Things are getting exciting. Marchenko 2 has the impression he will soon arrive... somewhere. By now, the water has reached a temperature of 25 degrees. There is another bend in the canal. If his instruments are correct, the water is now flowing horizontally. The canal widens again. It is no longer filled all the way to the top.
Marchenko 2 examines the pipe. At regular intervals he sees an oval opening at the top, covered by a plate. Could he be moving in a circle? He can clearly feel centrifugal forces toward the outside. He must have arrived at the location where the cooling is fulfilling its function. Therefore he should get out now.
By now, two of the four planned appendages have been finished and can serve as arms. He adjusts his swimming motions so he stays in place. Then he touches the oval plate. As expected, he finds four pegs which, like screws, keep the plate in place. While it is not self-evident, some construction principles seem to be universal.
Marchenko 2 turns the pegs. A human would have no chance of removing them from here, but luckily he is no longer human. He finished loosening the pegs. Then he pushes against the plate with his other arm. It obediently moves and falls down with a clank. He is free! Now he only has to pull himself from the canal. He uses both arms to do this.
The opening is large enough that he does not have to reconfigure his body. He hauls himself out, is able to briefly pause on the smooth round pipe, and then clatters to the floor. Shit, he thinks, if someone is here I just called attention to myself. He tries to drag himself away with his two arms, but it is slow going. It can’t be helped: He needs the other two appendages and has to lie here until they are finished. With great effort Marchenko 2 drags himself behind a ledge and then fully concentrates on his modifications.
Brightnight 36, 3876
His muscles creak with every movement. Gronolf has not yet managed to get up, even though the automatic system is constantly asking him to go to the central room. Whenever he tries to move one of his limbs, jolts of pain shoot through his mind. He really tries, but his brain immediately reacts by fainting. He has to take his time. He has never heard of hibernation having such aftereffects. A slight nausea during awakening, that’s normal, but pains like these?
The blood circulation of his species adapts to temperature. It only has to get sufficiently cold and he will fall into a hibernation sleep—at least if he gives in to it. Now he no longer can allow himself to do that. At some point, the automatic system must have removed the hose that supplies him with the necessary nutrients.
Gronolf notices he is hungry. If he does not get up soon, he won’t have the strength left to do it. Accordingly, he has to get food that provides him the needed nutrients, even if it is just the travel porridge typically served on ships. He does not even dare to think of some tasty fish. Right now he might not even be strong enough to overpower a carriontooth. But how about a small mudjumper? His secondary stomach fills with digestive juices.
What could have happened here? Why did they let him sleep so long? And why is he needed right now? Gronolf tries to reconstruct the events after the landing, but in vain. Everything was okay then, wasn’t it? Sure, the planet Single Sun disappointed them. It was either too hot or too cold, and then there were the constant eruptions of its sun. Yet the first oviposition of the women had been successful. Gronolf had only been allowed to watch the ceremony. Supposedly, his sperm had been too valuable to be used in such an experiment. The commander had generously sacrificed himself. Of course this was right, for a good cause.
Gronolf burbles derisively, which means he blows air from his lungs into the primary stomach and then outside, so that his belly folds flap loudly. A stabbing pain immediately reminds him that even his belly folds are full of muscles.
Now he has to get up. The upper part of the sleeping capsule has opened. Gronolf looks around. He seems to have been wheeled to the terrace where doctors normally wait for late risers. But there is nobody here. It is even decidedly dark. In the visible range everything is completely black, while in infrared his immediate surroundings are slightly illuminated by his own body heat and the energy of the capsule, enough to tell him he is really and truly alone.
“Why am I alone?”
“There is no information available concerning this. Gronolf Carriontooth, you are needed in the command center.”
“Where are the doctors, where are the others, and why is it dark?”
“There is no information available concerning this.”
Okay, the system is not going to be very helpful. While he lost muscle during his hibernation, it must have lost intelligence. Strange, considering the Thought Scientists prided themselves on having created a very clever intelligence system.
“Now! Get up!”
Perhaps it will help if he orders himself. Yet Gronolf feels no effect. He moves the smallest of his seven fingers and immediately clenches his belly flap because of the pain. He might have to start the special program. Gronolf is smiling wryly to himself. This program was used for lazy individuals—shirkers. He feels disgusted about having to use it for himself. Now he is glad nobody is waiting for him. Gronolf, the best of his plex, in such a situation! Everybody would have laughed at him. Gronolf burbles.
“Move sleep capsule into cleaning position.”
The bed he is lying on immediately starts positioning itself at an angle. The hinge squeaks. Gronolf cannot tell whether this is due to his weight or because the capsule has gone so long without proper maintenance. He catches himself in the ignominious hope that the hinge might break and save him from what has to happen next. His body starts to slide. Gronolf tries to hold on, but to do so he needs to employ his muscles. When the angle reaches the position of Mother Sun in the afternoon, gravity demands its due. It pulls him down inexorably. He hits the ground with a loud slapping sound. His entire body turns pale, as this is so embarrassing, even without witnesses.
This embarrassment creates the energy he lacked earlier. He manages to tense his leg muscles without crying because of the pain. He pushes himself up from the floor by using his arms, even though they feel as though they are on fire. Gronolf, the strongest of his plex, moans loudly when he manages to get into a stable crouching position.
He closes all four eyes and then opens them again. The fire is pulsing through his limbs, threatening to topple him. On the other hand, it also generates a heat that invigorates his circulation. He cannot rest now. Gronolf has to use the heat, the energy created by pain, to once again become the powerful warrior he is known to be, to own the title ‘strongest of the plex.’ He focuses on his thighs. He particularly needs them now, because they carry the largest part of his body mass. He pulls himself upright beside the bed, using all four arms simultaneously. Yes, he even employs the weak touch-arms, which is taboo, but nobody can see him now. He rises to his full stature. He made it, finally!
He stands next to the sleeping chamber, the son of a father who would be proud of him, and he yells a battle cry into the darkness, “Control room, here I come!”
“Thank you, Gronolf Carriontooth,” the system replies.
May 9, 19, Eve
The horrible sounds stopped yesterday. Since then, there has been silence. Eve is curled up in her chair, listening. It is amazing how quietly the life support systems operate. Both on Messenger and later on Valkyrie she was always surrounded by noise. Yet here it is quiet, like in the tent on the sled on the ice sheet of the dark hemisphere, when Marchenko took a break. Sometimes she used to hear Adam smack his lips in a dream, or whisper something incomprehensible. And occasionally the icy wind had caught the tarp of the tent.
An eternity seems to have passed between the nights on the sled and today. Yet they have only been in this alien building for eight days. The day before yesterday she triggered something the effects of which she still cannot gauge. Undoubtedly some gigantic object is now approaching Proxima b. At least it looks like that on the projected 3D map. She rechecked this yesterday. According to her rough estimate, it will take another week
to get here. She does not even dare to imagine what will happen then.
And it doesn’t matter anyway. She has lost Adam. She has lost Marchenko. The worst option would be for her to spend the next 50 years alone in this building. Eve knows she could never kill herself. If that giant sphere out there were to take over that task, it would be fine with her. Eve licks her dry lips. She should go and get water again. The only sure source she knows is inside the aliens’ sleeping chambers. There probably is some water in the common rooms also, but she can’t find the energy to go looking for it. She would rather keep George company—the shriveled and mummified giant frog in the chair across from her.
“Should we go and get water?”
Sometimes she also talks to him. He answers by using slight, almost invisible gestures. Now he shakes his head—the upper end of his body where the four eyes are located. It is more a sagging cone than a round head, but using the standard term is more practical.
“You are right. It’s not worth it.”
Did he just nod? It looks like it. Of course she does not assume that George’s species would use the same gestures as humans. Yet he might have learned to nod by watching her.
Suddenly a distant growl can be heard through the walls. She has never heard the roar of a hungry lion, but it must sound like this.
“What was that, George? Any idea?”
George stays rooted to the spot. He is either frightened himself, or he focuses on the noise.
“Did you hear that, too? Or am I only imagining it?”
No reaction. The alien obviously does not want to make a decision.
“ISU, can you confirm the noise?”
The sensor units on the ground rise up. They look like large ants putting their heads together.
“Confirmed,” says the unit on the right side. This must be ISU 4, Eve remembers.
“Do you know where it came from?”
The unit on the left wiggles toward the wall. “From this direction,” it says.
“What is located there?”
“The aliens’ sleeping chambers are that way.”
Eve jumps up and looks around frantically. The noise did not sound as if it was caused by a technical process.
“George, did one of your friends wake up? Just tell me!”
She gives the alien a stern look, but he is not impressed by it. Then she walks to the wall and places her ear against it. She cannot hear anything. The material cools her hot cheek. Eve kneads her fingers and walks back to the chair. She imagines an alien entering the control room. On the one side, the alien would see a dead comrade, on the other side an ugly, living foreign creature—herself—which to him would appear physically inferior. Would this alien now react calmly, examine his dead friend, notice that he died a long time ago, and then try patiently to establish contact with her? Eve laughs anxiously. She needs to find a hiding place.
Not yet, though—she still has a bit of time. First she sits back down in her chair. Who says the alien will really come here? Perhaps he is weakened and won’t be able to make it here. She should not do anything rash now. In reality, what does it matter whether she dies today or a week from now? The strong—if it is still strong—giant frog will probably kill her quickly and painlessly.
She puts her arms on the armrests, but what looks casual when done by George is downright uncomfortable for her. Her lips are still dry. If she would... she remembers the way from the sleeping chambers to the control room. She went through the ventilation duct. If anybody were to visit her, he would use the normal path. She just has to use the air duct to return to the sleeping capsules and she will have her choice of the safest hiding places in this building. And in addition she will be able to quench her thirst. This sounds like a sensible plan. Eve jumps up.
Brightnight 36, 3876
“Lighting.”
The system obeys his command and it gets brighter around him. At the foot end of the chamber there is an emergency food supply which he devours. He is in the sleeping hall, at about halfway up the wall of chambers. He is a bit afraid of the way, but he is also looking forward to once again meeting the others.
Gronolf starts moving. Every step is painful. However, he notices that the pain decreases after a while. He has to regain his fitness soon. The control room called: It doesn’t need a pale shadow of him, it needs the real person. Gronolf moves up the rising path with slow steps. This is more strenuous than walking downward, but he needs the exercise. The light moves with him. Like an old man, he uses a touch-hand to hold on to the railing. He is glad nobody can see him now.
He looks at the skin on his arms. It is brown and wrinkled. He does not just look like an old man, he is one. ‘Cycle 3876,’ the system said. He had slept for a very long time. While the hibernation slows the aging process, it does not stop it. Gronolf tries to find his last memories from before. They are evasive and always flee his grasping thoughts. What might have happened here? If he can trust his memories, he must have entered the sleeping chambers as a young man. That would be... unfair, because then he would have slept through the greatest and most important period in his life. He feels queasy in his secondary stomach. Women claim that it is the seat of emotion. Yet that is unscientific. Everyone knows that emotions are nothing but electrical impulses in the thinking layer, the ‘brain,’ below the skin.
No. Those memories must be somewhere. He will find them again. He surely must have had a fantastic life. He was the strongest of his plex! Gronolf hits the wall with his right load-hand. The largest of the three fingers leaves a scratch in the hard material. The higher he gets, the warmer and more humid the air becomes. It is not supposed to be this way. And now there is also a strange smell. Gronolf cannot remember ever smelling anything like this. He tries to analyze the molecules. Before his draght, when he still swam in the ocean, it would have been easier for him, but his sense of smell is still useable. What reaches his smell-folds is definitely the stench of decay. Yet it is not the normal aroma of death. Gronolf stops and closes his eyes in order to focus better. Yes, definitely... it is dead sperm. The smell comes from above. He is feeling hot and starts walking faster. What has happened here?
Two levels higher he finally sees it. One of the sleeping chambers has opened. One of his comrades lies on the couch. Gronolf stands next to him and looks at the corpse. He recognizes him as Rugnar. Rugnar comes from a younger plex and was the third-best of that litter. Gronolf also sees what causes the stench. Rugnar’s sperm pouches ruptured—the most valuable things he possessed, his future children. What happened here is not right. When a man dies, his sperm slowly dries up. Rugnar cannot have died naturally. Why did his chamber open, and was that the cause for his condition? He will have to find out why the capsule was opened, who was responsible for it. Gronolf tries to push it back in, but he fails. This means the chamber was opened by an override from outside. Gronolf touches the belly of the dead Grosnop. Now that he knows it is Rugnar, he no longer minds the stench.
He stands up, turns around by his comrade’s couch, and walks downward toward the control panel. He watches him with his rear eye until the light behind him switches off. He has to hurry. Something is going on that probably is also responsible for Rugnar’s death. It does not look like a simple technical error.
Once he is down below he sees the control panel for the chambers. It is open, which is odd... and it was opened manually, by brute force, rather than with the usual ultrasonic command. The capsule that contained Rugnar has been selected. Somebody seemed to have opened a random capsule, no matter what the status display indicated.
Anger rises in him and his load-arm muscles harden like just before a fight. He leans forward and looks for Rugnar’s chamber. No, his comrade was already dead inside the chamber. According to the status display, he died of old age. That can’t be true! Rugnar’s skin looked much fresher than his own, even after death. And the sperm pouches should have dried up long ago in that case, though he is not sure about that. He has never seen an adult male G
rosnop who did not empty his sperm pouches beforehand. Even if he was not selected for fertilization, the protein is considered much too valuable to be wasted this way.
He won’t find any answers here. Gronolf calls the system via ultrasound. Two meters to the left of the control panel the wall opens. Behind it is a chamber lit indirectly from the left and right. Gronolf enters it.
“Control room,” he says.
The wall closes again. Now the chamber starts to move. Some of the smell travels with him. Gronolf briefly closes his eyes and crouches on his strong feet.
May 9, 19, Adam
The ice passage—presumably created by Marchenko 2— ends suddenly. Adam scans his environment. He seems to have arrived in a large lake dug into the ice. The scanner also tells him the alien building is directly above. He has to be careful. Marchenko 2 probably took longer than he did, so Adam should catch up with him at some point. Then he will have to be prepared. Therefore he first swims slightly above the bottom of the ice lake. His helmet light illuminates the floor, which seems to be covered with trash. Suddenly he discovers a circular pattern. This can’t be a coincidence! Trash wouldn’t just sink to the bottom like that. Was somebody trying to leave a message for him, or is it a trap by Marchenko 2?
Adam sees a particularly large piece of scrap exactly in the center of the circle. He cautiously approaches, then hesitates. He is almost certain Marchenko 2 created this circle and placed the object in the middle. But why? He cannot know that somebody is following him, so it ought not be a trap. More probably, the AI placed such a noticeable pattern around the piece in order to easily find and pick it up on his way back. Then it must be something interesting, at least interesting enough to mark it with such a circle.
Proxima Trilogy: Part 1-3: Hard Science Fiction Page 54