Toxic Planet

This planet is inconceivably beautiful, but I do not wish that you were here.

You said, my love, that you'd read my reports but we both know that you won't. They're dull and dry, and quite frankly I'd be startled if anyone other than my colleagues at the Academy of Planetary Science managed to struggle through them. But what we've discovered here is fascinating, and I'd love to share them with you, if I may, in slightly more straightforward nonscientific language.

Let me start with the mundane details. This planet, designated DK-3270b, is one of the few extrasolar planets we have yet found with abunant macroscopic life, and the first humanity has actually set out to explore. We arrived almost exactly one planetary year ago, which is about the same as a year and a half on Earth, and spent the first weeks establishing our habitat. There have been challenges, even tragedies, but we are finally able to begin the task of cataloguing the lfe we found here.

It is hard to compare these completely alien forms of life to Earth life. There are no functional equivalents to our plants and animals, though there are superficial resemblances. Instead, we have divided the lifeforms that we have discovered into motile and nonmotile forms. There is no analogy that we have so far been able to determine to terrestrial DNA, though it seems obvious that there must be some mechanism of inheritance. That, however, will be a question for the scientists that come after us.

The first thing we noticed when we began our work here was a distinct lack of species diversity, compared to terrestrial life. In our backyard, dear, there are hundreds if not thousands of individual species represented in every square metre of ground. Here, we are lucky to find twenty. Each individual species is well represented in terms of population numbers, but the number of species seems extraordinarily low.

But such life! If you could only see it. There are vast fields of tall, spindly grass-like fronds that appear to photosynthesise much the way terrestrial plants do. There are woody funguslike trunks that tower hundreds of metres into the sky. There are tiny creeping puffballs of all colours. There are delicate traceries of iridescent threads that catch the morning dew in sparkling patterns that gather in the corners and crannies of our fortified habitat. These lifeforms are more beautiful than a summer's morning on Earth. This planet's intense beauty stands in stark contrast to the extreme danger it poses to humans.

It was already well-known from data returned from our initial probes that we would not be able to breathe the unfiltered atmosphere. Though the ratio of oxygen, carbon dioxide and nitrogen is much the same as that on Earth, and the temperature is no greater than a tropical rainforest, there are large amounts of biological matter suspended in the atmosphere that would be extremely hazardous to breathe. In fact, we are unable to leave the habitat without complete environmental suits and air filtration units. It is hypothesised that merely coming into physical contact with the air on this planet would irritate the skin. We have not tested that.

What we did not expect is that all life we found - all of it - is similarly toxic. There was one species we found that was particularly noteworthy for containing no less than five hundred and thirty distinct toxic compounds in its outer layers - its "skin". We didn't dare cut into it any more deeply than the first few millimetres for fear that it would exude some kind of toxin into the sealed habitat. We had been quarantining every sample as a matter of standard procedure from the outset, but we have since had to double- and triple-layer our protections because some of the compounds are so invasive.

And it's not just toxins. The seventh sample we attempted to examine contained a highly acidic compound under high pressure. Poor Davenport punctured its outer surface and was sprayed with the substance, which dissoved his protective suit - and his face - within a few seconds.  We buried him carefully behind the compound and set a headstone. The grave site was overgrown with new lifeforms within three days. Unfortunately, he was only the first of the casualties of this mission.

So far I have mentioned only the nonmotile forms of life, but we have also discovered a number of motile species, some of them having the form of animals, though again it is important to remember that they are not. But they have limbs, sensory organs, and appear to have a distinct intelligence. In fact they have been described as cunning, though I have been at pains to remind the staff that terrestrial analogs may well be misleading.

Our first encounter with these motile lifeforms resulted in our second casualty. We might never have found out what happened to Jenkins if the attack had not been witnessed, as his body was completely consumed by the creatures that killed him.

They were small - we had encountered a group of them once previously, but they had fled at our approach. We had not considered them a threat. In fact, we discussed methods of trapping one of them so that it could be examined in the lab. Those discussions had not yet come to a conclusion when the attack occurred. They sprang at him using long, froglike legs and tore his suit open using razor sharp fangs, the existence of which we had not even considered when we had previously seen them. They used a most crude but effective pack ambush tactic. Jenkins must have been dead within seconds. Wu, who witnessed the attack, fled the scene and was not pursued. When we returned in force, they had disappeared and there was no sign of Jenkins. They had even eaten the plastic seals and the electronic components from his suit.

This pattern was repeated a few days later when we lost Parkinson. The difference is that he was armed and was able to kill two of them before he died. Surprisingly, though the lifeforms ate Parkinson, they did not eat their dead colleagues and we were able to bring the corpses back to the lab for analysis.

What we found was much like what we found with the nonmotile lifeforms. All parts of the body remained highly toxic long after death. The lifeforms had immensely strong jaws, razor-sharp teeth, and a gut that could have digested carbon steel.

We try not to kill when possible, but sometimes we are forced to bring our weapons to bear. Another example was just yesterday when Collins managed to bring down a creature resembling a shaggy bear. We had to spend the afternoon expanding our quarantine facility just so that we could study it.

We found that it possessed a highly complex gut, evolved presumably for processing the unusual toxins and compounds present in all life here. It had a circulatory system, though with multiple small muscular pumps rather than one big one as we have in our terrestrial fauna. It had a partially silicated skeleton - pardon me, my love, I sometimes lapse back into scientific jargon without thinking. It means that its skeleton was not pure bone, but was composed of a mix of biological and mineral substances. We have no equipment that is capable of breaking them.

But its most remarkable feature was its brain. We are still studying it. Multi-lobed, complex and large compared to its body size, this was the brain of a highly specialised creature. It was probably quite intelligent, before we killed it.

It occurs to me that you may suspect me of exaggerating with some of these tales. I assure you that I am not. To settle your fears, we feel that we are perfectly safe, so long as we remain within our compound. Our habitats are sealed and our air and water is sterilised and filtered, and though our stores of food are limited - and there is certainly nothing on this planet that is safe to eat - we expect the supply ship to return long before they run out. So we are in no real danger, as long as we do not take risks.

Symons has hypothesised - and I agree - that this planet has seen a runaway arms race effect, where the only species that survive are those that can aggressively and savagely defend themselves from predators. There are no prey species here - every single lifeform feeds off another, even down to the microscopic level. Every drop of pond water contains microorganisms, trapped in an endless cycle of consume and reproduce, consume and reproduce.

The area we can explore on foot is very limited - we can't travel very far because of the danger - but tomorrow, construction on our flyer will be complete. Powered by one of our microfusion reactors and supported by four ducted fan rotors, it will allow us to explore out to a far greater range than we currently have access to. There is a mountain nearby that looks volcanic, and Collins suspects the existence of a large body of water nearby. It will be good to finally be able to see more of this remarkable planet.

It is getting late, my love, and I have to go. I will write to you again soon with more news. We have big plans for once we are mobile again. The relief ship is due in four months, and we will be returning to Earth aboard her. I am counting the days until I can see your face again. I love you.

This was the last message received from the expedition team on DK-3270b. The habitat was located by the relief ship, as was the crashed flyer some distance away, but there was no trace of the researchers. The planet was quarantined shortly thereafter, the research station declared lost, and the project terminated.