First, Eve, a human. She is the easiest target, because compared to him she is weak and slow. However, he only wants to incapacitate her if it should become necessary. He definitely won’t try to kill her. After all, she is his daughter!
Secondly, the other Marchenko, who is an equal and formidable opponent. Against him the element of surprise will be critical. Therefore he needs a weapon that can be used quickly and generates maximum effect against a machine.
And then there is the third enemy type. So far, he has only heard a scream uttered by this enemy. Marchenko 2 does not believe it is a machine. It would make no sense for a machine to communicate this way. Perhaps his interpretation contains too much human psychology, but he heard an immense amount of anger and frustration in that scream. But, he has to be careful not to let himself be guided by familiar factors. Perhaps the alien is the size of a mouse and regularly utters such sounds while eating. Given that he knows so little, he had better develop a generous-sized weapon.
Accordingly, he needs an adaptable, powerful, and fast-acting weapon that works against both hard and soft targets. Marchenko 2 can only think of one solution—electrical energy. He can use it to incapacitate Eve and probably any other biological creature, as well as the robot in which the consciousness of the other Marchenko is hiding. Electrical energy flows fast and its strength can be easily controlled. To use it he would not need anything more complicated than a kind of whip, which would also be rather inconspicuous. He can have his nano-fabricators make this metal whip within 15 minutes. Of course he also needs electricity, but he can easily tap the walls for that. He only needs to remove the top layer, where the luminous cells are located, and then apply a kind of collection net. He still does not know how much power the internal building network receives. However, if charging his internal batteries takes too long, he can simply increase the size of his collection net.
Marchenko 2 goes to the entrance of the side corridor and looks all around. He really does not want to be surprised while he is not yet ready. He listens directly on the floor, but nobody seems to be approaching. He would prefer a corridor branching off at an angle, which would completely shield him from anyone passing by, but it would cost valuable time to search for one. He believes he is not far away from the central room. The risk of someone roaming through this particular corridor seems small and acceptable.
So he starts on his task. The whip is going to grow from his right front leg so that he can employ it with a quick movement. If he discharges his battery down to ten percent within an extremely short time, it should kill even an elephant. He will have to be very careful with Eve. There is one problem he cannot solve: Once he has used the whip against a strong target, it will have to recharge before the next use, which he estimates will take at least half an hour. He will have to use a strategy that allows him to eliminate opponents one by one. All in good time, he thinks, concentrating on transmitting the necessary plans to his nano-fabricators.
Brightnight 36, 3876
Gronolf walks through the control center with a heavy, swaying gait. He requires only five steps from one end of the room to the other. He turns around with considerable momentum. He has placed his sensitive touch-arms over his shoulders. The load-arms are fighting with each other without Gronolf noticing it, as if they are two independent body parts.
Gronolf is proud of what the Grosnops have achieved during their long history. The subcutaneous thinking layers distributed across his entire body, his brain, allow him to move all limbs without significant delays. Once he makes a decision, the movement is lightning fast. However, this does not help him decide what to do next. He has been thinking for half a bubble period, but he is still undecided. The system is also not very helpful. While it summarizes the dramatic situation quite well—the Majestic Draght is still hurtling toward them—it cannot draw any conclusions.
Oh well. He orders his load-arms to stop fighting each other. An intruder must have caused the current situation. It would make sense to catch, interrogate, and punish this person. He therefore has to find the intruder. Maybe this alone would be enough to avert the danger. Gronolf hopes so, even though he has a hunch it won’t be that simple. If it were that easy, he thinks, the system could have awakened that mediocre female. That would have been more efficient than using his highly-developed resources. He suppresses the thought about what will happen later.
Gronolf sits back down in his chair and activates the console, which had turned itself off. The control room records everything that happens here. He navigates through the image library. Gronolf is surprised that he does not have to go back far.
A strange creature had been here in the room, only a few hours ago. It appears to be small and weak. Its legs are as thin as stickfish, and it only has two arms. Two arms! It’s a miracle that this creature has survived for so long. In the middle of its body, above the upper part of its arms, this creature has a large bulge, a spherical growth covered by a strange kind of... plant? One side of this sphere has two eyes. The creature must be blind on the other side. How can it defend itself against enemies coming from behind?
Gronolf sees right away that this intruder poses no danger to himself. He could defeat it easily. Yet he must not underestimate this creature either. After all, this creature found the way to Single Sun, just like his own species did. It crossed inhospitable space and finally survived a hike through the icy darkness. Most likely, it did not come alone. Gronolf checks the recordings but cannot find a second specimen. What is that on the floor, though? Something is wiggling there—it reminds him of a fish on dry land. Oh, there is another one. The intruder must have brought helpers along. These tiny things are probably machines because they are so different from the creature. They don’t seem to be dangerous either.
Yet it might be better if he got a weapon. His nation had left its warlike past long behind. During the first 343 cycles, which went down in history as the Dark Seven-Times-Seven-Times-Seven Period, shortly after the Grosnops had emerged from the silt of the oceans, there were two factions viciously fighting each other. Then one of the groups was defeated, and the vanquished assimilated over time. Since then, weapons were seldom used for anything but hunting. This building contains its own arsenal, he knows. Yet for safety’s sake there are also a few weapons stored in the control center.
Gronolf goes directly to one of the chest-high consoles and taps on it. A drawer opens up. He has the choice of a projectile thrower, which is more suitable for smaller opponents, or a harpoon. He considered the projectile thrower a mere toy. A carriontooth would just laugh at that. Even if he hit that sort of predator with ten projectiles, it still would spear him without any hesitation. The harpoon on the other hand...
Gronolf remembers the legendary hunt with the plex shortly after his draght. A carriontooth swam toward him. Gronolf had readied the harpoon too soon, and unfortunately the animal turned and fled. The carriontooth must have known that the harpoon would blast its chest. He and his plex-mates really had a lot of fun back then.
Gronolf wipes some dust from a side eye. He takes the heavy weapon from the drawer and examines it. The harpoon is powered by compressed air. Its range is short, not more than three or four body lengths, but that would be more than enough inside a shelter. The head of the spike contains an explosive charge programmed to explode after hitting an obstacle, with a delay of three milli-bubbles. The spike is so pointed and impacts with such force that it penetrates practically any target. The detonation delay is calculated in such a way that the spike has enough time to penetrate deep into the enemy’s tissues. One small disadvantage of the harpoon is that Gronolf cannot use it if the target is too close. The explosion meant to kill the prey does not differentiate between friend or foe. Yet he is not worried. If something gets so close to him that the use of the harpoon is no longer advisable, he can easily tear it apart or crush it with his strong load-arms.
Gronolf releases the safety catch of the weapon. An increasing noise tells him that the compressed
air chamber is being filled. He aims at the general. It is a strange feeling. The weapon gives him a power he can feel in his veins. It is seductive and causes even his respect for the venerable general to fade. He only has to press the trigger to become the highest-ranked one in the room. Even a physical weakling could do that. Without the harpoon he would have definitely been inferior to the general—when the general was still alive. It is no wonder that in his society the private ownership of weapons is forbidden. Yet now he is glad to have one. If he is lucky the intruder will recognize what this weapon is capable of.
Gronolf hopes the foreign creature will be reasonable. The knowledgeable scientists of his people often discussed whether a species that mastered spaceflight would automatically have to be peace-loving. Now he will have the first chance of testing this theory. However, he has to admit he would not mind firing the harpoon and seeing the creature swimming in a puddle of its own blood. That would be a well-deserved punishment.
He lowers the barrel and slides the safety catch forward. He needs to get a stronger grip on himself. Everything depends on him—he must not kill the intruder before interrogating it thoroughly. This would involve a small problem, though: He does not speak the language of this foreigner. Gronolf returns to the console where he looked at the recorded videos. Indeed, the creature sometimes utters sounds. Its voice sounds very dull. Gronolf analyzes the recording. The sound spectrum is only half as wide as that of his own species. This means the intruder has to communicate without high-pitched sounds. He tries to do that, but he cannot, at least not with his normal voice. However, during his training they learned to sing in harmony as a company. Back then he had to modulate his voice to make it sound deeper, because they had too many high voices. Gronolf imagines a greeting which he would not pronounce but sing in a deeper voice.
“Honor to your plex and you!”
It is working! When he sings the traditional greeting, it sounds much deeper. He repeats the sentence and records it. The analysis shows that the intruder should be able to hear everything Gronolf is saying. Of course this does not mean that the creature will also understand it. He listens again to what this creature was uttering. It seems to be debating with the general, as if it didn’t know that he has been dead for a long time. Now the creature points at a spot on the wall, roughly where the entrance to the moving chamber is located.
“What is located there?” the stranger says. Gronolf tries to repeat the words without understanding them.
“Whattt uss louketed thurr,” does not sound too bad. He repeats the sentence three times in order to memorize it. It might not be a greeting, but he hopes that the creature will recognize his attempted communication as a friendly gesture. And if he also demonstrates that the harpoon is able to snuff out the life of the intruder at any time, nothing should stand in the way of a sensible conversation. He considers it quite impossible that this puny being should get the idea of attacking him first.
It is time, he thinks. Gronolf holds his weapon at the ready and leaves the control center via the main corridor. His four eyes are wide open. He sniffs for alien scents. He stops after four steps because he has detected numerous scent molecules of the foreign creature. The intruder obviously did not try very hard to cover its tracks. This is going to be easy. The stranger might just as well have scratched arrows into the wall.
After a few minutes Gronolf reaches an area that has been devastated by an explosion. Was the intruder responsible for this? He examines the walls and the floor and finds a distorted blade from a turbine. The destruction appears deliberately caused by someone. However, this would have required so much strength that he can almost certainly exclude the foreign creature as a possible culprit.
He continues following the scent. If he can trust the map in his memory, he is approaching the sleeping chambers in a roundabout way. Did the intruder retreat there? Does it want to kill more of his sleeping comrades? He feels anger rising in him. Gronolf has to stop. He takes a deep breath and exhales, repeating until he has calmed down. In addition he activates the safety on his harpoon. That way he has at least a few milli-bubbles to consider things until the weapon is ready to fire. No matter what happens, he must not act impulsively and spoil everything.
He is about to resume his walk when he hears a noise. It is a binary measure, two steps, followed by a scratching sound. A two-legged, relatively lightweight creature is approaching from the left side corridor. Perhaps it is dragging something that explains the scratching noise. Gronolf stops and stays calm. This must be the intruder, approaching him unsuspectingly. He only has to wait for it.
Gronolf lifts the harpoon but leaves the safety on, so that the loading sound of the compressor won’t give him away. The alien must soon come around the corner. Gronolf holds his breath.
May 9, 19, Adam
“Thanks.”
The voice wakes Adam. Was it part of his dream, or had Marchenko just spoken to him?
“It’s me.” The voice comes from the reptilian fragment next to him. It is really Marchenko.
“I am so glad,” Adam replies, and touches the metal with his fingers.
“And I most certainly am, too. I did not think I would ever get out of that pit. You saved me—and I had already believed you were gone.”
“You have to thank Marchenko 2 for your rescue.”
“Really?”
“It certainly was not his intention. He did not know I would follow him.”
“What is he up to?”
“That’s obvious—he wants to get Eve back and kill you. If he’d only known how close he was to you!”
“He did not recognize me.”
“I am sorry I was so stupid,” Adam says.
“I was the stupid one. I should not have gone on without making certain you were on the sled.”
“No, I even manipulated the radio module in order to contact Marchenko 2.”
“That explains why we could not reach you. What did you want from him?”
“He... he showed me there were a few secrets concerning my existence. Secrets that you kept from me. He wanted to tell me everything.”
“Did he keep his promise?”
“No, not yet.”
Marchenko remains silent for a minute. “I... I did not want to burden you with it,” he finally says.
“And what is the great secret of our existence?”
“Eve, you, me... we all were created for this expedition. Your genetic material was manipulated so that you could survive even under adverse conditions.”
“Are we siblings?”
“No. Your genes were spliced together from the best sections they could find. You are not related, at least not any more closely than the former owners of those genetic sequences.”
“So we are artificial?”
“No, Adam, you are still human beings. You would not stand out among other humans, except for your resilience. You are not smarter or stronger than others, that was not the goal, but you definitely can withstand more than other people.”
“So we were created to suffer?”
“If you want to sum it up... you were... engineered to survive.”
“Thanks,” Adam says.
“That is not all. There are many of you. It is no coincidence Marchenko 2 landed here. The Creator sent thousands of Messenger spaceships toward all potentially-habitable worlds known at that time.”
“Potentially?”
“Yes. When we launched, the data from the telescopes could not yet tell for certain whether a planet was really suitable for life.”
“So this means that many other Eve, Adam, and Marchenko trios reached destination worlds where they could not land? They went on that long voyage for nothing?”
“Yes. We were lucky, even though Proxima b is not exactly a paradise. Yet we can live in the open air, with soil under our feet, almost like on Earth.”
“Apart from the fact that we are totally alone.”
“I am not so sure about that. This building proves
we are not alone,” Marchenko says.
“We have to find Eve. She is in danger. If you are not with her, and Marchenko 2 finds her before we do—"
“You are absolutely correct, Adam. And we will find her. But first thing, I had better repair the radio module of your universal device so that we can stay in contact. And then I will need legs and more energy.”
“Then get started!”
“You’d better carry me a little bit longer. And we should not stay in this corridor. If Marchenko 2 comes back, he would find us here, still defenseless. We need a better hiding place.”
May 9, 19, Eve
The way to the control room seems longer this time. Is this due to the fact that she has stopped expecting surprises around every corner? Or is it her exhaustion which seems to stretch the distance? The sensor unit obediently walks ahead. When Eve takes a break, it stops as well. Now and then the display of her universal device flickers. The battery seems to be almost empty. She should worry about how to recharge it, but it’s not really worth it. By now she knows the path from the control room to the sleeping chambers, and she can’t contact anyone with the device anyways. So what does she need it for? To tell the time... But why does it matter anymore what time it is on Earth?
Eve notices that she has slowed down. She pulls herself together and consciously takes one step after the other. She has water, and some more food thanks to what she’d left in her backpack, and there is air here anyways, so she is going to last a while longer, even though it is meaningless. Don’t they say the path is the destination? Such aphorisms never helped her before, but now she has nothing else to cling to.
Proxima Trilogy: Part 1-3: Hard Science Fiction Page 57