Proxima Trilogy: Part 1-3: Hard Science Fiction

by Brandon Q Morris

  The creature does not seem to have a real head. The body tapers toward the top, where it measures maybe 20 centimeters across. Eve detects four eyes. At least these organs—each covered by a palm-sized transparent lens—appear to be suitable for seeing. At the top of each eye is a skin fold that might serve as a lid to cover and protect the visual organ. At the moment, the creature’s eyes are open. Eve feels like she is being watched, but there is no reaction to whatever she does.

  The extraterrestrial is either dead or asleep. The chamber is well insulated from the outside so that Eve notices no temperature difference. But even cooling systems generate heat. Maybe the infrared lines she can see, which outline the shape of the honeycomb, dissipate the generated heat.

  Eve feels nauseated and has to sit down. She is angry at herself. She gets to see her first extraterrestrial, and then she finds its shape ugly and repulsive? Is that normal, or is she... what might you call it? Humancentric? Will humancentrism become a negative term on this alien world? She doesn’t understand her own reaction. Pictures of frogs don’t scare her. Yet this creature does. However, it might be her only friend in this empty world—or, eventually, it could become her only friend.

  She looks around and realizes this is not true. Above her there are thousands of honeycombs, with probably as many extraterrestrials waiting to be awoken. If she only awakens one of them it might be the same as awakening all of them, because that creature could possibly take over that task. That could turn her from a researcher into someone being examined by the planet’s inhabitants, who are certainly physically and technologically superior to her. Newly discovered tribes on Earth did not fare too well when that happened. She must not make the same mistake.

  On the other hand...

  On the other hand...

  She starts this thought—then immediately suppresses it—several times. In the end, though, she is unable to resist. It is obvious that things could hardly get worse than they are right now. She has no hope for the future. How many times has she already felt like this just today? She could sit down, use up her last food, lick water from puddles, and wait for her death. Or she could try to find help.

  Adam disappeared on the ice. It hurts to even think of his name. Marchenko was crushed by the sweeping mechanism. The image of his hand trying to hold on will haunt her dreams. But in one of these honeycomb-shaped chambers there might be someone who knows a way out of this trap, or at least someone to talk to. That, she admits, is her greatest fear—going insane in solitude. She managed to go on in total darkness, she tolerated both cold and snow, heat, and excessive light. She almost drowned. But the idea of being alone forever gives her the creeps. She probably won’t starve here, as the doubtlessly available organic material should solve her food supply problem. Terrible!

  Eve slaps her hand against her face. She is ashamed of her own thoughts. It is better to just plan from day to day. What can she achieve today? The decision of whether to press the third button can wait until tomorrow. Now it is time to go to sleep. At least it is so warm down here she can use her suit as a bed. She takes off her LCVG, as she only will need it again on top of the ice sheet. Meaning never. She takes her spare T-shirt, dips it into one of the puddles, and then wrings it out over her mouth. The water does not taste too bad.

  Tomorrow she will think about how she can get more of it. She already has an idea.

  May 3, 19

  My body is working. The modification process is not quite finished, but that involves only a few sensors I don’t need right away. The fabricators can continue working while I try to find Eve. I order the ISUs to return to me, to complete my six legs. Then I let the fabricators remove the last bit of the material that still keeps me stuck in this gap in the wall.

  I fall down two meters. I already know this room from the images sent by the ISUs. Over there is the air duct I selected. I crawl across the floor on my six legs, but I keep looking upward. This is an unfamiliar position. I am used to seeing a wide field of view. Now I feel like I am lying on my back. Yet I don’t see less from down here. I am even surprised at how much I perceive of what is happening above my body. Isn’t that much more important for my survival?

  In order to reach the duct, I have to pull myself up with my front extremities. That is not too difficult. I might look like a crocodile, but I am more flexible in all directions. I push myself up a bit on the smooth wall. Then my front end bends at a right angle and enters the air duct. My forward optical sensors report the first surprise. The rotor, which was standing still yesterday, is now moving. Something must have been triggered inside this building. Could it be related to Eve? Or is it the result of our failed activity?

  I flip my tail forward, stop the rotor with it, crawl through the rotor, and then quickly retract my tail before the blades start spinning again. The fact that this seemingly-dead building is coming alive is probably good news, but it won’t make the search for Eve any easier. I slowly crawl through the air duct and try to determine my location. Right now I have no choice concerning my path, but that will change.

  And, after half an hour I do come to a fork in the path. Two additional pipes join my duct and increase its diameter. Should I crawl into one of the smaller pipes, which probably would lead to a room further up? Or do I choose the wider one, which might lead me to the life support center on one of the lower levels? Option 1 might take me closer to Eve, at least with a little bit of luck, while option 2 could get me into one of the most important sectors of this building.

  I choose the larger pipe. If I can find the central room, which somehow must control this huge edifice, I should be able to reach any room where a living being might be found. That sounds like a good plan. I could send small probes from the central room to independently scout all possible paths I could use to get to Eve. Trying out all these routes in this huge labyrinth by myself would take me more time than Eve has left.

  I regret that I am not advancing as quickly as I had hoped. First I end up in a kind of lint trap. The designers placed a mesh in the air duct. Its openings are much too small for me. Of course I could cut a hole in the mesh, but I first examine what has already been caught here. I find plant matter and also a few scraps that hardly could have grown naturally. The structures are so regular that they appear to have been carefully woven. Are those the remnants of textiles the inhabitants wore? The DNA traces on them are interesting, as I already know them from the mini-frogs that attacked us in the mountains. I hope Eve still has the bone knife I tossed to her back then. Or did I give it to Adam?

  The mesh material is similar to a titanium alloy known on Earth. I cut a hole of a suitable size and crawl through it. The pipe is surprisingly long. It reaches so far ahead from my location that I cannot fully light it with my searchlight. However, the radar shows me it ends after about 500 meters. This is strange, because my spotlight ought to be bright enough to light the pipe up to half a kilometer. There is either some gas which absorbs light inside the pipe, or it has a curve that cannot be seen on radar. Physically, both options should be impossible.

  I try the method used by bats. I emit a loud ultrasound ‘ping’ and wait for its echo to reach me. The result is also 500 meters. That does not tell me anything about a curve, as the sound waves are guided by the pipe. At least the distance is correct. Ultimately, that is the only thing that counts. Therefore I simply keep on crawling and wonder what I will find at the end of the pipe.

  Of course... a larger pipe. I should have known. Once more, smaller air ducts join a larger one that voraciously pulls in air. There must be a strong pump at its end. I also notice that the air from the various ducts has different temperatures. Accordingly, a fine mist has developed in the cube-shaped chamber where they meet. I don’t mind, so I simply crawl into the largest pipe. According to the hierarchical principle, it is most likely to lead me to the central room. Its diameter is so large that Eve could easily accompany me.

  After 30 meters I find a rotor drawing in air. Its blades are half the si
ze of the pipe diameter, and they are moving very, very quickly. They contain a lot of kinetic energy. I won’t make it past this spot so easily, and my prehensile tail is not strong enough to simply stop them. I have to work on its weak spot, the axle around which the blades rotate. If I manage to misalign the axle, the rotor will destroy itself due to its high angular momentum. However, I better not be standing too close to it when that happens.

  It’s no use, I simply must make my way through it. I use the tip of my tail as a file. When metal presses against rotating metal, it soon forms a groove that keeps getting deeper. If I continue this long enough, the axle will break and the rotor blades will fly away. Normally, they would each hit a random spot, but in this case the airflow will play a role, as it gives fragments a small impulse in the direction of the control center. The probability of the heavy metal pieces hitting me, of all targets, is therefore 25 percent at most.

  Five minutes have gone by, but the groove is not nearly deep enough. There is an incredibly-loud squeaking sound inside the pipe. I suppose it can be heard in the entire building. If anything is awake here, it will start moving toward this disturbance. I am glad that I can regulate my sense of hearing so I don’t have to suffer this noise.

  After half an hour the squeaking is still there, but now the swoosh of the rotor is changing. I can hear it is no longer running true. The unbalanced mass increases the forces acting on the hub. It shouldn’t be long before everything blows up in my face. Now I am getting a bit scared. Compared to this, the wall that cut up my body the day before yesterday was rather harmless. According to my estimate, each of the rotor blades weighs 200 kilograms. Moment of inertia multiplied by the square of the angular velocity equals an amount of energy I can in no way withstand. If the fragments tear apart my body or destroy my memory units, I will not be able to repair myself again. My immortality would be gone in a few seconds.

  The imbalance of the rotor increases. I even feel that in the pressure of the air being drawn in. Now it can only be a few seconds. This is the moment for me to escape to safety. I want to retract my prehensile tail from the hub, but it is stuck. What has happened? From down here I cannot see anything. I run several simulations at once. One of them gives me a possible reason: The tip of the tail, which I use as a file, might have fused with the metal of the hub due to the enormous heat.

  I will never find out whether this theory is correct. My prehensile tail ties me to a rotating machine that will soon blast itself apart. I can detach my legs, but not my tail. I did not foresee such a situation. But wait... at least I can send my legs to safety. Even if I don’t exist anymore they could become six ISUs with limited intelligence. They can wander through the building, search for Eve, and transmit my farewell to her. I send them, and use my rear optical sensors to watch them crawl quickly out of the pipe.

  The rotor constructed by the extraterrestrials is very sturdy. My legs have now left the immediate impact zone, and I am still alive. The squeaking has stopped. The rotor blades are humming in a skewed rhythm, sounding like a broken heart. Suddenly there is a noise like ripping paper, a horrible sound that gives me the creeps. This must be the end.

  I would like to close my eyes, but that would be unreasonable. I do quite the opposite and activate the high-speed camera. It shows three of the rotor blades flying off toward the control center. During their short flight they rupture the walls of the pipe. The fourth blade is hurtling toward me. In slow motion it seems to float elegantly, almost like a ballerina. It approaches me as if it wanted to ask me to dance. I try to modify the cross-section of my body in order to minimize damage. The steel blade sweeps me off the ground, cutting off the rear part of my body. I don’t experience any pain, something more like elation. The blade whirls me through the air as if I were weightless, and it possesses an overwhelming, fervent energy that sweeps me along. I become part of a strange choreography the universe has never experienced.

  The metal of the pipe bursts under the impact of the rotor blade. My dance is accompanied by a cacophony. Somehow I manage to hold on somewhere. I still can think and remember things. I wait for that to end. Only a few seconds have gone by, but time seems to stretch eternally. This is one of the moments when I notice I am no longer a human being, but I have still retained something essentially human—the strong urge to survive such chaos as this.

  May 3, 19

  Suddenly there is a loud screeching sound. Eve is startled and wakes up. Her heart is beating faster. She looks around frantically but cannot see any immediate danger. The noise reverberates through her entire body. It sounds... existential, as if two machines are engaged in a life-or-death struggle. She thinks of combat robots from videos Adam used to watch. Would this station be equipped with such security measures?

  Eve places an ear to the ground. The noise definitely comes from below, but that is not the only direction. She gets up and looks around, then turns around several times. Over there, on the right, the wall across from the honeycombs, the shaft is still lit by the lamps she activated yesterday. Is she mistaken, or did the yellow light become a bit more reddish?

  She walks toward the source of the noise. It must be inside the wall. She carefully touches the wall. There is something, quite a ways above her head. She can only reach the lower part of what might be a circular structure. Eve wets her finger, reaches up to the bottom edge of the structure, and notes that she can feel a breeze. It seems to be a vent of the life-support system.

  The air carries the screeching sound with it. It is a bit more muffled than what she can hear through the floor, but it definitely comes from the same source. Eve is startled when there is suddenly a humming sound as well. One of the opponents seems to have drawn a new weapon. In her imagination he has forced his enemy down and now hits him with enormous force. She shakes her head. All kinds of things could cause the noise. Perhaps it’s just a defect somewhere.

  Of course it is odd the cacophony should occur now, shortly after her arrival. Or is someone trying to tell her something? She listens to the rhythm, but it almost certainly does not contain a signal. She should not get worried now. What else can happen to her, after all? She has nothing to lose. The universal device tells her that it is 5 a.m. What does it matter?

  She feels the pressure of her bladder. Eve walks to the opposite corner of the shaft, pulls down her panties, squats and relieves herself. Her urine splatters forward between her legs. The floor must be slanted slightly downward. She notices she has not washed in a long time. She raises her arm and sniffs her armpit, but she cannot smell anything. Could her sense of smell have adapted to the current hygiene conditions? Eve rises, pulls up her panties, and walks back to the other corner, where her suit and her backpack are awaiting. She is actually walking around in her underwear... imagine that!

  But who cares? “I don’t think anyone will complain.” She flinches when she notices that she has answered herself out loud. That was fast. Now she is already talking to herself.

  She pulls her suit into the corner, sits on it, and leans against the wall. What’s on the agenda for today? Her first idea, which was about to enter her consciousness, quickly retreats when there is another loud bang. After that, the noise is gone.

  Eve looks at her universal device. The fight, or whatever it was, lasted for more than half an hour. Please come back, dear idea, she thinks. She knows it was an important one. Now the idea is hiding behind the door of her subconscious. How could she lure it out again? Perhaps with a reward? Eve, you are slowly turning schizophrenic, she thinks. There it is, the idea. It stands right in the center of her consciousness, spreading its hands in apology. The idea did not want to criticize her, but Eve—first talking to herself and then to the idea—might have cause for concern. She slaps her cheeks because she realizes she is about to slide into a weird dream. What she needs now is reality, not an escape from it.

  Good. Problem number 1: She needs water and, at some point, food as well. Eve remembers her training. The air holds enough moisture. Prod
ucing potable water through condensation should not be too difficult. Finding food might be tougher. But does she really want to solve this problem? Does it make any sense to survive down here any longer than her reserves will last? She can’t make up her mind right now.

  On to problem number 2: Loneliness. She never would have expected that it would be so hard to bear. Up to now she had considered herself a woman who could quite well get along on her own. On the voyage across the ice sheet there were days when she barely exchanged five words with Adam or Marchenko. But now she misses them both so much. The alternative is hoping to awaken one of the creatures sleeping here in one of the honeycomb-shaped chambers. She must be getting really desperate.

  She remembers the first impression she had when she saw one of the inhabitants of Proxima b, the disgust she felt. Yet she would prefer the company of such a creature to eternal solitude. However, she does not even know whether she could find a basis for communication. Or if one of the giant frogs might regard her as food.

  Eve turns sideways and looks at the control panel. It is probably quite simple. Three symbols, three functions: First, a light that most likely informs about the status of the cell, then the second key, which allows for a more precise diagnosis. The third symbol, the third key, can only have one function—to start the hibernation process, or to reverse it later. She only has to press the key once.

  It would be better, of course, if Marchenko could be beside her. He would be able to handle the recently-revived creature, even if it showed hostile intentions. Eve is not so sure she would be able to do that. Shortly after awakening, the creature might be relatively weak, but what about later? Should she try to acquire some weapon? Then again, the very fact that she would be holding something threatening could trigger the hostile intentions she wants to avoid. No, she does not need a weapon. However, she is going to put something on. How strange, the idea of facing an extraterrestrial makes her feel prudish. After all, these creatures appear to be naked in their sleeping chambers.