Chapter 2004: Nudge

Ning’s interest immediately grew.

If Crownus was certain the people on the planet would not die, then there was clearly something about them Ning had not seen yet. He turned his attention back toward the distant world and examined the asteroid’s path again, trying to estimate how long remained before impact.

"Are we going to stand here for another three months?" Ning asked.

"No," Crownus replied. "Something should happen very soon."

He turned toward Ning. "Surely you can foresee what is about to happen."

"I can if I want to, but that ruins the surprise, so I try not to."

Ning looked at him, then at the asteroid beneath them. He wondered what was going to happen soon. There was surely something else about the situation he had yet to account for.

Before he could ask, Crownus lifted away from the asteroid and floated into open space.

Ning followed without hesitation, moving far enough away that the enormous rock could continue along its path without either of them interfering with it. Once they were at a suitable distance, Crownus stopped, and Ning did the same.

The two of them watched.

For the next few minutes, nothing changed. The asteroid continued toward the planet while the white trail behind it grew more visible, spreading across the darkness as material escaped from the warming surface.

Then Ning noticed several points of light ahead.

At first, they were too distant to make out clearly, but they were moving directly toward the asteroid.

Ning focused his gaze on them.

"Oh?"

The lights resolved into machines.

Massive machines.

Dozens of mechanical figures were rapidly approaching through space, each one shaped like a humanoid and standing several dozen meters tall. They had arms, legs, torsos, and heads built from layers of metal and machinery, though their designs varied considerably from one another.

Some were broader and heavily armored, while others were thinner and built with long limbs. Their outer plating came in bright colors that made them surprisingly easy to distinguish even from a distance.

Ning watched with growing interest as they approached.

"Robots?"

Crownus did not answer immediately.

The machines reached the asteroid and spread out across one side of it, positioning themselves at different points along the enormous surface. Once they were in place, powerful bursts of energy erupted from their bodies as they began pushing.

Ning’s eyebrows rose.

They were not trying to destroy the asteroid.

They were changing its course.

The machines pressed against the rock from the same general direction, their engines producing enough thrust that the asteroid slowly began developing sideways momentum. Against something this large, the movement was far too small for an ordinary observer to notice, but Ning could sense the change almost immediately.

He quickly considered the numbers, though they did not require much calculation.

Even if the machines only gave the asteroid a sideways velocity of a single millimeter per second, that tiny difference would accumulate over the remaining distance. By the time the asteroid reached the planet’s orbit, its path would have shifted by more than seven thousand five hundred kilometers.

That alone could be enough to prevent the collision.

And the machines were producing far more force than that.

Ning watched the trajectory gradually change and smiled.

"That’s clever."

Destroying an asteroid of this size would have been wasteful and potentially even more dangerous. Breaking it apart could simply turn one enormous impact into thousands of smaller ones unless they had enough power to completely remove the debris.

Changing its trajectory required much less energy.

The earlier the change was made, the less force they needed.

Within a short time, Ning could already tell that the asteroid was no longer headed directly toward the planet. The machines continued pushing anyway, adding a greater margin of safety before eventually needing to disengage.

Ning studied them more closely.

They were clearly not autonomous construction machines. He could imagine complicated internal structures, control systems, and compartments that strongly suggested each of them had been designed around a pilot.

A civilization capable of building humanoid machines dozens of meters tall and sending them into space to alter the trajectory of an extinction-level asteroid was not primitive by any standard.

"They’re quite advanced," Ning said.

This explained Crownus’s confidence.

The people on the planet had detected the asteroid long before it reached them, calculated its trajectory, and sent out machines capable of stopping the disaster without needing outside help.

Ning continued watching the colorful mechanical figures work.

He had encountered advanced technology before, even entire civilizations built around it. This was the first time he had seen one with giant robots such as these. There was something inherently excessive about building a giant humanoid body when there were probably dozens of more efficient designs for moving through space.

That usually meant the shape existed for a reason beyond simple engineering.

Culture, perhaps.

Or combat.

Knowing intelligent species, Ning suspected both.

He looked toward Crownus. "Is this what you wanted me to see?"

Crownus turned his head slightly.

"A civilization that managed to create giant piloted robots?" Ning continued. "They’re interesting, but I assume there’s more to this."

"The people of this world did not create those robots," Crownus said.

Ning looked back toward the machines.

For a moment, he wondered whether Crownus meant they had been imported from another planet, or perhaps inherited from some older civilization. That would have been unusual, but hardly impossible.

Then Crownus continued.

"The robots are the people of this world."

Ning froze for a long few seconds. "What? Are there no people manipulating those giant robots?"

"No, those robots themselves are sentient beings," Crownus said. "They are the people of this world."

Ning frowned slightly. "People implies they have Souls. Do these robots have Souls?"

"They do," Crownus said. "Each and every single one of these robots on this planet has a Soul inside them that governs their body."

Ning’s eyes widened in shock. "How?"

Crownus’s face nearly formed a smile.

"This is what I wanted to show you," it said. "This... was my first attempt at a System."