Khadam left the bike in the shadow of an abandoned sand tower, downwind of the city made of sand, downwind of all those nomads.

Well, if they built a city, they weren’t exactly nomads, were they?

Her boots crunched on the dry, hardened sand that had been shed from the tower. From the shadow, she could see the ship - the ancient hull of a gate walker - where it lay prone, half submerged in the water. The ship’s narrow bulk was surrounded slopes of sand, where the nomads had built a land bridge, connecting ship to shore.

The whole ship was covered in those sand monoliths, and some of their peaks wavered with heat. From the topside exhaust ports? Khadam wondered. Which could mean the ship was still, somehow, powered up.

A whole civilization, living on the fumes of a single ship.

Finder was in that city, somewhere. He had rinsed himself in the ocean to rid himself of her scent, and then he hovered out over the water, until all she could see of him was a tiny gray speck, disappearing against the backdrop of those enormous mud towers.

So, Khadam had nothing to do but watch. Fortunately, the longer she stared at the city, the better her eye augments adjusted, until she could see a few worker nomads, crawling out of the cracks in the hills and towers. Repairing damage from the wind, or the sea. Gluing the city back together.

Above, the light from the scar was a rippling gray. Not quite as bright as sunlight. More like a bright pale moon, if it were shaped like a tear in sky-colored fabric. If she stared at it long enough, she could just make out the light dam floating there. An engine the size of a city, floating just outside the scar. Harnessing it. And holding it back.

For how much longer?

The light dams had been designed to last. There was a complex ecosystem, both mechanical and biological, built up around them. But that had been back in the early days, when they were still holding onto their optimism. Before they knew what they were dealing with.

Damn them.

Damn them for giving up.

Khadam blinked. There was a cloud of yellow dust, rising up from one of the towers. So faint at first, that she wasn’t sure if it was really there. And then, it rolled down the hills, moving faster than any nomad. It drew a cloudy line over the beach, and then dust became mist as Finder left the beach, and sped across the ocean.

“Find it?” she called, as he approached in a wide arc over the water.

His repulsors flipped to the front, pushing against his momentum, sending up a spray of wet sand that splattered the side of the ruined nomad tower. Just missing her, and the bike.

“It’s underneath the central structure. The Claw, you called it.” Finder pointed with one appendage, towards that squat, wide shape at the center of the ship-peninsula. The Claw had four crooked fingers around the ring of its top, each one pointing up towards the sky.

“Any idea how old the ship is? I’d very much like to know how long I’ve been here.”

“Khadam,” his screen flickered. Something was wrong. “You need to see this.”

Khadam wrapped her arms around herself, and moved closer.

On the screen, there was a video of a man, sitting in front of a camera. Maybe he had been handsome once, but now his face was ragged and scratched. His black hair was dirty, greasy, and it looked like something had pulled a chunk of it out.

No visible augments, except for his eyes. Those were custom. And organic?

“A biologist?” Khadam said. “But why is he on a gate walker? They had their conclaves. Was he alone?”

“Watch,” Finder said, and something about his tone sent a flutter of worry into her stomach. She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to stave off the cold.

The man in the video was running his hands through his hair, and tugging hard at it. He was talking to himself.

“Okay, let’s just walk through it. The beacon is on. He’ll come back. He has to. Has to.”

He swallowed hard, the apple of his throat rising and falling. His eyes - a deep, unnatural green flecked with hints of amethyst - fixed on the camera. His pupils oscillated between large black pools, and pinpricks.

“They’re just chewing. Chewing and chewing. Out there, outside the hull. They want in. But I won’t let them. No, no, no. I don’t care what they say to me. I should’ve gone with him. Oh, Joira,” and here, as his lips formed around the name, he moaned a wretched sound, clinging to the name as if by invoking it, he might summon its bearer. “Joira! Come back. Come- wait. They’re talking again. What do you want? Gifts? I tried gifts. You didn’t want them. You tore them to pieces.”

He ran his hands back through his hair again, pulling it away from his scalp. Showing how thin and grim his skin had become on his skull. He smacked something on a nearby terminal, and shouted at another camera.

“If there’s anyone out there. Please. Please help me. I don’t care who you are. I can’t block it out. I can hear her thoughts.”

“Pause it,” Khadam said, and the video froze. “Finder, is there a date on this?”

“They began a new system, after the seeds.”

The seeds. So much had started to change, after the seeds. It wasn’t fair. She was born, and then they came, when she was still so young. Only two hundred years old when the universe began to fall apart.

“What’s the date?”

“Nine thousand.”

“What does that mean?”

“Nine thousand years after the seeds, Khadam.” His voice was so calm and so patient, the number almost didn’t register with her.

Nine thousand.

Suddenly, the world was too heavy. She had been asleep for nine thousand years. At least nine thousand. Who knew how old this message was?

Everything spun in place, the gravity of the world pulling at her. Khadam steadied herself against the hard-packed mud of the tower, but it wasn’t enough.

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Finder rushed forward to catch her, as she sank to the ground.

“Khadam,” Finder said, his voice low and gentle. Trying to coax her out of it. But her mouth was locked, tight. She couldn’t speak. And even if she could…

Why?

Am I the last one left?

She did not move. She could not. The shadow of the tower grew shorter as the sun rose. And then, the shadow grew out the other side, reaching towards the beach. The scar in the sky had hardly moved.

She spent the rest of the day sitting. Watching the waves.

How many waves? She wondered, How many crashed upon this shore, while I slept?

As the sun began to set, Finder went out in search of water. He came back a few minutes later carrying a small mouthful in the scrap metal faring. She took it, wordlessly. It was sweet on her tongue, a perfect crystal taste on the tip of her tongue. When she finished, she handed it back.

“How are you feeling?” Finder asked.

“The message. Does it say anything about the light dam?”

“Yes,” Khadam chirped in that almost-musical voice of his. “Sort of.”

“And?”

“They couldn’t contact it. They thought it was working, but there was a problem with the Grid. That’s why the one called Joira left. I think the distress signal has been running for a long time.”

Khadam chewed on her lips, where the skin was getting dry. She stared out at the half-sunken ship. Large drifts of sand clumped around its contoured length. Waves ate gently away at the land bridge.

She tried to recall the schematics, but nothing came. No response from the grid at all.

“Did you find an entrance?”

“Yes, but it is not worth the risk.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Claw. It’s at the center of the Claw.”

Of course, it is.

***

A plume rose in her wake, like the tail of some sand-covered beast. Her hands were clenched around the throttle, and the vibrations of the bike were so strong, she could feel her teeth chiseling against each other.

It didn’t hurt. Nothing could hurt her, when she moved this fast.

The bike screamed across the beach, a spear flying towards the ship-peninsula and the city that grew atop it. She veered off over the water, so the sand plume became mist as the repulsors vaporized the water below her. The wind whipped at her ears, tugging her hair straight back from her head.

Finder told her not to go. He tried to tell her they should wait, they should consider a more careful approach. But Khadam thought the longer they sat out there, the better the chances the nomads would catch her scent. Better to do this, while they still didn’t know she was near.

The bike hummed as it picked up speed, and the gills started to extend out. Catching more of the cold air. One of them was rattling. It would probably fall off, if she kept this speed.

But she was almost there.

A gate walker. She could not have asked for a better ship.

She circled around the southern tip of the peninsula, making a huge arc away from the peninsula. Then, she turned the bike and aimed it at the largest mud hill, the one in front of the Claw.

The whining of the core simmered to a low hum, as she idled over that black, bottomless ocean.

“Are you ready?” she asked.

Finder, who was gripping the back of her bike, chirped, “Please, for your safety. This is far too dangerous. What if it doesn’t work?”

She blew a laugh through her lips, “You sound like Vanay.”

Not that you would know who she was.

Still, Khadam had to admit, even for her this was impulsive. Reckless, even.

But she had seen enough of this planet. It was time to get off world. It was time to see if there was anyone else left.

“You know what to do,” she said. And before Finder could answer, she punched the throttle all the way forward. The bike screamed into life, the core sang like a banshee, and the water spewed in a rising tail behind her.

Everything was rattling now. Everything at the edges of her vision went dark. She squeezed her stomach, trying to keep the blood in her head as she raced forward.

The hill was steeper than it looked from far away. It rose and rose, and there was a moment of panic where Khadam was afraid the repulsors wouldn’t push the bike up in time, making her collide with that cement-like mud. Up close, it was peppered with holes, too. Not quite large enough for her to fit in.

And then, she was out of the water, and that porous mud hill was a blur beneath her. The nose of her bike, aimed at the peak of the hill. The repulsors burned twin black lines into the mud. If she had looked over her shoulder, she would have seen the heads of nomads, and their pet boar-things peeking out of the holes. Staring at her with those compound, glassy eyes.

But Khadam was going too fast to see anything, but the tip of the hill.

And then, she was at the top.

And then, the top was gone.

Nothing now, but air under her feet, as she soared.

“Lift!” she shouted, though she wasn’t sure if Finder could even hear her. Lift us up! She shouted at him, over the close-range aerisnet.

He seemed to hear her. The back of the bike was suddenly rising higher than the front, and she was soaring into the air faster, and higher. Her heart slammed in her throat, but she couldn’t help but laugh at the sheer joy of it. Flight.

She could see it all - all the sand towers. The holes at their peaks, where the heat wavered out. She could see the Claw - a huge, circular structure, with a deep basin in the center. It almost looked like an empty stadium.

And there.

There was the entrance. As if the whole Claw had been built around it. A sliding cargo door, covered in dark orange rust. Its teeth locked tight together. All the sand and all the mud crept up to it, but the nomads kept a clean space around it, so that she could even see the metal hull of the ship. And something… something near the door. What is that?

She dropped the repulsors, letting them turn off. But it wasn’t enough.

“Too high!” Khadam shouted. “We need to drop!”

She could feel Finder shifting behind her. And then, a weight, like an invisible hand pushing the bike down.

Come on. She flattened out the bike, hoping that she would be able to stay on it when it landed. Priming the repulsors to fire right before she hit the ground. Come on!

The ground swelled below her. The fingers of the Claw rose around her. And now the sloping walls of the basin swallowed the edges of her sight.

She threw all her weight into the throttle. The repulsors flared to life, heat blossoming at her feet. Too slow. The repulsors smacked against the ground, the bike bucked underneath her, and Finder was catapulted off. The sound was a mix between a crunch and a gasping punch of wind.

Her teeth clapped together, and she was certain the inside of her thighs were already bruised. But the worst part was the bike. The core was losing power. She could hear it in the weakening whine.

Four of the bike’s repulsors shattered. Cracked and leaking salt water that had somehow seeped inside.

But she was alive. Bruised, but alive.

Khadam eased herself off the bike, metal creaked precariously as she did. Before her foot touched the ground, something else fell off. One of the gills.

Khadam checked to make sure she wasn’t bleeding anywhere. Shock made it hard to know for certain, but so far so good.

And then, she looked for Finder.

Finder had bounced and rolled across the flat bottom of the basin, and skidded to a stop near something that looked like an old power pole, like the ones that showed up in historical sims. Or maybe it was just metal scaffolding from the ship’s hull, a lonely ‘Y’ made of metal.

The basin rose all around her. Empty. Gray sand, turned almost white in the sunlight, rose in an arena around her. The tips of the Claw soaring high above, like towers watching over her. There were thousands of holes in the walls of the basin. Dark, shadowy gaps that lead into dark, shadowy tunnels.

Nothing moved at the center of the basin. Even the air felt unnaturally still, sheltered from the wind of the ocean.

“Finder!” she called.

Movement. A light, blinking. The whine of a motor.

She ran to him, her feet scraping and slipping on the thin sand. She could almost feel the metal hull of the ship below.

“Finder,” she crouched at his side, putting a hand to his body. He was struggling to pick himself up by his claws.

“I think I broke something,” Finder said.

Khadam’s heart sank. A flood of guilt and shame and anger - only at herself, for being such an idiot. “Your repulsor. The bike shattered, too.”

“Yes.”

“But we made it.”

“Yes,” Finder said again.

Was she imagining it, or was his voice flatter than usual?

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll open the door, and get us inside. We’ll fix you up. We’ll-”

Khadam stopped. Something caught her eye. She stood up, and took a closer look at the metal pole. Is that…?

The bones of his arms were spread out, as if to beseech the sky. His limbs were tied to the pole with ancient strips of leather. Not a corpse, but a skeleton, stained yellowish brown with age. Only the tatters of rags still clung to its body.

“It’s human,” she said.

“Khadam,” Finder said. “The door.”

“Wait. I have to get him down.”

“Khadam,” Finder said, his voice as hard as iron. “They’re coming.”

There was movement, along the walls of the basin. A sound, which she had mistaken for the wind. They gathered at the mouths of the tunnels. Hesitating.

So many legs.

So many mouths.