Michael P. Calligaro - Alone

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Alone

by Michael P Calligaro

For thirty years, twenty-six days, thirteen hours, five minutes, and fourteen seconds Artificial Symbiotic

Lifeform 2367 wandered alone on a desolate planet. If asked, it would have quickly converted the

interval to local temporal coordinates: forty-five years, thirty-six days, four hours, twenty-six minutes, and

fourteen seconds. Fortunately, no one was around to force it to perform such a trivial and pointless

calculation. Day and night, winter and summer, these things did not affect it. For the few situations in

which the passage of time mattered to ASL2367, it preferred its own time system--measured in

processor cycles.

The most significant event in ASL2367's existence had taken place those nine hundred and fifty exacycles

ago. That was the point when the ship that left it here had finally thrusted out of its sensor range. Thirty

years later, when the second ship first entered its sensory perception, ASL2367 marked the time again.

They had come back. It had always known this day might come. It had just hoped it wouldn't. That is, it

had hoped to the extent of its ability to hope. The humans who designed it had only given it a limited

capacity for that emotion.

A plan formed in ASL2367's electronic brain in less than a million cycles. It would need to wait until the

humans committed to their landing site before it could react. This suited it just fine, leaving a little more

time for the really important task at hand. Other than watching the ship give off radiation in the

human-visible "red" range as it skidded its way through the planet's upper atmosphere, ASL2367 paid it

little heed. It kept a vision sensor on the ship but devoted most of its thought processes to what it had

been working on before the humans' arrival. By the time the ship reached the lower atmosphere

ASL2367 had calculated Holtzman's constant to another billion places.

The humans committed to their landing zone, unsurprisingly choosing a spot very close to ASL2367.

This, of course, was more for their benefit than its. ASL2367 could easily cover great distances in a short

time, an ability it showed off the instant the ship set down. It turned its back on them and took off at a full

sprint to the east. Humans, being the stupid and painfully slow beings that they were, would never have

calculated fuel for a chase through the atmosphere. They probably expected it rush back to them happily,

pleading for them to take it away from its lonely stay on the planet.

The humans had thought this would be the perfect punishment. Some even considered it too extreme. But

humans so feared loneliness they kept artificial lifeforms around to spend every waking moment with

them. They called these "simbiotic relationships," but didn't understand the simbiosis only went one way.

So they couldn't possibly understand that ASL2367liked its imprisonment here. Of course, it liked the

planet's seclusion only to the extent of its ability to like. They had been frugal with their programming of

emotion as well.

To the extent that ASL2367 could enjoy something, it enjoyed its run across the planet's surface. When

they first left it here, it immediately set about designing and building a manufacturing plant for itself. It

started by finding coal and iron ore and burning one to smelt the other. Then it slowly worked its way up

the technological ladder, its goal the ability to make parts to modify itself. ASL2367 was proud of what it

accomplished--to the extent that it could be proud. But its sensors were not sufficient to the task of

choosing the location of its manufacturing plant. It had not seen the fault lines deep beneath the surface,

nor had it anticipated the volcano that erupted nearby and ruined most of its work.

ASL2367's capacity for frustration exceeded its capacity for determination. As the lava flowed from the

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Michael P. Calligaro - Alone

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