FUTURES SCIENCE FICTION THE TERMINATOR Dreams of another world. BY LAURENCE SUHNER After glancing at my instruments, I move distances, makes space opera possible. Trav- the mask of my respirator aside. Here, there’s elling from Nuwa to Pangu takes a week. o. Here I am. At the line between dark no risk. Marine fragrances float in the air. It’s A lilliputian system where worlds are like and light. At the very border that sepa- 15 °C. Humans perceive the infrared radia- neighbouring countries. rates the side facing the star from the tion of the TRAPPIST-1 star, an ultra- Behind TRAPPIST-1f, farther still, Sone that remains eternally shaded. It’s like cool dwarf studied almost 400 TRAPPIST-1g, now called Shen- being at the edge of the visible world, at the years ago by astronomers on nong, floats. Its atmosphere, end of the observable Universe, in that grey Earth, more as heat than as dense as that of Venus, zone, permanent twilight, where the shad- visible light. But I would but less toxic, hides the ows stretch, revealing the whimsical land- only have to venture a surface of the planet. scape. Yin and yang. few dozen kilometres But, on very rare JACEY BY ILLUSTRATION The noise of the engine fades. I need into the nightside occasions, the gales silence. for the temperature that race over the I step out on the foredeck of my ship–bathy­ to drop and liv- globe grow so vio- scaphe, precious package in my hands. The ing conditions to lent that they rip swell rocks me, the wind whips me with such deteriorate. In fact, through the cloudy force that I have to grab the ship’s rail. Ahead it should be much cover for a few sec- of me, at the bow, stretches the dark side. Like colder because the onds, unveiling a all the planets in this system, TRAPPIST-1e, planet receives less gigantic structure. The renamed Nuwa by the first colonists, is in light than Earth. But artefact. An aerial con- synchronous rotation. The same side always the last three planets in struction several kilo­metres facing its sun, it provides a contrasted reality. the system have dense tall. Perhaps a space elevator or Eternal night. Or eternal day. It all depends on atmospheres that, an atmospheric processor? where you are. East or west of the terminator. combined with the I saw it once, the year I Behind me, on the contrary, the surface ocean’s action, atten- turned 20. of the deep ocean that covers a large part of uate the temperature That event marked my life. this world glistens in the star’s dark red glow. variations while pro- Since then, I’ve been waiting. By balancing the large differences between tecting us from the I’m waiting for the hypothetical the temperatures of the two hemispheres, star’s X-rays and ultraviolet radiation. day when we will be allowed to set foot on it allowed life to bloom in conditions that I feel the urn in my hands. So very light. I Shennong. For now, that world is off lim- initially seemed hostile. After lengthy obser- open the lid and a few particles escape, car- its. All efforts to land have been aborted. vation surveys, biological markers were ried off by the wind. No transmissions filter through the thick detected in the planet’s atmosphere — water, All that is left of my mother. She arrived atmosphere. carbon dioxide, oxygen, ozone, methane — here, with me, at the end of a journey that But they’re there. and the TRAPPIST-1 system was selected as took almost three centuries. She was 35 years And they’re old. Their civilization one of the destinations for humanity’s long old. I was five. I remember only the final emerged well before ours. They knew we extrasolar exile. weeks of the trip when, one by one, the occu- were coming. They must have observed us I stand on the deck a moment, fascinated pants of the colonization ship came out of in our interstellar tin can, as it gobbled up by the ocean that darkens before me as it dis- stasis to admire the first of the many planets the 40 light years separating us from Earth. appears into the night. Myriad stars riddle in this small-scale system: a tiny star, barely But we discovered their existence only the the waves: bioluminescence. Nuwa’s ocean larger than Jupiter, and its cortege of syn- day one of our exploration vessels attempted abounds with life forms that constantly chronous, telluric planets, including three to get a little too close to Shennong. move between the two hemispheres, fol- with regions suitable for human settlement. I arm myself with patience. And I dream. lowing the currents and the movement of My mother’s ashes scatter through Nuwa’s Intensely. Like when I was a little girl. the violent winds generated by the contrast thick air. They float up in the atmosphere, One day. in the temperatures near the surface. These carried by an ascending current. They will One day, we may be allowed to visit that winds, along with the moderating power of eventually fall back into the sea, the sea I’ve mysterious world. the ocean, guarantee the existence of habit- spent my life skimming on my ship. When? able regions on either side of the terminator, Waiting for the day when … When we’re wise, my mother said, a few cooling the exposed side of Nuwa and heat- I look up and see TRAPPIST-1f, renamed months before her death. ing the dark one. Pangu, another planet in the system, so I only hope that day comes during my I shiver at the thought of all those foreign close that it would look like a half-moon lifetime. ■ creatures hiding in the depths under my in the skies of our cradle, Earth. Occasion- ship’s hull. The place where I’ve stopped is ally, from the island where I settled 20 years Laurence Suhner is a Swiss science-fiction ideal for my task: there is a front and a back, ago, I enjoy observing it through my tele­ novelist and author of the QuanTika trilogy. a before and an after. The beginning or, scope. On the dayside, I can make out the She currently teaches creative writing at depending, the end of the day. And the end cities: Mélania, Béhor, Altaïra. The TRAP- the University of Geneva. This story was of a life: my mother’s. PIST-1 system, with its short interplanetary translated from French by Sheryl Curtis. 512 | NATURE | VOL 542 | 23 FEBRUARY©2017 M 2017ac millan Publishers Li mited, part of Spri nger Nature. All ri ghts reserved. .