Proxima

by Stephen Baxter

  ‘But I, too, am a victim of that blind stupidity, as you put it. As for myself, I can assure you that—’

  ‘Shut up. I only talk to you about this stuff because I’m bored.’ That much, at least, was true.

  ‘Enough, Yuri,’ Mardina said. ‘You can talk to me if you like, ColU. So how are you progressing with this great project of yours?’

  ‘With difficulty. The geology of this world is singularly unhelpful. None of it is old, Mardina Jones. And by “old” I mean in excess of a few hundred million years. At least in the local geological unit.

  ‘Take this bit of sandstone in my grabber claw.’ It held out the sample. ‘You can see strata, laid down in some vanished ocean over a few million years. Then came the tectonic spasms that uplifted it, breaking the strata. There was an age of erosion as the strata were exposed to the weather. Then more geological turbulence resulted in the injection of molten granite into the weaker strata; you can see intrusions here and here. But even the rock from which the original sandstone formed, eroded relics of volcanic products from a still earlier era, was comparatively young, as a dating from traces of radioactive elements establishes.’

  Yuri’s head spun with this mishmash of geological events. ‘I can’t get all that in order. What you’re saying is—’

  Mardina said, ‘That the surface of the planet is recent, geologically speaking. Like Venus. Isn’t that right?’

  ‘Yes,’ said the ColU. ‘Venus appears to undergo a global resurfacing event every few hundred million years. The crater record shows this clearly. Here the resurfacing may be region by region, rather than the entire surface at once. Per Ardua is evidently geologically active; we’ve seen active regions ourselves, the mud pools, the evidence of uplift to the north. But it is an older world than the Earth, or Venus; Proxima is older than the sun. Maybe this localised activity, this geological bubbling, is something to do with that greater age. A given region may wait tens, hundreds of millions of years for such an event. But when it comes it is enough to wipe out much of any fossil record I might have found.’

  ‘Frustrating,’ Mardina murmured.

  ‘But there are ways forward,’ said the ColU. ‘Mostly through study of the extant biology.’

  ‘The DNA.’

  ‘The Arduan creatures do not have DNA. But yes. A comparative study of their genetic material reveals deep relationships. I can already draw up a family tree based on the Arduan genetic record. With estimates of mutation rates I should soon be able to come up with a skeleton chronology. It is already clear, for instance, that the Arduan stromatolites, or their ancestors, must predate the stem forms. When did multicellular life begin here? When did the first multi-stem-architecture creatures emerge, and what were they like? Do they have any analogous survivors today? And—’

  Yuri said, ‘I still say you’ve got big dreams for a bit of farm machinery.’

  Mardina suppressed a laugh.

  ‘It is in the nature of sentience,’ the ColU said, ‘to dream. My work is done here, at this bluff. Are you ready to go on?’

  They walked on, pausing once to eat, coming at last to the western shore of the lake.

  This was the domain of the builders, on the fringe of the great stem beds that extended far out into the water where the birds flocked. Mardina had labelled this part of the shore the ‘nursery’, because there was a concentration of families with their young. If you could call them families. Certainly the area was studded with the low, nest-like constructions that the ColU now believed, based on Yuri’s clumsy explorations, were Proxima storm shelters for the young.

  And here, today, on patches of the native analogues of mosses and lichen, young builders were basking in Proxima light. They gathered in clusters of a couple of dozen or more, each basically a tripod leaning on one rear leg and tilting back so it faced the star hanging in the sky. Their triple main stems were rooted in the lichen patches, and Yuri saw masses of fibres, tendrils, reaching down from the stems into the lichen – or maybe vice versa.

  While the ColU plucked samples with a fine manipulator arm and scanned around with its sensor units, Mardina got down on her knees before the cluster of little builders, being careful not to block the light. ‘You know, I’ve seen them being born,’ she said. ‘ “Born”, I suppose you’d call it that. The three parents – and there are always three of them – get together in a cluster, upright, and they kind of pull bits out of each other. Stems, especially the fine ones from the dense core sections. Then they put them together, like they’re assembling a kit-part model. But it stops being methodical after a while. They start to move, whirling around, the three of them joined together around the newborn.’ She rocked, her kneeling body swaying in a gentle circle, imitating the movement she’d seen. ‘A dance of conception, of birth. Some deep biology going on. And when they separate, there’s a new little guy.’

  ‘Wow,’ Yuri said. Mardina had never told him about these observations before. ‘Builder sex, huh?’

  ‘If you can meaningfully call it sex,’ the ColU said, rolling back. ‘There would presumably have to be three sexes, not two. I’ve seen no evidence of the sexual differentiation observed in many species on Earth. But the peculiar sexual congress you describe is clearly a way for genetic material from the parents to be mixed up in the infants, at the level of the stems, at least.

  ‘And there’s more. Notice how they make junctions between their bodies and the lichen bed. I think these builders are something like some of the earliest plants on Earth. Such plants hadn’t yet evolved proper root systems, but instead formed a symbiotic relationship with fungi. The fungi would feed nutrients and water to the plant, in return for sugars manufactured by the plant. I think what we’re seeing here is a complex symbiosis between the builders and the photosynthesising bacteria and fungi of the lichen.’

  ‘You mean,’ Yuri said, ‘these little guys are feeding.’

  ‘I’ve observed the adults, too, spending time on lichen beds like this. But the youngsters are presumably more in need of nutrients; their stems need to grow. So the youngsters spend more of their time plugged in, so to speak. Other Arduan creatures, like the kites, must have similar rooting sites. If we look hard enough we’ll find them. Certainly these creatures, which are a mixed-up compound of what we call animals and plants, are never more plant-like than at such moments. Perhaps their animal-like consciousness, a sense of self-awareness and identity, briefly dissolves into a deeper green . . .’

  Mardina wasn’t listening, Yuri saw. All her attention was on the young builders.

  He said to her, ‘You like these little guys, don’t you?’

  She looked defensive. He knew she didn’t like having her feelings questioned, any more than he did himself. But she admitted, ‘Look, I’m no noble savage. But I grew up with the old stories – you know? Of the gengas, the spirits of my ancestors infusing the land. Well, I have no ancestors here, there are no gengas for me. But these builders – this is their world. They honour their dead, we know that. Maybe their gengas will look after me. I know it makes no sense—’

  The ColU said, ‘Careful.’

  There was a clatter, like a bag of chopsticks being shaken. Yuri, standing over Mardina and the infants, turned to see a pair of older builders bearing down on them, spinning, limb stems clattering.

  ‘Hey, take it easy, you guys.’ Mardina stood up. She whirled around in her orange jumpsuit, shaking out her arms and legs. ‘We’re just looking, we won’t harm these little fellas.’

  The ColU abruptly rolled back a half-metre, a sure sign in Yuri’s experience that it was surprised, and raised its sensor pod on its arm high in the air. ‘Lieutenant . . . what are you doing?’

  ‘What does it look like? Can’t you see these blokes are warning us off?’

  Yuri said, ‘You mean they’re talking to us? What, with the dance?’

  ‘In the dance, in the way they clatter their limbs – I don’t know, I don’t speak builder. I’m just trying to reassure them, that�
�s all.’

  The builders slowed their spinning and backed off a little, but they did not root in the lichen bed with the infants. Instead they stood at the edge of the bed, spinning slowly, evidently watching warily. Yuri thought he saw a glimmer of opening eyes, eerily human, eye-leaves hidden in their structures.

  ‘ “I don’t speak builder,” ’ the ColU repeated. ‘Yet, in a sense, you clearly do, Lieutenant. Fascinating. I must explore this further.’ And then it froze, camera-eyes staring at the builders, sensor pod held high.

  Mardina picked up her pack. ‘Come on. The ColU will be stuck here for hours, observing away. You know how it is when it gets into this kind of mood. Let’s get out of here. We ought to stop spooking the builders.’

  ‘All right.’ Yuri hefted his own pack.

  They walked on in silence, back around the southern shore of the lake, leaving the ColU behind. They kept well clear of the stems, the builder beds, the dome-shaped nest-shelters.

  Builders moved everywhere, bent on their mysterious errands, working on peculiar, unidentifiable structures, sometimes even dipping into the lake water. In there, Yuri had learned, underwater creatures swam, more multi-stem forms, perhaps analogues of crabs or fish or crocodiles.

  And at the water’s edge the builders came together in pairs, triples, larger groups, and they spun and clattered and buzzed around each other. Yuri had seen this kind of behaviour before, but had never thought much about it. Some failure of his own imagination. Yes, he thought, it was as if they were talking to each other. He wondered if it would ever be possible to translate what they were saying. If it was possible, he supposed, the ColU would figure it out.

  They passed a garden of stromatolites, big ones, with broad cap-like upper surfaces over stout pillars, like huge mushrooms gleaming gold in the Prox light. A herd of herbivores worked the garden, small critters this time, no taller than the average builder, but they had the usual spiky extrusions, that they pushed into the rich interiors of the stromatolites. The stromatolites were so huge it was hard to believe they would even notice this pinprick feeding.

  Then they came to a group of middens, standing by the southern lake shore. These were big heaps, with steep sides of compacted, dried-out old stems. Yuri saw builders working on their upper surfaces, a good number of them, pushing heaps of stems back and forth with an endless, dry, rustling sound.

  ‘They’re rebuilding the midden,’ he observed to Mardina.

  ‘Again. And the middens already have complex shapes.’ She had a slate; she sketched the nearest midden’s new layout with brisk, confident movements of her hand. ‘Look at it, Yuri. Think of it as a building, a structure. Forget that it’s a heap of old stems, of dead builders. Suppose it was made of concrete . . .’

  It was a complicated design, of curves and banks and channels. And it was only one of a series of these middens, all along this part of the lake shore. Yuri turned, trying to figure out how these structures fit into the landscape. Away from the lake to the south, behind them, passing east of the stromatolite garden, he made out a shallow, rubble-strewn channel, a dried-up river bed maybe, leading to a depression, crusted with salt. The row of middens neatly sealed off this outflow channel from the lake.

  ‘It’s like a dam. I’ve thought that before.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Mardina said dismissively. ‘Maybe. Blocking that dry channel to the south. But there are what look like functional dams on the other side of the lake, the north shore. Blocking the inlet streams coming down from the high land between the lake and the forest. What do you make of that?’

  He shrugged. ‘What is there to make of it?’

  She squinted at the builders. ‘Depends how smart you think those little guys are. We know they build shelters for their young, we know they communicate between themselves, we know they remember their dead. Does all this building work going on around the lake have a purpose? However smart they are, they’re certainly smart in a different way from us, and that makes them hard to understand. Maybe we think they’re working on some big engineering project here just because that’s what we’d do.’

  As they spoke Yuri saw the builders’ behaviour was changing. They had given up their work on the midden and were streaming down its flanks, heading towards the stromatolite garden. And in the nursery areas to the west, he saw adult builders gently shepherding the young towards the nest-like shelters.

  Mardina pointed. ‘Here comes the ColU.’

  The ColU was built for stability and strength, not speed. Still, it kicked up a cloud of dust as it raced around the lake towards them. And it called to them, its voice an over-amplified bark: ‘Danger, Yuri Eden, Lieutenant Mardina Jones, danger!’ It pointed up at Proxima with one extended manipulator arm. ‘Flare alert! Flare!’

  Yuri turned and looked up at the star, shielding his eyes, squinting. He saw bright flare sites coalescing, and tremendous crackles like lightning flickering over the star’s sprawling surface. No wonder the builders were fleeing.

  ‘Shit,’ said Mardina. ‘That’s a big one, and it’s come out of nowhere. And we’re a long way from the storm shelter.’

  ‘I’ve got an idea.’

  ‘What?’

  He pointed south-west. Most of the builders from the lake were streaming that way, spinning and pivoting, kicking up dust, heading straight for the big stromatolites. ‘Follow the builders. Come on!’

  He led the way. When he glanced back to check that Mardina was following him, behind her he saw a flickering on the northern horizon. In the big trees of the forest, the huge triple canopy leaves were folding up like umbrellas.

  It took only minutes to reach the stromatolites. Everywhere the builders were punching holes in the upper crust of the big structures, and were piling inside, squirming into the layers of bacteria and dirt within. Yuri saw that every one of these makeshift entrances was on the far side of the stromatolite from the angry star.

  By the time Yuri and Mardina had got there, there wasn’t a builder to be seen. They stood beneath a big stromatolite, the hole in its shell easily big enough to allow an adult human to pass.

  They looked at each other. Yuri asked, ‘What do you think?’

  ‘They’ve lived on this planet a lot longer than we have. Let’s trust them.’ She pushed herself head first through the break in the stromatolite’s shell, and shovelled out handfuls of gungy drab green matter to make room for herself. Soon she was inside the stromatolite entirely, and burrowing further in.

  Yuri followed. It was not a comfortable feeling to be wriggling into this dark, slimy murk; he felt like some parasitic worm eating its way into a brain.

  And then, beyond the gap in the shell, light flared, brilliant, as if somebody had thrown a switch in the sky.

  CHAPTER 29

  In his brief orientation, Major Lex McGregor had told the colonists that Proxima flared almost constantly, like all red dwarf stars, making explosive releases of magnetic energy that were visible across light years. Per Ardua’s atmosphere mostly shielded its cargo of life from the weather from space, but there were occasions, like, apparently, this time, when the sleet of ultraviolet and X-ray photons was too energetic, and broke through to the ground.

  Life here had strategies to cope. The tough carapaces of the stems. The fact that a builder could simply replace a damaged stem, like a spare part. The builders sheltering their young in thick dome-like shelters. The trees folding away their leaves. Maybe creatures dwelling in the lakes and oceans retreated to the protection of the deeper water.

  And maybe this was another strategy: to dive inside the thick shell, into the slimy interior, of a stromatolite. Would it work for humans? Yuri supposed they just had to hope so.

  They were in a kind of cramped little cave in the slime, pressed together, slippery and sticky. The stromatolite’s inner matter continually threatened to slop down over the opening, and Yuri and Mardina were kept busy kicking this clear, so that a spray of mush gathered on the stony ground outside, brilliantly lit by the flare.


  ‘Those builders have dug in deeper,’ Mardina said.

  ‘Maybe they don’t need air.’

  ‘Well, we sure as hell do. Keep kicking.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. How long do you think we should stay in here?’

  ‘We’ll see the light outside go back to normal. Or we could wait until the ColU comes to tell us it’s safe.’

  ‘Or maybe the builders will push us out,’ Yuri said.

  ‘Maybe.’

  They looked at each other. Mardina’s face was just white eyes, white teeth, in a drab green mask. They burst out laughing. Then they seemed to relax a little more, pressed up against each other.

  ‘We’re not a bad team, I guess,’ Mardina said.

  ‘With the ColU in charge.’

  ‘Well, it thinks it is—’

  ‘I don’t want to die here,’ Yuri blurted.

  She looked at him.

  He wasn’t sure where that had come from. He scrambled to justify himself. ‘I don’t mean in this shell full of mush. I mean here, us, on Ardua. Everything we built just crumbling into the dirt.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t care about what we’re building.’

  ‘That was before we started building it. I never built anything before.’

  ‘I guess you didn’t . . . You know there’s only one option. One way we can change things.’

  ‘I know.’ He looked away. ‘To have a kid.’

  ‘We’ve talked about this,’ she said.

  ‘Actually we haven’t. Apart from when the ColU lectures us about anthropology.’

  ‘No. All right. So why do you want to talk about it now?’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Well, you brought it up, ice boy. Look, you know what the issues are. Think about the lives our children would live. They’d be farm labourers at best, and incestuous baby machines at worst. You recoil from that, I do, and there’s good reason.’

  ‘I know. And there’s something else. What right do we have, to produce a kid in such circumstances?’

  ‘Rights? Umm. But these kids don’t exist yet. You know, in the ISF we had courses on ethics – not on this kind of extreme situation specifically. Yuri, none of us has a choice where we’re born, or in what circumstances. You’re just kind of dropped into the world at random. And traditionally parents have always seen their kids as resources. Kids work for you, you marry them off . . . So the conclusion is that the idea of rights of an unborn not to exist, if the situation it would be born into is uncomfortable – it’s all kind of nebulous.’