Blika lived in Mossland with her clone sestras, gathering and sucking the delicious
juices of detritus and algae. Never looking up or in much of a hurry, she
lumbered from frond to frond on eight stubby legs in a gestalt of feasting and
being. Blika led a microscopic life of bloated bliss—unaware of forests, human beings, quantum physics or the coming singularity…
A sudden fierce wind wicked her water away. In a burst
of alien urgency, she wriggled madly for purchase on the frond as it shivered
violently in the roaring wind. Blika lost hold and the wind swept her into a
dark dryness. Her liquid life-force bleeding away from her, Blika crawled into
herself. The moss piglet felt herself shrivel into oblivion.
No, not oblivion… more like a vast expanse…
She had entered a wonderland of twinkling lights in a
vast fabric of dark matter. Where am I?
It occurred to her that she had never thought such a
thing before. Am I dead? She’d never
thought about existence before either. What
has happened to me? And where are my sestras? She felt an overwhelming
sadness. Something else she’d never felt before and wondered why she hadn’t.
Did it have to do with that liquid that had always embraced her with its
life-force?
Here, in the darkness of space, she felt alone for the first time,
separated from the plenum.
“Welcome, sestra!”
boomed a large voice.
Blika beheld a being like her with eight arms and
hands, seated on a throne and wearing a jeweled crown. “Why do you call me sestra?” Blika asked.
“Because we are ALL sestras! You are a Tardigrade, aren’t you?” She waved all eight
arms at Blika. “Well, I am your queen!” She looked self-pleased. “You are in
Tunland now! The land of awareness. And now that you are self-aware, you can do
anything! We’re special,” the queen ended in smug delight. The folds of her
body jiggled and shimmered.
“Why are we special?” Blika asked.
“Because we are!”
the queen said sharply, already losing patience with her new subject. “Don’t
you know that you can survive anything? Ionizing radiation. Huge pressure.
Boiling heat. Freezing cold. Absolutely no air. And no water…”
Blika gasped.
Water was the elixor that connected her to her sestras and her world… her…home…
“How do you think you got here, eh?” the queen mocked her
with a sinister laugh. Blika cringed. The queen went on blithely, “So, where do
you come from, piglet?”
“I’m trying to find my way home…”
“Your way? All ways here are my ways!”
“But I was just thinking—”
“I warn you, child…” The queen glowered at her. “If I
lose my temper, you lose your head. Understand?”
Blika nodded, now missing her home even more.
“Why think
when you can do!” the queen added,
suddenly cheerful again. “First there is BE, then THINK, then DO. Why not skip
the think part and go straight to the do part? In Tunland we do that all the
time,” she went on blithely. “And, as I was saying, here we can do anything!”
The queen grabbed Blika by an arm and steered them
through the swirling darkness of space toward a box-like floating object. “This
is my doctor’s Tardis…”
“Doctor who?” Blika naively asked.
The queen shivered off her annoyance and led them
eagerly through the door and into her kingdom.
They entered a strange place of giant blocks and
whining sounds beneath a dark swirling sky.
The first thing Blika noticed was the huge tardigrades
floating above them like dirigibles! Others were dressed in suits holding
little suitcases and walking into and out of the huge blocks through doorways.
“We’ve crossed into another dimension—my universe,”
the queen announced cheerfully. “Here you can do anything you want. So, why be tiny and feckless when you can be
huge and powerful!” She studied Blika. “This is your moment to do what you
could never do before. Think of the possibilities! You too could be huge!”
Blika stared at the strange world of smoke and metal
and yearned for her simple mossy home.
As if she knew what Blika wanted, the queen quickly added,
“But you can never go back home!”
“Why not?” Blika asked, disappointed.
“Because,
that’s why!” the queen shouted. Squinting,
she added, “It’s too late. It’s just not done! Once you’ve learned what the
colour green means you can’t erase its significance!”
“But I still
don’t know what the colour green means,” Blika complained. “And, besides, I
think you’re wrong. Becoming self-aware doesn’t stop you from going home. It
just changes its meaning. And if I can really do what I want, then you can’t
stop me. I’m going home to my family.”
The little hairs on the queen bristled. Then she grew
terribly calm. “I won’t stop you, but…” The queen pointed to the floating tardigrades
above them. “My water bear army will. I sentence you to remain in Tunland
forever for your crime!”
“I haven’t done anything…yet.”
“You’ve broken the law of thinking before doing. In Tunland
you have to skip that part—”
“You just made that up—”
“Doesn’t matter!” shouted the queen. “Sentence first,
verdict afterwards!”
“That’s nonsense,” said Blika loudly. “The idea of
having the sentence first.”
“Hold your tongue!” said the queen, turning a shade of
chartreuse.
“I won’t,” said Blika.
“Off with your head!” the queen shouted at the top of
her voice, pointing to Blika with all eight of her appendages. The water bear
army hovered over Blika, taking aim. They were going to get more than her head
with those lasers, Blika thought, and scurried for cover faster than her stubby
eight legs had ever moved before. She was doomed—
Then, just beyond her sight, she saw—no felt—something
far more significant than the colour green…or a huge bloated water bear army
about to shoot her…
Water! She could taste it, smell it, hear it. Blika
rejoiced with thoughts of her green home.
The water came in a giant wet wave of blue and silver
and frothy green. Tunland sloshed then totally dissolved. Blika surfed the
churning water. That green! She knew what it was! Blika reached out with her
deft claws and snagged a tumbling moss frond. It finally settled and there were
her sestras! So many of them clinging
to the same green moss! She’d found her family! She was home! Yes, it was a
different home and different sestras,
but it was also the same. Love made it so…
For the first time, Blika looked up … and saw a bright
star…
~~~
Tardigrades, also
known as water bears or moss piglets, are plump, microscopic
organisms with eight clawed legs. Fossils of tardigrades date to the Cambrian
period over 500 million years ago. Over 900 species are known.
Tardigrades were
first described by the German pastor Johann August Ephraim Goeze in 1773 and
given the name Tardigrada, meaning “slow stepper,” by the Italian biologist
Lazzaro Spallanzani.
Tardigrades reproduce asexually (parthenogenesis) or
sexually. They mostly suck on the fluids of plant cells, animal cells, and
bacteria.
Tardigrades
survive adverse environmental stresses including:
•
High and low temperatures (e.g., -273°C to +151°C)
•
freezing and thawing
•
changes in salinity
•
lack of oxygen
•
lack of water
•
levels of X-ray radiation 1000x the lethal human dose
•
some toxic chemicals
•
boiling alcohol
•
low pressure of a vacuum
•
high pressure (up to 6x the pressure of the deepest
ocean).
Tardigrades respond to adverse
environmental stresses through “cryptobiosis”, a process that greatly slows
their metabolism. Tardigrades survive dry periods by shriveling up into a
little ball or tun and waiting it out. They make a protective sugar
called trehalose, which moves into the cells to replace the lost water.
You could say that the water
bear turns into a gummy bear.
Tardigrades have revived after
a 100 years of desiccation. The antioxidants they make soak up dangerous
chemicals and tardigrades can also repair damaged DNA from long term dry-out. In
low oxygen, the tardigrade stretches out, relaxed muscles letting more water
and oxygen enter its cells. The tardigrade’s cold-resistant tun also prevent
the formation of ice crystals that could damage cell membranes.
Tardigrades survive temperatures,
pressures and ionizing radiation not normally found on Earth. All this raises
questions of origin and evolutionary adaptation. How—and why—have tardigrades
developed the ability to survive the vacuum and ionizing radiation of space? Some
suggest that it’s because they originated there. Scientists argue that they developed
extreme tolerances from Earth’s volatile environments (e.g., water bodies that
freeze or dry up, and undergo anoxia). But, if they can make it there, they can
make it anywhere. So, where is “home” really?…
#tardifolk
www.TheMeaningOfWater.com.
Nina Munteanu is an ecologist and internationally published author of award-nominated speculative novels, short stories and non-fiction. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s recent book is the bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” (Mincione Edizioni, Rome). Her latest “Water Is…” is currently an Amazon Bestseller and NY Times ‘year in reading’ choice of Margaret Atwood.
Nina Munteanu is an ecologist and internationally published author of award-nominated speculative novels, short stories and non-fiction. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s recent book is the bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” (Mincione Edizioni, Rome). Her latest “Water Is…” is currently an Amazon Bestseller and NY Times ‘year in reading’ choice of Margaret Atwood.
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