Proxima Trilogy: Part 1-3: Hard Science Fiction

by Brandon Q Morris

  “A cubic centimeter of space contains on average dark matter equivalent to the mass of a proton. They just would need a very fine-meshed sieve.”

  “And how would they lock the dark matter inside the spheres? As it does not interact with normal matter, no wall would keep it in.”

  “The spherical form is perfect for that purpose. Once you collect enough particles of dark matter, they would form a ball under the influence of their own gravity,” Adam says.

  “A fascinating idea, Adam, I have to admit,” I say in a congratulatory tone. “But is it even remotely connected to reality? Wouldn’t there be a danger of the super-heavy dark particles turning into a kind of dark black hole?”

  “So what? Black holes are among the most stable objects in the universe. They will not evaporate until long after the last star has ceased to exist.”

  “Nevertheless, nobody would like to have one of those in close vicinity, let alone 15 of them.”

  “The black hole was your speculation, not mine. There might just be a lump of dark matter inside the spheres.”

  “‘Could, would, might,’ doesn’t help us.”

  “Pull yourselves together, guys!” Eve says in a loud voice. “This is ridiculous. Would you rather split hairs than solve our problems? Then let’s just weigh the spheres!”

  “That would hardly be possible,” I reply. “Remember how you pushed the sphere aside with your body? You could scarcely have done that if the sphere had an enormous mass. You simply would not have overcome its inertia so easily.”

  “Or the sphere has a kind of motor that provides the required energy. Otherwise it couldn’t float.”

  “Correct, Adam. Perhaps the sphere does not contain any dark matter at all. That would be the simplest solution.”

  “Yes, I know, Occam’s razor. The simplest solution is preferable.”

  “I just can’t believe these sophisticated spheres are only a pretty decoration,” Eve says. “Who would do something like that?”

  “Humans might,” I reply. “But they could not send messages via gravitational waves. The very fact that we understand the functioning of this receiver is already a great success. And we have a lead: Alpha Centauri.”

  “We can hardly reach that star, and I would not bet on our having truly understood this receiver,” Adam says. “I don’t know what else we can achieve here. Let’s go back.”

  We prepare Valkyrie for the return trip. This time I take the helm. While Adam and Eve are dozing in their seats, I use all my sensors to observe the strange and simultaneously beautiful device left behind by the previous inhabitants of this planet. Will we ever be able to find them?

  February 23, 19

  My soul floats above my body. Is this like one of the out-of-body experiences some humans reported having had in extreme situations? I feel a shiver running over my skin, even though I currently do not even have an external casing. A phantom pain stabs my left arm. There is nothing mystical about this. While my consciousness is in the onboard computer of the station and watches the world through alert senses, my physical sense lies below me, under the ceiling camera through which I examine it, to be exact. Marchenko 2, who reached Proxima b before us, executed this body with an electrical shock. My body, paralyzed and burnt out, will now be resurrected. I’ve had to do without it for nine days. It became harder and harder for me as the days went by, but now this period is almost over.

  Currently J the robot is still connected to thick power and data cables that provide his system with all it needs. The body is in an upright position. It is wedged into a steel frame specially built by Marchenko 2 to support the weight of the heavy metal robot. The outer skin is damaged in many spots. The access points through which invisible streams of nano-fabricators move could be mistaken for open wounds. They are roundish, very dark, and they bleed the oil that facilitates the movement of the fabricators and is in turn spread by them.

  Adam and Eve help repair my body. It would be possible to just use the fabricators, which are smaller than bacteria, but just like with diseases of the human body, macrophysical operations sometimes offer a shortcut to healing. Eve, for example, drilled most of the access holes into my body, while Adam optimized the shapes for some of the limbs by using a grinding machine. The goal was to keep the mass low while maintaining full functionality. Mechanical instruments can often achieve this more quickly than a host of tiny fabricators—just like cutting down a tree would be faster using a good old ax than employing termites that digest the wood fiber by fiber.

  Soon I should be able to get up again. My robot body will be more powerful than before. It will be able to run faster, jump higher, and lift heavier loads. Adam and Eve suggested interesting ideas. It has been fun working with them, and I think that Adam’s mood has improved in the meantime. I am sure he is carrying around a problem he does not want to discuss. I mentioned this to him, but he won’t say anything. This bothers me, as I cannot solve the issue with my nano-fabricators. Only Adam can do that.

  Lunch break. On the way from the landing site to this place, Adam and Eve had to live on what my fabricators could produce from biomass we found on the way. The nutrients fit human needs, but not much could be said for looks, consistency, and taste. Compared to that, the station is a paradise. Marchenko 2 must have done everything to ensure two humans might have a pleasant stay here—even though those two no longer existed, having died long before. Was he aware of this fact? I don’t know, but I am aware that a consciousness separated from a body, like he and I both are, is able to suppress unpleasant facts.

  Eve has ordered a steak from the ‘kitchen’—a box that produces food on request—while Adam just asked for ‘something.’ Therefore he lifts the flap on the box to retrieve a dish of greenish sauce with nondescript lumps in it. He doesn’t ask what it is supposed to be, but sits down at the table next to Eve and starts shoveling down the food listlessly. Eve cuts off small pieces of artificial meat and writes down her observations. She is always trying to improve the recipes that were probably developed by Marchenko 2. She seems to be ‘nesting,’ preparing for a long stay here.

  I tell them to enjoy their meal. I would love to participate in this ritual, to feel food in my mouth, its consistency and smell, to experience the taste variations on different sides of the tongue. I always believed I would forget that feeling someday, but it hasn’t happened. Quite the opposite—my imagination becomes livelier and more precise. In the past, when I was a human being, I never focused on food so consciously, but today I can’t help doing it even though I am unable to eat.

  Did Marchenko 2 experience similar feelings? Or did he develop totally different obsessions? His presence here shocked me less than I would have thought possible. Does this mean I expected it? Or, am I simply not bothered by it? Objectively speaking it was almost logical that the Creator—Shostakovich—would copy me, even though this was illegal. While he had stated the opposite, it would have been foolish to bet everything on a single horse and send out only one Messenger probe with a copy of my consciousness. But how thorough was the Russian billionaire? Is Marchenko 2 my only sibling, or are there currently thousands of us on the way? I don’t know, and I have no idea how I could find it out. One thing is clear: Adam and Eve must not be told. They certainly wouldn’t like the idea that there might be hundreds of copies of them, and possibly even more.

  “So, what do we do now?” Adam asks the question with his mouth full, interrupting my musings.

  “Yes, that’s what I wanted to ask,” says Eve, who has finished half of her steak in the meantime.

  “To be honest, I am not sure.”

  “We could just stay here,” Eve says. “I wouldn’t mind doing that for a while.”

  “Certainly, for a while,” I reply. “But then the question will return, so we might as well answer it now.”

  “Can we really do that?” Adam says, touching a sore spot.

  “We don’t have enough information. We have the spaceport on the coast,” I sa
y, starting my list. “The buried wall that mentions the guardians in the east. There is the gravitational wave receiver, even though we don’t really understand its functionality.”

  “And a crazed robot we banished to the dark side of the planet,” Adam adds.

  “He probably doesn’t have much to do with our journey,” I reply.

  Eve nods. “We did decide we would move further east at some point. After all, we’ve already been in the west.”

  “This is useless if we don’t have a specific destination. The hemisphere facing away from the sun is huge. And a voyage there won’t be a walk in the park. Therefore we should be certain it’s worth our while. Otherwise we’d better stay here,” I say.

  “As I already mentioned, I’ve got nothing against that, nothing at all,” Eve says somewhat sheepishly.

  “Don’t you really want to know why we are here?” Adam asks.

  “Because the Creator sent us? Is it so important?”

  “Yes, Eve, for me it is,” Adam replies.

  The young woman shakes her head and focuses again on her steak. “This is why I am here,” she says, cutting off a piece and holding it up.

  “We can’t just march off on a whim,” I say. “Therefore we need ideas to help us find a potential destination.”

  “Perhaps we’ll find something on the shore that will tell us the way. Like another wall with texts on it, a traffic sign, whatever,” Adam suggests.

  “You mean we try digging in random places across the planet?” I ask.

  “No, you can scan the ground to see whether it is worthwhile to start digging.”

  “That is a possibility. It will cost us a few days per square kilometer. But we have plenty of time. As soon as a flare threatens us we return to this base.”

  “You’d better leave me here, then,” Eve says.

  “We’ll gladly manage without you,” Adam grumbles.

  “In any case, it is going to be a very lengthy search without a guarantee of success,” I say.

  “Maybe we could shorten the scanning process for the upper ground layers? If we had a balloon, for example, we could measure from up there.”

  “Great idea, Adam,” I say. I run some calculations about this method. Unfortunately I find a problem. “It won’t work with my technology. Sorry. In order to find anything, the scanner cannot be higher than 50 meters above the surface.”

  Adam crosses his arms in front of his chest. “Then Messenger won’t help us either, will it?”

  That is the ship that brought us here. We only separated the landing module. Messenger itself is still waiting for us in orbit. Could it possibly aid us, and if so, how?

  “The orbit of Messenger is too high for it to employ its ground radar. The planet has a dense atmosphere,” I say.

  “What about the camera?”

  “If an artificial structure could be seen from space, we would have noticed it during our approach, Adam.”

  “Perhaps we didn’t check carefully.”

  “That is unlikely. You can’t ignore the cloud cover, the vegetation, the areas in the shadow, and the long time that must have passed. We had to dig out the spaceport and the wall.”

  “Could we see something in a different wavelength range? Gamma rays? X-rays?”

  “They would only scan the surface.”

  Adam’s question makes me think. One of the last Mars probes tried to find hidden structures on the red planet using a gradiometer, which measures variations in the gravitational field. The structure of the planetary crust is not identical everywhere. According to its thickness and composition, it changes the gravitational field above it. If you know the flight altitude of a satellite, you can determine the vertical component of gravity.

  “The force of gravity,” I say, “that could give us clues.”

  “Sure,” Adam replies. “Any artificial structure changes the gravitational field all the way out into space.”

  “But we can only measure it if there is a large change.”

  “Then we’d better hope the inhabitants of this planet built high-rises rather than huts.”

  “There is only a slight problem: Messenger does not have a gradiometer on board. There simply was no plan to scan the planet that way. After receiving the radio message asking for help, we assumed there would be direct clues.”

  Adam gets up from his place at the table. “Why don’t you say something, Eve?”

  His sister looks up at him and crosses her arms. “So we have to improvise something, as usual?”

  “Unfortunately, due to lack of ongoing maintenance, there are no more working fabricators left on board the spaceship. So constructing something new is out of the question.”

  “How exactly does a gradiometer work when it measures a gravitational field?” Eve asks.

  “Basically, those are simple but very precise acceleration sensors,” I explain. “Something like the step counters you have in your suits. A change in the gravitational field generates a force that the sensor records as acceleration.”

  “The greater the acceleration, the higher the force,” Adam says.

  “And the higher the change in the gravitational field. The instrument always measures the spot directly below it, or the line through the center of the satellite orbit, to be more exact,” I add.

  “So if Messenger had a gradiometer, it would have to first fly across the entire planet?” Eve asks.

  “That’s what it looks like. Depending on the size of the structure we are looking for that shouldn’t take too long, though,” I reply.

  “Okay, then we just need such a gradiometer. Couldn’t we just use an existing acceleration sensor?”

  “We would need at least two, which are at some distance from each other, but three would be better. The attitude control system definitely has one,” I say.

  “Just one? Isn’t every functional unit duplicated for the sake of safety?”

  “You are right, Eve. That would make it two.”

  “I left my tablet on Messenger,” Adam says. “It also has an acceleration sensor.”

  “That is not as precise as the one in the attitude control module, but it might be used as a check value.”

  “So… do we have our gravitation measurement device?” Adam asks, giving me a hopeful look.

  I don’t want to disappoint him now. Normally, these sensors are placed on the outside of a satellite, preferably at the end of a boom, so that they are not affected by the mass of the spacecraft. I have no idea how precise our gradiometer is going to be. If we are unlucky, it will only confirm that Proxima b has an approximately spherical shape. Everything will depend on which dimensions the inhabitants used for their buildings.

  “Messenger, please come in.” Two hours later our mothership is in range again, and I describe to the ship’s control system how to calibrate and connect the three sensors. The signal evaluation has to happen on board the spaceship, because our daily radio communication window only lasts a few hours, and it shifts from day to day.

  Messenger will have to adjust its orbit in order to cover as much of the planet as possible. I calculated that after two weeks it will have checked about 50 percent of the surface, including almost 80 percent of the dark side. While I hope we won’t have to start an expedition to the dark hemisphere, I somehow have the feeling if we find any remaining inhabitants it will be there.

  Eve will be able to rest for a while longer. I just hope the delay won’t drive Adam crazy during the coming days.

  March 4, 19

  Sometimes he thinks he is the only sane person in the station, while at other times he feels he is slowly going insane. Perhaps he has some genetically-based nervous disease nobody has noticed so far? Adam turns over in his bed without opening his eyes. He understands neither Marchenko nor Eve. His sister has settled in here, all nice and cozy, using all the comforts of the station without thinking of the future.

  And Marchenko doesn’t seem to be all there. He is constantly working out plans. Adam particul
arly dislikes that Marchenko is everywhere and nowhere. It is about time J—the robot in which Marchenko had lived since their landing—becomes functional again. Adam suspects that Marchenko secretly does not want to move back into J, preferring to have complete control over the onboard systems.

  It’s no use. Adam simply cannot go back to sleep. He opens his eyes. Eve lies in the other bed. Her deep breathing shows she is fast asleep. The room is not completely dark. It never gets totally dark, because there are always a few indicator lights monitoring some vital signs. Adam has no idea which light signifies what. Marchenko 2 did not leave them an instruction manual for the station. Adam throws off his blanket. Once he gets up he realizes he really has to use the bathroom. The dim light has the advantage that he can find his way to the exit located in the floor without bumping against anything. He glances at Eve’s bed. She is still asleep. Then he slowly descends the ladder.

  The light in the command module switches on immediately. Adam hurriedly closes the hatch above him. He hopes the bright light did not wake Eve.

  While he is in the bathroom he wonders, What now? He leaves the room deciding he might play some games on the terminal. Adam sits down on the chair in front of it. The station offers a surprisingly large selection of games. This is particularly amazing because their Marchenko only gave them access to a very few games on Messenger. Both of these ships should have been launched with the same basic software assortment. Their Marchenko probably wanted to keep them from gaming because he thought it was bad for their development. That’s so much like him. At the bottom of his heart he is still an old, conservative Russian who was young almost a hundred years ago.

  Adam quickly notices he is not in the mood for gaming. He walks aimlessly through the command module, but he can’t come up with an idea. Should he go back to bed and spend the rest of a sleepless night there?

  He stands below the hatch and looks down at his feet. The service module is located beneath him. It wasn’t that long ago that he frantically searched for a switch there to turn off Marchenko 2. Adam steps aside, leans down, and takes the round rug off the hatch. He opens it and climbs down the ladder. The light down here is also switched on automatically. Adam well remembers the smell of grease and oil, like in a workshop, which this place actually is. He looks around. The room looks comfy in an odd way. It is dirty, that’s true. But putting that aside, it does not have the sterile feel of the command module. Adam imagines Marchenko 2 spending most of his time here, brooding in solitude. He probably would have gone crazy during such a prolonged period of loneliness.