Proxima Trilogy: Part 1-3: Hard Science Fiction

by Brandon Q Morris

Eve briefly leans against the wall and closes her eyes. She might as well collapse and go to sleep now. She is tired enough for it. Yet after two minutes she feels drawn to the control center. It is as if she still has a task to fulfill. Perhaps there is a deep death wish hidden behind it. It sounded as if something or someone is waiting for her at the destination. If it is a living being and not a machine, it probably won’t be in a good mood, judging from the scream. She opens her eyes again and continues walking. The rustling sound tells her that the sensor unit is also going forward.

  Five minutes later the corridor gets wider and curves toward the right. There is a second corridor coming from the left. This must be the spot where she and the ISU parted ways earlier. Is that the reason the ISU stopped? The ISU no longer makes that rustling sound. Eve looks at the floor while she is going around the corner so that she won’t step on her little friend. It stands right beyond the curve. It has turned around and a red light is blinking.

  Eve stops in amazement at what she sees. She is so shocked that her whole body starts to tremble. She stares wide-eyed at the alien. It is a frog, and it is alive! It looks huge, even at a distance of five meters. Its body is more than two meters tall and almost as wide. A giant eye with a black pupil is staring at her. Its very stature is terrifying, but the frog also holds an object in strong-looking arms—something that definitely looks like a weapon... aimed directly at her.

  Eve feels dizzy because her heart is beating so fast. She has to steady herself with one hand against the wall. She hopes the creature won’t interpret this as an aggressive action, but she can’t help it—without support from the wall she will fall. The alien’s weapon twitches back and forth, but there is no bang. The muzzle, from which a kind of spear protrudes, is still pointing at her.

  Eve is about to panic. She tries to calm down, but the thing is so menacing that she doesn’t run away only because she knows she would inevitably stumble over her own feet due to her fright. And she doesn’t really stand a chance. All she has to do is look at the huge, muscular legs of the alien. The creature would reach her with only two or three steps.

  Is it male or female? Or perhaps this species does not have sexes, or has more than two? And where did its head go? There is a gap between the points where the arms join the torso, as if there is something missing. It feels good to distract herself with useless questions. Eve is starting to calm down. The extraterrestrial does not attempt to get any closer. It is obviously not trying to kill her right away, since that would have happened already. It probably wants to dissect her and needs her to be whole, and that weapon does not look as if it would leave its prey in one piece.

  How should she react? Does the creature even recognize her as an intelligent being? To the alien, she would appear to be about the size of a German shepherd in comparison to her. If they had encountered dog-sized beings here on Proxima b, would they have believed them to be intelligent? She has to do something that the alien definitely cannot interpret as an attack. Yet even among humans there can be many misunderstandings. What if raising an arm should be seen as a sign to attack, rather than as a greeting?

  The extraterrestrial probably will not have a particularly high opinion of her. He saw his dead comrade in the sleeping chamber and most likely noticed already that a gigantic object is racing toward the planet—which is no coincidence. In addition, it should have noticed the destroyed corridor on the way here. How would she react to a being that threatens her friends, her house, and her world? The alien would need the patience of a saint not to be angry at her.

  “Kurzukhan-la karlak-ti ha-ti ha!”

  The extraterrestrial screams a phrase into the corridor that could mean anything—a threat, a greeting, or something else entirely? Should she fall on her knees and surrender? Or does the creature simply expect an answer? At least it has tried to use words instead of firing the weapon. That’s a good sign! What should she reply? As the creature probably won’t understand her, it does not really matter.

  “I don’t understand,” she says as loud as she can.

  “Ho-ha!” The alien advances half a step. You’d better not do that, she thinks, the previous distance was just fine. Couldn’t we maintain that distance? She moves backward.

  “Please don’t come any closer,” she calls, not quite as loud. The weapon is still pointed at her. Is she mistaken, or did the alien raise it slightly and place one of its three fingers close to a button on the side? She must not get hysterical now. “It would be very nice if you could lower your weapon.”

  She raises her open palms and tries to sound convincing. Yet the extraterrestrial does not react. If only Marchenko were here with her! He surely could act as an interpreter. Well, no, how would he be able to do that? He can’t do magic or read minds.

  “Ho-ha!” The alien comes closer again. She will have to decide. If she drops to the ground now the alien will either kill her, interpreting this action as an attack, or she would be completely in its power. She cannot even imagine what it would do to her. Should she try to flee?

  “Let us talk,” she says, “but please don’t come any closer.” She raises her palms to show she is unarmed. However, the creature either does not care, or interprets this as an invitation. The distance shrinks to two and a half meters. Not more than two steps. If the alien wants to, it could grab her in a second.

  “Whattt uss louketed thurr!”

  What did it say? Was that supposed to be English? Of course! The central room must have cameras that record everything. The alien used them to try to learn her language. This also means, though, that it knows about everything and considers her the destroyer of its people—justifiably so. No sentient being could simply ignore that. If the alien gets its hands on her, she will be in deep trouble, no matter how progressive and interested it might be. Then she might as well end her own life.

  She knows what is going to happen. If she flees, the alien will point its weapon at her and pull the trigger. But a quick, terrible ending would be better. She turns around and runs as fast as she can. She enters the other corridor. Her heart pumps blood through her vessels and she feels alive like never before, even though death is hot on her heels—or maybe because of it. Behind her she hears a loud rumbling sound, followed by a terrifying scream. She runs, she leaps into darkness.

  The scream pursues her, but there is no patter of feet, and no spear zooms through the air to pierce her body. She keeps fleeing and fleeing, and the farther she gets, the more she feels she got away with it once again. Her burning lungs tell her she is alive, her aching legs prove it, and so does the fear in her mind. There is no longer a pursuer but she keeps on running, nevertheless. The path leads downward, allowing her to maintain her speed even though she is getting weaker.

  Sweat covers her skin, dripping as she runs. She whines loudly but does not stop until the path ends in a large room traversed by a thick pipe. Eve holds on to the pipe. She is wheezing and about to collapse, but she keeps upright with her last remaining strength. She has made it—at least for the time being.

  From the corner of her eye she sees something familiar. She shakes her head. Please, no new excitement, she thinks, but life does not respect her request. She realizes what she is looking at. It is a pressure suit, human-sized. The helmet visor has been broken into many small splinters, and next to the suit there is a spreading puddle of dark, almost brown blood.

  But on the helmet she can see the four letters A D A M!

  May 9, 19, Marchenko 2

  Sometimes you just have to wait and good things will happen. Just as Marchenko 2’s fabricators finished making his weapon, he hears footsteps—irregular, as if the person is injured. What could this be? He wonders whether he should move forward and look around the corner where the side corridor meets the main passage, but then he might give himself away, losing his greatest advantage. Who knows how well the other person can hear! If his assumption is correct and the unknown opponent is really injured, where would injured creatures go to hide? In narrow
side passages, where they are not immediately visible.

  Marchenko 2 prepares himself. He can flick his whip forward as soon as something comes around the corner. He will shoot first and ask questions later. While the metal wire is flying through the air he can still modulate the current, based on whom he is facing. It probably is Eve. The steps of the other Marchenko, and definitely those of the alien who uttered the scream, would be louder, he imagines.

  He is so excited he can barely contain himself. He has been waiting for so long to see Eve again! What is approaching him is definitely alone. If he is lucky, the other Marchenko and Eve have separated, unaware of any danger. Then he can grab Eve and return with her to Valkyrie right away. At least if she still has her pressure suit—otherwise he will have to create a new one for her. Then it would become more likely that he’d have to eliminate the other Marchenko, because he...

  He cannot believe what he is seeing: Adam! Adam? Where did he come from? How did he manage to escape Valkyrie? Marchenko 2 knows he must not hesitate. The whip lashes out and wraps around Adam’s legs as fast as lightning. He has selected the lowest current strength, yet Adam topples like a chopped-down tree, while a large lump of metal slides from his hands. This is the object he himself had found down in the garbage dump! Adam must have had an important reason to carry it along all the way, because the thing is heavy.

  He cannot ask him right now, because he is unconscious. Marchenko 2 comes closer to examine him. He turns Adam’s head to the side. On his forehead he sees a heavily-bleeding laceration. He orders some nano-fabricators to close the wound. How did the boy manage to follow him? He almost admires Adam, even though he is also angry about his disobedience. He will have to teach his children respect, because the other Marchenko seems to have neglected to do that. One should not confuse love with tolerating disrespect.

  Adam is no longer wearing a pressure suit. He probably took it off because of its weight. His body’s core temperature is slightly elevated. He must have really exerted himself during the last 12 hours. No wonder, Marchenko 2 thinks, after all, he has been pursuing me! He also sees a wound on Adam’s wrist. It is a cut, covered by a thin film to stop the bleeding.

  One moment, Marchenko 2 thinks as he scratches off a piece of the film and analyses it. The structure was definitely created by fabricators. Adam does not possess any, so he must have met the other Marchenko. No. This can't be true! He himself did not encounter the other Marchenko, but Adam somehow found him? Wait... Could his alter ego have been—be—inside the lump of metal he left behind?

  Marchenko 2 knows now he obviously made a big mistake. Luckily, everything turned out alright, because the other robot still seems to be in a dismal state. He obviously needed to absorb energy first. The two of them must have tried to find a sheltered spot in this side corridor, so the other Marchenko could take his time to repair his body. Well, that’s over now.

  Marchenko 2 ties Adam’s legs firmly, so he won’t be able to run away after awakening. Then he approaches the fragment of scrap that once was a robot. Now, finally, he will turn it into a mere piece of trash. He just has to hit it for a while with his whip. A few seconds at the highest level and all circuits of the AI’s computing unit will melt into a useless lump. Whoever said an artificial intelligence could not die? He will soon demonstrate that the opposite is true. It is amazing, he thinks, that in the end biological and artificial intelligences are so similar. Any consciousness will disappear if its physical foundation is taken away.

  “Don’t do it, Marchenko.”

  The piece of scrap can talk. At least for now...

  “How do you know what I am planning to do?”

  “I saw how you brought down Adam.”

  “The boy is fine, don’t worry. I took care of his head wound.”

  “But what will he say when he wakes up and I am gone?”

  “He will get used to it.” Wait a moment. He has an idea that will make his alter ego’s death even more painful. “He won’t even notice it. I will copy your structure. That’s easy, as it only has to be external. Then I can take your place once and for all.”

  He likes this plan enormously. He just has to keep Adam unconscious until the transformation is finished. Then he will wake him and tell him how he managed to finally defeat the evil Marchenko— Marchenko 2, as they had labeled him. Afterward they just have to find Eve. She will be so happy to see Adam again that she will gladly come back to Valkyrie.

  “But what is the purpose of it all?”

  His alter ego realizes what Marchenko 2 is up to. And now he wants to stall him for as long as possible. Perhaps he hopes that Eve will appear in the nick of time to rescue him, or that some miracle will happen.

  “It does not matter,” Marchenko 2 answers. “You are just stalling for time.”

  “Maybe I should tell you what Adam and I talked about during the last few hours, and what Eve and I experienced. Otherwise the two of them will be suspicious right away. This won’t be their first time to have you pretending to be me.”

  A clever approach. “And you would do that?”

  “Do I have a choice? At least I can prolong my life that way.”

  “By a few minutes.”

  “So you agree?”

  “Just get started.” Marchenko 2 is a bit annoyed that his alter ego managed to persuade him to delay his plan. Yet this issue of credibility is a valid one. There is only one problem: He cannot know whether he is being told lies. However, he does not think that Marchenko would do this. It is only natural he would want to delay his death. He definitely would not want Adam and Eve to be unhappy after his death.

  If Marchenko 2 had to make that same decision, he would do anything to make life as difficult as possible for his opponent, even after his own death. He would die happy if he could be certain of that. Nevertheless, he trusts this Marchenko to tell him the truth. That is crazy, considering they were created from the same electronic substance. Adam and Eve are not related to each other, but he and this Marchenko are like identical twins separated at birth who discover 20 years later that they developed very differently.

  Therefore he listens to the Marchenko in the lump of metal, and integrates what he hears into his own memories. Once he finishes this process he won’t even know that these are not his own recollections. About ten minutes have passed.

  “And then we arrived in this side corridor. You know the rest,” says the piece of scrap, which soon will be a glowing heap of burned circuits.

  “Thanks. It’s been fun talking with you.”

  “Do you have any ideas concerning life after death?”

  Now the other Marchenko is getting too garrulous. Life after death? That is ridiculous. Marchenko 2 does not articulate this thought. Instead, he checks the charge level of the whip. Then he examines Adam again, but he is not moving at all. He must make sure Adam does not witness this. It is very much like murder, after all, he thinks, and then wonders why this does not bother him more. Is that abnormal? Is he sick? He feels very healthy. He is really looking forward to the time with Adam and Eve. They had been taken from him for such a long time! At first he will treat them the way their Marchenko would, and then he will tighten the reins gradually, so it won’t be noticeable. This will seem like a normal process to the children. And it really will do them good.

  Suddenly a deep, booming voice interrupts his musings.

  “Whattt uss louketed thurr!”

  Behind him, no more than a meter and a half away, stands a huge, brown-skinned creature that looks rather like a frog, with two legs and four arms, but without a head. Marchenko 2 knows right away that this must be the alien who uttered the scream earlier. One of its giant, dark eyes stares at him, and two of its four hands hold a weapon obviously aimed at him.

  Now Marchenko 2 is glad he has not yet used the whip. He lashes out with it against the alien’s skin. He chooses maximum current strength, and the wire is glowing. The hot metal burns itself into the alien’s skin. Its limbs jerk. Marchen
ko 2 sees how all four hands try to grasp the weapon’s handle, where the trigger must be located, but the electrical energy makes the extraterrestrial lose control of its limbs. One of the arms involuntarily tosses the weapon in a high forward arc, into the main corridor. A slimy mass oozes out between the frog’s legs. The alien utters a horrifying, resounding scream. Then it falls backward, its arms and legs tremble, the scream fades, and the terrible creature is dead.

  Brightnight 36, 3876

  It’s no use. He is not getting through with his attempts to communicate with the foreign creature. If he is not mistaken, the foreigner is afraid. No wonder, as it looks strikingly more fragile in reality than in the video recordings from the control room. Its spindly arms and legs, the slender body with two bumps at the front, and particularly that impractical round thing in the middle on top... That must throw this creature quite off-balance. It doesn’t seem easy for the foreigner to balance this body part, as it wobbles back and forth, and sometimes the creature even has to use one of its hands to stabilize itself.

  Nevertheless, this being has managed to travel through space. Life is amazingly varied and always finds a way, even under such negative starting conditions as the home planet of this species must have offered. If the intruder were not responsible for the death of his comrades and—soon—this entire world, Gronolf might almost pity it.

  Gronolf watches the creature and speculates. Does it have a sex? How does it defend itself? He can see no weapons. Perhaps it uses a contact poison, like the pepperfish that not even the carriontooth dares to attack. He should not underestimate this strange creature. Perhaps that is its great advantage—not being considered capable of defense, so that it can surprise others by using its true abilities. Gronolf thinks of the lickslimer, which disguises itself as the discarded tail tip of the spiny lizard, a great delicacy. Those who greedily fell for this became victims themselves. As soon as the lickslimer landed in the primary stomach, it started to devour its host from the inside.