Lil nibbles

Quantum entanglement. Sometimes pairs or groups of particles begin acting like one particle. Look at one and you could predict with perfect accuracy the movements of the other. The universe, Earth’s future scientists theorized, was made up of strings, weaving in and out of the fabric of reality, and each particle was a point on an infinite thread. The tug on a particle, by the next particle in line on that thread was enough to alter its behavior, with such imperceptible differences as that humans could not see them. 

Normally, it seemed, there was a little slack - perhaps each particle wove in and out of several dimensions before returning to our own, each with their own rules of physics acting on the particle in its own distinct ways - but scientists found that they could entangle two particles, making them act in this strange way.

Later research found that sometimes particles become accidentally tangled - and still later after knowledge of these particles had built quantum computers that could calculate without speed of light constraints, and the first universal simulator was built, mapping to the best of our knowledge where each particle was in the universe and how it wove to get there - it became possible to find particles on earth accidentally entangled with the particles of other worlds. It became possible to manipulate two particles in the same region this way, and with very small tweezers, build quantum computers with which to observe them.

Once observation had been established, when no life was found, they would begin to build and release bacteria, geoengineering each planet into something eventually habitable. Humans found themselves alone in the universe, but life would not end on earth. 

The LSC is one such quantum tweezer operation - its computers do most of the work, locating worlds, building tweezers - constructing a computer on the other side. Humans are just there to double check, look at the images transmitted by each computer at real speed, put in their judgement call, and press go on beginning to build microbial life. 

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Barbara leaned over the keyboard, glancing at the images streaming back at her. The probe ended up building underground and had been burrowing up since. Ordinary rocks, this planet had powerful volcanic activity, and stone made primarily of copper and glass. Ordinary starlit sky as it broke the surface with what was probably water billowing across as clouds. Ordinary white glass pillar glowing faintly with light. Wait what?

She sat down in her desk chair and sent orders to move closer to the pillar at the same time the computer sent a series of alerts. It was detecting non-molecule based movement in the air, soil samples were showing wiggling things too - this was microbial life. Chloroplast-like things had been identified in the fine white fur that seemed to cover the ground, masses of different kinds of plant like and distinctly un-plantlike life in some kind of symbiosis. Rising a crest she could see white pinnacles pointed to the sky and slowly rotating. In the middles of the grove was the white pillar she had seen earlier, perfectly symmetrical, glowing faintly.

Her slow stream of expletives, born of disbelief and wonder, bring others from their desks to gather around hers - slow breaths release as they realize what they’re looking at. She maneuvers closer.

In the blink of an eye a dark shape appears on a side screen, a face, some horned jagged, but mouthless predator, as they’ll see as they go over the footage again in slow motion - slams into the computer - it’s not built for strength - and it shatters, the screens going blank.

Barbara’s expletives are louder this time.

“Should have made backups when I realized how precious”. . . . “Used the nanobots as material for the computer - didn’t think it would shatter.” . . . “How much force to break one of those things?” . . . “Initial tweezer sacrificed when we build it into the first nanobot.” . . . “It may take years to locate another link.”

A comedy of errors to write up on Barbara’s evaluation. Slowly they make their ways back to their desks - the knowledge that they aren’t alone weighing on every mind.

*****************************************************

“Oh my God!” Every human in LSC turned to see Samuel, sitting down on the floor where he’d fallen backwards over a small white glass protrusion growing out of the linoleum floor. Then he was scrambling back, as the same glass began to rise in a flat ledge behind him. About ten feet in circumference it grew in a circle. It slowly toppled one of the computers as it grew, as a section of cubicle melted away above it as it seemed to magically rise in the middle of the office. 

People reacted as people will, some frozen in shock, others touching their mouths to activate phoning, or closing their eyes to get at their innerwebs. A supervisor ran in, and cleared everyone a little ways from the still rising white glass tower, about three feet now, and closed her eyes to call for her boss. 

It was a lot like what they did on other planets - could a computer have malfunctioned and started building here? An alarm went off on just one of the computers. Warning. Temperatures approaching 10’000 Degrees Kelvin. The room felt cool and air conditioned as usual. Everyone laughed, a nervous, tension releasing laugh. 

Five feet tall, someone downloaded a capture and analysis app, and announced they had identified nanobots. 

“They look like little spheres - not so different looking from ours actually.”

Seven feet tall and fifteen minutes, they’ve just managed to hook up scanners, computers adapted and rewired to do here, what they usually do remotely. There are protocols against building nanobots in office to be overridden - one man shamefacedly hacks the system, a little more easily than perhaps he should.

“Sometimes it’s the easiest way to fix bugs.” He explains.

Systems in place, someone puts in an order to begin deconstruction, only to find computer reports that the strange nanobots double in response to deconstruction. Attacking them is surprisingly easy - but others respond by reproducing faster, the strange nanobot count skyrockets, and the white pillar continues to grow. 

Half an hour and the pillar is beginning to disintegrate the ceiling at nine feet. A report comes off the computer. Life signatures detected inside. 

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The door opens, sliding silently apart on new white glass tracks. A ramp, slightly curved on the edges slides out into place.

The opening is empty for a moment, then a little white furry blob pokes out, and rolls down the ramp, where it comes to rest at the bottom, It seems to be entirely spherical with no arms or legs, or even eyes or mouth that anyone can see. It wiggles a little bit, and then begins to slowly roll towards the people.

The opening reveals a second little fluffball, who rolls down the ramp and keeps rolling as it hits the bottom, pausing for a moment here or there, but quickly joining its fellow, a third barrels out of the opening a lot faster than the first two, coming to an abrupt stop when it bumps into one, revealing that all three are in transparent spheres, that flash red when they touch.

Then a large shape appears in the opening. The predator - Something that might be part cat, and part insectoid demon - jagged horns, oblong eyes. It has the same pale white, almost translucent fur as the fluffballs. In a languid blur, it reaches the small fluffy things who freeze. It looks up, eyeing the humans, makes a sudden movement as if about to pounce, making several people stumble back, and then herds the fluffballs back inside, the door closing behind it, and ramp retracting.

“We come in peace?” Someone in the crowd asks - and everyone laughs again, that wonderful tension releasing laugh.

Origins unknown. Components primarily, Silica, Stearic Acid, Carbon, and various Amino Acids. Does not contain DNA. The scanning AI announces.

The doors open again, the ramp comes out, and a single fluffball rolls out and beelines for a potted plant. Getting to it, a leaf seems to stick to its surrounding sphere, it rolls away, straining at the leaf until it finally breaks free, and then careful not to crush its leaf it rolls back up the ramp, and disappears. 

Another rolls out, accompanied by the predator, and followed by three more. The predator carefully watches the humans, body tensed to kill at any moment, while the fluffballs explore. Someone tosses a penny onto the ground, and the fluffballs all converge on it, one sticking to it and rolling back up the ramp. Encouraged another holds out his finger, and lets out a loud “ouch!” When a fluffball pulls some skin off the end. The predator is there in an instant, body between the human and fluffball, herding it back towards the tower, which it does - carefully not rolling on its sample of skin. 

“Do you think they’re the young form - and the big one is the parent?” Someone asks. 

“Seems likely - but why send out your children to deal with the aliens?”

*****************************************************

Slowly - as days passed, we began to understand each other a little more. They wore suits, spheres made of dual function electron pairs, the first time we saw what we would eventually turn into force fields. They had scanners, simple looking things that operated based on the weight a fluffball put on the pad. How they had built them, without hands, was a curiosity at first, but after watching for several days we saw how well they worked together, using their bodies as fingers, often three at a time working easily together to complete some complex motor task. 

Eventually they figured out that we - not the plant, or the penny - were the intelligent ones who had probed into their planet. We in turn figured out that they communicated in chemical compounds wafted through the air in dazzling complexity. They were the first to build machines that mimicked our voices - but we were already building. The little fluffballs, eternally guarded by their herder, set about teaching us how to talk. Each movement had a connected compound, so that you could follow their actions based on what they released. Then each action they did mechanically - scanning, building, commanding their nanobot hoards, had a compound combination too. Once you got actions they were modified into future or past - shown by repeating a phrase saying what one just did - or saying a phrase and then doing it. 

They grasped our language - or pieces of it - much more quickly. Names confused them, as did naming objects - but they grasped verbs instantly. Unable to figure out where names came in they inserted them randomly into conversations - so that their sound maker would say - “John scanning went well Rozanne today thank you.” -success and failure were another easy concept - emotions were hard to translate, but when we made the pheromones we thought connected with them - they started to understand. 

Then a huge shock. The herder reached out an arm and speared one of the fluffies, popping it into its mouth between its horns. The others froze for an instant and then relaxed, and continued on. We asked them about it, the speared tidbit had messaged out its actions as it was eaten. They repeated the action in future tense. A small correction - close, but not quite. 

*****************************************************

The story we eventually found was this. It was constrained by what they could show us - but we thought we understood.

We are little nibbles. Negation of being like the little round cereal we have seen you eat, although the similarity is striking. Negation of the act of you eating us. We are only little nibbles for the herder 

Rolling along failing to Scan, failing to talk, just generally stupid and being eaten by all sorts of things. Being eaten by that copy machine, being eaten by you, being eaten by the penny. Then being herded. Being protected and cared for. Time and energy to Scan, talk, big idea like suits and nanobots. Big idea like being eaten. Attraction to another little fuzzy attached to being eaten. 

“But don’t you not want to be eaten?”

Love, being eaten. Action of balancing this penny on my shield. Being eaten. When does your being eaten happen? Where are your predators?

“We don’t have any.” 

See our nanobots? Look. They reproduce and reproduce. Love. But see those other nanobots? They eat the first nanobots. Nothing but nanobots. Room for everyone.

Disapproval. Not being eaten is against nature.

*****************************************************

We began calling them “Lil’ Nibbles” after that, joking about their oddity, but a deep discomfort came over everyone on site. We continued to work with them, continually watchful of the herder as it languidly guarded them, not really taking us as threats anymore, but always ready to move. The Lil’ Nibbles continued to teach us things, their physics, chemistry, and astronomy - all things we thought we understood, were so far beyond ours, they had to learn our systems before telling us how they were wrong. They learned incredibly quickly, without any form of writing we could perceive - learned and applied each piece to everything we told them before or after. They were our intellectual superiors.  

It seemed that intelligence was a mating display. They had three genders, or quasi genders, one that would hunker down and begin forming an egg sac on the outside of her body, another that formed a protective layer around that, and a third that coated the whole thing in gel. Somewhere in the process they mingled some cells, and a new Lil Nibble hatched quickly in about five days.

The Lil’ Nibbles would come together as a triad if they were impressed by each other. Individuals didn’t have names, but briefly, in the five days it took for a new Lil Nibble to emerge, three would recognize each other, stay together, and protect their child. The herder wouldn’t bother them, and they would spend the time discussing an idea in insane depths. We saw two such births, and they discussed chemistry - far past what we could grasp, in the first, and philosophy in the second. 

Their morals were as alien as they were.

*****************************************************

The end came quickly and unexpectedly. A researcher asked to take a sample of their inner liquid, and a Lil’ Nibble agreed. The woman bent over with her needle poised. “This will probably hurt a little bit . . .”

And then the Predator was there. A horn slammed through her throat and she barely managed to scream before she crumpled, the man nearest her dove in to try and drag her back, and fell, skull sliced cleanly in half by a razor sharp arm.

Then a security officer at the door was firing his gun. He slammed against a wall, as the predator blurred, the second fired point blank, then dropped, a hole in his chest.

The predator stood there for a moment, eyes on fire, looking at the remaining researchers as if wondering who to kill next. Then it collapsed, clear liquid running across the floor. The lil nibbles were frozen.

The translator was just picking up a series of negations.

After that they gave up the will to live. They stopped reproducing, they stopped their constant inquiry. They mostly stopped talking to us. Perhaps it’s for the best. Your world is already inhabited, the herder wouldn’t have had anywhere to claim as its own, nowhere for it’s young to go out and claim new flocks. One little nibble told us via voice translator, sounding as if its heart wasn’t really in it.

On our home, another said, a herder would have come and claimed us.

“We’re not going to eat you.” The researcher said.

It is not your place.

That night they wiped our whole computer system of the location of their home.

*****************************************************

Three days after their predator died - they all went inside their building, and only after did we discover that the nanobots had stopped reproducing too. Their predator nano’s began eating everything, and by the time we brought them under control, all trace of the only other life in the universe - was gone.