Interlude: The Investigator
—it reaches out it reaches out it reaches out it reaches out— One hundred and thirteen times a second, nothing answers and it reaches out. It is not conscious, though parts of it are. There are structures within it that were once separate organisms; aboriginal, evolved, and complex. It is designed to improvise, to use what is there and then move on. Good enough is good enough, and so the artifacts are ignored or adapted. The conscious parts try to make sense of the reaching out. Try to interpret it.
Yeah that part really stuck with me. It's a good attempt at imagining alien or non-sentient intelligence. It kind of made me feel sorry for it, like you want it to become sentient and become alive so someone could give it a hug
I disagree about feeling sympathy for the protomolecule.