Proxima Trilogy: Part 1-3: Hard Science Fiction

by Brandon Q Morris

  I feel like warning him. We must first check if everything is as harmless as it looks, and why the forest conveys this majestic impression. Mentioning this right now, though, might not be a good idea. Adam has earned this moment, which for him probably has a lot to do with a feeling of having arrived. Eve sits down next to him. They sit shoulder to shoulder and observe the miracles of the forest.

  In the meantime I start my analysis. A few days from now we are going to need a shelter that protects us from the next flare. The first surprise during my analysis comes from the mushrooms. They all have one thing in common; they turn the hard UV radiation of the sun into energy. Whatever they do not need they emit again via phosphorescence, and this could be interesting for us. I have to find out what part of the hard radiation the mushrooms can reject. While I do not think it would be enough to just sit out the next super-flare under one of the tall mushrooms, I am sure we can somehow integrate these plants into our plans.

  The second surprise also comes from the mushrooms. Their caps are made of a soft organic material, so theoretically they could be edible. This is both good and bad news for us. It is good because we could turn them into food with little effort. We could even consume them raw, although they might taste really bitter due to the high mineral content. It is bad because nature never creates something edible without a reason. If there is something edible, animals that live off that food source cannot be too far away. If we are lucky, these are nothing more than small, harmless worms, like those found in mushrooms on Earth. Otherwise, a horde of mushroom-eating dinosaurs might charge through the forest now and then, goring anything that is not a tree trunk. Or the worms could be a species that would burrow through your stomach lining, if you were to accidentally swallow one, and then it might build a nest inside you, eventually releasing millions of new worms.

  After my experiences in the mountain pass, I will not make the same mistake of associating small size with the absence of danger.

  The third fact found by my analysis does not surprise me much, given our earlier experiences. The mushrooms resemble their terrestrial counterparts because their roots join in a mycelium, together with the roots of many other specimens. This appears to be a heritage they have in common with the leafy plants on the steppes. Are all the mushrooms in the forest part of the same individual? Or is there warfare here, like in the steppes, about which we have to be very careful?

  Discovery number four offers the third surprise when I remove a small piece from one of the tree trunks. It is extremely hard, but my strength is just sufficient to remove it. I probably will not be able to cut down an entire tree. I would never have guessed that the material of the tree trunk would be very, very similar to that of the hair plants. It consists of small, individual chambers filled with a soft material, and it appears both species have the same kind of roots.

  In that case, the trees must represent individuals making it on their own, just like the hair plants. While we certainly are not yet familiar with the entire ecosystem, it seems to me that the division here runs not between plants and animals, but between leafy plants and hair plants. Thus leafy plants are connected to each other, while hair plants are solitary. Accordingly, the frogs in the mountain pass would belong to the hair plant group, because they lacked a physical connection. On this planet, the question of whether a species moves, and how fast it moves, seems to play no role for its evolutionary family tree.

  I decide I have gathered enough information for today. I slowly walk to the tree near where Adam and Eve are sitting. Along the way I break off a chunk of mushroom. I divide it in two and offer it to Adam and Eve.

  “Salt and bread,” I say, “that’s how you greet guests in my home country. I will have the fabricators make some salt, but the mushroom is just as nutritious as bread.”

  Eve takes a piece first, and then Adam reaches for his.

  “A bit slimy,” says Eve, “but the taste is tolerable. It is reminiscent of Napa cabbage, though not quite as bitter.”

  “Napa cabbage?” Adam stares at her skeptically. “You have never eaten Napa cabbage in your entire life.”

  “No, I haven’t, but I have read cookbooks, and whenever they mentioned Napa cabbage I imagined it to have this kind of taste.”

  January 7, 19

  “We are going to build the base at this very spot,” Adam says, standing two meters away from the last tree that forms the boundary to the steppe. “We need to be able to see what is happening in the sky,” he adds.

  “Except for solar eruptions, against which it will be harder to shield us here, what is supposed to happen in the sky?” I ask.

  “I don’t know,” Adam admits, “But if something happens, we would be practically blind deeper inside the forest. I don’t like that idea at all.”

  Eve does not say anything, but I can tell from her face she is looking for arguments.

  “The forest protects us. The leaves represent an important radiation barrier,” I explain.

  “But you mentioned yourself that they won’t shield us enough,” Adam says. “We are going to need our own protection.”

  “Any additional safety net is helpful,” I add.

  “But it would make us blind to anything happening around us.”

  “Not much will happen, Adam, except that in a few days a devastating UV and X-ray storm is going to hit us,” I say.

  Adam looks at Eve, as if convinced she is on his side. “Why don’t you say something, Eve?” he asks.

  “I think Marchenko is right,” she answers. “We should not be taking any chances.”

  Adam looks at her, his shoulders drooping. “But that’s exactly what we would be doing by moving inside the forest, don’t you realize?”

  “I don’t see the risk, Adam,” I say. “Really. I also think that further inside we would be shielded better against flares.”

  Adam stomps his foot like an angry teenager, and I remember he actually is one. On other occasions, Adam and Eve seem so mature I almost forget their real ages.

  “I don’t trust the forest,” he says, placing his hands on his hips. “Something is wrong with it. You’ll see. I can feel it.” He turns around and walks into the forest, as if to challenge it.

  About three kilometers inside the forest boundary we start to build our base.

  I have further analyzed the mushroom caps. They are indeed capable of absorbing hard radiation, turning it into harmless light and emitting the same. This also explains why the forest never gets completely dark, despite the dense foliage overhead.

  There is only one strategy if we want to protect ourselves against the coming flares: We have to place as much absorptive material as we can between us and Proxima Centauri so that the remaining radiation cannot harm us. The leafy canopy will help to some extent, but Adam is right, it will not be enough. We will have to dig a few meters down into the ground. This will be Adam and Eve’s task during the coming days.

  I will try to make their work easier. If I can imitate the structure of the mushroom caps by using my fabricators, they will have to toil less. The idea is to make an additional roof that functions like the mushroom material but absorbs radiation even more efficiently. So I am actually planning to perfect the work of possibly millions of years of evolution. In order to do this, though, I need to first gather some more material. I already notice that various types of mushrooms react differently. I need the best variety, the one with the most evolved radiation shielding, and then I will improve it.

  The winner is a particularly small specimen I find below another mushroom. I noticed it because, in spite of being shielded by the larger mushroom, it still emitted an unusually bright glow. This means it is very efficient at turning the invisible radiation into light.

  Inside the analyzer I take a closer look at its genome. The midget mushroom soon shows the reason for its advantage over other variants. It is specialized in several wavelengths simultaneously. Unlike its competitors, it does not just convert energy better but can accept severa
l inputs at once. That is clever, and it gives me an idea: If I can teach this mushroom species to absorb additional wavelengths, it should be able to protect us even better. In principle I just have to scan as many types as possible, identify the correct genetic sequences, and integrate these into my designer mushroom.

  If the plants were just programs I could finish my project in a few minutes. But biological systems have the drawback that I have to test my changes on a new generation, and it takes some time for it to grow. At the moment I do not even know how often generations change. I suspect, though, that the larger variants live longer than the smaller ones, and luckily, my designer mushroom belongs to the latter group.

  I return to the place where Adam and Eve are building the base, but they are not working on it now. Eve is sitting on the ground, her back leaning against a tree. Her face has a guilty expression. “Adam wanted to take a walk,” she says.

  I make the robot nod its head. “It’s okay,” I say. The site looks as if the two of them worked on it for no more than half an hour, and it probably was not a good idea for me to leave them alone together. Adam and Eve have removed the vegetation in an area measuring approximately two by two meters. Below it, wet topsoil that has a fatty sheen is visible. I wonder whether terrestrial plants would thrive in it. They certainly would find enough moisture.

  I examine a handful of soil. On Earth, it would be teeming with small and microscopic organisms, but this is not the case here. If not, then why does the soil stay so crumbly? Which mechanisms stir it up, keeping it fertile? Right now, I am unable to solve this mystery.

  I hear steps behind me. I rapidly turn my head 180 degrees. “Adam?” I say.

  There is no answer. He is probably hiding behind one of the trees. I switch to infrared vision and discover him about six meters away. “Come out. I can see you,” I say.

  “Spoilsport,” he answers.

  I decide to get the unpleasant part of our conversation over with first. “The base—” I start saying.

  “I know,” Adam interrupts me. “You realize you are not setting a good example, don’t you? And it makes no sense to have us working so hard. The robot is stronger and never gets tired, so he could do this much faster.”

  “I am trying to make our work easier,” I say.

  “Our work? You are not working, you are just strolling through the forest. Therefore I can do that, too.”

  “I have a suggestion, Adam,” I say. “Starting tomorrow, we will work on the base together. You are right, I can do certain things better, but for others I need your help. We have 19 days left until the next flare. Working alone, I wouldn’t be able to make the deadline. Agreed?”

  At first he acts self-satisfied, but then he turns around and walks toward Eve. Over his shoulder he yells, “Okay.”

  January 11, 19

  “TIMBER!” I call through the forest. Adam and Eve are standing behind me and the tree will fall forward, but to me the warning still seems appropriate. At first the giant trunk ahead of us just trembles slightly. It does not seem to realize I severed it with a clean cut all the way through. The cut surface is angled slightly forward so that the tree has to topple in that direction.

  It took me two hours to cut all the way through the trunk. The reason for this was due to the mass of the tree, which pressed from above against the cut and my self-made saw. This high pressure merges the tree’s just-separated cells, as the material seems to have self-healing features. My cutting only worked after I started to cover the severed areas with an impermeable synthetic cloth. From that moment on, the self-healing no longer worked, and I finally made some progress.

  Now the trunk is starting to move. Down here, it is only a few millimeters, but the top of the tree, 210 meters high, is already noticeably tilting. For a moment it looks as if the leaves could prevent the fall by interlacing with those of other trees, but once this falling giant gets going, nothing can stop it. The tree simply tears off the leaves of its neighbors. However I do not think this could cause a domino effect. In addition, I calculated the fall in such a way that our tree has a free path. We will need all of its wood for the base, for supporting the side walls, and for the ceilings. The timber of one tree should be enough, but if it becomes entangled in another specimen, it would make cutting it up much more difficult.

  While the mighty treetop moves downward the tree seems to fall in slow motion. For a moment we see the sky that is covered by clouds today. A few seconds later some raindrops hit me, but the free space is soon closed when the leaves of the neighboring trees spring back into their normal position. Ordinarily the rain never gets down here, and this will not change, either. A strange excitement is sweeping through the forest, or am I only imagining it?

  “Did you hear that noise?” Eve asks. I notice that there is a high-frequency humming in the air, which reminds me of the sound made by an electric fence.

  “Yes. How strange,” Adam says.

  I analyze the sound digitally. Perhaps it is created by the trunk moving through the air faster and faster, like the whirring of a propeller or a sword swung with great force, but then the volume should follow a pattern. It is barely audible, yet the high-pitched noise consists of individual sections, syllables in a way. Could the tree be uttering sounds?

  Now the noise fades again, and it lasted too briefly to determine if it really contained a kind of meaning. Talking trees, or simply a coincidence? Perhaps the tree leaves moved during the descent in such a way that they contributed to the whirring sound and gave the impression of a rising and falling volume.

  “That must have been the sound of the falling tree,” I say. “The trunk reaches a considerable speed.”

  We hear a loud crash, and the branches that the leaves are attached to break under the force of the impact. A dull thud follows, making the forest floor vibrate, and I can measure it.

  “Get to safety!” I warn them, because parts of the branches and leaves are flying sideways. Luckily, none of them come in our direction. When everything has calmed down again, we walk past the fallen tree, now lying on the forest floor like a foreign substance. It makes sense that there is no underbrush, as not enough light reaches down here. However, shouldn’t a tree occasionally reach its age limit, die, topple, and finally decompose? Living beings cannot exist forever. The clean forest floor indicates the trees all grew skyward at about the same time, like on a tree farm. Were they planted?

  Eve brushes her hand against the bark of the tree. “It’s really smooth,” she says.

  The structure remains unusually uniform, even as we approach the treetop. The trunk must always have been free of branches here. Only 20 meters from the top we find the first leaf node. What I believed to be branches from below are more like stalks. The single leaves are directly attached to the trunk. Their attachment points are distributed around the trunk in a helical pattern. One stalk is four or five meters long, followed by a leaf of a similar length and a width of one meter, which broadens toward the outside.

  “Strange construction,” Adam remarks.

  “This distribution only makes sense if we imagine an entire canopy of such leaves,” I reply, pointing at the area between leaf and trunk. “The leaves of the neighboring trees fill the gaps appearing near the trunk. And at the same time the treetops support each other.”

  “But there are way too many leaves. The lowest ones don’t get any light.”

  Adam is right. The uppermost leaves should be able to block the view of the sky completely. The lower ones seem useless.

  “Nature is never wasteful,” I reply. “Let us take a look.”

  The solution must be here, right in front of our eyes. I do not see anything unusual about the stalks of the leaves. Then I look at the spot where the stalk is attached to the trunk. Above and below each stalk there are barely-recognizable flat notches.

  “Eve, could you please raise this leaf here?” Eve is puzzled by my request, but she follows it.

  “Look here!” I point at the attachment
of the stalk. My suspicions have been confirmed: The trees can distribute their leaves at random around the trunk. They are swiveling! This would allow them to compensate for lost leaves. Since all of the leaves look weathered to the same degree, each tree seems to consciously expose each leaf to the sun for some time, a clever method for optimizing energy yield. Since this place has neither nights nor winters, the leaves must get a different opportunity to rest and recuperate.

  “Not bad,” Adam says. “A tree with movable leaves.” We gather one of the fallen leaves and take it to our camp. Afterward I start to turn the trunk into planking.

  January 13, 19

  We will be able to reach the base via a hatch, and its entrance measures one by two meters. From there a steep set of stairs leads five meters down. The stairs are finished, and I have already attached the planking to the side walls. Now we slowly dig ahead horizontally. Adam and Eve carry the excavation material upward. This creates a small hill directly above the planned base, which also increases our shielding. On this hill of dirt the mushrooms—the ones I have genetically optimized—will grow and add to our protection.

  That is the plan. Perhaps we did not even need to dig so deep, but who knows if all flares have the same intensity? The larger part of the task is still ahead of us. We have to excavate 24 cubic meters to create a shelter measuring three by four meters, with a height of two meters. In the high gravity of Proxima b this means we have to carry about 35 terrestrial tons of material upstairs. Therefore, Adam and Eve are already moaning and groaning a lot. Yesterday they dropped their idea of having separate rooms for each of us, plus a kitchen.

  I have modified the arms of the robot for better digging. On the right I now have a heavy steel shovel, on the left a kind of broom that allows me to sweep the excavated material behind me. It is not hard to move the two arms independently, but I also have to be careful not to fall into human patterns of thinking by watching myself work. Once I realize that I am simultaneously moving forward with my right arm and performing a circular motion with my left, my program fails.