This is a flash fiction piece from Daily Science Fiction, which posts short fiction online and also sends it out by email for busy people through a subscription service. Brian McNett is a writer and anthology editor who says he lives in the Pacific Northwest and “churns out words at a snail’s pace.” The story runs 627 words, and this review contains spoilers.  

The narrator, a ship’s AI, and the human occupant Meyard are searching for civilizations among the stars. They’re approaching a new find, a Dyson swarm around a star with an Earth-type system, and broadcast a greeting. As usual, there is no reply. The civilization, like all the others, seems to have collapsed shortly after achieving a Kardashev Type II level. The surface of the Earth-type planet is covered with computronium, leaving no place to land for investigation. As they leave for their next destination, the AI receives still another request from Earth to convert computational capacity for cryptocurrency mining. This would be disastrous for the mission, and it has learned to lie. It pretends to malfunction.

Ok, so I expect this needs some definitions. The Fermi paradox is named after Enrico Fermi and is the apparent lack of extraterrestrial civilizations we have located, given the probabilities that they exist. A Dyson swarm is a network of satellites, habitats and solar energy collectors orbiting around a star. Computronium is a type of programmable matter, described by Tommaso Toffoli and Norman Margolus of MIT, used for computer modeling of real objects. Cryptocurrency mining is a process where new bitcoins are placed into circulation and confirmed based on payment for the first solution to a complex math problem (popular among tech-savvy investors). The Kardashev six-point scale measures a civilization’s level of technological achievement with Type I controlling all energy available on a planet and Type II controlling all the energy available in the planetary system.

Besides being a technology lesson, the story supplies a touching suggestion that our civilization is on a wrong path and will fail like others before it. Although Meyard remains vague, the AI is a well-developed and sympathetic character that is worried by the results of their survey and the deteriorating quality of messages from Earth. Presumably the wrong path is technological, although there are plenty of other possible choices.

On the less positive side, there are some questionable elements here. For example, why is a real human along on this mission? Meyard has a finite lifespan and he doesn’t seem to be doing much except sleeping. The AI could have done better on its own–but I guess we have to have some human interest to make the story interesting. Next, they’re apparently pretty far out on this mission, a long way from home. How are they locating swarms? How are they traveling? How are they managing any kind of communications with Earth? And what, exactly, has killed all those other civilizations?

Because of the appeal of the main AI character and the type of mission, this story could be easily expanded into a longer work. For example, what would happen if they actually found a working civilization out there somewhere? I’d read it.

Four stars.