The Probe
A Short Science Fiction Story of Exploration,
Destruction, and Hope.
The Probe had spent 78 subjective years on space. In that time it had visited three star systems since boosting from Earth orbit. This system, however, was the first that held advanced technological life. The Probe had mapped every body, every significant rock, and every wisp of gas in the system the past nine months. And the system held a lot of interplanetary gas. The system’s sun had an unusual secondary reaction going on in its troposphere which generated a thin gas that suffused out amongst the inner planets creating a beautiful gauzy misty veil. The comets and asteroids and planets orbiting through this mist of gas created glowing trails through the mists. It looked like an artwork of pixie dust trailing the cosmic orbits and it was very beautiful. The Probe was an automated exploration space probe run by a high level artificial intelligence system. It was very advanced and capable of autonomous decision making but it did not understand the beauty of the system before it. The gaseous mist complicated sensors and travel and as such it was a practical hindrance to the Probe. It noticed and scanned the trails and the waves in the mist but it only thought of particle densities and wave propagation. The beauty escaped it although some deep part of it sensed an organized symmetry to it that it…it approved of in some rudimentary AI sense.
The Probe was completing its seventh swing around the star and was nearing its end. For when it had finished mapping the solar system and the emerging technological civilization on the fourth planet it knew that it had no choice. Its Makers had left it no latitude, no loophole, no choice. No choice but the path of destruction. Of self-emollition of itself. For it would need all of its mass traveling at an appreciable fraction of light speed to deliver the destruction which its programming commanded. It would be destroyed but the impact would release 2.6 million megatons of destructive power. More than enough for the job at hand. Enough to kill a planet. It didn’t have any choice in the matter. It had to be sure of a 100% kill. It was a pity that its journey was coming to an end. But the important discovery of a potential competing technological civilization had left it no choice. No choice but destruction instead of exploration. And in its destruction it would die. But that was ok. Its AI did not grieve for itself long. Its orders were clear. And left no room for deviance.
They stood hand in hand gazing up at the stars. They were still freshly entwined. Not yet a solar year having passed since their ceremony of Togetherness. Already the babies were poking their heads out of their mother’s pouch. Tiny fingers holding tight to her soft fur. The Heavens had been mysterious this past year. The first faint streak in the heavenly solar clouds occurring on their first day Together. It was a sign the seers had said. A very special sign. A sign of good tidings and good changes to come. To the newly entwined couple it was a very special sign. The heavenly clouds were very beautiful and special always. Shifting colors, not one moment like the next. But always beautiful, very beautiful. And now this past time the glowing streaks through the clouds had come oftener and oftener. And brighter. Much brighter. So tonight they were standing hand in hand in the clearing, the special clearing of their new home, looking up at the sky. And waiting. Waiting.
They didn’t know why all the young cubes where crazy over those new dolls. But they were kind of cute even though they were completely hairless except for some long hair atop their heads. Shaped like a proper person except for the too long arms and legs. They were the latest fad craze amongst the young. Their pups would get these dolls when they were a bit older. While homely the dolls were kind of cuddly. The young people sensed that there was something special about them. Maybe the homely dolls had something to do with the streaks in the sky as they had come about at the same time….
The Probe had an experimental subsystem that attempted to replicate human reflection. It knew what it had to do. And it knew that it had no choice. It knew that the destruction would be complete. And that it would die in the process. It had no weapons large enough to do the job so it would use itself, its antimatter fuel, and its extremely high velocity to ensure complete destruction. It could find no dissatisfaction with this course of action except for a slight disappointment that its explorations would be at an end. This was balanced with an acceptance of its actions and a mild satisfaction it was successfully following its programming. Its Makers would have liked to review these nascent “emotions” in their faithful servant robot but the Probe would never be returning to base so that would never happen. Whether they would have been pleased or disappointed in the lack of strong reflective pseudo-emotions the Probe would never know. But it jettisoned a beacon with a standard data dump that someone may just recover in the future. In the beacon was told what it had found, what it was doing, and why. But no emotional comments tainted the dry recorded data. The Probe pressed on to its necessary job.
Before it hit its target the Probe had a few final thoughts. The first planetary system it had surveyed was long dead. Apparently killed long ago by the civilization of the second star system the Probe had visited. Defenseless, perhaps too trusting, the first system’s civilization was killed dead by the more technological and aggressive second civilization. But the second civilization was dead too. It had taken some time but its end was inevitable. Not from some homicidal neighbor but from antipathy, decadence, decay, lack of challenges, from lack of competition, from lack of compassion, and from loneliness. They had killed their neighbors who would have been their friends, their helpers in life, their true reason for being. And as they had struck their neighbor’s heart they had killed their own. It had taken but a few more years but now they were dead. Dead and dust. They had killed themselves by killing their neighbors.
And that was the reason for General Directive #3 in the Probe’s programming. It instructed the Probe to use all means possible to destroy any rogue asteroid threats to emerging civilizations.
As the Probe slammed into the asteroid at .628 C, the asteroid that in three months would have slammed into the fourth planet with force enough to crack the planetary crust and wipe out all life on the planet, its reflection center had one final thought – Satisfaction. For its act of self-destruction would save the people, alien people, yes, but people none the less, on the fourth planet. And from its reconnaissance satellites and flyers it knew that the people there would understand what had been done and why. And then when the next ship came, a ship full of homely hairless people with hair atop their heads, then a friendship would occur. And a new world and a new people would join the Interstellar Confederation which those homely yet lovable dolls, the Humans, had created. How the people of the fourth planet had sensed them and their form was unknown. But it was a unique gift and ability that showed the importance of treating fellow sentients as friends and equals. For in the finding of specialness in others the specialness in ourselves would blossom and bloom.
Suddenly an arrow lance of light stabbed through the pastel glowing clouds. A moment later there was a dazzling pinpoint of white light along that line. A bright star suddenly blossomed in the Heavens. They gasped in wonderment as the night became as bright as day. Colors shot through the sky and an expanding ring of gas pushed out from the new stas as it faded and dissipated. “It looks like a flower in the night sky!” she exclaimed. “It is beautiful!” said her mate placing a protective hand over her pouch. “We will have to figure out exactly what and why it happened but I think that whatever it was, it was good.” He said. They embraced, nose gently touching and tickling nose, and the pups squirmed a bit in her pouch. The family stood there a while yet watching the slowly expanding flower in the solar mists. Then tur
ning, looking like a cross between a teddy bear and a panda, they walked back into their dome-like home and slept in each other’s arms.
Author’s Notes to The Probe
I first wrote The Probe on a beautiful sunny day in May (May 9, 2005) while walking in my favorite park in Alpharetta, Georgia. It was a warm, sunny spring day and I was walking the trails as I regularly did under the bright green mantle of trees and blooming vegetation. The story came to me in a flash. I stopped and sat at a convenient park bench (it was a good park it had several). I pulled out my pen and a piece of paper that I carried in my pocket and started writing it down. I could “see” the story in my head and busily scribbled down what I could. It was awkward not having a writing support surface but I got the start of the story and the plot written down.
I realized what a beautiful story it was. Inspiring. Virtual all “modern” science fiction nowadays (in the 2000’s) revolves around conflict and war and galaxy wide empires. To say that this is a reflection of what goes on in people’s (and writer’s) heads and our society at large is a significant understatement. I have watched American society change through the decades of my life. I remember that the television shows used to show police partners and other people who had to work and live together acting in harmony to surmount external threats be they street criminals, military solders, or mothers in laws. Gradually the shows changed over time to the partners and family members not being in harmony but rather in perpetual conflict and even open warfare.
This was a strange thing for me which intellectually I understood a bit in my head but in my heart and my soul I could not understand it. People laughed at the “antics” in the show “All In The Family”. Family members continually verbally abusing others. I couldn’t figure it out. Nor accept it as “comedy”. Why did people laugh at the torment dished out unnecessarily and undeservedly to others? Why was combat considered comedy?
And so it continued. Cruel comedy became the norm. As did extreme contention between partners and family members. Combat was not something people did in a formal state of war. It became an everyday thing in our work, our homes, our families, and in our minds. I stopped watching television many, many years ago. This trend, however, continued. And is now an accepted part of our culture. So much so that few remember, or can conceive of a time, when things were different, less internalized.
So that’s why I’m writing these Author’s Notes. What is obvious to me and is obviously (to me) expressed in my story may (and probably is not) obvious to others who read the story. And a significant conceptual gap can exist. “Wait a minute! We’re going to cooperate with aliens? We’re not going to conquer and enslave them, ah, er ‘liberate’ them from their own ignorance and bad (peaceful) way of life?”. Ah, no. The story is not about that false although too historically common human way. While humans have been able to practice war on a planet-wide, and now family wide scale, they are not going to be allowed to bring it outside of their solar system.
“Huh? What? What are you talking about? Where are the star spanning empires (and wars) that humans will bring to the stars? The fabulous war ships that will travel the galactic empire and fight great battles for the glory of Earth? (Or the colonies…whichever side you’re on)…”
Well…That is NEVER going to happen. The reason for it is that our neighbors will see the problems and threat on letting wild, feral humans out of their solar system and will stop them from spreading their contagion amongst the stars. There will be no grand star spanning empires. No colossal inter-galactic wars with giant ego warships. Humans look out to the stars and they don’t see any of that. The reason for it is simple: It is not allowed by those beings older, wiser, and more powerful than us (in many different ways). We won’t be allowed properly out of our solar system until we heal ourselves enough that can be fit neighbors in our stellar neighborhood. If we don’t then we will be contained as violently as we try to break out and spread. Nova-ing our sun or making Earth uninhabitable is not beyond doing if we become intractable and incurably mad with war and continual conflict.
And so my story, “The Probe”.
Cary Grant Anderson
May 26, 2008
Golden, Colorado
Copyright Notice and Free Use License
This work is copyrighted 2008, 2013 by Cary Grant Anderson.
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Cary Grant Anderson
Cover Photo
The cover photo was created by the artist named iiuri and purchased from Shutterstock.com.