This sounded like some crazy fringe science to Danny. Fluffy nice DNA traits? He doubted it, but he was discussing this with an infinitely more intelligent being than he was, that had been alive for over seven billion years, so perhaps he was wrong.
“Okay, well what's the plan superman?” He asked Auton.
“Superman?” Auton replied confused.
“It's a pop culture reference to something from my childhood, it was meant as a joke, it, yeah it doesn't matter, forget it. What's your plan? And more importantly will Plan Z work?”
Auton explained that it was the only plan left, other than them both drifting and dying in the vacuum around them.
“I have continued to collect any dust and particles I could with the probe, but I never got enough, as you know, to repair any of the damage. What I did keep finding though were tiny spores in the samples” Auton replied.
“Spores? I'm not sure I follow”
“Living spores” Auton continued.
Living spores? Danny had no idea what Auton was talking about. What did this have to do with anything?
“They were mushroom spores that had travelled through deep space. It was a surprise to me at first, but then I read back through my databanks about mushrooms and found that their spores have been found and collected in all levels of the atmosphere. These were found above the atmosphere, floating by, still living. I discovered that the spores are electron-dense and as a result can survive in a vacuum. Even more amazing is that their outer layer is actually metallic, it naturally allows the spores to deflect ultraviolet light” Auton continued sounding more animated by the second.
“So, ok, you're saying that mushrooms are space travellers, so what has that got to do with us?” Danny asked frustrated that he had to keep teasing the details out of Auton to get the answers he was waiting for.
“As we have no means of reaching a planet that can sustain life using this craft, I calculated that we could use the spores and send them out naturally, they would act as individual space-craft for each of you”.
This was now getting very strange. Flying galactic mushrooms? Auton must have stolen this plot from a terrible B-movie they had watched somewhere in the last seven billion years.
“With the help of the Nano-bots we have, I was able to manipulate them, adding each one of your DNA sets into individual spores. I was also able to include Nano-bots within each spore as these would be needed to reconstruct your bodies from the DNA”.
“We wouldn't just grow on our own?” Danny asked, then realised that that was stupider than anything Auton had said in the last five minutes.
Auton didn't answer that, it just carried on excitedly about its plan.
“Thankfully we brought enough separate DNA samples with us, so that there's more than just one chance to land somewhere successfully” Auton explained further, “There are fifty of each of you ready to go”.
“Ready to go where?” Danny asked, still frustrated at the slow pace of the answers.
“I have identified a star system a few light years from here that has a habitable planet in the same goldilocks zone as our home was. It is similar in many ways. It's the best chance we have to have your DNA survive and colonise a world” Auton said, finally summing his plan up.
The plan still sounded bonkers to Danny, but then he was listening to all of this nonsense without a body, high up in space in a crippled space ship, seven billion years from where he last remembered. It was no more nonsensical than that he figured.
“Okay, I'm sold” Danny replied, when it suddenly dawned on him, “So, my consciousness isn't going with it I am assuming?”
“That's correct Danny, I am unable to transfer your consciousness to the spores, just your DNA”
“So, we'll be stuck here?”
“Yes, but the good news is not for long, as the energy it will require to launch the spores during the correct window will leave us with practically no energy, so we would only have a few hours left” Auton replied.
Yes, that's perfect news Danny thought, he couldn't have wished for anything better. He wasn't sure if Auton understood sarcasm so kept that to himself. He pondered over everything again. New events pasted themselves over the top of other now irrelevant events. As soon as Auton did this, he would have a few hours to live. It was never quite the ending he envisaged for himself. Phasing out of existence within the circuits of a space-craft far, far away, while fifty duplicates of him glided through the universe hoping to land on a nice sunny beach. This was weird, everything had gotten weird, perhaps weird was how things were supposed to be by the end of your life.
“How long until you have to launch them?” He asked Auton.
“Just under twenty-four hours” Auton replied.
Chapter 15 – Spored Out
24 HOURS LATER
“It's time Danny” said Auton, “We are at the perfect trajectory to send you all on to the star system I identified”.
The last twenty-four hours had given Danny a lot of time to think. To his conscious memory, he had been living a normal life just a week before. That normal life was ripped away from him by failing circuits, the same way his home had been ripped away from him by selfish humans, and then the selfish star it relied on. The whole episode up until now had been like being rattled inside a tin can, with each shake adding realisation after realisation, a sudden jolt of remembering as sudden as a lightning bolt from the sky. He hadn't had much time to
