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Authors: Gregory Benford
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bigger ones were hinged to spread before the billowing vapor gale. Traceries of vapor showed the flow, probably still driven by their opening the diaphragm.
A few steps more and they were in a murky vault that stretched beyond view. As Daphne’s lamp swept around, vapors reflected back its glare. Perhaps fifty meters above, mat sheets hung from the ceiling of a vast cavern. Under their beams this grotto came alive with shimmering luminescence: burnt oranges, dapplings of vermilion, splashes of turquoise. A long silence.
“H-how big is this?” Daphne whispered.
Viktor said, “Can’t see the walls.”
Julia looked down, careful of her footing. “Or the floor, through this vapor.”
“Beams off in one minute,” Daphne called.
All around, a complex seethe of radiance. Julia knew that on Earth, mats of bacteria luminesced when they got thick enough. Quorum sensing, a technical term. A way for the bacteria to take roll. A lot of Earthside biologists thought that explained this phenomenon. But they had never stood in shadowy vaults like this—the thirteenth such large cavern found in over twenty years of exploration. To see the rich, textured ripples of luminosity that slowly worked across the ceiling and down the walls was to stand in the presence of mystery.
Another silence. Julia and Viktor knew this moment well, had experienced it in the company of many other crews who came and went through the decades.
Again Julia felt the churn of somber, slow luminosities stretching into the foggy darkness beyond their lamps’ ability to penetrate. There was a sense of silent vitality in the ponderous ferment of vapor and light, a language beyond knowing. As a field biologist she had learned to trust her feel for a place, and this hollow of light far beneath a dry world had an essence she had for decades tried to grasp, not with human ideas, but by opening herself to the experience.
They snapped out of it. She let the others work, keeping to the side. Sample taking, vids to shoot, measurements of distance and density and pressure; the usual. There was an advantage to standing apart and watching the humans grub about at the bottom of the vast grotto, their lights spiking here and there like fingers probing. At least they didn’t talk much.
A movement in the ceiling caught her eye. Pale tan strands came lacing through the mat, stretching like tendons. They made a mass that tilted and worked. Tubular stalks slid, fibers forked into layers, shaping, shaping. An outline seemed to bud up, shimmering and moist.
Julia’s heart thumped. Again. A palpable sense of struggle, of concentration into this one focus…
The others saw it. They froze. “My… God,” Daphne whispered. “I’ve read your accounts, seen the pictures, but…”
Julia had not seen the mat do this for several years. On the second descent of their first expedition the mat had made the same human outline, after two people had died of oxygen loss while exploring Vent A. She knew what to expect but found she was holding her breath. And here came that old prickly feeling again, washing over her skin.
Two rough protrusions sprouted at the top. At its base two more protrusions, slabs of dark mass extruding with aching effort into thicker tubes. At least three meters long, in all. And from the upper sides, above the two thickening tubes that now jutted from each side, a third blob, crusted as thick as tree bark, pulling itself out.
Viktor said it. “Human shape.”
No mistake. The mat was responding, as it had before, to their entry. No one had died on a descent since that first strange incident, so the intent could not be malicious.
Daphne said softly, “It’s so big…?”
To Julia her voice sounded dry. “It’s the mat’s impression of us.”
“How can it see us?” a crewman asked.
“It must sense enough to work out our outlines.”
“Eyes?” he asked.
“The glowing is common,” Julia said. “From surface webbed tissues, fed chemically by
A few steps more and they were in a murky vault that stretched beyond view. As Daphne’s lamp swept around, vapors reflected back its glare. Perhaps fifty meters above, mat sheets hung from the ceiling of a vast cavern. Under their beams this grotto came alive with shimmering luminescence: burnt oranges, dapplings of vermilion, splashes of turquoise. A long silence.
“H-how big is this?” Daphne whispered.
Viktor said, “Can’t see the walls.”
Julia looked down, careful of her footing. “Or the floor, through this vapor.”
“Beams off in one minute,” Daphne called.
All around, a complex seethe of radiance. Julia knew that on Earth, mats of bacteria luminesced when they got thick enough. Quorum sensing, a technical term. A way for the bacteria to take roll. A lot of Earthside biologists thought that explained this phenomenon. But they had never stood in shadowy vaults like this—the thirteenth such large cavern found in over twenty years of exploration. To see the rich, textured ripples of luminosity that slowly worked across the ceiling and down the walls was to stand in the presence of mystery.
Another silence. Julia and Viktor knew this moment well, had experienced it in the company of many other crews who came and went through the decades.
Again Julia felt the churn of somber, slow luminosities stretching into the foggy darkness beyond their lamps’ ability to penetrate. There was a sense of silent vitality in the ponderous ferment of vapor and light, a language beyond knowing. As a field biologist she had learned to trust her feel for a place, and this hollow of light far beneath a dry world had an essence she had for decades tried to grasp, not with human ideas, but by opening herself to the experience.
They snapped out of it. She let the others work, keeping to the side. Sample taking, vids to shoot, measurements of distance and density and pressure; the usual. There was an advantage to standing apart and watching the humans grub about at the bottom of the vast grotto, their lights spiking here and there like fingers probing. At least they didn’t talk much.
A movement in the ceiling caught her eye. Pale tan strands came lacing through the mat, stretching like tendons. They made a mass that tilted and worked. Tubular stalks slid, fibers forked into layers, shaping, shaping. An outline seemed to bud up, shimmering and moist.
Julia’s heart thumped. Again. A palpable sense of struggle, of concentration into this one focus…
The others saw it. They froze. “My… God,” Daphne whispered. “I’ve read your accounts, seen the pictures, but…”
Julia had not seen the mat do this for several years. On the second descent of their first expedition the mat had made the same human outline, after two people had died of oxygen loss while exploring Vent A. She knew what to expect but found she was holding her breath. And here came that old prickly feeling again, washing over her skin.
Two rough protrusions sprouted at the top. At its base two more protrusions, slabs of dark mass extruding with aching effort into thicker tubes. At least three meters long, in all. And from the upper sides, above the two thickening tubes that now jutted from each side, a third blob, crusted as thick as tree bark, pulling itself out.
Viktor said it. “Human shape.”
No mistake. The mat was responding, as it had before, to their entry. No one had died on a descent since that first strange incident, so the intent could not be malicious.
Daphne said softly, “It’s so big…?”
To Julia her voice sounded dry. “It’s the mat’s impression of us.”
“How can it see us?” a crewman asked.
“It must sense enough to work out our outlines.”
“Eyes?” he asked.
“The glowing is common,” Julia said. “From surface webbed tissues, fed chemically by
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