A Long Way to Go

I see that Doc Latissimus has passed away at 102. It still seems premature. She was a brilliant scientists and one of the most remarkable and single-minded, people I ever met. I only knew her briefly, but I was there to witness the vindication of her life’s work.

Pandora “Doc” Latissimus, PhD (xeno), Sc.D, FAAAS, FRS, was a brilliant scientist, a xenobiologist who taught at Cambridge when she wasn’t jumping around the galaxy exploring habitats for life. (She even became a habitat herself once thanks to an infestation of Rigelian scalp borers, but that’s another story.) Her early work proving the non-sentience of the Centauran Jellibaby won her the Nobel Prize and an Oscar for Best Adaptation of a Peer-Reviewed Paper.

And then the dickory were discovered.

The dickory were native to the planet 61 Cygni d, a rocky globe about half again as big as Earth. It orbits both 61 Cygni A and B, alternately fried and frozen as it loops around one star and then the other. Most of its surface is covered by water with so much dissolved carbon dioxide that it bubbles like soda pop, which gives the planet the nickname “Fizzball.” Under the gravitational influence of the two stars the planet is fractured by seismic events and swept by great tides that alternately inundate most of the land masses and expose vast areas of seabed. 

Nevertheless, life managed to develop, and the dickory were the dominant species, broadly speaking. They resembled furry sea turtles with no shells and six legs ending in flat, round feet. The name came from their bird-like vocalizations—“dick . . . dick . . . dickory”—heard all over the planet. Doc Latissimus was fascinated by the dickory. For forty-some years, she studied them, assembling the most detailed description of a non-terrestrial species ever compiled. The one thing that eluded her was how they reproduced. Doc insisted that the dickory were egg layers, and their breeding cycle was somehow related to the stellar tides of Fizzball. She even claimed there was a spawning ground where the dickory mated and deposited their eggs. To find out for sure, she was determined to go to Fizzball.

But when Doc tried to get funding for her expedition, doors were politely closed in her face. The culprit was Professor Themistrius “Rambo” Ramshackle from the University of Tübingen im Weltraum, Proxima Centauri. As a scientist he couldn’t hold a candle to Doc Latissimus, but he had other qualities. He had money, a well-connected family, and a talent for self-promotion that endowed . . . that is, endeared him to foundations, universities, and news streams. His expeditions were well-equipped commando raids, with teams of people and robots to do the hard work on the ground while he granted interviews from his luxurious yacht orbiting safely above.

We don’t know what attracted Ramshackle to the dickory, but he quickly made himself their spokesbeing with his multimedia best-seller, The Cries of the Dickory: The Mystery of 61 Cygni, which speculated that the dickory were marsupials. Doc Latissimus’ work he dismissed as stodgy and unimaginative. “There is no ‘mystical breeding ground,’” he said during the promotional tour. “It’s fun to believe in such a thing, but one might as well believe the Moon to be made of cheese.”

Doc’s colleagues were convinced Ramshackle was correct. Subscriptions for her lectures fell off rapidly under the media onslaught. Both popular and professional journals rejected her submissions. Her funding dwindled. Even her friends politely suggested she retire, write her memoirs, maybe spend more time teaching.

Doc would not give up. She used what mojo she had left to cobble together an expedition of her own. It was a shoestring affair, with second-hand gear, a team of students who didn't know any better, and a has-been pilot at the end of his string. That was me. And that's how I happened to be present for Doc Latissimus's apotheosis.

We landed near the edge of the dickory's primary habitat, a plain called the Vast Difference. To the east, the plain ended in a steep cliff cut by dry river beds that led to the sluggish ocean. Our time was limited because Fizzball was approaching a double perihelion, when its chaotic orbit would sweep close to both 61 Cygni A and B at the same time. Even as we set up our base camp, the ground trembled as the tidal forces of the two stars tugged at the planet.

Doc Latissimus wasn't willing to wait while the others unpacked the gear and inflated the habitat. She was in her exosuit and through the lock before anyone else. I suited up and followed as fast as I could, reasoning the young folks were better suited to heavy lifting. I caught up to her standing on the edge of the cliff, looking out to sea.

"Doc, you can't go out without an escort," I told her.

"You're here, aren't you?" she said, and that settled it as far as she was concerned. "Let's have a look at the tide line. There might be some old nests." And she stepped off the cliff.

Objects fall fast in a 1.6-gee field. By the time I realized what she'd done, she was already down on the narrow, shingle beach. The exosuit could handle up to three gees, but it was still a risk I didn't want to take. I made my way to one of the dry river beds and joined her a few minutes later.

It was an unpleasant place, shaped by the relatively high gravity and the carbon dioxide atmosphere. The ocean was fizzy with CO2 but otherwise uninspiring. A few little wavelets rolled onto the beach as if they didn't want to bother. Air temperature was close to one hundred Celsius, air pressure about two-and-a-half times sea level on Earth. Everything had a bluish tinge as the light from the two stars was diffused by the unbroken cloud cover. 

Doc was on her hands and knees, scouring the rocks at the water's edge. Her concentration was intense, so she didn't see what I saw. Each time the little waves broke on shore, they broke a little farther out. I wasn't sure at first, but I had Doc as a reference point. When I arrived on the beach, she was right where the ocean met the shore. Within a few minutes, the waves were dying out a meter or more away, and the distance was increasing. In fact, the rate at which the distance was increasing was increasing.

I was about to say something when we both felt the ground shake. This wasn't the rhythmic shaking of tidal forces. It was fast, light, and random, like thousands of running feet. I looked up to see thousands of dickory pouring out of the ancient river beds and spilling onto the beach like dark waterfalls. They began to spread across the damp landscape recently vacated by the ocean. It was a stunning sight. Doc Latissimus and I were transfixed . . . until I noticed the tide of dickory flowing in our direction.

"Come on, Doc!" I grabbed her arm and started to run. I felt her shudder as if waking up from a dream, and then she followed me, both of us moving at a dead run. There was no point going back the way we'd come. We'd never make it against the current of flowing creatures. Instead, I guided her toward the cliff. It wasn't quite sheer, and with the help of our exosuits we were soon pulling ourselves over the top and onto the plain.

We turned back toward the sea and an amazing sight: thousands, maybe even tens of thousands of dickory following the tide into the distance. As they went, they broke into groups of six and gathered in circles, creating a regular pattern across the newly revealed seabed. Their movements were awkward but purposeful almost like dancers. Over the suit comm, I heard Doc Latissimus start to laugh. She had to pause once in awhile to catch her breath, but she wasn't about to stop.

"I was right!" she declared. "Marsupials my gluteus maximus!"

Understanding dawned, and I looked at the spectacle with a profound feeling of awe. I grabbed Doc in a bear hug.

"You did it! I said. “It's the dickory hatchery, Doc! The Ramshackle theory’s a crock!"