The rooms I passed were utilitarian and their various functions impossible to guess. The only furniture they contained had been carved from the same quartz as everything else, and seemed to have grown seamlessly from the walls or floor. There were some lectern-like objects that may have been perches of some kind, and the occasional boomerang-shaped plinth that may have formed a desk or perhaps a reclining couch. A xenologist might have been able to hazard a guess, but I had neither the interest nor the expertise to give the matter my full attention. I remained painfully aware I was burning calories I had no way to replace. If I couldn’t locate a means of escape, I would soon die here, just like—

“Oh shit.”

My eyes had been looking at the bodies for a couple of seconds before my conscious brain registered their presence. One lay on its back in the centre of the corridor, the other sat slumped against a wall. I approached cautiously, although it was quite clear they were both dead and had been for some time.

The one on the floor had been male, the one against the wall female. They both wore faded purple jumpsuits. Their skin had dried and shrunk, and most of their hair had fallen out. I guessed from the patches on their shoulders that they were the remains of a lost survey team, and from the lack of visible wounds, that they’d starved to death. Perhaps the man had succumbed first, too weak to carry on, which was why he was lying on the floor, and the woman had stayed to care for him until she was too weak to save herself. I forced my eyes away from the nametags sewn to the breasts of their jumpsuits. Starved as I was for human company, I didn’t want to know their names for fear I might somehow jinx my own chances of survival. After all, if they had been unable to escape this trap, what chance had I?

In an attempt to remain practical, I knelt and frisked them for useful tools, working my fingers into their pockets while trying not to flinch at the feel of mummified flesh beneath the dry material. I found a used tissue, a small tablet computer with a run-down battery, and a silvery harmonica. None of these objects were of immediate benefit, so I left them in a small pile between the woman’s feet. Then I checked their boots, hoping to find a concealed weapon but coming away disappointed.

Ahead, the corridor curved to the left. I knew I had to keep going while I still had the strength to do so, yet paused a moment, feeling I should say something to mark the occasion—that even those who’d died alone and far from hope or home should have someone, even another lost stranger, to say a few words over them.