Read Online The Sunborn by Gregory Benford - Free Book Online Page B

the substrate.” She was sure they knew this from the scientific literature, but it was something else to actually see it, deep in a gloomy cavern. They could be asking questions for the same reasons people talk in haunted houses. “Apparently it communicates through its chambers with light. How far, we don’t know.”
    There was more talk, but she just looked at the slow-moving mass. Parts of the mat looked somewhat like giant tube worms, such as those found deep in undersea vents on Earth. But there the analogy ended. The old questions rose in her, still unanswered. Sentience? Of some kind. Enough to control its environment.
    But sentience implied some kind of selection pressure. She and Viktor had proposed that rationing the meager water resources could drive selection, and predictably, dozens of papers had criticized that. But did it have intelligence? Whole symposia had been devoted to just that issue. Julia had stopped accepting invitations to deliver interplanetary keynote addresses to those.
    Viktor said, “We are thousand kilometers from other vents. Yet it knows to do this.”
    Daphne said, “And right away.”
    Julia aimed her own microcam at the shape and carefully swept the area to take it all in. Was the mat glow stronger around the form? “This looks about the same as the other manifestations. It’ll probably stay here until we leave, as before.”
    “The entire planet is connected?” Daphne asked. “How?”
    “With these glows?” Viktor answered, not moving, just watching the shape. “Or chemical signals? Or—notice those seams of iron in the walls? Conducts electricity pretty well.”
    One of the crewmen asked, “Was this what it was like when it…killed those two?”
    Viktor said, “Was, yes. We never knew what happened, and has not happened again. Maybe was holding them, feeling all over them. Had covered some of their suits. Maybe to find out what they were. Anybody’s guess.”
    Julia said, “Enough. Time to get back to sampling.” Then she sent a private comm to Viktor. “What was that about the iron?”
    He came closer, so she could see his grin. “You told me way back, in your minilectures, ’member? First sign of life in fossil record was iron oxides, locking up the oxy that the first life breathed out.”
    “So those layers—” She waved a gloved hand at the bloodred seams that ringed the cavern, and which the mat species conspicuously did not cover. “You think they’re evidence of the early origin of life here?”
    “A side issue. I think like engineer. Occurs to me, how to send information from Vent A to here? Chemicals, hard to send so far. Glow—like relay stations through thousand kilometers of caves? Hard. No. But wait—” Viktor’s eyebrows lifted. “Layers of iron conduct electricity. Send signals through them, you have global network built into planet.”
    She blinked. “You never mentioned this before.”
    “Never thought of it before—until just now.”
    “Um. If the geologists work on it—”
    “No need geologists. Already have the magnetic data, right? I showed you. Something funny about this vent, right in middle—yes, look.”
    She followed his pointing finger. The Marsmat definitely clumped close to the seams, without covering them. And the mat was thicker here than she had seen in any vent so far. “How’s this explain your data? Big, long-pulse electromagnetic waves?”
    Viktor shrugged—visibly, despite the suit. “Not sure. When don’t know, do experiment.”
    “Huh? What?”
    “We pulsed the pressure flaps, to open. Use same capacitor on those iron layers”—he gestured enthusiastically—“see what happens.”
    “Uh, now?” Descents were elaborately planned nowadays, and this had not been discussed.
    “We have oxy. Others, crew, are doing routine work. Let’s.”
    She eyed him skeptically. She loved this guy, but he was sometimes crazed. He gave her the big, broad grin, and she laughed. Maybe he was just being male;