Proxima

by Chase Hildenbrand

  Ann wondered at the time why that sign was there—now she knew. If someone opened her tube door and tried to explain to her where she was and why she was there, she wouldn’t have believed it and thought they were crazy.

  Every inch of her ached as she painstakingly climbed out of the tube. If they ever had to hibernate again they would need to infuse painkillers into the gas. The bone-chilling cold wasn’t helping. She forgot how brisk the chamber housing the hibernation tubes was when she got in. She opened her drawer and retrieved her normal clothing. Unfortunately, her clothes were cold as well, but, desperate for warmth, she put them on anyway over her tight gown hoping they’d warm quickly. As fast as she could, which in her aching condition was about as fast as a baby learning to walk, she headed toward the exit.

  She looked for Ray and Salena, but there were several hundred people wandering around the ship’s hallways, so she wasn’t surprised she couldn’t find them. Each of the ship's five hibernation chambers held five thousand people and were designed to wake them up staggeredly to avoid them waking all at once, so perhaps the two were still asleep.

  The hallways back to her room were eerie. The lights flickered in their attempts at coming back to life, some bulbs out entirely. A film of condensation dripped from the walls. Other people passed her in their own painful walk wearing grimaces on their faces. She turned a corner and saw a group who looked clean and moved around with no sign of soreness. They must have been in the first wave of those awakened.

  Some first wave crew members were repairing pipework inside the wall panels, others walked by her carrying tools and paid her no mind. A robo-cleaner nearly knocked her over as it zoomed past her on the floor cleaning the dust accumulation. Another followed its trail mopping as it went. She followed the clean trail down the next hallway, and then a second trail into another hallway until, at last, she arrived at the door to her room. It opened when she entered her code and without even closing it behind her she found her bed and collapsed into it. She wanted food, a shower, and pain medication—not necessarily in that order.

  Other people shuffled up and down the hallways, some waved through her open door. She only had the energy to lift a couple of fingers back at them. When a semblance of strength returned, she managed to turn on her computer interface on her wall-screen and put in a request for pain meds to be delivered to her room. There was no food available at the moment as it was all rounded up before the Big Sleep to be put in preservation, so she went straight to the shower after closing her room’s door. As the water heated, she called Liam on his cell. Not even a ring. His ship might still be several days behind them and he could still be asleep.

  She eagerly watched as steam began to form from the blissfully hot water—her body was shivering as she took the first step in. Pure ecstasy. She let the water flow down her body warming her and could already feel her soreness starting to fade. There was a self-regulating five minute time limit implemented for showers ship-wide. She broke that limit four times over before she even started cleaning herself. By the time she was finished, she felt reinvigorated and ready to face whatever awaited her in this foreign solar system.

  To her displeasure, no pain meds waited for her outside her door. The hot water soothed her pain some, but enough remained to keep her on the wrong side of feeling miserable. On her wall-screen a new message flashed to gain her attention—the meds were delayed due to overwhelming demand. Figures. Also in the bottom corner of the wall-screen she noticed the time and date. Curious, she touched the icon and a calendar opened. It was September 4th, 3187. A one thousand and fifty-two year jump. She didn’t feel a day older than thirty.

  After a bit more rest, Ann desired to go see the mysterious Proxima Centauri system she awoke in. Maybe even Proxima b itself was visible. She thought of the probes and what they might be seeing at this very instance. When their ship arrived in the system, a series of probes automatically disbursed to the planet to determine readings for the atmosphere, temperature, water, life, and to take pictures—anything they would need to know about the planet, the probes would relay back to them. The first results were due that evening.

  Outfits filled her dresser drawers, vacuum-sealed in bags before the Big Sleep. She opened one and got dressed.

  The observation deck wasn’t as full as she expected and with no trouble she found a spot down to the front looking out the largest window. The star known as Proxima Centauri, their new sun, burned in the distance. The star was only an eighth of Sol’s size and shined a dull red color. The twin Alpha Centauri suns also shone further back. She was enthralled by the view—never having thought in her life she would lay eyes upon a foreign solar system, let alone a red star. It all looked so wonderfully strange. She tried to find a planet, but couldn’t make one out.

  When they left Earth behind, Ann remembered the solemn mood in the room. As she looked around at her peers she noticed the complete opposite feeling. Many hugged each other and laughed as they pointed to their new home. Over time the deck became more crowded as more people found seats or places to stand. How she wished she could share this moment with Liam. Her fantasy was interrupted by a vibration on her thigh. Ray was calling so at least one of her friends was awake.

  “Hello, Ray! Sleep well?”

  “Hey Ann. Good morning! I slept like a baby. My body is killing me though.”

  “Maybe Salena can give you a massage.” She heard him laugh.

  “One can only hope. I tried calling her, but I think she’s still asleep or not out of her tube yet. God, I thought I was buried alive or something! I felt pretty stupid though when my memory came back. Did you freak out, too? I had an itch on my fucking nose and couldn’t scratch it. I think that was the worst thing. So, are you in your room?”

  “No. Observation deck. You should get up here. It’s amazing! You can see all three Centauri suns.”

  “I know. I’m here, too! Look around—see me?” Ray waved his hands above his head. He was standing on the far side halfway down the steps that lined the seating areas. Ann saw and waved back. He hung up and made his way down to her. They embraced, both happy to be with a friend. He took a seat next to her.

  “Just look at it,” he said. “Our new home.”

  “Did you see the calendar? Officially 3187. We live in the future.”

  “Does the future have food? I can’t even begin to describe how hungry I am. I’ll happily chow down on that muck they serve up here. I don’t care what it is.”

  “Just—I’m sure there will be an announcement soon, but just look out there. Gorgeous. I’ll sacrifice food for a few more hours to keep gazing. I was hoping to see our planet, but maybe we’re too far away.”

  “It’s there. You can’t see it?” He pointed to a small, dim speck. It was tiny, only the size of a penpoint—no wonder she missed it.

  “Oh. It is. It’s so small-looking from here.”

  Proxima b completed its orbit at an Earth-rate of eleven days. Even to the naked eye Ann saw that it was moving across her field of vision. She wondered if they would have to wait for it to come around again when they reached its orbit. She feared they came all this way for nothing. A significant chance remained that the planet was uninhabitable. Solar winds, radiation, and other astronomical variables beyond her field could come into play and cut their trip real short. She wouldn’t allow herself to get too excited. As long as they waited for Liam’s ship to catch up before moving on, she could be fine living in space longer than planned, not to mention going through another dreadful hibernation process.

  They found Salena, who had been busy checking in on the water turbines, a few hours later in the cafeteria when the first meal was served. Dinner featured a brown paste that was supposed to taste like turkey and a green goop that was supposed to be peas. All-in-all, nothing to write home about—if they had a home to write to. They were just glad to eat again. The tubes they slept in kept them alive, but lacked in delivering proper nutrition. Everyone was now a few pounds lighter and suffe
red minor cases of malnutrition. Nobody spoke as they swallowed down their meals. Ann finished hers in three minutes, greedily wishing for more.

  “Salena, how did you sleep?” Ann asked.

  “Well, you know I woke up ten times, right? Every hundred years to check on the turbines. What you experienced, times that by ten for me.”

  “I didn’t know you were on the maintenance team,” Ann said, stomach still rumbling.

  “Originally I wasn’t, at least not permanently. My staff was supposed to rotate. I was only going to wake up the first time and the sixth time. I noticed on the first wake up that the system wasn’t holding up as well as I’d hoped. I won’t bore you with the details, but the error was so small it would’ve been quite easy to miss. Basically the whole power grid wasn’t generating enough to keep the ship operational for the entire journey. I had to wake up more engineers to help fix it. I left a note for the next person in the rotation to wake me if absolutely necessary. She did. We discovered it was an issue that would need to be looked at every rotation. So I volunteered to go through that nightmare eight more times to be safe. If I look older, it’s because I’ve gone on to age ten months since last time you guys saw me.”

  “That sounds horrible. I can’t imagine waking up like that so many times. I’m sorry, but are you going to finish that brown stuff?” Ann eyed the paste on Salena’s plate.

  “Hell no. This is all I’ve been eating since the Big Sleep. By all means, bon appétit.”

  Ray gave Ann a look of disgust as he watched her transfer the paste to her own plate.

  “You can’t be serious with that? Gross.”

  “The gardens won’t be producing fresh food for a couple more weeks. I’m not going to go hungry when I don’t have to. The Big Sleep took a lot out of me—I was already small, now I’m just tiny. Don’t judge.”

  “Who am I to say what kind of stuff goes in people’s mouths?”

  “Ray!” Salena looked over at him with wide eyes half laughing and half shocked. “We’re at the dinner table. Don’t you have any manners?”

  “No,” he said, matter-of-factly.

  Ann rolled her eyes and kept eating. When she was finished she dismissed herself to go check on the lab before she retired back to her room. Of course her lab was on The Hawking, but she wanted to help with the botanists on board this ship while she could. The botany team on The Christensen consisted of a man named Adam Freeman and his assistant Blaire Jordan. Adam was the same age as her, with a build slightly larger than Ray and quite attractive, though Ann wouldn’t admit it to herself. The two knew each other for a while during her time in the Midwest after college. They were both working on separate plant-saving projects for two different universities before they were recruited to the STS project.

  Adam beat her to it and was checking the lab equipment when she walked in.

  “Welcome to Proxima b, Adam! How’s my lab?”

  “My lab is fine,” he said. “A diagnostic check doesn’t show any problems. Seems our equipment slept just fine without us.”

  “Excellent. I’m ready to work. I can’t wait to get some samples up here from the surface. Where’s Blaire?”

  “Taking it easy in her room. I don’t think the wake up process went easy for her. I asked her to come to the lab and she said, and I quote, ‘fuck that. I’ll see you tomorrow’.”

  “That sounds like her. Has anything come back from the probes yet?” She asked the question hesitantly—worried to find out that the planet was uninhabitable.

  “Nothing yet. Should be any time, though.” Adam could tell that she was trying to retain a look of confidence, but he caught doubt in her eyes. “This planet was picked for a reason, Ann. A positive reading is the most likely outcome. We’re going to have so many new species of plants to study, discoveries to make. We’ll be the most famous botanists on the whole planet!”

  That got her laughing and the mood lightened, but the desire to know for certain overwhelmed her. They had, after all, travelled so far. To keep her mind busy, she double checked Adam’s diagnostic reports. Every piece of equipment she could test, she did—thoroughly. They chatted briefly about the hibernation experience and how surreal it was to be so far away from Earth.

  At 10:13 Earth Standard Time, the probes’ readings came in via email. Ann and Adam stood at the computer—her hand trembled as she brought it up to touch the monitor and open the attachment.

  Life!

  All readings indicated Proxima b was home to pre-existing life and had an atmosphere compatible with humans. The planet was indeed tidally locked. The sun-facing side showed temperatures above one hundred and ten degrees—hot, but manageable due to the planet’s unique upper atmosphere keeping it relatively cooler than they expected under a tidal lock circumstance. The nightside of the planet dropped to near zero in its coldest regions. The terminator line, the space between the light and dark, read a perfect temperature of seventy-three degrees. Luckily, there was a generous amount of land along both terminator lines in the opposing hemispheres. Images showed there were three gigantic continents of varying sizes covering the surface. Estimates indicated Proxima b was forty-seven percent covered in water, compared to Earth’s seventy-one.

  The two scientists hugged ferociously. Adam picked her up and spun her around the room—both laughing. Ann had tears rolling down her face, overcome with joy.

  “I knew it! We can have a home here!” She wiped her tears away and leaned down on the nearest counter. “We’re Proximians!”

  “We’re what?” Adam asked with a happy, but confused expression.

  “Never mind! Pictures—we didn’t look at the pictures!”

  Adam raced to the computer and opened the first image attachment. It was an image of a jungle taken from three hundred feet up. The ecosystem looked similar to one you might find on Earth, but with completely different plant life. The jungle spanned miles in the background. Overhead, the sky was not blue, but instead it featured a light red hue. The most striking difference in what was found on Proxima b versus Earth was that the plants were not green, but rather a mix of blue and purple. The second image was of an ocean. The water was blue, but static—waveless. The third image was a grassland. Miles and miles of plains. The high grass looked like something you would find on Earth, but like the jungle, the color was wrong.

  “They’re not green,” Adam said.

  “No, I didn’t expect they would be, did you? They evolved to absorb a different light spectrum, after all. I’m just glad they’re not black. I was worried they would absorb as much of the light spectrum as they could, thus reflecting only black. That was a concern.”

  “I get it, but it’s odd...you know? It’s like a negative image.”

  They scrolled through an album of a hundred images. Each ecosystem featured its own sense of familiarity while being alien to them at the same time. On more than one image creatures were spotted—animals of Proxima. Like Earth, some had fur, others scales, and even flying creatures couldn’t escape the cameras’ lenses. In none of the images were evidence of intelligent life.

  One of the animals was the size of an elephant. It featured a ring of horns bordering its face. The horns looked to be a foot long each and curved outward at their sharp ends. In the image its mouth was open showcasing rows of teeth. It was covered in brown fur with a tail at least ten feet long.

  “That one’s something else. Looks like one we won’t want to meet up close,” Adam said.

  “But this one looks friendly.” Ann pointed to a much smaller creature that resembled a dog, but with six legs. “Maybe it could be domesticized. But we’ll let the zoologists determine that. Let’s just worry about what plants down there might poison us if we eat them. It looks like this one here in image fifty-eight, that tree on the left, does that look like fruit to you?”

  “Maybe. I’ll make a note of the coordinates where this image was taken.”

  Adam wrote the location in his notebook. They studied each image while taking
notes on the different varieties of plant life, where they were located on the surface, and if any of the same plants showed up in a range of different latitude lines. They worked throughout the night—tired, yet well rested after the hibernation. By six a.m. their scouting map was beginning to take shape. Ann and Adam agreed on the best place to begin their exploration—the jungle near 5° S, 165° E on the edge of the terminator line. Images revealed a vast plant-filled landscape with a lake in the center. A body of water could mean a potential site for settlement and the plant life would need to be thoroughly surveyed.

  “This work we’ve done tonight is a great first step,” Adam said.

  “Absolutely. I want to be down there right now taking a look around. I can’t get over these colors! Ever think you’d see a blue tree? And this tree here, those leaves! They look two feet long! When do we head down there?”

  “I’m not sure. They’ll send a scouting party down to the surface to make sure the air is breathable. The probes say it is, but they don’t have lungs, do they? I’d say get comfortable. It will be at least a week, maybe more.”

  Ann grimaced her dissatisfaction with that answer.

  “Don’t be in such a hurry,” Adam said, “it will go quickly. Besides, we have a ton of preparation to do.”

  “I know. Just anxious. Not that this ship is terrible, you know? Have you tried that ice cream shop in the town square? But I can’t wait to set foot on dry ground again. Drink water that doesn’t need to be filtered, or eat food that doesn’t need processed and actually tastes good.”

  “Soon, Ann. We’ll be living on the ships for a long time. I think our job will require some camping, but home for the majority will be the ships for maybe two years.”

  Ann gathered her things, it was time to go.

  “I’m going to grab some breakfast, then take a nap. Let’s meet again this afternoon, okay?”

  “Sure. A nap sounds good. Breakfast I think I can skip. Two of those meals a day will suit me fine.”