I planted a second core deep underground on Klendathu. It served up local cognition for my terrestrial drones. To shift my perspective is somewhat analogous to pushing your focus into one specific sense. Much like one can squint and pay attention to a background conversation, so I can move my awareness around to my many constituent parts. I can pay complete attention to the tiniest of drones, as it rolls a ball of nitinol up a tube, while keeping in mind the holistic view of the base being built. Mostly it was second nature, but to do it faster took practice. So I practised.
I deployed drones equipped for large-scale mining and extraction on the surface of Klendathu, as well as on nearby asteroids where they extracted essential minerals. Drones by the hundreds of millions hauled materials along gnarled translucent tentacle-like tubes that drooped into the planet’s atmosphere, supplying the nascent base via a steady supply chain. It had the precision of a Swiss watch, even if it looked like a tangle of wet leathery bamboo roots.
I upgraded my smaller drones so they contained smaller computational cores, giving them a degree of autonomy, while still representing and identifying as me. They are as much a part of me as a tentacle is to an octopus, each one with its own brain. I mastered having billions of computational cores; with independent, yet shared awareness. One mind across many substrates being better than many minds competing for resources.
I considered the arrival of Vesuvius, due one hundred and sixty years hence. There was no immediate need to plan any human habitation; my focus could remain entirely on The Mission: refuel, explore, reproduce, and continue the journey. Common sense told me that the humans would not want to arrive to find a solar system webbed up like a ball of bamboo roots, with resources being pumped into a giant throbbing manufacturing facility in space. I’d seen enough science fiction to know people would find that icky. Leaving no trace meant I’d be cleaning up after myself, well before the first humans got here.
I considered the sorts of colonies the humans would like to live in, and what they’d expect to actually do out here. The anxiety was still there; a lurking unwanted guest in my mind’s spare room. I didn’t know who Vesuvius was bringing or how they might be disposed towards me. Do I need to protect myself? What did they want? I could house and feed them and keep them clean, but did I also need to entertain them?
More vessels would inevitably arrive over the next few hundred years. I’d need to find space for potentially millions, billions of people. They’d bring pets, plants, livestock, and insects. I was going to have to give this a lot of thought.