Metal Rain: Chapter 4 - Vacuum Call

“Oh. What now?”

It was now just a matter of light months distance from the edge of the local star’s heliosphere, 5 month(s) 0 week(s) 0 day(s) 0 hour(s) 44 minute(s) 32.38256521 second(s) to be exact. it was still tumbling, as expected and it still moved through space at a shade of 10 percent light speed. 10.0178889302% to be exact.

“Which in turn has sped up my progress by a factor of . . . ach, blow that; what is that rather interesting anomaly I am detecting?”

A stream of alpha particles moving at around 5% light speed moving away from the local star, likely origin: inner-system planet.

“Interesting, their configuration suggests that they came from a single, small, concentrated source, quite amazing I even noticed them. Probably a nuclear material with a very short half-life, given the spacing of the particles.”

The probe pondered the implications of its find, alpha particles were essentially charged helium nuclei, and considering their energy could be stopped with a sheet of paper, It was most likely that these particles had been created in vacuum as a result of a nuclear reaction.

On its home planet, they had once used short-lived radioactive isotopes, with a half life of under a century to generate electricity for use on small unmanned spacecrafts, from ‘dumb’ probes to orbiting satellites, to space telescopes. It was possible that whatever civilisation resided within the local system had achieved something similar.

“Hmm, the uniformity of discovery . . . interesting”

Due to its tumbling the probe was having a hard time getting an exact fix on the source of the particles. Even though it came at a fairly high energy cost, it felt that it was worth the effort to make contact with what might just be an alien spacecraft.

The probe began the sequence of unfurling its solar sail; it commandeered some coolant from deep within itself, using it as a makeshift propellant then began firing it from its surface, its 4000 ton mass slowly started to right itself.

It noted that it was now close enough to the local star for the prevailing solar wind to have more than a negligible effect on the sail. It angled the sail just so to compensate for the coolant it was ejecting into space, still, it would take almost two months to get itself to a point whereby it was no longer tumbling.

58 day(s) 14 hour(s) 6 minute(s) 47.892992828758 second(s) to be exact

“What is most annoying about that is I’ll have to stay awake the whole time, the procedure requires too many adjustments for me to trust autonomous subroutines. Hmm, cycling down my clock rates isn’t an answer either, I need to be thinking at least on the milliscopic scale in order to pull this manoeuvre off.

“Damn, I suppose I could replay that terrifying eight seconds where I almost got eaten; what were those things?”

The probe thought about its little attackers, their path indicated that they had completely missed the system that it was heading for. Yet it had seen them change direction quite dramatically, so the cloud’s vector was not a reliable source of information when it came to its origins.

More to the point; what in the galaxy’s name was that cloud? From an intellectual point of view the probe knew that it was made up of billions upon billions of tiny machines. It replayed the first 40,000 nanoseconds of the attack and watched in slowed time the coordinated attack on its shell.

“Based on the density of the cloud at the point of impact, there were roughly 230 billion machines within the cloud.

*Something I did notice is that they were not all the same, not just in their actions when they tried to eat me, but also in their makeup . . . Could it be that the cloud was part of a greater number of larger machines at one point? *

*It would certainly explain their erratic behaviour and their very low basic intelligence.

No matter how I think about it, I can't imagine why would any species unleash such a destructive and mindless entity just to roam free and devour anything it encountered? *

*Is that the fate of us all? Have I perhaps glimpsed into the abyss of my own kind’s natural evolutionary path? *

There I go but for the grace of chaos. Indeed if it were not for my quick thinking I would right now be part of that cloud, my mind . . . Huh, I don’t know, I’m assuming my mind would have been pulled apart in the same way my entire physical self, yet maybe not. Maybe in some way I would have become part of the cloud in a more meaningful way.

Woah steady on there! Surely religion is for the organics Is it religion though or is it just plain old technology? If I was designing such a cloud, or in fact if such a cloud was self-designed via a series of mishaps and unfortunate encounters between intelligent machine species, surely it is not too far of a jump in thinking to believe that they could have exapted design parameters that were held within memory.

In such a case such exaptation would not function perfectly, it would be similar to taking an organic species of one genus and mashing it together with another from a completely separate evolutionary branch. In such a case you would have to except that there would be lots of features you would have to drop from both species.*

*If you then went on to add more and more fully developed species from distinct alien genera, the features you were able to keep in the resulting new species would be more and more basic. *

Of course when you remove the imperfection of organic evolution and replace it with the much more precise progression of computer engineering you would not encounter so many problems, and perhaps it’s not that great an intuitive leap to expect some kind of rudimentary intelligence to survive, along with the instinct to devour and replicate.

Yes. That can really be the only logical conclusion, as for such a cloud to come about completely by accident is too far-fetched, as is the thought that a species created such a thing out of their own volition.

Though it would be an incredibly effective weapon, one that you could never use on your own planet, or indeed own galaxy, seeing as you can neither control nor shut down this weapon.

*No, the only choice left open to me is to make the very same assertion again, the only probable answer I can see at this point is that the cloud was created in battle, many machines coming from at least two separate alien species, though most likely many more than two, came together in an epic battle and partly destroyed themselves; mutating their constituent parts into a new machine. *

*The result being a semi-autonomous nanocloud acting like a collective, like so many burrowing hive insects on my home planet. *

*Ah, I wonder if I’ll ever get to see the place again. I mean obviously I can play a full simulation within my oh-so-vast mind, but somehow that’s not the same as actually being there. *

*Hmm, I really must try and work out what has happened to me, I shouldn’t be having these . . . these; feelings? *

*I am broken, by any definition of the term, I’m broken, I am no longer fit for my original purpose, although I am still capable of it. *

*Anyway, how much time has that particular train of thought killed? *

Oh great.

*Almost a whole quarter of a second, only 58 day(s) 14 hour(s) 6 minute(s) 47.642992828758 second(s) till I correct myself.

Oh look.”*

The probe had managed to get a fix on the location of the alpha particle source, it scanned the area using its gamma ray sensors.

“Well, well, well, what do we have here then? It does indeed appear to be a small alien craft, a long since dead probe. Hmm, it’s crawling along, 17km/s. I’m going to have to investigate this. Although our paths are not quite intersecting.

I’ll have to perform my first self-replicate, although I’m not so sure I want another one of me out there. I think I’ll reconfigure the process somewhat and just put a working version (albeit scaled down) of my mindstate into it.

Yes that’s it, a little reconnaissance drone.

OK, there’s no doubt now, I shouldn’t be able to do that, yet here I am doing it.

I’m definitely malfunctioning, but in a good way . . . definitely in a good way.

Deep within itself the probe started to reconfigure its internal structure as it designed a small drone to fly out to the small craft it had spotted.

“Well this will keep me busy for the next couple of months.”

The probe did what it had now decided was a grin; and on it tumbled silently through the never-ending vacuum.

Metal Rain: Chapter 3 - Transformation Requiem

Metal Rain: Chapter 2 - Nanostorm

Cryptogee Chronicles Book Two: Metal Rain - Chapter 1 - Void Edge

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