of the strange object. He identifies five metallic points that could serve as contacts. Therefore he cuts off another three pieces of wire. Within the dome he will have to connect these to the contact points, using the universal adhesive. While he does not have the greatest view of his work area, he manages to do it. The adhesive has to harden for 30 seconds. Then he checks his work. The wires are firmly attached.

  Now the actual evaluation can start. He takes the universal device from his arm. It has two external inputs hidden under a waterproof cover. He must only open this cover in the open air, meaning inside his improvised tent. Then he has to connect two of the five cables extending from the end of the object with the external inputs, hoping to read some data.

  There are ten possibilities of connecting two inputs with two of the five cables, if the order does not matter. He checks these ten variations in a minute—without any result. Just to be sure he repeats the tests, but nothing happens. The object seems to be completely dead, even though he sees a small amount of heat radiating from it when he uses the infrared view. Perhaps it needs all its energy to preserve its data? It should be possible to change that. He still has enough energy in his suit batteries to give this thing a bit of it. By now he is convinced that his Marchenko, not the aliens, created this object. He imagines extraterrestrial technology as something much more exotic than this odd-looking thing.

  He diverts part of his suit energy to his universal device. Of course that runs the risk of damaging sensitive data circuits that might have been designed for a lower voltage. Yet Marchenko probably was efficient in designing this thing, with little difference between power and data circuits. The only real risk would be that no energy gets through. Adam once again tests every cable combination. On the fourth try electricity is flowing! Now he needs to be patient. Would 15 minutes be enough to make the electronics of this object work again? He waits anxiously for something to happen. He hopes Marchenko did not encrypt the information in such a way that he won’t be able to access it!

  Adam shifts his feet nervously. He needs to keep his hands inside the little air-filled tent so he can’t move very much. Is he just imagining it, or is the suit heater not as effective as before? Yes—he feels the cold rising from his feet. Then he checks the oxygen supply. He shouldn’t run out of air, as the building is right above him.

  Please, Marchenko, let me access your data, he thinks. I need every advantage I can get, because Marchenko 2 is not an easy opponent! Adam looks up into the darkness. Somewhere up there are Eve and Marchenko, unaware of the danger threatening them. It is 14 minutes, so he has to count to 60 one more time. At that moment his universal device vibrates. This means that it must have received data. It has worked! He would like to pull it out of the tent right away, but first he has to remove the cables and carefully close the waterproof cover. He concentrates on working slowly and carefully. He must not spoil things now.

  Finally he can attach the device to his arm again. He looks at the screen.

  “Hello Adam,” it reads. “It’s me, your Marchenko. I am inside here.”

  May 9, 19, Eve

  “ISU 4?”

  The sensor unit at her right turns towards her.

  “I would like you to lead me to where I first met ISU 2.”

  “Sure.”

  Eve stands up. She does not have much luggage. All she needs are her universal device, the toolset, the remaining food, and the water bottle.

  The ISU slithers ahead of her. Eve recognizes the corridor she came through before, with ISU 2. The trip had been long, because they first used an air duct. If something in this building awakens now, and it wants to get to the control room, it wouldn’t choose this cumbersome path, so she feels relatively safe.

  Soon they reach the spot where Marchenko was damaged as a result of his deliberate interf
erence with the ventilation system fan. She misses him. He would certainly know what to do now.

  They should never have separated. The disaster started when she and Marchenko decided they had to press two buttons on opposite sides of a large dark room, simultaneously. Could they somehow have avoided that? It is always easier to think about such things in hindsight. They probably could not have gone on, however, and they would have had to turn around and leave the building empty-handed. It would have been a disappointing outcome, but they would have stayed together.

  “Watch out, the floor is damaged,” ISU 4 warns her.

  Eve is startled. She has to be more careful. On the other hand, so what if I get injured? It doesn’t really matter... does it?

  She stops because she realizes she can’t understand herself anymore. If nothing at all matters, why didn’t she just stay in the control room, calmly waiting for whomever or whatever might show up? There must still be a tiny bit of will to survive left in her, which interfered with that decision.

  She hears a scraping noise and flinches. However, it is only the sensor unit waiting for her. She had better hurry.

  Now she sees the entrance of the air duct. Luckily, she can reach it with no problem. There is no lighting in here, yet Eve notices that it is getting brighter. This must be her infrared sense, which she wasn’t even aware of a week ago. On the way here it had been considerably darker. Temperatures seem to be rising inside the entire building.

  After another ten minutes the sensor unit stops.

  “ISU 4, what is going on?”

  “You met ISU 2 at these coordinates.”

  Eve looks around. She does not recognize this place, but that’s no surprise, as she is inside a wide, uniform pipe. “Thanks, ISU 4. So you can’t help me any further?”