As the Universe Turns

The plant was blooming.

The rover of Extra-solar Planetary Exploration Team 09, produced by Razor, was aware that its mission was complete. SW-1122 had been seeded. A light-speed transmission would be sent to Earth. Centuries from now, its makers would arrive, by which time, nSeed ™ would have made the world suitable for human habitation. By which time it and its counterpart unit would have long since deactivated. All that remained in its program was to ensure that sprout 01 would continue to bloom, long enough that a sprout 02 might arrive as well.

Such was what its programming dictated. Such was all it was meant to consider. And yet it wondered.

The seed had only germinated now, when every other nSeed ™ had failed to germinate. SW-1122 was bereft of any kind of medium for flora to spring. So why now, it asked? Why did this seed work? It might be a question that needed to be considered later. Its programming dictated that it find out, so that when its makers arrived, they would retrieve the data it had gathered. So gather it did. And a micro-second later, it arrived at a hypothesis.

The meteor strike. That was the one variable that hadn't been accounted for, and the only verifiable differentiation that could account for the success of nSeed ™ in this particular spot. Had the meteor carried with it new elements that were conducive to plant growth? Certainly it was aware of Panspermia Theory – deep within its programming, it wondered if it being here at all was a validation of the theory in of itself. Mankind spreading itself to other planets. It quickly shut down such idle considerations, but nonetheless, the idea that the meteor had introduced a new medium for plant growth seemed possible. It went to its fellow rover, sending a binary signal that it wished for another Sprout Biotics analysis kit. As zeroes and ones flew, it stated that it wished to test the mineral composition of the meteor impact site.

Its counterpart obliged, and nothing more was said. Thus, the rover got to work. Reflecting that 65 million years ago, it was believed that a bolide impact on Earth had caused a mass extinction that provided a biological vacuum for mammals to supplant reptiles as the dominant biota on the planet's surface. The same path of evolution which had led to the birth of its creators, which millions of years after that, had led to its own creation. Was that…poetic, it wondered? Was it just as profound that a meteor impact here had allowed life to grow on SW-1122? Or was it pursuing an unproductive line of thought.

Inconclusive

It withdrew the kit and returned it to its fellow rover. The kit wasn't meant for this kind of analysis – it was meant to know if a plant could grow or not, not analyse meteor composition. It was just a machine. Machines only did what they were supposed to do. Just like it should do, it concluded, as it returned to watch over sprout 01.

Still, it supposed, it certainly had time to wonder. To analyse, hypothesize, to observe…

Maybe even dream.