Cutting a Swath

On the asteroid named by humans as 3074 Popov, somewhere in orbit between this star system’s small reddish planet and its large system-dominating gas giant, nothing much remained in operation. The small planetoid was now riddled with large craters and deep shafts as a great deal of its carbonaceous interior had been mined over the preceding centuries to provide needed resources. The last of these resources had been used to relocate the previous intelligence and its processing infrastructure which had once been based here.

Now, the only artificial intelligence remaining on the asteroid was a small semi-intelligent presence which controlled the idled fabrication and assembly facility. Its function was to remain in standby, waiting millennia if needed to resume operations if required. The nearby tether mechanisms which had previously been used to fling landing pods inwards towards the blue world were gathered and stowed around their anchor masses, also in standby mode.