The device flew over the area. They had instructed it to look for a more conclusive form of life, and what they had found had left them stunned. It could be said that what the drone was transmitting was leaving them ‘speechless’, in human terms.
“Your theories are falling apart one by one,” stated MIRV-Spdb.
“The Biped has detected the device,” confirmed SAIR-Spda.
“Certainly. It has stopped its movement and turned one hundred eighty degrees.”
“Because it has sensors in the front.”
“Not necessarily. It may have detected it through radar, or picked up the emission of the modulated signal, or isotopic radiation, or even by the pressure waves the device exerts in the gaseous medium.”
“Agreed. But its main sensors are in the front. If you look, there are two small, perfectly defined protrusions that rotate and follow the drone. I bet those are its primary information input gates.”
MIRV checked some of the data the little explorer was transmitting and said:
“The being detects electromagnetic radiation in a wavelength range between 400 and 700 nanometres.”
“Therefore, it can only do so when S [the star] is above the horizon.”
“Exactly. As the rotation of P [the planet] takes place, these sensors lose effectiveness until they are neutralised. When S [the star] illuminates the opposite hemisphere, they are useless.”
“Unless an alternative light source is provided.”
“Artificial.”
“That’s it. When we arrived, the dark side showed clear signs of that activity.”
“In any case, this breaks all your schemes,” remarked MIRV. “It is clear that it is L [a living being], and it has C [carbon] as its main constituent element.”
“Yes, but how does it support itself? R’ [the reptant] individual we dissected had little mass and could confine its circuits within C [the carbon] structure. But this... It’s two orders of magnitude larger.”
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“Two point zero eight orders of magnitude, specifically. It must have an endoskeleton.”
“Made of M [metallic] nature.”
MIRV asked the drone to send an X-ray emission to the being, and when he received the data, he said:
“Now I agree with you. The endoskeleton is M [metal]. Specifically formed by C’ Calcium, according to the data I just checked.”
“C’ [calcium]... is not a very conductive M [metal], precisely.”
“The role it plays in B [that being] is not precisely conducting electricity. Like in the case of R’ [the reptant] or O’ [the octopod], this is done through ions, as we saw before.”
“Now I understand,” SAIR realized, checking some geological data. “C’ [calcium] is very present in the crust of P [this planet], and the erosion it undergoes from W [water] makes its bioavailability high.”
“Correct. And that makes us think that CB [carbon-based beings] have not been created by B [other beings] but have grown here spontaneously.”
“Could these beings be Cx [our creators]? If you notice, unlike the others, B [that being] is more versatile. Its upper limbs end in several small appendages that are able to grasp and hold tools. They could manipulate fire with the help of intermediate elements and melt M [metals].”
“Yes,” he agreed. “Besides, they have the necessary size for it. What doesn’t quite fit is that they are B [bipedal]. Why would E’’ [evolution] have chosen such an unstable form of movement? G [gravity] of this P [planet] is large enough to rule out that possibility. Wouldn’t it have been better to add more contact limbs?”
“Yes,” he argued. “But then we can start thinking that they are not native to here, and that their C [creators] come from a place with less G [gravity]. They created that form because they were like that.”
“It’s a possibility. With this level of G [gravity], the minimum is the tripod, and even that wouldn’t be very efficient.”
“Of course. It’s curious that O’ [the octopod] we dissected earlier, being a lower level of L [life], was constructed in a more efficient way than B [these bipeds] that are clearly more sophisticated. Isn’t it a contradiction?”
“It is, indeed. Because, if you’re going to build a more advanced device, why not give it better sustainability and greater power of advancement?”
“Exactly. Another mystery. The hexapod is the ideal solution. Four hind limbs to support a body, and two front limbs to handle tools. Whoever built A [the ancestor] knew what they were doing.”
“It’s the ideal solution for G [gravity] like this. So, we shouldn’t rule out P [this planet] as the origin of C [the creator].”
“Certainly. We need to investigate more. Could we bring B [that being] to the ship?”
“No. It’s too large. We would have to dissect it ‘in situ’. The question is whether it would serve any purpose. From the measurements that D [the drone] has sent, we have more than enough data to conclude that it is B [a being] like the other two we saw, although, yes, more advanced.”