Free Solaris Rising 2 by Ian Whates Page A

‘rescue mission’ in the briefing) our course would keep us clear of each piece of the great field of murdered moon clutter that was Syrenka’s waist. Oregon, our destination, was one of the larger pieces of rock, too small for a moon, but making a large asteroid. Very loosely comparable in length and breadth to Oregon USA, in fact. Eventually some peeved astronomer would throw something from the classics at it, but for now it proudly carried the monicker of the Beaver State because someone back on Mother was homesick for Astoria.
    “There’s another beauty.” Osman was designated pilot, which meant that, unless someone had dropped a decimal back at Mother, he was here to sightsee. He was referring to a rock tumbling past, less than half the size of Oregon and a hundred kilometres away: he had magnified the image to show the blue starburst flower of Anchorite. Or an Anchorite. Or some Anchorites. Veighl, the departed, had been working on the answer to that problem of nomenclature. Pelovska, our geologist and Expert System, had reviewed the raw data Veighl had sent before her decision to return home, and subsequent abrupt silence. The question had remained unanswered.
    Gliese 876 had been the second extrasolar system reached by human technology. The supposed ‘earth-like planet’ present had been a bust, but the probe, programmed for pattern-recognition, had sent back one picture, just one, that sparked a furore back home. Passing through this very debris field within the shadow of Syrenka (then just Gliese 876f) – and minutes before becoming several billion dollars of metal pizza that must exist still on the side of some moonlet somewhere – it sent out an image very similar to what we were seeing now. There were plenty of them, in fact, throughout the debris ring and on some of the smaller moons – geometrically irregular crystal formations like sea-urchins clinging on in the vacuum of space. Life! had gone the cry, back home – the first indication that we might not be alone, and life within reach, just about, for a team that was willing to be severed from the planet of their genesis for decades. We liked to think that everyone back there hung on our every years-old word. Possibly nobody cared.
    The Anchorite was a phenomenon that existed throughout the ring in quantities from the microscopic to the sunburst array that Osman had pointed out. Veighl reported the largest known such specimen at two metres ninety centimetres diameter, and one metre eighty-eight projection from its substrate. Veighl, who had qualifications in geology and biology, had failed to get off the fence and come to any premature conclusion – a scientist to the end.
    Pelovska summarised: “Veighl’s data shows that the Anchorite is a carbon-rich crystal lattice, the structure of which appears homogenous no matter how large or small the sample. Veighl’s data further shows that the Anchorite is capable of breaking down the material upon which, or within which, it is embedded and converting it into more Anchorite. It replicates. Does that alone make it life? If we are looking at an ecology, we’re looking at one with incredibly low levels of energy: whatever tidal heating you can squeeze from an elliptical orbit around Syrenka, plus the background radiation and what pittance of light you can get this far out.” The system’s star was a cold, pale lamp far off in the alien heavens. You’d get more of a tan on Mars. “Still, Veighl took samples and treated them to the same intensity of illumination, and her results suggest that a day of that was enough for molecular-level conversion of asteroidal material into Anchorite.” Pelovska had come down heavily on the ‘geology’ side of the argument long before. Efficient geology, though, which took the faint light and heat of its surroundings and grew like lichen, converting its substrate into its substance so resourcefully that there was no waste, as close to thumbing its nose at the laws