The probe couldn’t determine in which part of the universe it was, or who exactly reeled it in from the depths of space, even though it tried to. It searched its memory for what little knowledge of its location remained. The probe had been jam-packed with the data of observations, pictures, experiences, calculations, and every bit and byte of information collected through its light years of travel, this data untapped and still stored in its memory banks. When it suddenly felt some strange force fingering the sum of this all-important data from its mission, however, it could do nothing else but shut itself off again like a child in a crib who refuses to let go of a new toy, or the baby in a high chair who refuses his food from the hand of his worried mother.
As it turned out, however, as t
