Stellar Nurseries

Monumentum Requiris

Officially it was listed as ETA-01 - Extraterrestrial Anomaly Number 1 - but everybody on Proxima Centauri-b just called it 'Downtown'. It had been spotted by one of the Icarus probes on a flyby through the system at just under one percent of the speed of light. The probe had confirmed the presence of planets in the Proxima Centauri system, and had noted that the planet closest to the star had a strong magnetic field and an atmosphere. It had also had time to record irregularities in the planet's magnetosphere. So, when the first expedition was sent to Proxima Centauri-b, one of the main objectives of the mission was to investigate the strange readings.

Downtown was a geometrical array of matte-black blocks on a plateau. Everything about the location pointed towards Downtown being artificial in origin: from the smooth, level surface of the plateau to the actual blocks themselves. The smallest of the blocks was a cube just over forty centimetres on each side, while the largest was a monolith almost a hundred and twenty metres tall. According to the surveyors who had first investigated Downtown, there were a limited number of different blocks, distinguished by each type being twice the volume of the next smallest type. There was obviously some significance to this geometrical relationship between the blocks; but, since the original builders were no longer around to tell us the reasoning behind Downtown, we had no way of knowing what that significance was.

Successive studies had been able to determine a few facts about the blocks. The blocks remained at a constant temperature of 77 Kelvin - the boiling point of liquid nitrogen at 1 bar. Each block also emitted a magnetic field that was strong enough to affect our instruments. The fields from adjacent blocks would sometimes synchronise with each other and resonate, increasing the overall magnetic strength. We had tried taking material samples from the blocks to see what they were made of. However, our hardest probes failed to even scratch the surfaces of the blocks. Even a plasma cutter could do nothing more than momentarily raise the surface temperature of a block, creating a hotspot that rapidly cooled as soon as the plasma was shut off. Based on this, one of the expedition physicists did a quick and dirty calculation and announced that if we could somehow bring the mothership down to within ten kilometres of the surface and focus the exhaust from its drives on one of the larger blocks, we might be able to vapourise its surface layer and maybe - maybe! - expose its inner workings. However, as the resulting fallout and radiation would render our surface base uninhabitable, we decided that this was not a good idea.

All of this investigation, calculation and speculation was no use in answering the burning question: what was Downtown for?

Of course, there were plenty of other things to occupy us on Proxima Centauri-b. Atmospheric composition, geology, weather patterns, the presence (and absence) of lifeforms. When it became obvious that we were not going to progress any further with our investigations into ETA-01, personnel and resources were shifted away from Downtown and onto other, more promising projects. A few technicians were kept to monitor the instruments that had been left behind in Downtown, but even this was considered a waste of time.

Proxima Centauri is a flare star - unpredictable and capable of emitting deadly levels of radiation. As part of their duties, the astronomers on the mothership had the job of monitoring the star for any changes that might indicate a flare was going to occur. The atmosphere and magnetic field of Proxima Centauri-b provided some protection to those of us on the surface; but if a sufficiently violent flare was predicted, there was a drill we had to follow. The mothership would send an alert and all personnel would retreat to the base and go to shelter stations. Equipment that might be affected by the flare would be brought into the base. Any equipment that couldn't be moved would be covered in protective shielding to ride out the flare. Then, when the radiation levels had dropped sufficiently, normal operations would resume.

We had been on the surface for just over three months when the crew on the mothership contacted us with a warning. "The primary is showing signs of an imminent flare. We estimate that the flare will occur in two hours - give or take. Everybody should be under cover within one hundred minutes to avoid the effects. According to the disturbances in the star's chromosphere, this one is going to be a big one."