The Island - Peter Watts

Peter Watts 24 The Island
The chimp is not content to kill this creature. The chimp has to
spit on it as well.
Under the pretense of assisting in my research it tries to
deconstruct the island, break it apart and force it to conform to
grubby earthbound precedents. It tells me about earthly bacteria
that thrived at 1.5 million rads and laughed at hard vacuum. It
shows me pictures of unkillable little tardigrades that could curl up
and snooze on the edge of absolute zero, felt equally at home in
deep ocean trenches and deeper space. Given time, opportunity, a
boot off the planet, who knows how far those cute little
invertebrates might have gone? Might they have survived the very
death of the homeworld, clung together, grown somehow colonial?
What utter bullshit.
I learn what I can. I study the alchemy by which photosynthesis
transforms light and gas and electrons into living tissue. I learn the
physics of the solar wind that blows the bubble taut, calculate
lower metabolic limits for a life-form that filters organics from the
ether. I marvel at the speed of this creature's thoughts: almost as
fast as Eri flies, orders of mag faster than any mammalian nerve
impulse. Some kind of organic superconductor perhaps, something
that passes chilled electrons almost resistance-free out here in the
freezing void.
I acquaint myself with phenotypic plasticity and sloppy fitness,
that fortuitous evolutionary soft-focus that lets species exist in
alien environments and express novel traits they never needed at
home. Perhaps this is how a lifeform with no natural enemies
could acquire teeth and claws and the willingness to use them. The
Island's life hinges on its ability to kill us; I have to find
something that makes it a threat.
But all I uncover is a growing suspicion that I am doomed to fail
— for violence, I begin to see, is a planetary phenomenon.
Planets are the abusive parents of evolution. Their very surfaces
promote warfare, concentrate resources into dense defensible
patches that can be fought over. Gravity forces you to squander
energy on vascular systems and skeletal support, stand endless
watch against an endless sadistic campaign to squash you flat.