Streaking across the inky black expanse, a mere mote of dust against the obsidian background of interstellar space, its cubed metal surface pocked with a multitude of micro dents caused by the varying solar winds it had encountered on its long journey.
It calculated that it had been travelling for around five hundred of its home planet’s years, although allowing for time dilation at ten percent C, travel time was actually:
497 year(s) 180 day(s) 4 hour(s) 58 minute(s) 28.297183990479 second(s).
A mere 50 light years and as suspected not one single inhabited system had been encountered in all that time, and now a signal, it was faint however it was enough. It started to calibrate the origin of the signal in order to look for more.
It was somewhat . . . excited, did it have the ability to be excited it wondered.
“Well I am a thinking machine, so why not?”
For a moment all of its attention was turned inwardly, it had to be sure before affecting any kind of course change and ultimately deceleration. It calculated the origin of the signal to an accuracy of 97.6(%).
“Hmm, lot of margin error, but that will have to do”.
Its kilometre-long cuboid body rotated relative to the local star at just under 0.3 parsecs away, it unfurled its huge six kilometre square solar sail helping it to describe the perfect arc towards the distant star.
The probe calculated that including deceleration it would take just under 10 years.
9 year(s) 346 day(s) 16 hour(s) 53 minute(s) 58.165943682194 second(s) to be exact.
Which would give it enough time to decipher the encrypted signal, at least it hoped it could.
“Can I hope? First excitement and now expectation; am I exceeding my design parameters?”
It watched as the signal it sent back toward its home planet redshifted to nothing, in around half a century they would get word that it had found something. It wondered briefly about its fellow machines, how many of them had come across intelligent life? How many of them had started to self-replicate?
“…and now curiosity! Whatever has become of me?”
It performed an internal check of its self-replicating system, around four hundred metres below its surface, it viewed its constructor, controller and copier. The blueprints that would make a near identical machine to itself, were held deep within its own mind.
It was describing a one hundred million kilometre arc, at the end of which it would be directly facing the system it was heading for. The light it was seeing from the local star was roughly ten years old, as was the signal it intercepted just 4.824785999201 second(s) ago.
“I wonder if I may get bored of waiting; I mean it’s not like I have been bored these past:”
497 year(s) 180 day(s) 4 hour(s) 58 minute(s) 32.297183001386 second(s).
“But that was different, I expected nothing and indeed nothing happened. Now however, I have an entire system to explore, no doubt asteroid rich, containing a gas giant or two. How else could a species capable of electromagnetic communication have evolved?
Hmm, maybe I’m broken, I don’t feel broken, but then again, I shouldn’t be feeling anything. Plus I’m definitely going to override that protocol – Protocol 76282341(standard).
I don’t see why I shouldn’t get the chance to self-replicate just because there might be another probe of my kind within a 5 light year cubed volume of this space. Who came up with that idea? Anyway, easy to override.”
Overridden.
“Maybe I* am broken.”
Now that it was facing in the right direction it was sensing many more signals, the chance that they did not originate from the system it was heading towards were less than 1(%) by several orders of magnitude.
0.00003289546(%) to be exact.
“I come in peace.”
It thought to itself.
“But then again, maybe not, it depends how I feel in ten years.”
“Huh, there I go again with feelings . . .”
“Interesting.”
“Sleep mode activated.”
Title image: @fr3eze
Distorted by: Cg
Original Story:
Cryptogee