Earthward: Hard Science Fiction (Proxima Logfiles Book 7), page 23
“The film is said to be quite well made, with re-enacted scenes, but also with real archival footage.”
Maybe Eve should watch documentaries about Earth. After all, it was going to be her home. On the other hand, she’d spend the rest of her life there. She’d be able to see every corner of the globe in person. Maybe Takumi would get lucky and she’d take him with her. Should he ask her? No. Bullshit. Yes!
“What do you say I show you Earth after we get there?” he asked. “All alone, just the two of us.”
Eve twisted her mouth into a sneer. “Like, without Adam and without Marchenko?”
“Of course, if you want, we can take them with us.”
“Without them, of course! I’d love to, Tak! I’m looking forward to it.”
July 4, 2302 – Earth
The Earth was... incredible. There were so many shades of green, and she found each one so fertile-looking. Add to that the blues of the sky and the waters, which wore a different dress every day, every hour. Not to mention the sounds! Chirping birds, buzzing insects, rushing streams, noisy engines—and none of it seemed foreign to her. It was almost as if all the sensory outputs of this planet were in her genes.
Eve massaged her aching thighs. This constant gravity was getting to her, and there was no means of escaping it. “Come, let’s sit down,” she said.
“Here?” asked Takumi.
“Why not?”
He pointed to all the people standing around them, then to the grassy ground.
“They’re not here for us,” Eve said.
Takumi took a large plastic bag from his pocket and laid it on the grass. “So you won’t get wet,” he said. “It rained yesterday.”
“Thank you,” Eve said and sat down.
She still couldn’t get used to the weather. It changed so quickly! The day always took so long to change its place with the night. Today it had been twilight for half an hour now, and it was still not fully dark.
Takumi settled down next to her. She thought he looked a little scared. They’d been told that the crowds were here to celebrate. Today was this country’s Independence Day. The day before yesterday, they’d appeared at the UN General Assembly. Gronolf had given a speech in the language of the people.
It had been surreal. She’d looked closely at the audience. Most weren’t listening to Gronolf, just staring at his body.
And then the media headlines!
“Giant frog from space speaks at the UN.”
“Is the invasion of frogs coming now?”
“Can we ever eat frog legs in good conscience again?”
It was a good thing they’d at least parked the Majestic Draght out of sight of most people.
“We’re just south of the monument,” Takumi said.
“Excuse me?”
He was pointing to his ear. Ah, he was talking to someone via radio. Eve hadn’t gotten used to these implants that most people had. Could someone listen in on us while we’re having sex? she’d asked Takumi the day before yesterday. He laughed and shook his head. It was all safe. Oh well.
“You just have to make your way,” Takumi said. “You’ll be fine. Exactly south, about a hundred and ten meters.”
He was probably giving Marchenko directions. She hoped her father wasn’t bringing any Grosnops with him. Eve was glad not to be the center of attention right now. The many people around her did not bother her today because they were not interested in her but in the big fireworks, which would take place later at this monument.
“There you are!” exclaimed Takumi.
He stood up and shook hands with Marchenko. Her father hadn’t brought anyone with him. Relieved, Eve stood up and hugged him. He looked tired.
“Yes, everything is much easier without a Grosnop in tow,” Marchenko said.
“What’s next?” Takumi asked.
“Tomorrow London, then Paris, Berlin, Moscow, Akademgorodok, Beijing, Tokyo...”
“That’s enough,” Eve said. “What a schedule!”
“I negotiated a week off for you guys,” Marchenko said.
“What? That’s great!”
“You’ll be taken to a luxury resort in Hawaii.”
“Gee, Marchenko, you’re the best!” Eve hugged him even more enthusiastically. “How did you do that?”
“It wasn’t that tough. To be honest, no one really cares about you guys. The main thing is that the Grosnops are here... I almost feel like a ringmaster, and Gronolf, Numbark, Murnaka, and Ragnor are my performers.”
“People are curious,” Takumi said.
Curious? That was not quite it. She hadn’t heard any question about the history of the Grosnops or their culture. It was all about appearances. Or was she being unfair?
“You’ll meet us again in Akademgorodok,” Marchenko said. “You wanted to see where I came from, Eve.”
“Yeah, it’s just too bad I can’t kick Shostakovich’s ass anymore.”
“The RB Group, of course, apologizes for the misconduct of its former employees. They’ll pay your vacation—and Adam’s too—as compensation. They’re even offering you permanent employment.”
“What about Adam?” asked Eve. “How is he?”
“I don’t know. He’s still out on his own. He thinks he needs this now.”
“Is he coming to Akademgorodok?”
“I don’t know that, either. We’ll see.”
“You can’t take this personally, Marchenko,” Eve said. “He has so much to catch up on.”
“I know. Still...”
Eve stroked his shoulder.
“Marchenko?” asked Takumi.
“Yes?”
“I’ve always wanted to ask you something.”
“Then ask.”
“Whatever happened to Francesca?”
Marchenko gulped. Takumi seemed to have put his foot in it.
“We can work that out another time,” Eve said.
“It’s okay,” Marchenko said. “She had a good life. There was, after all, the one Marchenko with a biological body. He was by her side until she died. Two years later, he died, too.”
“We could visit their graves,” Eve said.
“We already did,” Marchenko said. “Remember the day before yesterday when we were standing on the shore at Ellis Island?”
“You were crying. I thought they were happy tears.”
“I found out they had their ashes scattered over the bay. That’s nice.”
A bang interrupted them.
Eve leapt to her feet.
The sky sparkled with bright colors.
Author's Note
Dear readers,
For the seventh time, I’ve brought you along within the Proxima Logfiles. The series was designed in a novella format, perfect for writing—and reading—between the more extensive books like Amphitrite and the upcoming Möbius. In fact, though, the scope has increased from book to book—to my own amazement. If I had continued with parts eight, nine, and ten, which were not part of the plan, they would probably have become more extensive than my other books.
Therefore, after the seventh installment, a reset is now called for. I’ve already hinted at the direction it’s going to take. Marchenko is up to something on his own. Without having to pay attention to the limitations of biological life, he’ll be able to move much faster, visit places no human will ever see, and tell stories that are only possible thanks to those reasons. I hope you’ll be back on board then, too!
The new series, also initially plotted to be seven parts, will be called The Marchenko Logs and will launch in early 2022. I’ll tell you what Marchenko’s plans are at a later date. What’s already clear is that we’ll be seeing an old acquaintance whom regular readers have been missing for a while. Can you guess who it is? Then feel free to write to me at brandon@hard-sf.com.
In addition, I can’t rule out the possibility that Adam and Eve will catch the travel bug once again. In the meantime, they have enough friends on board the Majestic Draght to be able to make their way to even the most exciting destinations. Ah, but will they be able to find their way anywhere without Marchenko?
Following the epilogue is, as always, a guided tour. This time I put myself in the head of an alien. What would our Earth look like to the Grosnops? What makes it a special place in space, even if one has no sentimental attachments to its forests, mountains, deserts, and oceans?
Have fun reading! As usual, you will receive an illustrated version of A Guided Tour of Earth for Aliens if you sign up for it at hard-sf.com/subscribe/.
I really hope that Earthward is a good conclusion for the Proxima Logbooks. If you think so, it would be great if you could share it with others—namely in the form of a short review. It’s especially convenient if you click on this link:
hard-sf.com/links/2282422
With that, I’ll say goodbye to you for today.
Sincerely yours,
Brandon Q. Morris
A Guided Tour of Earth for Aliens
What a Grosnop Should Know About Earth
Allow me to present to you... the solar system: 4.6 billion years old and consisting of a central star of the main sequence class G2, eight planets, several dwarf planets, hundreds of thousands of minor planets, and countless comets, with a combined mass of about 2 x 1030 kilograms.
That is more than 300,000 times heavier than the third planet, Earth. It is estimated that 99.86 percent of the solar system’s total mass is in the sun. Of the remaining mass, the four gas planets—Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune—account for another 99 percent, with nine-tenths of it just in Jupiter and Saturn.
The gravitational pull of the sun extends about two to four light-years into the surrounding universe. This is the extent that astronomers attribute to the solar system. However, interstellar space begins even before that. From the so-called heliopause, it is no longer the particle stream emanating from the sun—the solar wind—that dominates, but the interstellar medium.
Our Home Address
If we were expecting extraterrestrial visitors, we would have to give our home address something like this—in the hope that the guest would be able to do anything at all with our terms: Turn off the intergalactic highway at the Virgo Supercluster. Ask passersby about the Local Group, which includes 47 galaxies. Once there, look for the ‘Milky Way’ with a bar-shaped core and two dominant spiral arms. Among the Milky Way’s 200 to 400 billion stars, locate Orion’s arm. It is located about 15,000 light-years north of the galaxy’s axis of symmetry, or about 25,000 light-years from its core, and is one of the secondary spiral arms between the Perseus Arm and the Scutum-Centaurus Arm, somewhat closer to Perseus.
As soon as you notice an elliptical cluster of young stars and star-forming regions about 2,000 light-years across—which is called Gould’s Belt—please fly a little closer. In the middle of it you will notice an hourglass-shaped bubble in the interstellar medium, a few hundred light-years in size and particularly low in matter, caused by a supernova. Don’t worry. The danger has been non-existent for about 300,000 years. That’s when Geminga, which is 800 light-years from the solar system, and which radio astronomers can still detect as a pulsar, probably exploded. Other theories suggest that the Local Bubble was formed 10 to 20 billion years ago by multiple supernovae.
Now please pay attention and look closer. Then you should notice the Local Flake, which is about 30 light-years across and contains significantly more cosmic matter (mainly hydrogen gas) than the surrounding area. The sun has been transiting this area for 100,000 years and will probably take at least the same amount of time to reach clean territory again.
The sun is not the only star in the area. Your best bet is to look for a triple star that the humans call Alpha Centauri. It consists of a tightly bound, yellow binary star (Alpha Centauri A and B) orbited at a greater distance by a red dwarf (Alpha Centauri C or Proxima Centauri). Then, just 4.4 light-years away, you should find the sun.
If no one answers (people are sometimes very busy with their own affairs—you know the kind, family arguments that sometimes get loud, etc.), just ring the doorbell of the sun’s nearest neighbors. Maybe start with Barnard’s Star (5.9 light-years away), Wolf 359 (7.8 light-years), or Lalande 21185 (8.3 light-years), all three of which are long retired as red dwarfs. Or you could try Luyten 726-8 (8.7 light-years) or Ross 154 (9.7 light-years) and leave your message with one or the other. Another option is Sirius (8.6 light-years away), which is about twice the size of the sun and is orbited by the white dwarf star Sirius B.
What Alien Civilizations Can See of Us
Astronomers usually use one of two methods to discover exoplanets: the transit or radial velocity. When people think of the Earth’s rotation around the sun, they like to imagine the picture as if the sun were stationary and virtually pulling the Earth around itself by a tether. This image is wrong. In fact, both Earth and sun, planet and star, move around a common center of gravity. So the star also turns circles—albeit small ones—because the planets influence it. We cannot see this circular motion from Earth, but we can see that the star moves forward and backward, away from us and toward us.
The speed at which this happens is called radial velocity. Via the Doppler effect, it causes the spectral lines of the star to shift very finely. We can measure this shift with special instruments and use it to calculate how heavy the planet or planets tugging on the star must be—this is known as the radial velocity method. Using this technique alone, however, we can only give a lower limit for the planetary mass.
To calculate the exact mass (and thus the density), one would have to additionally detect the planet with the transit method. The transit method assumes that the planet’s orbit is such that it passes exactly on the axis between Earth and its star. This causes the star’s brightness to decrease at certain intervals, which can be measured with telescopes.
If an alien civilization wanted to discover the Earth as a terrestrial planet, it would need both methods to obtain all the necessary information. This means that, from the point of view of their home world, the Earth and the sun must be on the same plane (see diagram below.) Otherwise the Earth would not pass in front of the sun’s disk, i.e., it would not cover it.
In an exciting research project, astronomers from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Garching, Germany, among others, have now determined for which alien worlds this condition is fulfilled. In fact, it applies to very few. Basically, terrestrial worlds (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars) are easier to detect than gas giants, despite their smaller size—the closer a planet is to its sun, the more often it covers it. Moreover, there is no place in space from which more than three planets of the solar system can be discovered by the transit method.
On average, the chance of finding at least one of the planets is about 1:40, with two planets only 1:400 and with three planets, it’s 1:4,000. Among the more than 3,600 known exoplanets, there are 68 from which at least one of the planets of the solar system could be discovered. Nine of these planets have a direct line of sight to Earth, but none of these worlds are in habitable zones.
In total, researchers estimate there should be ten (as yet undiscovered) worlds in space that could survey Earth and also have orbits in habitable zones. That’s not a lot, so maybe that’s why there hasn’t been a call from E.T. yet?
The Earth - A Stroke of Luck
Neither too hot nor too cold, not too dry nor too humid, just big enough, yet not oversized, with the perfect ingredients and placed in the right place: You would have to search the universe for a while to find a second home like Earth.
A sky that distorts the colors.
Liquid hydrogen dioxide suddenly dripping from huge clouds.
Solid H2O covering the ground and making it difficult for one to move about.
Temperatures ranging from minus 70 to plus 60 degrees Celsius.
Oceans that change their coastline depending on the time of day and swallow up unwary explorers.
A merciless sun that burns the skin.
Green hydrocarbon-based structures that erupt from the surface like cancer, spreading and multiplying until everything is contaminated with them.
Invisible germs.
Visibly primitive creatures that race through the area sitting in metal monstrosities, destroying their own habitats in the process.
An alien explorer landing on Earth is likely to gather any number of strange impressions. What seems normal to us, perhaps even optimal, is possibly a curiosity in the cosmic context.
The Shape of the Earth
The view from the outside can be useful to evaluate this world more objectively. What does the Earth have that other planets lack, if you think of Earth without its human residents? The third planet of the solar system is rocky. It orbits its central star at a speed of 107,200 kilometers per hour once in 365.26 days, at a distance that its inhabitants, in their usual arrogance, have defined as a life zone. It rotates on its own axis exactly once per day, which is no coincidence, for the human beings have chosen the rotation period of their home as a measure of time.
Strictly speaking, the Earth wobbles around the sun because the axis around which it rotates is inclined by about 23 degrees against the orbital plane. This is the only reason why there are seasons—otherwise it would always be equally icy at the poles and always equally lukewarm in our latitudes. The distance to the sun is about 150 million kilometers (1 astronomical unit), and the Earth moves almost on a circular path.
The closest point to the sun is 147 million kilometers (where the Earth is always on January 3), and the furthest point to the sun is 152 million kilometers (July 4). At the point closest to the sun, the Earth receives a little (6.9 percent) more energy than at the point furthest from the sun. Because of the tilt of the axis, this additional energy arrives mainly in the southern hemisphere.
