Proxima

Alpha was hunting. He was rushing through his jungle at break neck speed, close behind the giant grazer. He realised there was a massive series of meals in the beast. As he dashed, he worked on his poem to celebrate the hunt. Already it was several hundred stanzas long, with descriptions of many other hunts, and it was polishing up to be a masterpiece. When he passed it on, to others of his kind, it would make him famous.

Alpha was several hundred meters long, and fifty meters wide, but less than one millimeter in thickness. His jungle was the sandstone terrain beneath the surface of the planet Proxima Centauri A. Amoeba-like, his almost liquid body oozed and flowed around the sand grains, at a speed that would make the hour hand of an analogue watch seem to race. Yet that was faster than any of his peers could manage, and was amply rapid enough to make ground on his prey. Alpha lived about one hundred meters beneath the surface of his planet, and his people avoided the surface like the plague. They referred to it as “The Great Burning”.

Like the rest of him, Alpha's brain was almost liquid and quite mobile within the confines of his body. The chemical flows that represented thought moved up and down and through his body only a little more quickly than his body moved through the sandstone. Each thought he made, in human terms, took days. This did not matter, because Alpha had time. He was already nearly a million Earth years old, and in the prime of youth. His reflexes worked on the same time scale, and the piercing sensation caused by the probe ripping out several square centimeters of his being would not register as pain for many more days.

Piti Kaya, the shuttle pilot, went down the ladder to the planet surface. As she placed her foot on the ground, she turned, and in sonorous tones said “I name this planet Proxima, for the New Life Foundation.” Then she spoiled it all by giggling.

She looked back up the ladder and called to her husband, John Wang, the ship's doctor. “Come on down. It is quite safe.” John also had training in geology, and doubled as the expedition geologist.

John descended, followed by biologist Dr. Rangi Temoku, his wife Ariana, and microbiologist Dr. Ingrid Steenbergen. They all stood on the baked clay surface and looked around. Just downhill was the largest lake on the planet. At least one hundred kilometres across, and over 100 meters deep, it sparkled with a blue and pink tint. After all, the sun was a red dwarf, and put out lower frequency radiation, most of the time.

From Rangi. “I don't think there is much here for me. It seems to be lifeless.”

Ingrid. “I will need to drill and take samples from all depths. You never know. My little beasties sometimes survive in the strangest places.”

Ariana complained. “I hate these suits. They are so cumbersome. Yes, with the internal power, we can walk with all that weight. But it is so clumsy.”

Ingrid pointed out, though: “If the star decides to flare while we are here, that suit will keep you alive. The depleted uranium coating, heavy as it is, will screen enough of the X rays and ultraviolet to keep you healthy.”

Ariana. “Why is it that we have to deal with a star that is so erratic?”

“Well.” said Rangi, “At least the planet has liquid water, and an equable temperature. We will use that water.”

Rangi and Ariana walked down to the lake edge, to take water and mud samples. Piti and John remained by the ladder, while Ingrid climbed back up to get her drilling equipment.

Much later, they gathered inside the main cabin of the shuttle, relieved to be able to get out of their bulky suits. Even the main cabin of the shuttle had been coated with depleted uranium, to provide protection. The extra weight which required the shuttle to use vast amounts of fuel, was the reason they landed so close to the biggest lake. Their equipment would permit water to be electrolysed to create more fuel. Already they had a hose to the lake edge, and fuel synthesis was under way.

Rangi was frustrated. “There is organic material everywhere! Even traces of nucleic acids, but not a sign of life.”

Ingrid smiled. “I can tell you why. I found a kind of primitive bacterium. But none on the surface. It appears that the radiation flares are enough to kill off anything on the surface. But deeper down, there is life. I have to drill below ten meters to get any, but it is there.”

Rangi was interested. “What does it use for energy?”

From Ingrid. “ Traces of hydrogen gas. There are bacteria on Earth much like these ones, although the biochemistry seems to be totally different. They use hydrogen and carbon dioxide to synthesize organic molecules. These ones, though, like some Earth bacteria, seem to have a very very slow rate of metabolism. They may reproduce by binary fission only every thousand years, or even less often.”

John interjected. “I think this world is much, much older than Earth. Is it possible that local life has been evolving that long?”

Ingrid replied. “Yes. With so little energy available, the life forms have to operate on a very slow time scale. This is nothing like life back home. Funny thing, though. When I drilled down to 100 meters, I sampled a mess of organics. Just a thin slice, but it looked like a multicellular organism. Lots of nucleic acids, and lots of saccharides. It could even have been many cells joined loosely. Not a multicellular organism as we know it, but possibly something like a slime mould?”

“Well” said Rangi, “One thing for sure. There is no intelligent life here.”

10,000 years later.

Alpha had caught and killed his prey. His friend and reproductive partner, Beta, had caught up and they now settled down to a feast. Alpha was passing on the latest stanza of his poem, to great appreciation. Communication between friends was one of the greatest joys in life.