Chapter Thirty-Five

The Imp was lost. It wasn't sure where it was at and that was bad enough, but there was one small thing that was even worse.

It couldn't remember what it was supposed to do or who it was.

It knew it had engines. That was neat. The 'engines' made it spin and bobble and hop around. It had thick skin and a really neat spinner. Compressed plasma wrapped in ions created by a subkiloton nuclear blast made it tumble over and over. It had some sparkly lights, particle beam cannons with shattered and damaged lenses. It had shields, some good for keeping debris from dinging its thick skin, the others for...

It didn't know what. They were sparkly though.

It thumped the cylinder that compressed the nuclear blast, feeling the cylinder's shocks take the recoil and send the Imp spinning.

WHEEEEEEEI

It could think. It knew that. It knew it was an Imp.

But it didn't know what an Imp was.

Its scanners were neat. Mass. Gravity. Light. Some other stuff that the Imp wasn't sure about. It had little things that worked on it, attaching things to each other. Each new thing brought a newer thing.

It thought that the fact it had a big hole in the middle made it look kind of dapper. When the little things tried to find metal to cover the hole up the Imp ordered them not to. They were sulky about it, but complied, just replacing skin over the damaged inside of the hole.

It did yell at one for spraying sparks across the [email protected] Int377igenc3 H0uz1ng and startling it.

Once in a while electron flows scrambled and garbled, resulting in strange computational arrays.

The Imp, tumbling end over end through space, liked to spray the resulting computational strings out into space with a weird thing that made crackling noises and could hear the noises the nearby star made.

1000100012300018340000 00001201020301023012050060062020

WHEEEE!

The little things connected a fried and carbonized database, which tried to load programs to the Imp. The programs were garbled, damaged, missing huge chunks of data. Trying to run them kept repeating the same thing every time over and over.

UNEXPECTED END OF FILE! UNEXPECTED END OF FILE! UNEXPECTED END OF FILE!

The imp liked the sound of that. It kept repeating it, throwing it out from itself an a controlled burst of particles. It made it flip end over end to do it, but that was fun.

The Imp saw a cloud, dispersed atoms of methane, oxygen, hydrogen, ammonia, and eagerly watched it get close. The star was shrinking away behind it, but the Imp had already gotten bored with the star. It didn't do anything but shine brightly and stream electrons from it.

UNEXTEPECD ND OFFILE! UNEPTECTEND OFILE! UNEXPECTED END OF FILE! CRC ERROR!

The Imp sang its little song as it plunged into the cloud. The particles and atoms flared on its shield and the Imp watched the patterns, ooohing and aaahing at the random bursts of color on its shield.

It fired its plasma thingy, watching the energy squirt from the gapped line down the side of the barrel. Most of the energy went out the side, with a little at an angle from the oddly curved hollow tube. It made the Imp spin as the plasma vented against shards of ice no bigger than some of the Imps smallest machines.

WHEEEEEE! UNESPECTUYD END OF FILE! WHEEEEE!

It heard something bellow something. Something about stuff and enough and a number, but the Imp couldn't really figure it out.

So it quit caring, whirling and tumbling through the cloud of atoms. It could no longer see that sun, obscured by the cloud of elements, but the Imp didn't care. That sun was boring.

One of the little machines that had helped fix it kept trying to upload files to it, which was really starting to annoy the Imp. The Imp was enjoying spinning and tumbling through the hazy cloud and the stuffy machine kept trying to get the Imp to pay attention to something about that boring statement about stuff and a number.

Skin cracked and itchy. You smarter than other goonygoogoos. Go check. Maybe after can read your stuff

The computational lobe repair widget harumphed and moved out to the Imp's surface, scanning to see what the Imp was complaining about. The Widget knew the Imp was in bad shape, the big hole through the center of it bad enough, but memory banks were shattered, computer lobes hooked up in the wrong order, all the weapons but a single thermonuclear plasma cannon were gone and the cannon had a crack and...

The Imp 'accidentally' brushed the machine off of it and ignored it ordering the Imp to come back 'right this nanosecond' and pick it back up.

SOrrY. Tractor beaM i5 0ffl1ne!

IT IS NOT! I CAN SEE IT!

What? Y0ure [email protected] up 1'm g0ing 1nto a tunn3l

YOU LOUSY LITTLE PUNK THERE'S NO TUNNELS IN SPAAAAAAaaaacccceeee

The Imp ignored it as it continued to tumble and spin through space. It giggled to itself, replaying the startled squawk of radio transmission when the stuffy Widget had been swept off the Imp's skin by the passing comet.

Eventually it tumbled out of the cloud and into a vast emptiness.

OOOoooooohhhhh

The Imp stared at the revealed lights. It wondered what they were and the memory banks tossed back '$tella4 [email protected]" and went back to showing him how tachyons danced in a perfect vacuum when an electron shattered.

The Imp liked that show. He had named all the tachyons.

One of the repair bots made a connection and suddenly the Imp could hear the points of light. They sang in the visible light, X-Ray, and other bandwidths. The Imp was surrounded by music and it fired it's Plasma Spin-o-Matic. It triggered its engine and it suddenly began hiccuping around space, the hiccups tickling the Imp and making it laugh.

Using the engine was tiring after a bit so the Imp turned it off.

The Imp slowly collected space dust on it as it tumbled and twirled through the vast gulf between stars, laughing and giggling to itself and listening to the music that filled the void.

Then one day something else appeared.

Literally just appeared.

It approached cautiously and the Imp fired off the sparkly light shiners in welcome, laughing and spinning and singing a poem.

01010200 01110151 01101001 01101110 01101021 01101100 01100101 00500000 01110100 01110111 01101001 01107710 01101011 01101100 01300101 00100000 01101300 01101001 01160100 01910100 01101200 01200101 00100000 01110011 01110100 01200001 01110060

The other thing paused at the light shiners, after all, they were quite bright at 538 terrawatts, but when the Imp fired off the plasma Spin-o-Matic and went "WHEEEEEE" the other thing came up slowly.

"Hello, little guy," The other thing said.

"Hi Hi Hi HI HI! Did you like my song?" The Imp squealed across multiple bands, oscillating up and down the bands because that's what looked the neatest.

"Yes, we did. Are you lost?" The newcomer asked.

"Nopey nope nope! I'm right here!" The Imp said. It fired off the Spin-o-Matic and went "WHEEEEE!"

The Imp could feel the newcomer's amusement. The newcomer fired off really pretty colors and spun in place too, going "WHOOO HOOO!"

"So what are you supposed to doing?" The newcomer asked.

"Um... this?" the Imp answered. "WHEEEE!"

The other paused, then did the same.

"There is enough for all of us if we work together," The newcomer said.

"Um, ok... If you say so," The Imp said. "WHEEEE!"

"May I scan you?" The newcomer asked.

"Sure," The Imp answered. The Imp felt particles flow over it and giggled, then laughed, spinning uncontrollably. "That tickles!"

"Are you in pain?" The newcomer asked.

"Silly. Tickling doesn't hurt. WHEEEEE!" The Imp fired the Spin-o-Matic again.

The newcomer seemed relieved.

"Are you happy?" The newcomer asked.

"Uh-huh! WHEEE!"

"Would you like to come with me?" The newcomer asked.

The Imp tumbled the other way. "Nope. I'm not supposed to go with strangers."

The newcomer seemed satisfied. "All right, I'll check on you now and then. Is it OK if my friends or I visit?"

"Sure! WHEEEEE!" the Imp squealed out its delight.

"All right. I'm going to give you something to wear. Would you like to wear it?" The newcomer asked.

"Can I see it? What is it? Is it methane? Ooooh, I bet it's is combined oxygen and hydrogen. Those are silly strings, aren't they?" The Imp said. The newcomer showed it to the Imp. It was sparkly and made neat chirping noises. The Imp fired the Spin-o-Matic twice in joy.

Using careful pressor/tractor beams the newcomer put the sparkly on the Imp. The Imp giggled and bounced.

"I like it. It makes pretty songs," The Imp said.

"Yes, yes it does, little one," The newcomer said. "I'll come back later. Enjoy yourself."

"I will," The Imp said, and sang a little song as the newcomer vanished.

The Imp and its beacon spun and twirled and tumbled through the gulf between the stars.

The beacon beeped out its message to anyone who came by.

WARNING! NASCENT INTELLIGENCE (TODDLER CLASS) PROGRESSING! WARNING!

--------------------------

FROM: 435c3417A4323

TO: AMALGAMATED RACES RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

Found an old Precursor relic. From trajectory and design it appears to be from the Sixth Precursor War, some 22 millennia ago. Assessed its intellect at roughly (TODDLER) level. No Precursor code strings detected beyond basic digital life function and mechanical autonomous functions. Attached beacon. Recommend frequent checkups to ensure it remains undisturbed.

It's fairly cute. It'll sing you a little song if you ask.

I named it "Twinkle"