It had spent exactly 42 day(s) 0 hour(s) 0 minute(s) 0 second(s) of the 58 day(s) 14 hour(s) 6 minute(s) 47.642992828758 second(s) building a recon drone and bringing it to its surface.
It had no idea why it chose to do it in that length of time, it had worked out that the optimum energy saving rate, combined with launch window opportunity, combined with just having something to do whilst it had to stay awake so long, was only *26 day(s) 3 hour(s) 4 minute(s) 23.6583891200 second(s).
“I wonder why I did that? I mean it’s not even like 26 is any kind of interesting multiple of 42. It would seem I just randomly decided to do that, even though that has pushed me right up to the envelope of my launch window.”
The probe took a moment to view its handywork, the drone it had created rested on what could be considered to be the probe's top surface, the starscape slowly rotated in the background as the, by now almost imperceptible rotation of the probe had slowed to almost a complete stop.
The scant glow of visible light revealed that the drone was the same dark black/green colour of the probe that made it. It stood on three tripod legs at a height of just 40 metres and a width exactly twice that. Within its pyramid shaped body the probe had placed a variety of tools that it felt the drone may need to explore the craft.
It looked at the various decorative features that it had placed on the drone, it had etched the motif of a sports team from back on its home planet, and had put a series of indentations around the domed ‘head’ of the drone.
“No idea why I did that; just looks nice I guess . . . though by whose standards of nice I wonder? . . . Well mine I suppose, who's else are there?!”
In that very moment the probe decided to create a laugh by sending an oscillating radio frequency from near its centre around half a kilometre within it, to its surface. The frequency banded between 42 hertz and 2 gigahertz.
“There we go, that can be my belly laugh!”
It turned its attention back to the drone, which it had secured via its feet into a modified square portion of it, which it started to raise and tilt towards the alien craft.
Underneath the drone were twelve separate bundles of graphene cables which the probe used to load its mission parameters onto the onboard navigation system. It paused as it pondered its final decision regarding the drone’s design. Then without ceremony it transferred a scaled down copy of its mindstate into the tiny drone.
It had given the machine tiny cameras which it had placed all around the domed ‘head’ and on the underside of its ‘belly’. For the first time in almost 500 years it viewed itself and its surroundings in the visible light spectrum, though being in near complete darkness meant that it was not perhaps as auspicious an occasion as it should have been.
“I’d better get a move on, just a few minutes longer before I lose my launch window . . . 12 minute(s) 52.5429999901 second(s) to be exact. Hmm, looking at these figures . . . the time it will take for the drone to get to the craft, explore, and then come back to me will be prohibitive. Which brings me to a point that I have quite clearly been ignoring.
Wow, ignoring, random decisions; is this how organic entities think I wonder? They definitely do behave in ways that would suggest this. I mean I have always been shocked that they managed to create something so wonderfully elegant, complex and yet simple as myself. Or even for that matter a computer with no sentient reasoning at all!
How does such a being pull off a feat like that? Maybe random, unstructured thought is necessary to create something as ordered as myself? A kind of hidden metaphysical reverse entropic law perhaps?
Anyway whatever the reason I am ignoring the fact that since receiving that first signal nine and a half years ago, I haven’t heard a single one since. That’s strange to say the least, I allowed for gravitational lensing and any other type of signal distortion and yet still my calculations stated that the probability of the signal not emanating from this system were just too low to even consider.
Plus of course . . .
Wow, talk about random thought! Plus of course, I have heard that same signal quite a few times now, it is the same one without a doubt, I have matched the incoming signals with the original and have had a 100(%) accuracy.
So, no new signals . . .
Which brings me to the question; if nobody's home, should I even bother slowing down as I pass through this system?”
Metal Rain: Chapter 4 - Vacuum Call
Metal Rain: Chapter 3 - Transformation Requiem
Metal Rain: Chapter 2 - Nanostorm
Cryptogee Chronicles Book Two: Metal Rain - Chapter 1 - Void Edge
Altered image Cg
Beautiful write @cryptogee ...
It's getting interesting for us and the probe iteslf!!! :)
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Should still check to make sure, Signals can be deceiving.
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I just realised there's something very Samuel Beckett about the probe's predicament: a lone consciousness talking to itself, like Krapp in Krapp's Last Tape. I guess that's why the humour fits so well. It's an existential absurdist comedy of existence.
The sports team motif is comic and touching simultaneously, which I think is a delightful tone to achieve.
And then there's the additional tragi-comic effect of the probe babbling to itself. Babbling is the state Beckett always attributes to human beings who are dying, and of course, all human beings are dying. So babbling is a last ditch attempt at living.
I realise the probe is actually choking me up. :-o
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Reminds me of an outer space version of 'last man in Earth'.
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