Sidespace (4 page)

“She thinks they might be axonal nerve fibers. Valkyrie, do you think the central nervous system they would feed into was in the plant’s stem?”

‘Perhaps, but I’m analyzing a different idea.’

“Which is?”

‘I’d prefer to wait to discuss the matter until I’m more confident in my conclusions.’

“Except you can’t keep me out of your mind.”

Caleb chuckled. “Maybe you should respect her privacy.”

She was surprised to find him wearing a somewhat cryptic expression. “You’re serious.”

Both of their voices had lowered, though Valkyrie could presumably still hear them if she wished. “It just seems if we genuinely believe she’s not merely a sentient being but a sapient one, we should treat her as such. I know, she’s all up in your head and you in hers, which means it’s an impractical notion in practice.” He raised his voice pointedly. “And it’s not like she’s respecting our privacy by not eavesdropping right now, is it, Valkyrie?”

‘I’m sorry, Caleb, did you need something?’

“Nah.”

Alex pinched the bridge of her nose and shook her head with a weak laugh. The last of the adrenaline had dissipated, leaving her achy and tired. “What about the probe? Have we found a prairie region yet?”

‘Launching in six seconds.’

He grabbed her hand and tugged her toward the cockpit. “Let’s see how it reacts to another intruder.”

“I’m going to go out on a limb and guess ‘not well.’ ”

But it didn’t do anything at all. The probe plowed ten meters deep into the barren dirt and began sending readings back unimpeded. They showed a series of extremely low frequency infrasound microseisms and little else.

“I guess this confirms our suspicion the flora’s alive but not the planet, and supports the theory the flora are communicating through the soil.” She chewed on the side of her lower lip. “So they’re a hive mind, then, with an intelligence shared by all the flora. That’s the theory you were working on, isn’t it, Valkyrie?”

‘You know it was.’

“Actually, no—I didn’t peek. But I was fairly smart on my own before you came along, and it makes sense. In fact, it’s the only explanation that makes sense.”

‘As you say. Scans of the crust and upper mantle show no indication as yet of a central nervous system, making it plausible that sensory functions and responses are shared amongst the flora across the planet rather than concentrated in a single cortex.’

“A distributed neural network? I suppose the trees and plants could be separate nodes of a primary consciousness—”

“Stop that.” Caleb’s hand rested gently over hers.

She looked down…she’d been scratching at the medwrap on her inner forearm without realizing it. She rested her head on his shoulder. “It itches.” It also ached even more than the rest of her body, but no need to worry him.

“I’m sure it does. So I think the emergency has passed for the moment. We should get clean and get some rest.”

“Hmmm.” She nodded languidly against him. “Valkyrie, pull up another kilometer to be safe. Adopt a pattern overnight to capture good representative scans of the surface. You know what to search for. Wake us if there’s a problem or a life-altering—and I mean literally
life-altering
—discovery, but otherwise we’ll decide how to proceed in the morning.”

‘I’ll do so. Might I suggest a biocide shot to ward off infection in your wound? In addition, both of you should have your eVis initiate anti-inflammation measures before you go to sleep.’

“Yes, Mom….” They drawled in unison.

2

EKOS-1

“
A
T LEAST WE FINALLY
found life,” Alex muttered as she began enlarging the overnight scans at the data center. “Even if it did try to kill us.”

This was the fourth portal space in the Metigens’ elaborate network they had investigated. Intending to be methodical about their exploration, they’d started on the far left of the top row of signals, when viewed from their lobby, and visited every fifth one. Thus far every portal opened into a lobby space functionally identical to their own, with a second portal at the far end of the lobby leading to the ‘pocket universe,’ as Caleb had taken to calling them. They hadn’t bothered to try to locate an observation planet akin to Portal Prime in any of the lobbies, on the assumption their presence would not be appreciated by any observing Metigen.

The first pocket universe had contained a fully realized space not unlike their home universe. But whereas the TLF wave for their universe led to the Sol system—to the cradle of civilization—the wave generated for the pocket universe pointed to a silent, uninhabited planet. The second of five planets in a K6 dwarf system, it orbited on the edge of the habitable zone for humans and exhibited a nitrogen-rich atmosphere. Scans and a brief surface visit revealed no life, however. Not so much as a prokaryote. The other bodies in the system were equally barren.

The next two portal spaces had been empty—as in naught but the void. No galaxies, no stars, no planets. The disorienting nature of the space had led them to depart in short order, confident there was nothing in the nothingness to find.

Now, on the fourth try, they had found something living. Unfortunately, they had no way to communicate with it or otherwise ask it to please stop trying to kill them.

The possibility of discovering life radically different from their own had obviously been considered by scientists. Protocols had been developed, and Valkyrie carried all of them in her databanks. But the fact was no one had managed to work out how to communicate with a planet-sized hive mind distributed in flora…particularly one wielding a vicious defensive streak as a weapon.

“And now we know one thing we didn’t before—not all the life in these universes is human, or even humanoid. Or in any way similar to us, for that matter.”

Alex scowled at the results of the scans. “Agreed, but this doesn’t get us any closer to understanding what the purpose is for all these separate universes or the portal network.”

Caleb massaged her shoulders, easing the last of the aches from the adventure of the previous day. All but the ache in her arm. “We could go ask Mesme.”

“No.” Her head shook firmly to emphasize the point. “Never ask a question until you know the answer, or at least can tell if the other person—or being—is lying. In this case, there’s no reason to think the alien will tell us anything other than riddles. Besides, I don’t want Mesme to learn the extent of our poking around.”

“Not until we know more, anyway. I concede the point—knowledge is power when it comes to Mesme, and right now we don’t have much.” His hand slid down her arm to her palm. “Come on. Breakfast before decisions.”

“You get started while I change my bandage.”

He let go of her hand and headed for the kitchen. She waited until he was fully occupied setting out breakfast, then gingerly removed the medwrap from her wrist.

A gasp caught in her throat. She’d realized the wound wasn’t healed—she could feel it wasn’t healed—but in reality it was worse. The cut had clotted into a brownish-yellow pus, and the welts covering the skin surrounding it were now engorged and inflamed.

I did tell you the biocide wasn’t working.

I know you did, but it’s a simple cut. The medwrap alone should’ve all but healed it by now.

The cut was delivered by an alien source. It transferred microorganisms into your bloodstream which humans have never seen before, much less developed treatments for. I am working with your eVi to better calibrate your immune system response and combat the infection, but it too has never seen these microbes before.

Shit. Okay.

She’d been so absorbed in the internal conversation with Valkyrie—and gaping aghast at her arm—she missed Caleb coming up behind her. He dropped a hand on the table and demanded her attention. “Were you going to tell me?”

She cringed, unable to lie to him when he looked at her that way. “If it got worse…but Valkyrie’s on the case, supercharging my immune system. I’ll be fine.”

He lifted her arm up and ran fingertips along the edges of the wound, studying it clinically. “Alex, this is badly infected, and we don’t know by what.” His gaze rose to meet hers. “We need to go home and get this treated.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I won’t have you dying from some alien microbe because you were too bullheaded stubborn to get help.”

“Caleb, if the medwrap and the biocide didn’t heal it, that means our doctors don’t have any information on whatever’s causing the inflammation, so returning home won’t do any good. And I’m not going to die. I’ll fight it off. It just may take a few days.”

“Our doctors can absolutely treat it. We discover new microbial strains every time we investigate a new planet.”

“True, but those still originate in our universe. This is alien in a way none of those are.”

I’m not certain this argument helps your case.

Noted.

He scrutinized her suspiciously. “How do you feel?”

“Fine.” And she did, mostly. Her arm hurt like hell, but…truthfully, she mostly felt like crap.

His eyes squeezed shut. “Good god, woman, you are the most obstinate person I have ever met. If it hasn’t improved markedly by tomorrow morning, we’re going home. No argument.”

She made a face at him. “Eh…all right.” Time to change the subject. “These planetary scans are one step above worthless. It’s not your fault, Valkyrie—there’s simply nothing here. Whatever is happening in and among the flora, we can’t see it. Do you have any ideas for how to get useful information out of this place? “

‘Not at present. In order to learn more we’d need to study living organic material. We could attempt to modify a probe to conduct a minimal analysis from the surface, but given the hostility of the planet’s inhabitant, at this point I doubt it would allow the probe to do so.’

“Maybe if we leave and give it a few days, it’ll calm down and we can try again?”

Caleb shrugged in nominal agreement, as he was spending most of his energy staring at her arm with a worrying glower. “We picked up signs of activity on two other planets in the system, so let’s go check them out—more cautiously this time.”

‘Setting course for the second planet in the system.’

EKOS-2

The first sign Ekos-2 was somehow different was all the color. While the previous planet was undeniably flourishing, its biosphere consisted of forests and prairies, all in shades of green and brown.

This world, in contrast, was painted in the spectrum of the rainbow. Fields of enormous, vibrant flowers stretched for kilometers. Even the trees were colorful, sporting leaves of blue, orange and violet in addition to every hue of green. There were
pink
trees, of all things.

But as inviting as the surface appeared, they stayed well aloft, cruising two kilometers high while they studied the various regions and gathered data.

Now that they knew what to search for, it was easy to spot the ‘noise’ on the infrasound band. “This planet’s alive, too—or rather its plants are.”

Caleb was peering intently out the viewport, eyes narrowed. “Valkyrie, what are the odds of the same kind of life spontaneously arising in the same time frame on two separate planets?”

‘Low, but not zero. This universe may feature innate characteristics favorable to this particular form of life. As such, both planets could have been ‘pollinated’ with the precursors by asteroid or comet impacts.’

“And what would constitute ‘characteristics favorable to this particular form of life?’ ”

‘That I do not know.’

“Don’t feel bad, Valkyrie. I don’t think anyone does.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “The TLF wave from this portal points to this system. Maybe the better question is which came first? The life or the signal?”

Alex nodded in agreement. “They could be watching because they found life here, or they could be watching because they
created
life here. But either way, it’s here now. Let’s try starting with the gentle approach this time. I’m going to launch a probe but give it a soft landing…ahead here in this field of unnaturally gorgeous flowers. Hopefully they won’t eat it.”

They slowed to hover above the field. She released the probe and held her breath as it descended, landed, bounced once and skidded to a stop. Despite the attempt at gentleness, it surely must have torn a leaf or two during the landing. Yet the plants didn’t swarm the probe in anger.

They did tentatively curl in toward it.

The subsonic waves increased in magnitude, and she activated the microphone on the probe.

A low-level but distinctive
hum
filled the cabin. It rose and fell in harmonic steps, multi-tonal and infinitely complex. The sonance wasn’t grating or discordant, but instead quite pleasing to the ear.

Her face lit up. “It sounds like the planet’s singing.”

“I admit, it does. Are we getting anything else?”

‘The life form is not reacting in an overtly negative manner to the probe’s presence. There are no tectonic tremors, nor are visual scanners picking up the formation of any vertical structures attempting to reach us. The plants in the vicinity of the probe do, however, appear to be…stroking it.’