Nanobot Future, by Peter Morford

They had been watching the sun for many of their own revolutions and could already see the signs of its ultimate inflation. But for now it was well worth visiting.  There had been evidence of intelligent life on its third planet and it would be in the interests of science to take a closer look.

            There were the usual arguments about finance.  How, people asked, could the Ruling Party countenance the danger, effort and expense in an enterprise which could bring no benefit for generations to come?   How long would it take to travel the 7 light years?

        The boffins did the sums and made a concession.  “We’ll not send live souls, we’ll use micro-organic robots. They are expendable.”

            “How long?” the sceptic repeated.

            “At 10% of the speed of light – 70 years.  One way.”

            On Earth, if there had been any men on it, they would have said the date was AD10,301. But Man and all the mammals and marine creatures were long gone from a planet which only supported plant life south of Capricorn and north of Cancer belts.  The rest was hot enough to melt tallow.  From the trickle of water that had been the great oceans mountains rose 7 miles high.

            The arguments were over at last. The exploration was on.

            It wasn’t much of a spectacle. In the early days a space launch was dramatic and noisy. Crowds would watch the great tube hoist itself into the sky, belching fire, dropping bits off until it disappeared into the ether.

            But now, in AD10303, a very small craft took off with the dignity of an aircraft, went into low orbit and, well out of sight of its sponsors, released a cloud of microbots which would stream away, driven by the solar wind and cyclotron radiation. They would sail separately and only reunite at their destination. Earth.

            The trillions of ‘bots, tethered to their sails, orbited Earth for several weeks before choosing a landing place near the edge of the fertile region. They discarded their sails and gathered together on a flat plain.

            Only insects would have seen them. The bigger ones picked up individual microbots, found them indigestible and cast them out.

            The microbots formed  themselves into machines; diggers, chemical laboratories, transmission devices, vehicles for both land and air. 

            They started to dig in the hard ground, looking for evidence of intelligent life.

             They were still digging and moving and digging again in AD10506.  Nothing yet, they reported.

            Mission aborted.