Exobiology – Lights In The Sky

Reset

By C Stevens | 1st October 2021 | Comments 0 Comment

As I’ve said before in this blog, we live in worrying times. Previous entries have addressed other recent threats to our well-being; principally populist rulers, unaccountable billionaires and the organisations they run, including their corrosive and equally unaccountable social media platforms; but these all pale into insignificance beside the clear and present danger, which has come sharply into focus in the current news cycle. The existential threat posed by the collapse of the biosphere will mean the end of human civilisation and cannot be mitigated by technological fixes despite all self-serving claims to the contrary. The likes of Boris Johnson waffle on about ‘Green Capitalism’ as an acceptable version which would allow for continued economic growth. But as a number of commentators have pointed out, any economic growth is in the end unsustainable, and the only way out of the coming catastrophe is to drastically reduce the size of the world economy and with it the size of the world’s population.

When very rich people start buying up land in geographically-isolated places such as New Zealand, and tech billionaires draw up serious plans to colonise Mars as a back-up planet to Earth, then it’s time for everybody to worry.

However most people don’t have the options of the super-rich, and the number of sufficiently-isolated islands with the resources to support a significant population is necessarily finite. Those wealthy people wishing to seek this kind of asylum will need to act quickly, as the drawbridges are likely to be lifted very soon. You can probably think of the quarantines imposed recently by the likes of Australia and New Zealand as a sort of dry run for what they will be forced to do again later. And in the end it may be to no avail, as the populous and militarily-powerful nations at most risk of collapse are unlikely to just sit on their hands when things get desperate. Ecological collapses in the past have always led to warfare and violence, just ask the Easter Islanders!

At some point in the near future, a one-way trip into indentured servitude on Mars is going to look like a very attractive proposition, and millions will be applying.

Ironies abound in our current predicament; that we should have reached this point when pure science has enabled us to gain a frighteningly-sophisticated understanding of the Cosmos and our place in it, is merely the most poignant. But it’s not pure science which is the villain here, it’s the application of that science in technology, and the Abrahamic social and economic doctrines pursued by all urbanized societies which have brought us here.

And the reset part?

This is not a new phenomenon for our planet; mass extinctions are par for the course, although the active complicity of a sentient race in the process is (as far as we are aware) a new variant.

In the end the planet doesn’t care, it has a built-in self-correction mechanism. If things move too far in one direction it acts (blindly one assumes) to correct the imbalances that have built up within the system. All that pesky carbon will eventually be safely locked up again and the climate will return to something less inimical to higher forms of life. But in the meantime (and we’re talking millions of years here), evolution will be reset, starting again with the few hardy and adaptable species able to survive both the collapse and the testing times that follow, and it will be their descendants who eventually inherit the Earth.

Whether any of these creatures will achieve sentience is, of course, unknowable.

And if you’ve wondered why we’ve never been contacted by a technologically-advanced species from another star system…

The Author October 2021

Blog entry supplemental ten: Life in the Alpha system and other implausibilities

By C Stevens | 11th August 2017 | Comments 0 Comment

Apologies for taking an absolute age to blog again… I have been busy writing, honestly; and the fourth novel of the Lights in the sky series, The leftover girl is nearly complete. One more chapter (the 22nd) needs to be written, with the working title, Kansas.

The chapter will bring my protagonist Tata to the end of her quest and will (hopefully) tie up most of the loose plot ends into a nice bundle… However, I’ve decided to leave some things unexplained about the nature of the new community our heroine finds herself in; firstly, because I haven’t decided how much I want to reveal (or indeed if it is all revealable!), and secondly, because it gives room for a sequel! There are a number of new developments in this chapter that would merit further investigation, and (you guessed it!), I can’t bear to leave the world of LITS just yet!

The presenting reason for this blog entry is again something I picked up from the scientific press, namely the recent discovery of two new exoplanets orbiting Tau Ceti, the second nearest Earth-like star to our own…

Both of these exoplanets (designated Tau Ceti e and f), life just within the habitable zone that surrounds their star (the so-called Goldilocks zone where liquid water is a possibility). It’s important to point out that the likelihood of life having got a foothold on either is fairly remote, as the nearer planet (e) would probably be too hot, and the one further out (f), rather too cold! Add to that the fact that they both lie within the massive debris disc that surrounds Tau Ceti, and this would rather be like Earth being at the heart of Sol’s Asteroid Belt, and subject to constant bombardment from asteroids, comets etc…

Nevertheless, it got me thinking and I decided to revisit the various articles on Alpha Centauri and recheck my facts! The results were encouraging. As I mentioned earlier, Proxima Centauri (sometimes referred to Alpha Centauri C!), has recently been identified as possessing a possible candidate for the fabled Earth-like planet! Had I been in possession of this information when I started the series I would probably have made Prox the location of my world. However Alpha Centauri A and B aren’t out of the race just yet! Theoretically, either or both could harbour the elusive new Earth, although nothing has been found as yet!

The main stumbling block to this appears to be the fact that the two stars are in a binary relationship, and the resultant tidal gravitational forces would have made the accretion of the mass of debris needed form a planet orbiting either of them very difficult (but not impossible!).

However (in my defense) I’d like to stress that Lights in the sky is a work of fiction, and my Alpha system is an imaginary realm. It is also worth pointing out that later in the series there are revelations that account for differences between the Alpha system of the series, and the one that we see in the night sky!

The other heartening thing I gleaned from the articles that I read was confirmation that the development of light sail propulsion systems (boosted initially by lasers, as in my series), would bring the travel time between systems down to decades rather than millennia…

Until next time

CE Stevens August 2017

Blog entry twenty two: O brave new world

By C Stevens | 28th December 2016 | Comments 0 Comment

O brave new world is the suitably emotional climax to volume one, and is now available on this website. I make no apologies for pulling out all the stops on this one! The title is (of course) taken from Miranda’s speech in The Tempest, and was adapted by Aldous Huxley as the title of his famous novel.
In full the couplet reads ‘O brave new world, That has such people in’t!’
In the same way that Shakespeare’s ingenue marvels at the strange new visitors to her father’s island without being aware of the secrets they are concealing, the Children on Alpha 5 have hitherto marvelled at their world without comprehending its darker side…
The chapter marks the start of their disillusionment…
The title is doubly pertinent given the parallels between the eugenics practised in Huxley’s book, and the peculiar circumstances of the Children’s conception!
And at the end of volume one the world is remade, in a way that could not have been foreseen when the novel opened…
The shock and sorrow the crew feel after their friend Sal’s death is palpable to me, and I hope it comes over as forcefully to the reader; I have also tried to put across the new and unwelcome awareness of their own mortality that our little band all feel, as well as dramatising the sheer banality of what we experience in grief and loss…
Significantly it as Jorja who makes the overtures to Marta in the immediate aftermath, not the other way ’round. They have a mutual interest, the welfare of their friend, but it is the younger girl who has maturity, sensitivity and understanding to realise what is needed. This marks a change in Jorja, she’s growing up and making a conscious effort to become a better person, in the aftermath of her experience in the Barrier Range.
Marta, on the other hand, raises another nagging doubt about the benevolent intentions of the Nurses in their conversation on the way back to the Dome, although this is not immediately followed up.
Both girls find their new intimacy awkward, but grief makes strange bedfellows!
There are also further indications of Alphanian sentience (and, for the first time, possible benevolence) in their actions at the crash site, although Han, typically, is sceptical!
A few days later, we have a heartbreaking scene when Priya finally articulates her loss to Marta, together with her feelings of guilt that she wasn’t there to save him!
With the funeral coming up Jorja and Marta have to take charge and more or less shanghai Priya, forcing her to attend Sal’s funeral.
I’m also proud of this scene; both visually (where I reference the Lon Chaney film version of Phantom of the Opera), and for its dialogue.
Nurse Gee stage manages the event, and is of course, in her element! We learn that Salvatore was a practising Roman Catholic, and Marta’s observation as she views his corpse is based on personal experience.
Marta then makes a great speech where she articulates not just the grief our community feels, but also their collective hopes and fears in the troubling new world they find themselves in.
There are of course shades of Romeo and Juliet in Priya’s last goodbye to her love…
Time moves on; we join Marta and Jorge in a discussion which moves beyond the personal into metaphysics, as our heroine explains fully for the first time her new understanding of the world. This takes in predestination, the true meaning of her vision of the Midgard Serpent, and an overt reference to the ‘lights in the sky!’
Later they put their ‘modest proposal’ to Nurse Gee, and are surprised to find she is in full agreement with their plans. Later Marta is cynical about the reasons for Gee’s new enlightened viewpoint; the main narrative closes with Nurse Gee’s ringing declaration that signals a new chapter in the life of the Mission.
But we end with the vision Marta experiences when she links again with the Alphane sentience, foreshadowing some of what is to come later on…
So there we have it, book one closes, but plenty more to come…

Blog entry twenty one: Making amends

By C Stevens | 15th December 2016 | Comments 0 Comment

Making amends is very much the morning after the night before, when the consequences of Marta’s actions come home to roost. I misquote Genesis 1:1 in the opening passage (substituting world for Earth. as we are on another planet!).
Marta comments that the greyness she thought confined to her dreams has now penetrated everywhere; it has become actual, and has now invaded her waking hours! This is a reference (obviously) to the ‘…grey plain on which…[she]…walked forever…’ from Sleeping Beauty, and the imagery will probably be familiar to readers of the works of Philip K Dick.
The following day she observes, ‘…Now everything was sharp and painful…’ (in contrast to the peace she felt during her suicide attempt), ‘…[and] the world felt raw pitiless and unforgiving…’
I owe a debt here to the writers of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, specifically the scene in Season six when Buffy tells Spike of the struggle she faces just to keep on living after being returned from Paradise. This is not to suggest that Marta’s actions were justified, or that she was necessarily bound for a better place, merely that she sought release from a life she found intolerable…
Our heroine is left to her own devices for a day and half after waking from her coma; Nurse Gee comes to see her but merely informs her that she has been sedated and must sleep, the nursemaid tending to her does not (and maybe cannot speak!). The implication is that Marta is being made to confront her actions (and perhaps repent!).
When people do finally come to see her her their reactions are very different…
Priya is angry, and the scene where she castigates her friend for her selfishness and her thoughtlessness (and ask her why she doesn’t want to live!), still makes me cry…
Nurse Gee is next; as befits a machine she is not judgemental or emotional, in fact she is impressed by Marta’s insight, perception and initiative in solving another piece of the puzzle that is the Children’s origins!.
This is not the reaction that Marta was expecting, but gives me as author the opportunity to provide more background and furnish explanations for what has transpired, by putting this in the mouths of the main characters…
Jorge is next, and he’s scared because he thinks he’s lost her! But when he realises that he hasn’t, that she does now want to live, then their relationship begins to return to familiar patterns and they begin to speculate; this time on the nature of the Alphanian intelligence. This again is a device for putting across what could be indigestible information in a natural way; they are scientists after all, and one of the main ways they relate is through science!
Finally Nurse Amber appears with the twins, and she reproves Marta for her selfishness and stupidity, reminding her (like Priya) that she is now a mother and has a responsibility to her children. As Marta ruefully observes,
‘…my conscience is machine, who’d have thought it…!’
When we reach the coda, time has passed and things have returned to normal; Priya is proposing that they have ceremony, a formal recognition of the unions between all the couples, and is seeking Marta’s support for this!
But the chapter ends on a darker note, setting up a cliffhanger for chapter 22…

Blog entry eighteen: Sleeping Beauty

By C Stevens | 18th November 2016 | Comments 0 Comment

Chapter eighteen continues the narrative form experimentation of the previous two chapters; but Sleeping Beauty ups the stakes by taking place entirely in the imagination of the protagonist (NB to access the chapter, hover over the drop down menu ‘Read the book’ and scroll down!).
We are not immediately aware of this however, as the chapter opens with best friends Marta and Priya apparently on yet another routine mission Out! The action shifts by degrees from realism, until it’s clear we’re not in the ‘actual world’ of Alpha 5; but we’re not made aware of the true state of affairs until right at the end of part one (although the title is a giveaway!). So essentially a narrative mislead…
William Blake makes another appearance in the text of part one, and (although I say so myself), I think that the passage that leads up to the Blakean reference is the best piece of writing I had managed up to that point. But it’s not just an exercise in poetics, or lyricism for its own sake; the appearance of the ‘serpent’ advances the story, but to misquote Bryan Ferry, ‘…what’s real and make believe?”
Sleeping Beauty is divided into three sections; each following the same pattern, apparently beginning in the real world, before we dive into the fantastic…
Somewhere I remember describing the series as ‘realistic SF with fantastic elements’, which describes this section of the novel as well as anything. I think the description was in the blurb accompanying one of my unsuccessful attempts to interest a literary agent in the series! I’m aware that trying to market SF in today’s literary scene is (to a large extent) swimming against the tide, and you could see the inclusion of fantastic elements as a nod to the zeitgeist, but bear in mind my literary influences!
In section two, Marta (or at least her unconscious self) begins to realise the truth, and again I’m very proud of of the end of this section, although I acknowledge Philip K. Dick as an influence…
In section three we’re moving into the territory of intertextuality… But how are we to regard the information that is imparted during the episode set in the estate? What is the status of the Marta of the estate, and who exactly is her host?
Again, I’m extremely proud of the end of the chapter where I believe I achieve the lyricism I strive for… The narrative in Sleeping Beauty is deliberately cyclical (obeying the logic of dreams), but there is also a crucial revelation right at the the end of the chapter…
Taken together, the three chapters Around my heart in eighty hours, Disobedient Child, and Sleeping Beauty represent a high point in the trilogy (not that you should stop reading!), where I start to achieve some of the literary goals I set for myself when I started the project…
I hope that you are enjoying reading it…

Blog entry seventeen: Disobedient child

By C Stevens | 5th November 2016 | Comments 0 Comment

After the introspection of the previous chapter, the action resumes in chapter 17. We’re also back with privileged third person narrative as Marta embarks on her long-threatened escape from the suffocating embrace of the Mission…
Disobedient child is self explanatory as a title; although sixteen, Marta still is a child, and even though she’s faced many dangers, she has, in a very real sense, been protected and cosseted by her minders! But rebellion is part of growing up, learning self-reliance and gaining independence; so we have to see her disobedience in this context…
Marta finally confronts one of the fearsome pseudo-crustaceans face to face in this chapter, and her ambivalence about doing so finds an echo in the different terms used to describe the Alphanian in the text. The extreme action she takes, in defying her protectors and risking her life in this way is indicative, not only of her alienation, but also of her wilful nature. Miss Fernandes knows she is right, and is prepared to risk her personal safety to progress her research and prove a point!
The chapter is deliberately episodic, and the sub-headings are designed to emphasize this (as well as being another nice narrative variation!); Disobedient child takes the form of a quest, and indeed Marta refers to her progress as an ‘odyssey’ just before she links to the pseudo-plant at the chapter’s close.
Her final comment before she loses consciousness is testament to both her self-absorption, and her nascent victim complex… She’s not called Marta for nothing!
I also wanted to describe Alpha 5 more fully, and convey a sense of how beautiful the world is, and how much Miss Fernandes loves the place of her birth… A5 is essentially Eden (you’ll not be too surprised to hear!), but it is an eden with both a past, and an uncertain future! The characterization of the planet in this way is essentially canonical, and a tribute to my influences…
There’s also a mythic, almost folkloric aspect to Marta’s quest, illustrated by the language used to describe her alien encounter. Obviously I’m aiming for lyricism in the prose; as well as psychological depth, and that old SF staple, ‘a sense of wonder’! As these qualities are by nature subjective, I’ll leave it to others to decide if I achieve this.
Marta engages in an exercise in Cartesian doubt when she questions her own conclusions regarding the vaIidity of the exchange between her and the pseudo-crustacean; but she decides that true communication (in the sense of a meeting of minds and an exchange of ideas) has taken place between a human being, and a member of another intelligent (and truly alien) species…
Incidentally the comment about true communication only being possible between equals was made by Friedrich Nietzsche!
Re-reading the chapter it’s clear that I owe a small debt to Quatermass and the Pit, and a slightly larger one to the short story The Sound by AE van Vogt.

Blog entry sixteen: Around my heart in eighty hours

By C Stevens | 25th October 2016 | Comments 0 Comment

As before, please access this blog after you have read Chapter 16, for which it serves as a commentary…
Around my heart in eighty hours begins a period of narrative experimentation in the novel, and the next three chapters are linked both thematically and stylistically.
In this chapter we are now seeing things wholly from Marta’s POV. The narration switches to a first person stream of consciousness; not original I know, but it indicates that her alienation from the Mission, her lover, and her friends is now almost complete, and I felt that this could not be adequately expressed via my usual use of the privileged third person…
It’s important to bear in mind that Miss Fernandes is extremely self-centred and rather spoiled (as are all of the Children), and cannot be regarded as a wholly reliable narrator; something her closest friends try to gently point out to her.
The use of the poetry of William Blake is happenstance; nearly three years on from writing A Children’s Crusade, I cannot recall the precise circumstances, or the train of thought that led me to reference the Sick Rose, but I have a copy of Songs of Innocence and Experience, and this poem obviously made a profound impression on me. Initially, I couldn’t remember which of the Songs I was recalling, but when I turned to the text I realised which one it was, and how well it reflected Marta’s mood and circumstances!
It wasn’t a big stretch to imagine that the Children’s general education would include English Literature, and that they would study Blake as part of this. This could be termed ethnocentric, but I have already explained why the Mission education programmes manifest an Anglo-Saxon bias [1].
Anyway you have to go with what you know!
The lines that affect Marta the most (and which she references in her narration) are from The Clod and the Pebble, but she is defined by The Sick Rose. although, of course, she doesn’t know it!
We are introduced to another new nursemaid early in this chapter (although her character is not developed), and we also have another oblique reference to the true nature of the Nurses. The original plan had been to withhold this information for the whole of book one, but I think it’s safe to say that the cats out of the bag by this stage!
The source of Marta’s alienation is that she has made a great discovery, but is not believed. Partly this is because she was unable to record her observations and cannot provide objective proof; but her incipient paranoia leads her to believe that there is a conspiracy (orchestrated by Mission Artificial Intelligence), to exclude and marginalise her!
Spoiler alert! There is a conspiracy, but not the one she imagines!
The root cause of her paranoia lies with her profound insecurity; remember that it’s not long since she was being shunned by the other children, and her apparent self-confidence is paper thin!
Marta’s dissatisfaction is not confined to frustrations about her research work being blocked by the machinations of Nurse Gee; she is also unhappy with Jorge and his reluctance (or inability!) to progress their relationship… However, when this is suddenly (and unexpectedly) resolved, she finds it doesn’t really help, because all the other issues are still eating at her!
What infuriates our heroine most of all is the implication that she may be jumping to conclusions and reading far too much into her data, or (even worse) lying, by falsifying her results, in order to gain attention! In short, her objectivity and competence as a scientist is being called into question…
Meanwhile, she must put up with the triumphalism of the favoured children (Rai, Jorja and Han), who have made another important step forward in understanding the Alphanians, by divining how they communicate…
My revival of ‘steam radio’ as the Alphane medium of communication may have been an (unconscious) nod to the ‘steampunk’ genre!
Marta’s paranoia is not wholly irrational, because they are watching and listening; the Mission monitors the Children twenty seven hours a day, and has done for their whole lives! However our heroine (who is a smart cookie!), has started to develop a strategy to circumvent this!
Marta is still a scientist, and continues with her research work throughout all this; but she has started to believe that nobody cares whether she discovers anything or not!
Her ‘achievement’ in being the first (along with Jorge) of them to lose her virginity quickly palls; spoiled by by her realization that even her most private moments are being watched by the Mission, and that it is impossible to escape this surveillance…
This is what finally persuades her that she has to escape, and go off the grid…
I wanted a pop culture reference to go with all the heavy literature, and I thought that one of Jennifer Aniston’s films would fit the bill, having the same resonance for Marta as the romances and screwball comedies of the thirties and forties (i.e. Hollywood’s Golden Age) have for us…
The timescale imposed on the action is deliberate; I wanted the sense of the clock ticking down before Marta takes what she believes is an irrevocable action, and it also sets up the Jules Verne reference in the title nicely.
I could easily have called this chapter The Sick Rose, but that would have been too obvious, although I rather undercut this by quoting Blake’s poem in full…
The Sick Rose is, of course, a conceit that addresses the notion of tainted love, full of obvious and less obvious sexual metaphors. Marta’s love for Jorge is tainted by the knowledge that their moments of love and sexual joy can never truly be their own, not in the world of the Alpha Mission; but it goes further than this as she finds she has now fallen out of love with the very purpose that gives her life meaning, and even (in her lowest moments, with Science itself!
In these circumstances, it’s not too difficult to guess the identity of ‘the worm’ in this tale…
Note
[1] see Chapter 12, specifically the observations of Mr Bhatt

Blog entry fifteen: On the ice

By C Stevens | 4th October 2016 | Comments 0 Comment

This blog entry should be read in conjunction with chapter fifteen. On the ice is almost self-consciously visual and descriptive, as if to make up for terseness of previous chapters, with their emphasis on dialogue and characterization!
I owe an obvious debt here to James Blish’s wonderful novel of polar exploration, The Frozen Year, published to coincide with International Geophysical Year in 1957 (coincidentally the year of my birth, so I span the Space Age, but that’s another story!). The embryonic and aforementioned Age makes an appearance at the end of this novel with the announcement that the Americans have launched the first artificial satellite! Clearly, in 1956 nobody in the USA would have believed that it would be the Soviet Union that launched the first successful space probe!
None of this detracts from the grandeur of Blish’s epic…
Sal’s optical phenomenon described in On the ice is also a direct lift from Blish’s novel where it’s given the name ‘copper dawn’! I have no idea if it has a real name, but I assume its a real phenomenon… Writing this blog now, it occurs to me that Marta also shares the fate of the discredited astronomer in The Frozen Year, in that she makes an amazing discovery but is unable to furnish the necessary scientific proof…
In narrative terms, On the ice continues the process whereby the Children explore their world. As the Equatorial regions are now considered too dangerous, they venture north to explore one of the planet’s two vast polar ice caps.
At this stage in Alpha five’s history both ice caps are immense, and lock up most of the world’s water between them; but they are also now in retreat, an indication that A5’s climate is now changing, and things are moving in favour of its indigenous inhabitants…
The interplay of climate and biosphere is to become a major theme of the series, and thus a driver of the action…
This process starts with the second of Marta’s two discoveries (the one she can’t prove!).
In this chapter we are presented with the gadfly activity of the Children, whose ephemeral lives buzz around (and are contrasted with), the implacability of the landscape, and the monolith that is geological time…
Marta and Priya confront this disjuncture when they discover the ‘ice crusty’ sealed in its blue prison…
We also observe the Children engaged in routine research (the nuts and bolts of their respective disciplines), and are reminded that they are members of a scientific expedition. Later, circumstance conspires to leave Marta and Sal alone together, an unfamiliar combination, which is prolonged by the arrival of the storm…
Finally, in the interplay between Marta and Priya, we see again that the younger girl is wise beyond her years, and is the grown-up in the relationship…

Blog entry fourteen: Significant others

By C Stevens | 19th September 2016 | Comments 0 Comment

This blog entry should be read in conjunction with chapter fourteen. Significant others is somewhat episodic and something of a mixed bag. It’s function is essentially to advance various plot elements, and so lacks the strong narrative of the chapters it sits between.
This is all well and good; a novel that consisted solely of action sequences would probably make no sense, and would also lack depth and effective characterisation.
We open with Marta Fernandes viewing an Earthside packet sent by Miss da Guia; two things have become clear: Miss da Guia’s career plans have gained traction, and Marta Fernandes is starting to develop a greater awareness of the role the media plays on the home planet.
She understands that the Children on Alpha 5 are now ‘famous’, but hasn’t begun to comprehend what this means!
For the moment events on Earth are only really a mildly diverting sideshow as she’s much more more exercised by things happening closer to home. Her anxiety over whether the twins will bond with her, and regard her as their real mother. Her battle of wills with Rai and Jorja over the naming of the infants. Her fear that she will be permanently sidelined scientifically by the Mission authorities, combined with her struggle with Nurse Gee over how to progress her work with ‘Oswald’, her pseudo-crustacean research subject…
She also learns something really important about the crusties, from Han of all people, although she has to dig the information out of him.
Marta wins some of the battles, but loses others and these outcomes will be pivotal in how things develop from here on in…
For now, the chapter finishes on a more hopeful note as our little community comes together to welcome its two youngest members…

Blog entry thirteen: Another Girl, Another Planet

By C Stevens | 29th August 2016 | Comments 0 Comment

As before this blog is designed to be read in conjunction with the accompanying chapter, now published on the site. To access the chapter, click on the dropdown menu Read Book One, and scroll down…
The title of chapter thirteen is yet another of my pop culture references, and the chapter itself is broken into three parts, each one a two-hander… The first of these features Marta and Priya, out on Mission together, and focusses on their developing friendship (with its ups and downs), a crucial driver of the action later on…
The second half of the chapter has two shorter scenes; the one between Marta and Jorge, that follows her return, comments on what has taken place earlier and develops into a philosophical debate on the true nature of Alpha 5. The coda takes the form of a short exchange between Marta and Rai which drives the plot forward…
The chapter closes with the enormity of what they are doing finally dawning on our heroine, who grows up a little more as a consequence…
During Another Girl, Another Planet, the girls make an incidental discovery about the crusties (they venerate their dead), but their main investigation yields nothing as the pseudo-crustacean ‘Harvey’, the main subject of their experiment steadfastly refuses to engage with the machine they send to interact with it, as Marta had predicted… The girls have also come to understand that the main thrust of Mission exobiological enquiry has shifted, to the pods and their theorised collective intelligence, and their work has been sidelined as a result…
Ever the arch-rationalist, Marta is sceptical about the notion of ‘pod’ intelligence, partly because she is miffed that her insights are being ignored, but mainly because she is instinctively suspicious of anything that smacks of spirituality…
There’s some action in this chapter (it’s still an adventure story, after all!); Marta nearly dies (again), but this time as the result ‘of a stupid accident!’ Priya saves her (as she saved Sal), which strengthens the bond between them; a bond that cannot be threatened by the scientific spat that follows. Although this disagreement will prove to be the harbinger of things to come…
Prior to the accident, Priya had been urging her friend to talk to Han who has data that would support her theories about ‘crusty’ development. Marta is reluctant, and is forced to confess to her rather hamfisted and utterly futile attempt to get the boy to take an interest in her when they were out on Mission in Carl Sagan minor, the year before…

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