Proxima Dreaming Read online

  Proxima Dreaming

  Hard Science Fiction

  Brandon Q. Morris

  Contents

  Proxima Dreaming

  Author’s Note

  Also by Brandon Q. Morris

  A Guided Tour to Alien Life

  Glossary of Acronyms

  Metric to English Conversions

  Proxima Dreaming

  Brightnight 1, 3307

  He presses his four arms against his body, pushes off with both legs, and swims for dear life. He instinctively keeps the lids of his four eyes closed, as if he knows that the two suns would otherwise blind him. He forces himself down into the water with all his strength. His smell-skins tell him the way. He only has to follow the increasing salt concentration to reach the depths of the ocean. He won’t be safe there, but definitely safer than here near the shore.

  Gronolf can tell from how his skin feels that the water behind him is churning. Those are his brothers and sisters. Today they emerged from their eggs as if on command, and now they are fighting for survival. He only stands a chance if he stays in front. He can smell the blood spreading in the water. Some of his siblings failed to control their instincts. They try to fight. They tear apart the bodies of others with the claws on their swimming feet, and they in turn are ripped apart. It is a massacre one can only escape by fleeing.

  How many of the seven times seven times seven will succeed? Gronolf suppresses the thought. He cannot allow himself to lose his concentration, not for a single swimming stroke! That is the only way he can be among the first to reach the depths of the ocean, where the oxygen content of the water increases and he can breathe more freely than now. He will have to survive out there for one brightnight and one darknight before he is allowed to return and become a part of the community.

  Swim, swim, swim, he thinks. He pushes himself and soon falls into the magical rhythm of seven his mother taught him. He has never seen her, and so far his eyes only know the dim light that penetrated the membrane of his egg, but he remembers her voice well. Sometimes it came from nearby, and sometimes from far away, but it always seemed warm, kind, and concerned. Gronolf occasionally imagined that she only talked to him and not to the many siblings of his plex. When he returns, when he has finished his ‘draght’ and become an adult, taking on a new name, he will ask her whether she ever thought of him personally while she taught the secrets of life to her entire plex.

  The darkness in front of his lids intensifies. Mother Sun must have just set, so Gronolf can take his first rest. He is not yet safe, but he has left the others far behind. He can only smell a few blood molecules now, but the numerous salts of the core ocean lure him ever more strongly. His gills filter breathable air from the water. He fills his swim bladder and lets himself drift to the surface. He turns on his back. His mother warned him not to open his eyes for the first time during the day, as the light of Mother Sun would have inevitably blinded him. Now he slowly raises his lids. A burning pain jolts his body. It is supposed to warn him against opening his eyes too soon, but he knows the time has come.

  Then the blueness appears and practically fills his thoughts. Gronolf is surprised how intense the color seems to him, very different from the weeks inside the egg. The blue seems to be all-encompassing, but also profound. It stirs a craving in him to rise into the sky above. In his mind he suppresses his left eye and concentrates on what his right eye shows him. Father Sun is still low above the horizon. It emits a pure white that is reflected in the long waves of the ocean.

  Next Gronolf calls up the image of his left eye, which looks at the other side. The sky is only slightly darker there. The blue is more impressive than any description his mother gave. On the horizon he detects black silhouettes. Are those the ‘Mountains of Legends’ his mother talked about? His father is supposed to be there. He is grateful to him, even though he has never seen him. His mother always praised his father profusely. Nobody, she swore, exhibited such virility, and only because of this, his plex became the largest one on the entire Birth Coast.

  Gronolf holds his breath and lets his torso sink into the water. This way he can use his rear eyes to look into the direction from which he came. The flat coast is no longer visible, as he has moved too far away. Now and then he notices something flashing. That must be one of his siblings. He must not stay here too long. He uses his right touch hand to feel the muscles of his thighs. They seem to have grown noticeably since he left the egg. For the seven bubble periods of the night the nutrients from the egg will suffice, but then he has to search for fresh food—and watch out that he himself is not eaten by the creatures of the deep.

  Gronolf exhales and sinks below the surface. His lids close involuntarily. The light of Father Sun barely reaches into the water. At a depth of three leg lengths, it is already pitch black. But he still has his sense of smell, which guides him on his way and warns of enemies. Swim, swim, swim, he tells himself, and once more falls into the efficient seven-stroke rhythm his mother described.

  Five bubble periods later he realizes he cannot wait until the end of the night. He expended all his strength to move away as fast as possible from his competing siblings, just as his mother told him again and again. However, in doing so he has consumed his reserves. His muscles need nutrients or they will stop working. He can no longer ignore the pain indicating this fact. He can find what he needs at the bottom of the ocean. As his mother told him, nowhere in this body of water that spans the entire planet is it deeper than 30 leg lengths.

  Gronolf exhales and sinks down. He hopes he has not yet reached the area of maximal depth. Down there, he was told, breathable gas becomes scarce, and it is also the realm of the carrionteeth. Their name is only half true. These carnivorous fish don’t just eat carrion, but anything they can sink their teeth into. And their small brains need less oxygen, which makes them dangerous opponents in the depths. There they can swim even faster than an adult Grosnop. However, they would not dare attack a grown-up representative of his species. An adult Grosnop trained in the arts of combat can handle any animal on the planet, apart from the seacomb. Carrionteeth, it is said, only hunt at night, so he should be safe from them in the daytime.

  However, if Gronolf waits until the rise of Mother Sun, his siblings will catch up and kill him. That is life. Few brothers and sisters of his plex will return to the birth beach after the end of the darknight. If there are seven of them, that is considered an especially auspicious sign—the mother who nurtured that plex is allowed to select the inseminating father for the next cycle. This is how his father—who has a high rank in the space fleet—became his father. A splendid career awaits Gronolf if he survives the draght. In the old times, his mother had explained, things were different. He cannot even imagine a time in which the Grosnops in their eggs possessed no spark of intelligence! How could the mothers explain to their children what they were going to face? It must have been terrible to be sent into the great massacre past the beach without any warning. Gronolf is grateful to his mother for preparing him so well.

  She had also explained to him how to fill his stomach as fast as possible. In his mind he goes through the procedure: Empty swim bladder, paddle towards the bottom, scan continually with eyes in front, roll upper belly flap inward, let lower belly flap hang out. Then he can float closely above the ocean floor and use his lower belly flap to move the organic matter growing there directly into his feeding hole. He hopes he won’t encounter a carriontooth! Gronolf starts to implement his plan. He sniffs in all directions but doesn’t notice anything except for slowly-rising salt content. Then he uses strong leg strokes to swim toward the ocean bottom.

  A cloud of organic molecules awaits him. He cannot miss this source of food. He cautiously loosens his chest muscles. He
jerks up the skin flap over his belly. He only has to relax his belly muscles and his feeding hole will open. He sinks down a bit more, orienting himself by the increasing salt content, and starts feeding. He does not know what exactly is entering his stomach, but it does not matter. A kind of sieve filters the food and separates digestible parts from indigestible. Then the first stomach closes, squeezes the food into the second stomach and pumps the water and inedibles back outside, and the whole process starts anew. Whenever the peristaltic muscles pump food into the second stomach, Gronolf experiences a pleasant feeling. This comforting, warm emotion is a new experience for him.

  He is no longer alone.

  Carriontooth!

  The sudden realization makes his body tremble. Both of his skin flaps close involuntarily. Gronolf has to keep himself from a wild flight. If he does that, he will stand no chance against the carriontooth. The animal has tracked him down and is waiting for the best moment to strike. Gronolf has only one chance: He has to wait for the first attack of the carriontooth. The predator specializes in a rapid attack so it can spear prey with its big, sword-like tooth. Gronolf banishes all thoughts of danger from his brain. He has to concentrate on his sense of smell. If he can make himself wait until the last moment to evade the charge of the carriontooth, the attacker will shoot far past him, and he has a realistic chance of getting beyond the range where the predator can smell him. Then he would be safe.

  Where is the carriontooth? Gronolf’s thought swirl through his olfactory centers, which are distributed just beneath the skin all over his body. Behind him, toward the coast, he can smell only the blood of his siblings. To the left there is... a trace of iron oxide. Very strange, but no carriontooth. To the right he smells nothing but the food, rich in calcium and potassium ions. The fine hairs on his skin register changes in the water pressure. This can only mean one thing: The predator has started to move. But where does the danger come from? In front of him the smell of food becomes even more intense. What did his mother say? The carriontooth sometimes uses camouflage... That’s it! The predator is coming from ahead!

  Gronolf wants to flee immediately, but that would mean his death. The attacker can correct its course almost to the very last moment. He—the prey—must be patient... until the final instant, but not one instant longer. Gronolf trembles. The carriontooth can feel it when you tremble, his mother had told him, but he can’t help it. It was not even 12 bubble periods ago that he left his egg, and now his life might be over? Where should I swerve? Would the predatory fish expect that he will try to flee? Calm down, calm down, calm down, he tells himself, while checking his environment for the tell-tale sign.

  And there it is... Now! He kicks hard with his right leg, moving half a leg-length to the left. At the same instant he feels the water pressure on his right side briefly increase. Something swam by him very quickly. Gronolf reacts immediately. He accelerates forward, away from the predator. He puts all his strength into the swim movements, thinking of nothing but escape. Yes he still remembers to approach the surface again gradually. He has to succeed, otherwise he might as well have stayed behind to be ripped apart by his brothers and sisters! He is convinced his mother believes in him and he tells himself that she desperately wants to see him again.

  Gronolf does not know for how long he has been fleeing. His mind can only concentrate on giving commands to his legs. It is getting dark, and fog forms at the edges of his consciousness. He realizes he is approaching a line he should not cross. He must not go on. If the distance is not enough, it doesn’t matter. Stop, he tells his legs, but, caught in a panic-fueled dance, they don’t hear him. STOP, he yells at them, and the signal finally reaches his legs. He is once again in control of his legs, and notices he has reached the surface.

  A cool breeze touches his skin. It feels so wonderful he turns around his axis several times. A digestive gas bubble leaves his stomach. That is a good sign—he has gathered enough food for the time being. And he has survived, for the second time. Gronolf opens all four of his eyes. The two facing down can only detect blackness—and no carriontooth. The other two eyes, the ones above the water’s surface, notice the new day. On the horizon the yellow rays of Mother Sun appear, while Father Sun is leaving. The warm, yellow glow provides him with a feeling of security and warmth. The sky is changing. Starting in the direction of the sunrise, an intense green rises into the firmament. It is a fertile color, which also expresses an incredible calm and satisfaction. It can’t be far now to the center of the ocean, where extensive cave systems make it easier to survive in solitude. Gronolf has made it.

  May 8, 19, Adam

  “Marchenko, how much longer?”

  “Tomorrow, my boy. Tomorrow we will be there.”

  How he hates this. Adam hits his fist against the inner wall of the metal ‘cigar-tube’ in which Marchenko 2 has been carrying him along for almost a month. He knows he should be thankful for his rescue. How could I have been so stupid as to leave the sled while we were in complete darkness? And this Marchenko—Marchenko 2, the fake Marchenko—is even more possessive than the real one. He is constantly treating me like a little boy. Since Valkyrie started from the edge of the ice sheet, Adam has not been allowed to leave the vessel.

  “What do the scanners indicate?”

  “There is a huge mass in front of us. It must be a building.”

  As if we didn’t know that already!

  “Any signs of Eve?”

  He deliberately asks about his sister. Marchenko 2 does not want to hear about the AI which raised Eve and him.

  “Unfortunately not, my son.”

  I am NOT your son, Adam thinks, being careful his irritation does not show. “Please tell me right away if you receive a signal.”

  “Certainly! We will know more within 15 hours. And now, lie down and sleep so you will be rested tomorrow.”

  “I will do that,” Adam says. He could not possibly sleep now. How might Eve and their Marchenko be doing? Have they already discovered the secrets of this building? Might the shift in mass within the Proxima system, which Marchenko 2 reported, have been caused by them? Right now, he would like to feel Eve’s breath against the back of his neck. Then he could definitely fall asleep. Even her slight snore would calm him.

  Adam remembers the time on the sled. It seems an eternity ago, even though only a month has passed. He did not appreciate the sense of community. How stupid can one be? And all this secrecy, just because Marchenko 2 lured him with the truth about his origins. Truth. What is that actually? It is true that he misses Eve—and Marchenko—his Marchenko. Adam hesitates to call him father. He cannot express why, but if he were forced to call a person his father, then it would be the true Marchenko.

  Adam has known this form of truth for a month now. It was revealed to him when he died, when he was alone in the icy darkness and understood that this mistake would cost him his life. That was a strange moment. He fought it for a long time, tried so hard to save himself, and kept hoping for the arrival of the second Marchenko. He ran, then walked, then staggered along... and finally, crawled. And then he could not go on. His muscles absolutely refused to move. He knew he would never again open his eyes if he closed them at that moment. He looked up at the sky, and at first he did not see anything. Then the sky changed color. He could not believe his eyes. Together with what he believed to be an aurora came images, a short version of his life. He had laughed out loud as it seemed so cliché to him. His childhood on board Messenger, the hours with J the robot who served as their teacher, the infinitely many days with his sister, full of boredom, fights, and made-up stories. And then he saw the landing on Proxima b, the escape from the heat of the central plain, the attack of the mini-frogs, their time in the strange forest of fighting trees and colorful mushrooms. He always considered himself so smart, but he had been stupid. How clumsily he had fallen into the pit with that weird spider! Eve had watched and supported him when Marchenko was angry once again. He knew he owed so much to her, and then he realiz
ed he had lost her forever.

  Adam can’t remember the following hours.

  Marchenko 2 later mentioned how he found him—in a fetal position, but with his eyes open. His circulation had not stopped, it had lowered to a maintenance level which prevented his cells from freezing. Adam does not know whether he can believe him, even partially. He must have remained motionless for six hours at minus 80 degrees Celsius. That is completely impossible! And then Marchenko 2 still had to transport him back to Valkyrie, to the submarine Adam and the others had left at the edge of the ice sheet. He supposedly provided Adam with nutrients via IVs.

  Right now, Adam is doing amazingly well again. He still has dressings on the back of his hand and in the crooks of both arms, where the intravenous needles had been inserted. Otherwise, his skin is unblemished. Shouldn’t he at least have suffered frostbite? It is not as if he wants black toes or fingers falling off, but the fact that he survived his enormous stupidity without any problems makes him skeptical. Marchenko 2, though, insists that there was nothing strange about this. Is he keeping something secret?

  Adam has been wondering whether he might currently be nothing but a simulation in Marchenko 2’s memory bank, or whether he is experiencing one last, infinite dream, while in reality his body has been long dead. Yet when he pinches himself the pain is real, as is the fear about Eve and the wish to meet her again—as soon as possible.

  Darknight 171, 3307

  Yesterday Gronolf heard his mother call him in a dream. Then he awoke and noticed it had not been a dream. His mother actually was calling him! It was the first time his sonar had reacted. The organ had taken almost a cycle to mature, and now it was transmitting his mother’s wish. He will return, just like all his surviving brothers and sisters. How many will there be? He wishes his mother, who gave him so much strength, the lucky number seven.