Space Dust, Alive and Playing Interstellar Marbles

If interstellar dust is capable of assuming DNA-like patterns, it might have already evolved into intelligent forms of life.

If so, what do the space dust aliens like to do with their free time? Play games and make bets, of course.

When we started betting there wasn't anything yet that might lead you to foresee anything, except for a few particles spinning around, some electrons scattered here and there at random, and protons all more or less on their own. I started feeling a bit strange, as if there was going to be a change of weather (in fact, it had grown slightly cold), and so I said: "You want to bet we're heading for atoms today?'' And Dean (k)yK said: "Oh, cut it out. Atoms! Nothing of the sort, and I'll bet you anything you say.

So I said: "Would you even bet ix?''

The Dean answered: "Ix raised to en!''

He had no sooner finished saying this than around each proton its electron started whirling and buzzing. An enormous hydrogen cloud was condensing in space. "You see? Full of atoms!''

That's from an Italo Calvino short story called "How Much Shall We
Bet?" It's found in Cosmicomics, a collection of stories told by galaxies, dinosaurs, mollusks and other forms of life. For sheer, playful delight in science, nothing beats it.

How Much Shall We Bet? [Italo Calvino]