The Martial Unity

Ria’s amber eyes widened with surprised amazement at the revelation that the xenobiologist analyst had offered them. ”Bacteria that are one meter in length? That…”

”That’s impossible!” Misha exclaimed in a very rare show of excitement. ”How are they so large and still able to engage in diffusion of gases?!”

Her cybernetic eyes grew as lively as any real organic eyes could as she leaned forward next to the analyst. Her identity as a scientist and developer was part of her identity as a pathwalker, more than her identity as an adventurer or anything of the sort was.

”Somehow these macrobes are able to overcome Fick’s Limit,” Siliscia couldn’t help but marvel at the massive single-celled organisms. ”They must have spectacular internal architecture!”

In biochemistry, there was an established understanding of why single-celled organisms had very absolute size limits. Not once in the history of Gaia or that of any other life-harboring planet had they ever once come across any single-celled organism above a certain limit.

The reason for that was rather simple. Cells exchanged gases through diffusion via pores in their cell walls. Typically, oxygen entered, and carbon dioxide exited, although scientists had found many gases that served as the input and many that served as the output.

The bigger a cell was, the more diffusion it needed. This would not be too much of a problem if not for the fact that the rate of diffusion was directly proportional to the surface area of the cell.

However, for any particular three-dimensional shape, the rate at which surface area rose was exponentially slower than the rate at which its internal volume rose. Thus, if a cell kept growing bigger and bigger, then the rate at which its volume rose would be much faster than the rate at which its surface, and thus the rate of diffusion, rose, making it impossible for cells to rise above a certain volume.

There were some structural loopholes to this from a mathematical perspective, of course. For instance, if cells grew flatter and flatter to ensure that the surface area rose just as fast as volume, then the rate of diffusion would remain in parity with the rate at which volume increased.

However, that would lead to absurdly long and wide creatures that were extremely fragile, far too fragile to ever survive due to biomechanical and metabolic constraints.

It wasn’t impossible, since they were aware of at least one species and model of life that technically was single-celled.

Which were the laminars, of course. But laminar integuments had layers instead of cells that could stack diffusion and osmotic rates, ensuring that the rate of exchange of gases was not constrained by surface area.

Which were the laminars, of course. But laminar integuments had layers instead of cells that could stack diffusion and osmotic rates, ensuring that the rate of exchange of gases was not constrained by surface area.

”It doesn’t make sense,” the xenobiologist muttered. ”This should not be possible according to the laws of biology. There is something much, much more radical going on here than just some clever evolutionary adaptations! We must investigate this deeper!”

”Big bacteria,” Sternon muttered with intrigue. ”It’s such a strange and fascinating phenomenon. I wonder if we can communicate with them.”

”I’m gonna be honest, I don’t really get what the fuss is about,” Runark remarked with a perplexed expression. ”Like yeah, it’s alien bacteria. Just bigger.”

”It’s a biophysical anomaly,” Ria decided with partial interest. ”But it’s not why we are here, and ultimately…”

Her voice trailed off.

She meant to say that ultimately they were going to be destroyed, as interesting and novel as they were. The only exception was if they had fortunately run into a planet with esoteric matter, but so far, based on the advanced spectrographical analysis of the planet, none of the analysts had mentioned that.

’A manifold, then. The destruction of the planet is inevitable.’ She heaved a sigh.

It wasn’t that she didn’t have any enthusiasm for scientific exploration of the unknown, but humanity’s need for the powerful resources that infected worlds possessed was much greater. Thus, even if it meant getting rid of the interesting anomalous life, it was something that she could tolerate.

When she took a close look at Planet Pinky, she felt some chills crawl across her skin. From great distances, the stimulus of infected worlds was not of interest, but up close, it made her skin crawl, giving her goosebumps. It was the difference in intensity in staring at a star in the sky while being in the same solar system as it.

It reminded her of the caliber of the foe that she was taking on by exterminating as many infected worlds as she could.

Meanwhile, the analyst team continued making more and more discoveries about the macrobes, studying them intently. Ria didn’t ignore them just because she knew that they were doomed for destruction. If they wanted to succeed in their goal, they would need to develop an understanding of the native life to come up with a threat profile and a plan of action on how to go about the operation.

With each passing moment, they made more and more baffling discoveries about the macrobes. The analyst projected a hologram featuring all the data collected by the surveillance sensory apparatus of the Stellarch.

It featured a section of the planet that had been combed and swept with high-grade sensory equipment, allowing them to see the atmosphere and the surface of the planet extremely well, with their respective compositions labeled extremely well.

The atmosphere was primarily composed of hydrogen and helium, accounting for eighty-five percent of the thick and dense atmosphere, while ten percent was accounted for by oxygen, and another five percent was an amalgamation of various other gases, none of which were toxic to them at the amounts that they were in. The hydrogen and helium, along with the interaction

The land, on the other hand, was filled with an unusual amount of iron, making it red in color, which, when filtered through the atmosphere, was what gave the planet its sharp pink color.

But that wasn’t what truly drew their attention.

What drew their attention were the almost coral reef-like protruding branch-like structures that were spread across a large portion of the surface of the planet.

It made the planet feel all the more exotic than it was otherwise.