Proxima Logfiles 1: Marchenko's Children: Hard Science Fiction

by Morris, Brandon Q.

  Proxima Logfiles 1: Marchenko's Children

  Hard Science Fiction

  Brandon Q, Morris

  Contents

  Marchenko’s Children

  Author's Note

  Also by Brandon Q, Morris

  The Life and Death of the Stars

  Excerpt: Into the Darkness

  Metric to English Conversions

  Marchenko’s Children

  Brightnight 3, 3882

  “Long time, no see!”

  The bulky creature seemed to be searching for the right words and winked at them with its front eye. Adam took a step back and then realized who was standing there before him.

  “Gronolf!” he shouted.

  The Grosnop’s belly fold fluttered. Then he spread out his three-part touch-arms, put the load-arms behind his back, and made himself smaller by settling down onto his legs. Eve put her arms on her old friend’s shoulders and, in doing so, had to bend over the pronounced stomach. Gronolf’s head, which sat squarely on his torso, swayed back and forth with joy.

  Adam extended his hand toward the extraterrestrial. Gronolf apparently still remembered the human ritual. His seven delicate touch-fingers landed in Adam’s palm, feeling cool to the young man. The temperature outside was brisk, typical for early Brightnight, and the Grosnops were ectothermic. How long had it been since they’d seen each other? Since they’d arrived with Gronolf on this planet in the Majestic Draght, eight seasons had passed, each with seven weeks of seven days each, plus the sixteen changeover days.

  “It was high time for you to pay us a visit again,” said Adam.

  Eve looked at him angrily, and for good reason. His statement had come out harsher than he’d intended. He was happy to see his old friend again.

  “Sorry, Gronolf,” he said. “We’re so delighted. It’s nice you’re finally back.”

  Gronolf moved his load-arms back and forth, which was the equivalent of the human nod. He probably didn’t understand the nuances of human language yet. The Grosnops communicated in a broader frequency range that included ultrasound. Humans were unable to vocalize at that range, so Gronolf had to limit himself and, to some extent, regularly change his voice to talk with them.

  “That’s right,” said Gronolf. “It was time to get back to Double Sun. Single Sun is interesting, but it isn’t our home. How are you all doing? What are Adam and Eve 2 doing?”

  “They don’t exist anymore,” said Eve.

  Gronolf’s stomach folds made a smacking noise. Their extraterrestrial friend was scared.

  “Don’t worry, they’re unharmed,” Eve reassured him, “but they were tired of being mistaken for us. Now they’re Kirsten and Marcus.”

  “KEY-are-stun and MARK-us? And who is who?”

  “Kirsten is the female name.”

  “Sorry, Eve, my memory… You’re the female and Adam is the male, right?”

  “You remember correctly.”

  “Ah, then Eve 2 is now KEY-are-stun, and Adam 2...?”

  “Is now Marcus,” finished Eve.

  “And you? Are you doing well?”

  “We can’t complain,” said Adam.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” replied Gronolf. “What do you need?”

  “It’s an expression,” Eve explained. “It means we’re fine.”

  “Ah, you don’t want to complain?”

  “No, or maybe it does. Sometimes it’s good to complain,” said Eve.

  “I understand,” Gronolf said slowly.

  No, you don’t understand, Adam thought. But that doesn’t matter. We don’t understand it either. It was nice of you to at least make an effort.

  “So have all of you returned?” Eve asked.

  What she really meant was the person who was the closest she had to a father—Marchenko, who had raised her, stood by her side, and rescued her so many times. He and Gronolf had flown back to the world where they had all been initially stranded. Why hadn’t he come with Gronolf?

  “Marchenko sends his warmest regards. He’s still having problems with his body. The old one was damaged on Proxima b, and the new one won’t be ready until tomorrow.”

  That was a good explanation. The computer in their bungalow wasn’t powerful enough to accommodate Marchenko’s consciousness, so he needed another carrier.

  “Thank you. Please send him our warmest greetings,” said Eve.

  “We’re happy to see you,” said Adam, “but there’s surely a reason why you’ve come?”

  Gronolf released Eve from the hug and rubbed his stomach. “That’s right,” he said. “I was instructed to invite you to the hatching ritual.”

  “Is the hatching ritual what it sounds like?” Eve asked.

  “I don’t know what it sounds like to you. It’s the day on which the young Grosnops emerge from their eggs. In our society, it’s the highlight of the year.”

  “It would be an honor for us to take part,” said Eve.

  “This is the first time you’re inviting us to do this. Does it mean anything?” Adam asked.

  Gronolf put a touch-hand on Adam’s shoulder and massaged his neck muscles. “Of course it means something,” he said. “But you won’t find out what until after.”

  “That’s not nice, Gronolf,” said Eve. “Don’t keep us in suspense!”

  “You’ll have to reign in your curiosity a bit.”

  “If I’d kept my curiosity in check on Proxima b, then you would never have awakened from your hibernation, and you’d probably still be a block of ice.”

  “And you’d be ashes, Eve.”

  * * *

  They whooshed along with Gronolf driving the hover boat close to the ground. Eve had asked Gronolf about when he’d saved the remaining sleepers on Proxima b, but he didn’t say much. Adam eventually fell asleep.

  “We’re here,” Gronolf announced, descending from the crossbeam that formed the driver’s seat of the hover boat.

  He stretched out his legs almost entirely, making it possible now to see how gigantic Gronolf was—certainly over three meters. He usually had his spring-legs retracted into his knees so that he hardly appeared any taller than a human.

  Adam looked down. The air flowing from the vehicle’s three turbines bent the reddish-brown grass, which only grew in patches here. The mushy ground was about a meter and a half below. He grimaced, but there was no point in complaining, because Gronolf couldn’t understand that the mud bothered him. Drought was the Grosnops’ greatest enemy.

  Adam jumped. What luck! His feet only sank in about three centimeters. A few droplets flew to the side and splashed onto their driver’s thick, green skin. Gronolf noticed and reached down to smear the glob around like a medical cream. Then he switched off the hover boat’s engine, and the hover boat sank slowly to the ground.

  “This way,” said Gronolf, pointing his long touch-arm forward.

  Adam could already smell the sea as salty air flowed in through his nostrils and cleansed his lungs. They went up a hill. The grass had been flattened almost everywhere. As they crested the hill Adam could see why. There were numerous Grosnops lined up along the wide, black beach, quietly waiting for the ritual.

  Gronolf stopped. The sea was quiet, too. The spectators didn’t go onto the beach, where there were thousands upon thousands of spheres gleaming in the light of the two suns. Adam thought those must be the eggs. Individual Grosnops were running up and down on the beach, probably checking the eggs that new living creatures would soon hatch from

  “We’ve got time,” Gronolf said quietly. “Mother Sun is still too high. The hatchlings would get too dried o
ut before reaching the water.”

  His stomach flap opened, and Gronolf pulled out a padded blanket. Adam was always fascinated by how the aliens used their multi-sectional stomachs for storage. Gronolf spread the cloth on the ground and they sat down. The fabric was dry, even though it had come right out of one of Gronolf’s stomachs. Because they were sitting on the slope, they had a good view of what was going on.

  “The mothers are in the front rows,” Gronolf explained.

  Sure enough, the extraterrestrials at the very front seemed extremely nervous.

  “How many eggs did each mother lay?” Eve asked.

  “Seven times seven, that’s the ideal. A plex, or what you’d call a litter. But most eggs don’t reach maturity. That is why some females lay more of them, even at the risk of their plex being too big.”

  “If every female has 49 offspring every year, shouldn’t your world be overpopulated by now?” Adam asked.

  “No. You’ll see soon.” Then Gronolf grunted, which, Adam recalled, was equivalent to the human sigh.

  Mother Sun was now just a handbreadth above the horizon, and purple emanated from it in an otherwise deep-green sky. Dusk was settling in. Father Sun was still at its zenith, but it was so far away that the shadows it cast were very indistinct.

  The last Grosnops left the beach, leaving the eggs on their own. The sea was a leaden black.

  “It’s starting,” said Gronolf.

  “How can you tell?”

  “I hear it through ultrasound, Eve. The mothers are telling their children to come out of the eggs, and the hatchlings respond when they’re mature enough.”

  “And if not?” asked Eve.

  “Then they don’t,” said Gronolf.

  Eve looked at him searchingly.

  “What is it, Eve?” asked Gronolf.

  “Nothing, I...”

  “Hatchlings who aren’t mature by now would have no chance of making it to the Draght, anyway. It’s better for them to die in their eggs.”

  “Look,” Adam said, pointing ahead.

  The first of the eggs, which were about 25 centimeters in diameter, started to open. They split across the middle, as if someone were pulling a zipper from the inside. The first visible sign of each hatchling was its thin touch-arms, which were used to further break open the shell. As soon as the gaps were big enough, they pulled their bodies out. Adam thought they looked like tadpoles, remembering the pictures of the frog larvae that Marchenko had shown them a long time ago.

  The crowd of observers cried out rhythmically, and the hatchlings crawled, to the beat of the cries, through the sand. They pushed off with their strong hind legs and used their conical heads like battering rams to push their siblings aside. They seemed to know exactly where the sea was.

  Yet not all of them managed to reach it. An exceptionally strong hatchling turned around right before the water’s edge. He pounced on one of his siblings and struck its body with its powerful load-arm. Blood spurted.

  Eve witnessed the attack and let out a scream. “Did you see that?” she gasped. “The blood, it spurted!”

  “It wasn’t blood,” said Gronolf. “It was egg yolk from the swim bladder. This is what the hatchlings feed on for the first few hours.”

  The aggressor slid its stomach over the victim. It wasn’t clear what was happening, but Adam sensed it. The stomach flap opened and the assailant consumed its victim.

  “Why don’t they all go after each other like that?” Adam asked.

  “Because it’s stupid,” replied Gronolf. “Their mothers surely told them a thousand times before hatching, but hormones still drive some of them to do it.”

  “Why is it stupid? Doesn’t it help them to hang on longer?”

  “No, it slows them down, and then they have to use up their energy to take the lead in the water.”

  The first hatchlings plunged into the sea, and soon the movements from their paddling churned up the water. About ten of them quickly took the lead. The pack was approximately 20 meters behind and was getting slower rather than faster because more and more hatchlings were fighting each other instead of rushing ahead. Gleaming stripes reminiscent of oil slicks spread out on the surface of the water.

  “That really is blood this time,” Gronolf said. “Some of them must have been badly injured. That’s no good.”

  “Why?” asked Adam.

  Gronolf didn’t reply. He didn’t have to. Suddenly, jagged fish spines were breaking through the surface of the water.

  “These are carrionteeth,” said Gronolf. “Usually they only hunt in the deep, but if they smell blood...”

  There was one vortex after another. A hatchling didn’t stand a chance against an adult carriontooth. One of the predators briefly emerged from the water to flash its huge mouth full of sharp teeth. It looked like it was grinning.

  “Why don’t you help them?” asked Eve.

  “That would be a violation of the ritual. They have to find their own way. If they survive a Brightnight, they’re strong enough to defend themselves against the carrionteeth and avenge their siblings.”

  “When will they return?” Adam asked.

  “After a year, after a Brightnight and a Darknight.”

  “Wouldn’t you want someone to help?” asked Eve.

  “My mother helped me by preparing me well. Her warnings were in my mind, and I was one of the first into the deep sea.”

  “But what if she had protected you on the beach?”

  “Then I would have been eaten right up by the next carriontooth. I would never have been a real Grosnop.”

  “Will they all come back?”

  “What do you mean, Eve? Few return, but those who make it are strong.”

  “They could stay out there.”

  “As outsiders? I’ve heard that there are whole groups of them somewhere, but I’ve never seen one. It’s difficult without the community.”

  “For humans on Earth,” said Eve, “offspring that are not yet fully developed are placed in a machine—an incubator—until they’re big enough.”

  “Or put onto a spaceship and shot to another planet at 20 percent of the speed of light,” said Adam, “without ever asking them what they want. I think we’re not in any position to criticize the Grosnops.”

  Eve didn’t answer. The onlookers’ screams quieted. Now, on the appointed beach that stretched for 800 meters, there were just a few hatchlings moving toward the sea. They were the slowest, the weakest. A long-billed pigeon circled above them. The birds liked to stay on the beach and hunt for fish in the shallow water. Suddenly the animal turned on its wings and rushed toward a hatchling. But just before it reached it, it was hurled to the side and the hatchling escaped into the sea.

  “Someone threw a stone at the pigeon,” said Gronolf. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  * * *

  “Let’s wait until they’re all gone,” said Eve.

  “As you like,” Gronolf replied.

  Mother Sun had long since disappeared beyond the horizon, and the sky was now a deep blue. It looked as if Father Sun, a pale-yellow blot, wasn’t moving. It wouldn’t go back down until the end of the season, when Brightnight turned into Darknight. The wind was picking up, and Adam shivered. Here near the equator, the climate was pleasant all year round, but the temperature could drop below 20 degrees in the evening.

  Eve got up and ran down the hillside, and Adam followed. Gronolf picked up the blanket. At the foot of the slope, the meadow turned into sand. Eve took off her shoes, but Adam kept his on—he didn’t like getting grains of sand between his toes.

  “Come on, let’s go a little closer to the water,” said Eve. She bent down to roll up the cuffs of her pants and then headed toward the sea.

  “Watch where you step,” Gronolf warned from behind.

  He was right. The beach was full of eggs. Adam bent down and examined one, touching the soft, rubber-like shell, which was empty inside and had a bitter smell. He straightened up again to keep fro
m getting nauseous.

  Eve had almost reached the water, but then she stopped and crouched down. “Look,” she called out.

  “Eve, don’t! Don’t do that!” Gronolf cried.

  In two large bounds, the Grosnop was by her side. He reached for her but then froze. Eve had put her arm into the egg and was now pulling it back out. There were seven tiny fingers wrapped around her thumb. It was a hatchling’s touch-arm. Adam thought the animal was alive, but then he realized his error. It wasn’t an animal, even if it reminded him of a giant frog. It was a Grosnop, an intelligent creature.

  “He’s alive!” Eve shouted.

  “No,” Gronolf said, “he’s already dead.”

  “But look, he’s moving. He’s holding my hand. We have to help him!”

  “He’s essentially dead. We can’t help him. Did you forget what I told you? He doesn’t stand a chance.”

  “Don’t be absurd. We have to get him through the first year, that’s all.”

  “That won’t help him,” said Gronolf. “He’ll never be accepted. It’s too late. We have to let him die an honorable death.”

  “Please, Gronolf, I can take care of the hatchling. I’ll take care of him around the clock.”

  Eve was fighting a losing battle. Why couldn’t she understand this? “Eve, leave it,” said Adam. “They’re different from us. It’s their planet, their rules.”

  “Adam is right. You don’t understand,” said Gronolf.

  “I can save him, I’m sure of it,” Eve insisted.

  “That’s impossible.” Quick as a flash, Gronolf moved his long touch-arms around Eve’s back and grabbed for the egg. She didn’t see it coming. His delicate but strong fingers released the hatchling’s grip from Eve’s hand. Then his touch-hands grabbed the egg, and there was a gurgling sound as he lifted it up. Gronolf took the egg in his right touch-arm, spun it over his head a few times, and then let it fly in a high arc toward the sea.