The world stretched silent around him. Stone and dust sprawled beneath the black sky, ridges like broken teeth gnawing at the horizon. His boots sank into the pale powder with each step, prints etched sharp and deep before fading as loose granules slid back into place. Every movement was slow, deliberate. The suit was heavier than he'd expected—its joints stiff, its layers rigid—but it held. With every rasp of the filters in his ears, he reminded himself: alive. He was still alive.
Behind him, the bulkhead loomed, half-swallowed by dust, the wound in the planet's skin already fading into shadow. He could have turned back. He almost did. But the map still burned in his memory. Blue beacons pulsed in phantom vision. Carbon. Water. Organics. The things he needed if the assembler was ever to succeed.
The silence pressed in as he walked. There was no wind, no echo, no sound but the crunch of his boots and the whisper of breath. It left him feeling exposed, fragile, as though the sky itself were watching. He lowered his eyes, forcing focus on the ground. A dark patch caught his attention. He crouched, sweeping dust away with a gloved hand until brittle black veins of material emerged, rough and uneven beneath the powder. He struck it with the bar. Fragments splintered, scattering in slow arcs before vanishing into the dust. He gathered one, turned it in his palm. Lighter than stone, darker than ash.
Carbon.
His visor pulsed faintly. The HUD blinked, marking the seam with a pale glyph. Even here, outside, the assembler's awareness followed him. His chest tightened at the thought. He stuffed the fragment into a pouch, hammered again, pried more free. Dust clung stubbornly to his gloves, glittering faintly before drifting away. Each piece was small, but together they would matter. He told himself that as he filled the pouch until its weight dragged against his belt.
When he finally rose, his legs trembled. Sweat clung to his back, trapped beneath layers of composite and fabric. The bar hung heavy in his hand. His breaths came ragged, chest heaving against the suit's restraint. He turned from the vein, forced his steps onward.
The land sloped ahead. He stumbled down, boots slipping on scree, knees nearly buckling. Servos in the joints whined, catching him before he collapsed. He cursed, steadied, pressed on until the slope ended in a jagged wound across the plain. A crevasse yawned wide, its edges raw, dust trickling into darkness. He dropped to his knees, the bar clattering across stone as he leaned over the edge.
Light struck his visor, forcing him to squint. Far below, ice glittered—veins of blue-white threading through the black. His breath caught. He pressed his gloves harder to the edge, leaned forward until vertigo pulled at his balance. Water. Not imagined, not theory. Real.
Relief hit so sudden and sharp it almost doubled him. He laughed, hoarse and broken, the sound strange inside the helmet, bouncing back at him in distorted echoes. The HUD pulsed again, cold symbols flickering:
reservoir located. Intake potential: high.
His mouth watered, though he knew he could never drink it raw. He wanted to dive down, chip it free with his bare hands, taste frost on his tongue. But the crevasse was sheer, walls slick, depth impossible. The machine had shown him the beacon, but not the path. Not yet. He cursed again, pushed himself back from the edge. Still he lingered, visor pressed to the view, until his chest calmed and his shaking hands eased. It was proof. Proof the machine had not lied. Proof there was more than dust and silence.
He climbed again, forcing his body to move. Dust shifted underfoot, sliding him back, but he fought upward until the ridge crested. The horizon widened in a sweep that froze him where he stood.
Craters stretched outward, shallow bowls filled with powder. Beyond them, ridges jutted like scales, jagged and overlapping. And further still, something shimmered. Angled. Geometric. Not stone. Not natural. Towers collapsed into themselves, domes shattered, spires leaning broken against the void.
His heart jolted. Ruins.
He raised a hand, instinctively trying to shade the visor, though the glass had already dimmed. The shimmer remained. His mouth worked soundlessly, his throat too dry for words. Not barren. Not untouched. Something had lived here. Something had built. And it had died.
The HUD flickered with new warnings.
Radiation traces. Structural instability. Intake potential: unknown.
He tore his gaze away, back to the nearer ridge, but shapes jutted there too—shapes that made his stomach clench tighter.
He staggered forward, bar dragging behind. Dust crunched under his boots. He crouched beside one of the protrusions. Not stone. Curved. Ribbed. Segmented. Fossilized remains, half-buried, half-consumed by stone. Ribs locked in place, jaws frozen in silent scream.
Bile surged up his throat. He touched the fragment with trembling gloves. It crumbled to powder. Gone. The HUD blinked again:
organic potential detected. Limited.
The assembler's list clawed back into memory.
Organics fraction: eighteen kilograms. Bioactive.
He pulled his hand away as if burned. Not yet. Not like this.
He staggered back from the ridge, breath ragged, chest tight. His bar slipped from numb fingers, clattering against rock. He sank onto his knees, bar across his thighs, and lifted his head.
The sky loomed infinite, blacker than any night he remembered. Stars spilled across it, rivers of light crossing void, constellations unmoored from memory. The swollen orb burned at the horizon, pale fire bleeding across fractured stone. His visor dimmed against its glare, but he still raised a trembling hand to block it. His breath fogged the visor from within. He smeared it away with his glove.
His voice came out broken, almost a sob. "Where am I?"
No answer. Only silence.
The void pressed down, infinite, eternal. He felt smaller than dust, a speck crawling across dead stone beneath eternity. His chest hitched. His throat burned. The filters rasped steady, reminding him he was still breathing, that the suit held. Alive. But alone.
He forced himself up again, bar in hand, body shaking. Each step was an effort. The ruins shimmered distant, geometric against the void. He turned away, eyes dragging back toward the threshold he had left behind.
The HUD pulsed faintly.
Return path marked. Intake partial. Further collection required.
He closed his eyes, sucked a deep breath, forced his legs to move. His pouch weighed heavy with fragments, clattering faint against his thigh.
As he trudged back across the dust, he lifted his gaze once more. For an instant, just an instant, a light flickered in the distance. Not starshine. Not reflection. A pulse.
He froze. Blinked. The horizon was empty.
But the thought rooted deep. He was not alone.
The flicker haunted him all the way down the slope. Each time he blinked, he thought he saw it again, a ghost at the edge of vision, a pulse at the far horizon. But when he turned his head, there was nothing—only ruins jagged against the void, only stars that burned too many to count. He forced himself onward, boots grinding dust, breath rasping in his ears. The pouch at his hip tugged with every step, a dull reminder of the fragments he had pried loose. Enough to begin, not enough to finish. Never enough.
The ridge ahead broke into shards of stone. He clambered down, bar scraping against the slope. Dust slid beneath his boots, threatening to pull him back, but he forced through, legs burning, suit whining in protest. At the base, the land opened into a shallow basin. Dust had pooled thick here, rippling like a frozen sea. He dragged the bar through it as he walked, carving a line behind him that stretched until it vanished.
Something caught against the bar. He froze, yanked it free, kicked aside powder until a curved shape emerged. He knelt, brushed carefully, dust sliding from the form. Another rib. Another fossil. Larger this time, the curve stretching half a meter before vanishing into the basin. He brushed further, until the outline resolved into something like a thorax, segmented, hollow. A creature that had once been, preserved in stone.
His stomach lurched. The assembler's words echoed again, cold and final.
Organics fraction: eighteen kilograms. Bioactive.
He pulled back, breath fogging the visor. For a long moment he simply knelt there, staring at the curve of alien bone. He didn't know what it had been. Insect? Beast? Machine-fused organism? It didn't matter. All that mattered was weight. Kilograms of organics. He had found them.
He raised the bar high, slammed it down. The fossil cracked, flakes scattering. He hit it again, harder, until the visor fogged with his breath and the suit whined with effort. At last, fragments broke free. He gathered them with shaking hands, dropped them into a second pouch. They clattered hollow, brittle, like dry wood. He gagged at the sound, though the helmet spared him the stench.
He forced himself to stand, pouches heavy now, the weight dragging at his belt, at his shoulders, at his chest. His legs burned with every step as he pressed on. The basin narrowed, feeding into a canyon that split the land. He followed it, bar dragging against the wall, sparks flicking once where stone met metal.
The canyon ended in a wall. Not stone this time. Alloy. Rusted, fractured, half-swallowed by debris, but unmistakable. He stumbled closer, gloves trailing the surface. A structure, buried. Half-collapsed. The HUD flickered, glyphs blinking uncertain.
Radiation minimal. Structural integrity: failed. Intake potential: unknown.
He pressed harder. The alloy crumbled under his touch, flakes falling like ash. Behind it, darkness gaped. He raised the bar, wedged it into a crack, heaved until the wall tore wider. Dust poured down in a choking wave, filling the canyon with haze. He ducked, coughing though the filters caught most of it, visor smearing with residue.
When the air cleared, the gap yawned wider. He stepped through.
Inside, the ground shifted from dust to flooring fractured and bent. Beams jutted at odd angles, pipes twisted into snarls. He advanced carefully, HUD warning symbols blinking with each step. Something had been here, long ago. Storage? Lab? He didn't know.
A glint drew his eyes. He crouched, bar tapping the floor as he reached. A cylinder lay half-buried, transparent once, now clouded. He dragged it free. The casing cracked, flaking away beneath his grip. Inside, something sloshed, thick and sluggish. He raised it to the visor.
Organic. Suspended. Preserved.
He nearly dropped it. His stomach turned, bile rising hot in his throat. He shoved it into the pouch instead, metal clattering against fossil fragments. He gagged again, forced breath through filters, tried not to imagine the weight pulling at his side.
There were more. Dozens. Scattered through the wreckage, shattered or intact. He gathered what he could, shaking hands fumbling with pouches until they bulged. The assembler's list burned in his memory. Carbon. Water. Organics. The machine would want them all.
He staggered back out, bar clutched tight, suit groaning with the load. The sky loomed black above, the orb still bleeding pale fire at the horizon. He turned toward the threshold, steps slow, body heavy, pouches dragging him down. Each breath rasped louder, each step ground deeper into dust.
Halfway back, he stopped. The flicker again. Not imagined this time. A pulse of light, faint but real, blooming against the ruins. His chest seized. He froze, breath caught, visor fogging. The light pulsed once more, then vanished.
His legs refused to move. He stared, heart hammering, every nerve screaming retreat. But the ruins stayed dark, silent. Only stars burned above. Only dust shifted at his boots. Slowly, shaking, he forced himself onward, steps uneven, gaze fixed on the bulkhead distant in the stone.
By the time he reached it, his body screamed. His back ached, muscles quivered, lungs rasped raw. He leaned against the door, bar clattering to the ground, pouches dragging at his hips. He slammed a fist against the panel. The doors groaned, split, swallowed him back into the chamber's dim light.
He collapsed to his knees as the bulkhead sealed shut behind him. The HUD blinked, glyphs scrolling.
Resources detected. Intake viable. Assembly progression: partial. Additional collection required.
He ripped the helmet free, gasping raw air that tasted of dust and metal. Sweat poured down his face, stinging his eyes, dripping into his mouth. He wiped it away with trembling hands, chest heaving.
The machine's voice filled the chamber, calm and patient as ever.
Resource acquisition: incomplete. Additional intake necessary. Continue.
He laughed, a broken sound that echoed harsh against the walls. His pouches lay heavy against the floor, clattering with fragments and sludge. Enough to prove he had obeyed. Not enough to end it. Never enough.
The machine waited. Silent. Expectant.
He closed his eyes, let his head fall back against the cold wall, and breathed until the rasp eased. He had done it. He had stepped into the void, clawed what the machine demanded from dust and ruin. He had returned alive.
But it was only the beginning.