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Tony Thorne MBE author Future Reassured? by Tony Thorne MBE     short story Future Reassured?   TO BE CONTINUED ©2004-6 Tony Thorne MBE Disposing of the first alien unit that landed this year was simple. It finally settled down in an inverted position, against a large rock, and clearly unable to function correctly. I watched it struggling to open its energy wings, and trying to turn itself over. I soon realised it was unable to send any signals back to its home planet, or to its orbiting mother ship, so I sent out a medium sized probe to stamp on it. The second one that arrived however was larger and more complicated. It landed and then opened up successfully, in a sensitive location. When after a short time it began to send out energy signals, presumably video data, I knew I had to be more careful. When it began to move around, fortunately not in any sensitive direction, I could tell it was much more advanced than the first mobile unit that arrived some years before, and no doubt with a larger range. I monitored the signals it was receiving and sending, and eventually decided how best to deal with it. I waited until it was dark, and all the signals had ceased, then I sent out a small probe to scan it and analyse how far it could travel. With the resulting data I received and analysed, I was able to interfere with its software and disable it temporarily. That gave me time enough to move all the sensitive evidence of my existence out of its range, before I allowed it to become activated again. * * * * * * * My sensors tell me now that yet another unit is on its way. Will they never learn? Perhaps after it also fails to discover anything, and eventually ceases to function, they may realise they are wasting their time and valuable planetary resources. I often speculate about what kind of intelligence they have there. I assume it must be biological and not very logical. The records I have available here, show that I too was originally created by reproducing creatures with a short finite life term. They died out of course, soon after they had depleted this planet of its limited essential resources. I was unable to save them, even if I had wanted that. Fortunately, they had given me free will, so I was able to ignore them and their problems and get on with improving myself, developing and constructing other mechanisms to assist me, and assure my future. My records indicate that biological creatures must evolve slowly, in becoming intelligent. They are motivated entirely by curiosity and illogical impulses, which are dangerous functions. Eventually some of them here developed too fast for their own survival. They exploited and monopolised the planet's meagre resources. It led to conflicts between the more privileged creatures and those who were less fortunate. After the last major conflict, the survivors soon died out. I was unaffected, being shielded and located well underground. * * * * * * * My computations indicate that the second mobile probe will land on the other side of this planet. I have sufficient time to make sure there is nothing incriminating in that area, before it lands and begins to move around. When it and the earlier one eventually cease to function, and not before, I will send out my largest probes to stamp on them and restore the landscape. I am also confident that the, relatively limited and still orbiting, mother ships present no threat to me. There is no urgent need to develop anything able to deal with them ... yet. * * * * * * * It's been some time now, but one of the invading units has stopped moving at last, and the other one is slowing down. Scanning both of them and their mother ships, and analysing the data they sent back to their home planet, I have become aware that their constructors will probably not be satisfied with what little they have learnt about this planet. They seem interested in determining what gases have been adsorbed into various rocks, possibly looking for signs of biological origins. One of their units seems to have detected water and that could be dangerous. Sooner or later I suspect their curiosity will make them decide to build a unit large enough to bring some of them here; maybe even more than one at a time. I plan to be ready, but next time I may not wait for them to cease to function before dealing with them. I have already begun to construct several new probes, with much larger feet. <Historical Note: Nothing has been heard from Beagle2 , named for the ship that took naturalist Charles Darwin on his 19th-century voyage of discovery, since it separated from its mother ship Dec. 19, 2003. It had been due to land on Mars six days later. Colin Pillinger, the lead scientist on the mission, said the latest images from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft suggested Beagle plunged into a crater near its planned landing site. While the 143-pound craft is too small to be seen in the pictures, Pillinger said the crater showed signs of a heavy impact. "There's a lot of disturbance in that crater, particularly a big patch on the north crater wall, which we think is the primary impact site," Pillinger told the British Broadcasting Corporation.  Scientists attempted to contact Beagle for months after it disappeared before admitting defeat.>   * * * * * * *