The Probe was one meter long, one half meter in diameter. It had been speeding through space for many years, approaching its destination. It was aimed for an M class start, with eleven planets, toward one edge of the giant galaxy. It had been so long since it was launched the Probe's makers had probably forgotten about it. But it continued the assigned mission.

As it passed the orbits of the two outer planets, the Probe began a braking maneuver that would last for several months. It slowed as it approached the inner planets, passing the big gas giants that had become a standard around this type of star.

The makers of the Probe had built it to search for life. They had launched several hundred of similar Probes in all directions extending out from their planet. The Probes were sent toward class M stars without foreknowledge of existing planets just on the bet that one or more of the stars would have planets sustaining life analogous to theirs.

The Probe continued to break as it approached the inner rings of planets. If there were to be a planet like theirs, it would be in closer. The optics in the Probe found and focused on each planet in the system. The software in its computerized brain told it that there were three planets that appeared likely as life-supporting. The Probe's computer delivered an impulse that caused a rocket motor to nudge the Probe slightly, vectoring toward the three planets. As it drew closer, the programming continued to interrogate the data and finally settle on one planet as the most likely in this system to support life. Another nudge put the Probe on a convergence course toward the likely planet.

The Probe was rewarded with a jewel of a planet. It shone bright blue in the reflected sunlight. There were several large continents evident, and each was covered in bright green. Allowing a certain randomness to enter the programming, the Probe picked a continent and its computer programmed a slow descent with a soft landing. It came through the burn of atmospheric entry as designed, and landed in text-book fashion utilizing rocket fuel stored centuries before. Within minutes, the Probe was sitting in the center of a burn scar less than two meters across and the Probe's computer had converted from space traveler to planet interrogator.

With several appendages, each extending a meter, the Probe reached about collecting specimens of soil. Each specimen was subjected to tests to decide the likelihood of the building blocks of life. In each case, the samples failed, and the evidence mounted further that there was no life here. After five local days of testing and investigating, the Probe had left dig scars in a circle all around where it stood. The Probe's computer reconverted to space traveler and boosted the Probe out of the atmosphere into high orbit. The flash burn of its rocket motor scarred the land in a circle no larger than the one landing had done.

It's entire mission had been toward this single event. It had to choose of two messages to broadcast. The decision was made according the outcome of the experiments that had taken place in the Probe's internal laboratory. The decision was easy, the Probe aligned itself toward its home star and sent the message in a final burst of energy. Then it went dark, dysfunctional, until its orbit decayed, several years later.

The message raced across the universe. Years later it would be received on the home planet. It would be an echo of messages received over the centuries, and would pre-echo messages yet to be received. The message was clear, there is no life anywhere else in the universe. The message was unheard. The creators of the Probe had been destroyed long before by their own greed and shortsightedness. There was no life there, either.

As the Probe's orbit decayed, it left a bright smear of light and smoke across the sky. Robin was looking up into the twilight sky at the time and unknowingly witnessed the celestial farewell. She often looked at the stars. She often wondered if there was anyone else up there. She glanced down at Paul. He never thought of such things. All he ever thought of was his stupid farm. She looked back at the gathering darkness and the growing number of stars in the sky. She couldn't understand why, with all the land he owned, why he might be so concerned about a silly little barren patch, less than seven feet across, that stopped supporting plant life, and refused to grow anything.

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