Chapter 610: SWAGs

Fleet Admiral Bianchi was the first to react. "What makes you say that?" he asked. He wasn't surprised that they had found life—or rather, sentient life anyway; whether or not it was sapient was still in question. After all, liquid surface water was what made life possible in the first place, and if Proxima Centauri b had anything in spades, it was water.

(Ed note: Sentience and sapience aren't exactly the same thing. Sentient beings are capable of experiencing sensations and, perhaps, emotions. Sapient beings are capable of higher orders of rational thought. For example, dogs are sentient beings; they can experience physical sensations and emotions, but aren't capable of rational thinking. Humans, on the other hand, are sapient. We're capable of thinking beyond our urges.)

"This," Dr. Standing Bear replied, her eyes glazing over as she selected a file to play on the screen behind her. The recording showed the mana pulses detected by the Henry's Eyes sensors moments before the "root" had attempted to whip the shit out of the lander.

"We'd assumed that the pulses you're seeing here were simply something like...." she paused, seemingly struggling to find an explanation that would satisfy a layperson while remaining as close to accurate as it was possible to be. "Like the concept of ley lines in a fantasy novel. But when the lander stopped over the ocean—" the video showed the increase in intensity and frequency of the pulsing mana, "—it became obvious that they were functioning much like the 'meridians' that we've been taught to circulate our own personal mana through.

"We don't know what, exactly, the so-called 'root' was reacting to. It could've been reacting to the lander itself, either because it was perceived as a threat of its own or because it was the source of the drones, or it could've detected the explorers aboard the ship. Or perhaps it was reacting to their passive absorption of mana, though that's doubtful since the only awakener aboard was a gravity-aspected awakener and we don't think the... being... shares that particular aspect. Or perhaps it was simply curious about what the new sensation was and there was no ill intent." She paused, again seeming to be trying to interpret the data in her report in a way that her audience could understand.

"Regardless of the intent, or whether or not the being is sentient or sapient, we strongly believe that the lander was attacked because it entered the being's sensory range. It wasn't until they were over the ocean and low enough to release the sample collection drones that the being responded. We also believe it's likelier that the being detected the lander rather than the drones. After all, the only drones we lost were ones that were in the path of the initial attack, which could mean that they were small enough to not be sensed, or perhaps too small to trigger a threat reaction.

"As for what exactly the being is... we aren't sure. It could be any number of things, but the only thing we know for sure is that it, or they, evolved to use the abundant mana in the environment around them. And it's far more abundant than in our home system. If we were to quantify it, every sample we've collected shows about two hundred times as much raw mana as we have back home on Earth, pound for pound. Everything, from the microbial life to the water, and even the soil samples.

"Every bit of this planet is as dependent on the mana in its surroundings as humans are on the oxygen in Earth's atmosphere. When we put the samples in a shielded environment that prevented mana from entering, everything seemed to, for lack of a better term, wither.

"That's all we know and suspect based on the data we have. Anything else will be nothing but SWAGs—"

The other people at the table snickered at the term; everyone knew what a Scientific Wild-Ass Guess was.

Once the snickers died down, Dr. Standing Bear continued, "And we have no way of proving or disproving them until if and when we're able to gather more data." She waved her hand and the screen behind her went blank. "Any questions?"

"Did the being evolve on its own, or do you think it's been engineered?" the head of xenobiology, Dr. David Adams, asked.

"There's insufficient data to determine either way. We'll need a sample of the being itself, at a minimum. We have some samples of plant life, but they were all destroyed when we placed them in the mana vacuum, and without that, we have no way of knowing whether or not Proxima Centauri b was engineered to be the way it is."

"Does the attack mean we'll be limited to rovers to do all of our research?" another scientist asked.

"For now, and for the foreseeable future, yes. That's correct. We'll still need to send manned missions into the atmosphere, to gather the collected samples, if nothing else, but there won't be any more landings until we determine what exactly the being is, and if it's hostile or not. Until we know what exactly it is that provoked the response we got from it, we can't risk any of our science staff."

"What direction do you suggest we go from here?" Ayaka asked. The Farsight was the exploration cruiser assigned to the surface of Proxima Centauri b, and she was the one in charge of all the landing missions. So she needed to gather suggestions in order to chart her, and by extension, the rest of the exploration crew's, future activities.

"I suggest we bring the rovers and drones online. If they aren't attacked, we should continue sending bigger unmanned exploration vehicles in different configurations to see what, if anything, the entity—or, perhaps, entities—respond to. If the being doesn't react to an unmanned lifter-sized object, then that means it's likely that it was the people aboard the lifter that were detected rather than the lifter itself.

"But the most important thing to do next is to map out the ocean floor as soon as possible. The lander wasn't attacked over the land, so it's likely that the entity, whatever it is, is either fully aquatic or perhaps amphibian."

Silence took over the briefing room, indicating that nobody had any further questions for Dr. Standing Bear. At least not for the moment, anyway; there would definitely be more questions as they continued gathering data on the planet, and the system it was a part of.

"Thank you, Doctor," Fleet Admiral Bianchi said, speaking for the first time since he had kicked off the presentation. He turned to the other people seated at the conference table and continued, "Now the question becomes where do we go from here? We know there's life on the planet, but we don't know if it's sentient or sapient, nor do we know whether or not the attack was made with malice aforethought or if it was a simple reflex action. We don't even know how it detected us, or what about us it detected.

"So, as the head of the escort fleet and the commander in chief of Task Force Proxima as a whole, I want to canvass your opinions."