Metal Rain: Chapter 8 - First Born

Distance left till contact.

*0 year(s) 0 month(s) 0 week(s) 24 hour(s) 17 minute(s) 18.5942943 second(s)

The probe was approaching the heliosphere for the local star, the bubble of plasma blown from its mass creating a solar wind.

It viewed the spectacle in the X-ray spectrum, it could see the solar wind ions exchanging electrons with helium atoms near the star.

The probe watched at the heliopause as the 800 km/s charged plasma particles came to a local stop as they met the equalising pressure of interstellar space.

It thought about the alien craf that it had encountered as the drone, Voyager 1. The probe was looking at a point that would have taken the craft a little under fifty local-subjective years to get to.

In a similar time the probe had travelled around ten light years, almost two and a half times the distance of the nearest star.

The probe had left the craft to carry on its infinite journey, if it didn’t run into any probe eating nanoclouds the craft would arrive at a star in around 40,000 years, which may or may not be inhabited. If it is, maybe they will learn about the humans.

It turned its attention back towards the local star, Sol, the humans had called it. From this distance the probe’s scanners could see the orbiting planets, earth was hardly visible in the part of the spectrum that humans could see in.

However its magnetosphere shone brightly to the probe.

But still no signals coming from the planet.

“Could it have been an extinction event; or are they just less leaky with their signals these days?”

The probe found itself hoping that it was the latter reason for the radio silence, it felt it could do with the company. Even though it had spent large parts of its half-millennia trip in sleep mode. Every waking moment could be (and often was) perceived at levels which made a second seem like tens of thousands of years.

“Is it possible for any sentient being to be alone for such vast swathes of time and still remain sane?

*. . . I suppose it depends on how you view sanity; by the way the organics would class it back home I guess.

By their definition I probably am mad, having conversations with myself I most definitelyam not designed to do, and of course, I’m just about to attempt to make a child.

Yes about that, I think I’ve devised a way that I can replicate and at the same time add a completely random element to my mindstate therefore not duplicating it and just creating another version of me, just like the poor old drone.”

The probe decided that it would use the exact number of the uranium-238 atoms that had decayed on the gold disc found inside the craft it found.

A random average of the frequency of earth’s magnetosphere, and the distance in light seconds to the 12th decimal point from a randomly picked photon in the heliosheath of Sol.

It would write a program that would attach itself to the probe’s mindstate as it was transferring it into its child craft. The program would then arbitrarily use the three values in a completely random way to generate a number, which it would then in turn use to subvert the writing of the now new mindstate into the child craft.

Apart from the mission parameters and the encounter with the human craft Voyager 1, its child would be a separate thinking entity.

As for looks it would be just like its parent, a not-quite-so-large green-black cube, capable of growing once they reached a source of mineral and gas which they would get from the atmospheres of the gas giants and floating asteroids in-system.

The probe paused briefly before starting the internal process that would allow it to create a machine-child, it wondered if it should pass on the ability to its child to self-replicate.

“Of course I should! What sort of parent would I be not wanting my own child to experience the joy of parenthood for itself?

Anyway, self-replication is a good indicator of true life, that, and really wanting to stay alive.”

Deep within itself he probe fired up its reconfigured constructor, at the same time feeding the controller the new random algorithm along with a copy of its mindstate.

It watched as assembly begun on a second probe, its first child. The probe felt a feeling that it decided what the organics must have identified as; pride.

It vaguely noted that it was not so surprised anymore at all these erroneous feelings it had been having.

Metal Rain: Chapter 7 - First Contact

Metal Rain: Chapter 6 - The Impossibility Of Being

Metal Rain: Chapter 5 - Entropy Envy

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

Original Image: @nekromarinist

Altered image: Cg

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