Joan Slonczewski: Microbe

In Skyhook’s viewport, the surface of planet IP3 expanded and rose to meet them. Numerous tests had established its physical parameters as habitable—gravity of nine-tenths g, temperatures not too extreme, oxygen sufficient and carbon dioxide low enough, water plentiful. The ozone layer could have been denser, but human colonists would have their eyes and skin lifeshaped for extra enzymes to keep their retina and chromosomes repaired.

At a distance the planet did not look remarkably different from Andra’s home world. A brilliant expanse of ocean met a mottled brown shore, rotating slowly down beneath the craft. Beyond, in the upper latitudes, rolled the blue-brown interior of a continent, broken only by a circle of mountains.

As Skyhook fell swiftly toward the land, curious patterns emerged. Long dark bands ran in parallel, in gently winding rows like a string picture. The lines were bands of blue vegetation; the probe had sent back footage of it, wide arching structures tall as trees. Each band alternated with a band of yellow, which gave way to the next band of blue. Over and over the same pattern repeated, ceasing only at the mountains.

“I’ve never seen patterns like that on uncolonized worlds,” Andra mused.

“They do look like garden rows,” Skyhook admitted. “Perhaps the native farmers will come out to greet us.”

If there were intelligent life forms, they had yet to invent radio. A year of monitoring the planet at every conceivable frequency had yielded nothing, not so much as a calculation of pi.

Skyhook landed gently in a field of dense vegetation. The wall of the cabin opened, the door pulling out into an arch of nanoplast. A shaft of brilliant light entered.

“All systems check,” crackled Quantum’s voice on the radio in her car. “Go ahead.”

Andra gathered her field equipment and set Skyhook’s eye upon her shoulder again. Then she stepped outside.

The field was a riot of golden ringlets, like wedding bands strewn out. Her gaze followed the cascade of gold down to the edge of the field, where taller dark trunks arose in shallow curves, arching overhead. From the taller growth came a keening sound, perhaps some living thing singing, or perhaps the wind vibrating somehow through its foliage. “It’s beautiful,” she exclaimed at last.

Beneath the golden ringlets grew dense blue-brown vegetation, reaching to Andra’s waist. She bent closer for a look. “These look like plants, ‘phycoids.’ The ringlets might be flowers.”

“They could just as well be snakes ready to snap,” warned Skyhook. “Watch your step.”

She looked back at the shuttlecraft, planted in the field like a four-legged insect. Then she lifted her leg through the foliage, Pelt’s nanoplastic “skin” flexing easily. Immediately her foot snagged. She tried to pull out some of the growth, but found it surprisingly tough and had to cut it with a knife. “The leaves and stems are all looped,” she observed in surprise. “All looped, just like the ‘flowers.’ I’ll never get through this stuff.”

Pelt said, “They are phycoid. I detect products of photosynthesis.”

“They could be carnivorous plants,” Skyhook insisted.

Andra collected some more cuttings into her backpack. “I wish I could smell them,” she said wistfully. Pelt’s skin filtered out all volatile organics. She aimed her laser pen to dig one out by the roots. The phycoid came up, but nearby stems sparked and smoldered.

“Watch out!” squeaked the eye-speaker.

She winced. “Don’t deafen me; I’ll put it out.” She stamped the spot with her boots and sprinkled some water from her drinking jet. “This planet’s a fire trap.” The phycoid roots, she noted, were long twisted loops, tightly pressed together, but loops nonetheless. All the living structures seemed to be bagels squashed and stretched.

“Great Spirit, we’ve got company,” Skyhook exclaimed.

Andra looked up. She blinked her eyes. A herd of brown-striped truck tires were rolling slowly across the field. To get a closer look, she pressed through the phycoids, stopping every so often to extricate her feet from the looped foliage. She made about ten meters progress before stopping to catch her breath.

“No need to get too close,” Skyhook reminded her. His eyes had telephoto.

“Yes, but I might pick up droppings, or some fallen hair or scales.”

Some of the rolling “tires” were heading toward her. Each one had several round cranberry-colored spots set in its “tread.” The “tread” was composed of suckers that stretched and extended to push in back, or pull in front. “They must be animal-like, ‘zooids’ ” suggested Andra. “Those red things—could they be eyes?” She counted them, two, three, four in all, before the first came up again. Those eyes must be tough, not to mind getting squashed down.

“If these creatures are zooids,” Pelt wanted to know, “how do they feed?”

Skyhook said, “Their suckers ingest the phycoids.”

Andra stopped again to pull out her foot. “They sure know how to travel,” she wryly observed. “No wonder they never evolved legs.” One four-eyed zooid got excited, and took off with remarkable speed; then it suddenly reversed, heading backwards just as fast. These zooids had no “backwards” or “forwards,” she thought.

Quantum radioed again. “Andra, how are you holding up? Is your breathing OK?”

She took a deep breath. “I think so.” Most of the rats had died from inhaling toxic dust. She resumed her attempt to make headway through the phycoids, and searched the ground for anything that looked like droppings. Overhead, she heard a strange whirring sound. A flock of little things were flying, their movements too fast for her to make out.

“Their wings are turning full around, like propellers,” Skyhook exclaimed in amazement. “Why, all these creatures are built of wheels, one way or another.”

“Sh,” said Andra. “A zooid is coming up close.”

The creature rolled slowly over the phycoids, squashing the golden ringlets beneath it. Andra took a closer look. “There’s a smaller ring structure, just sitting inside the bagel hole. I’ll bet it’s a baby zooid.” The clinging little one rolled over and over inside as its parent traveled. The parent did not seem to notice Andra at all; neither her shape nor her smell would resemble a native predatory, she guessed.

The radio crackled again. “We must attempt contact,” Quantum reminded her. Any zooid might be intelligent.

Andra held out her communicator, a box that sent out flashing lights and sound bursts in various mathematical patterns, strings of primes and various representations of pi and other constants. It even emitted puffs of volatile chemicals, to alert any chemosensing creature with a hint of intelligence. Not that she expected much; their probes had broadcast such information over the past year.

Then she saw it; A giant zooid was approaching, five times taller than the others and perhaps a hundred times their weight. As it barreled along, picking up speed, the small striped ones took off, zigzagging crazily before it. The ground rumbled beneath her feet.

“Get back to my cabin!” urged Skyhook. “We’ll all get run over.”

“Wait,” said Pelt. “Do you think it heard us? What if it wants to talk?”

“I don’t think so,” said Andra, prudently backing off. “I think the smaller zooids attracted it, not us.”

A small zooid went down under the giant one, then another. That seemed to be the giant’s strategy, to run down as many little ones as it could. At last it slowed and turned back, coming to rest upon one of the squashed carcasses.

“It’s extending its suckers to feed,” observed Skyhook. “Let’s get back before it gets hungry again.”