# Once upon a time,
## in the distant future
### in space[[...->Lonely]]...there lived a lonely space creature. It didn't know it was lonely, because it had never met anyone else. It travelled all over space for a long, long time, looking at everything it could. It learned about space, and stars, and planets, and dirt and water and a thousand other things.
It learned how to listen to stars.
It learned how to steer comets.
It learned how to put [[rocks->Rock]] together and take them apart again.One day, it saw a strange rock floating nearby. At first it thought the rock was nothing special. Then the rock moved! The space creature took a closer look.
Not a comet.
Not an asteroid.
Not a [[rock->Rock2]]?The mystery object was mostly hollow. It was made of metal and plastic and glass and it was full of gas. The most interesting thing, though, is that it had tiny little blobs moving around inside it. Not just bouncing around randomly, or following the pull of gravity. Really moving.
What was this thing, and what were the [[blobs->Blobs]] inside? Could it be...another thinker?
This was very exciting to the space creature. First, it needed to learn more. Was the object and everything in it one organism? Were the blobs separate thinkers, connected to a strange sort of planet? The space creature found three blobs moving around. Sometimes they touched another thing made out of electricity.
The Pilot
One stayed mostly in a small hollow in the middle of the object. When it moved, the object moved.
The Engineer
Another spent most of its time in the back, where a tiny star made electricity and pushed the object around.
The Captain
The third moved all over, and touched the electric thing more than the other two.
The Computer
The electric thing was everywhere, all the time. Maybe it *was* the object, or maybe not.
The space creature wondered if any of them were [[thinkers->Thinkers]].Maybe all of them together made a thinker. If they thought, and the space creature thought, maybe they could think together. That would be something new.
First, the space creature pushed the object, just a little, to see what happened. The pilot blob and the computer saw what happened, but didn't decide it was a problem. It looked like they were both thinkers.
Second, the space creature turned off the tiny star, just for a second. The engineer blob and the computer got very worried, and started looking around to see what was going on. Another thinker!
Third, the space creature woke the captain blob from its nap. This made it very upset, and then all the blobs got together in one place for a while. Now the space creature was sure. All the blobs were thinkers, and the computer was too. The computer was a different kind though.
Last, the space creature put a [[message->Message1]] in the computer's thoughts.The space creature wrote:
[[:)->Part2]]"Something just sent me an emoji!" said the Computer.
"What?" said the Pilot.
"Who?" said the Captain.
"Which emoji?" said the Engineer.
The space creature [[listened->Listen1]].":)" said the Computer. "I think it wants to be our friend."
"Why did it push us, then?" said the Pilot.
"What does it want?" said the Captain.
"What is it?" said the Engineer.
The space creature [[listened->Listen2]].
"I think it can hear us." said the Computer. "If it understands, maybe it will answer."
The space creature did not understand. It had never been afraid, so it didn't know that the blobs were afraid. It tried to understand. These thinkers were different from itself. They couldn't see the space creature. They were not as strong. How could they be thinkers, then?
The space creature wrote:
[[?->Confused]]"It's confused," said the Computer. "I have an idea."
The Computer thought, and the space creature saw the thought. This thought was made of pictures: the Pilot, the Captain, the Engineer.
The space creature wrote:
pusher blob, wander blob, star blob
The Computer thought: space creature.
The space creature had an [[existential crisis->Existential Crisis]].It thought, for the first time, that it was it. It knew now there were other thinkers that were not it. That meant it was not Everything. It was like an asteroid, or a planet, or a star. A thing in space with all the other things.
This was very confusing for the space creature.
The space creature wrote:
I?
The Computer and the Blobs talked about this for a while. The space creature wasn't sure what to think. It went away to have [[some time to itself->Part3]].The space creature watched for a while. In addition to the Blobs moving around, it saw there were hundreds of other blobs...but they weren't moving, and they weren't thinking. It wasn't sure what that meant. Sometimes the Captain blob would go look at them. The Computer watched them all the time, but it watched everything all the time. The Computer and the Pilot blob thought about the object moving through space. They expected the object to be at another place in the future. Somewhere important.
The Blobs talked about the space creature a lot. They wondered when it would talk to them again.
The space creature wondered that too.
It also wondered why they were moving straight toward a [[star->Star]].The space creature wrote:
star?
"Our friend is back!" said the Computer. "It wants to know about a star."
"[[What star->Evasive Action]]?" said the Pilot.The space creature sent a picture. The Computer knew what it meant at once: the ship was on a collision course!
"Taking evasive action," said the Computer. "Our cameras made a mistake."
The Pilot was angry. The Captain was alarmed. The Engineer waited.
The ship turned, just a little bit (over a long distance, a little bit can mean a [[lot->Error]]).The space creature knew that the Blobs had made a mistake. They did not want to fly into the star. The star would have taken their ship apart, and maybe something worse. It was hard to understand. The space creature knew that if it hadn't told them, they would have...
...ended? The idea made the Blobs very upset.
It was like a star growing quiet and dark. Someday it wasn't a star any more.
The space creature thought about stars. What if all of them went quiet and dark?
What if all of the thinkers went quiet and [[dark->Engine]]?The Crew were upset. They weren't going to hit the star any more, but something else was wrong. The little star in their ship was tired. The mistake meant they couldn't get to the place they were going before...something [[bad->Bad]] happened.The space creature wrote:
bad?
The Computer thought: "We're in trouble, Friend."
Friend?
The Computer thought: "You. Friend. A person connected to another person because they want to be."
"Can we take a shorter route?" said the Pilot.
"Can you fix our engine?" said the Engineer.
"Can you [[help->Help]] us?" said the Captain.The space creature thought. It could help. The Crew wanted help. They were afraid of Ending.
Friend. A person connected to another person because they want to be. Want. The space creature had never wanted anything before.
The space creature remembered the time before the other thinkers. It didn't want that. Not at all.
The space creature wrote:
[[yes->Yes]]The ship moved from cold space to the Place, all at once. The Friend was surprised to see it was a different sort of planet than it had seen before. It had gas almost like in the ship. They must have picked it on purpose.
"Thank you," said the Computer.
"Thank you," said the Pilot.
"Thank you," said the Captain.
"A little to the North," said the Engineer. "We're underwater."
THE END