DD interrupted her thoughts with an exclamation. “Excuse me! I have found something important!” He stood by the encased machinery against the wall, turning his glowpanel into the shadowy gaps between cubical modules. There, Margaret saw a motionless shape, a smooth dusty shell with several twisted legs and a rounded body core with a dull and dusty outer covering that gave the hulk the appearance of a gigantic, squashed beetle. It looked vaguely like the Klikiss robots, but more natural, smoother.

She drew in a cold, astonished breath, reeling with excitement. She could feel the adrenaline surge through her blood. “Is it? … Louis, is it really?”

Louis trotted over, then gave a laugh of triumph. Margaret knew exactly what the thing must be even before Louis turned to her, his wrinkle-seamed face lit up in a huge grin. “It’s the first one!” he crowed. “Good work, DD!”

With the compy shining a light upon the mummified Klikiss cadaver, Margaret bent to study it. She took extreme care not to touch the alien, because age had made it a fragile construction. “The body is so old, it’ll turn to dust if we try to move it.”

Louis pointed to a long crack along the back of the Klikiss carapace. “It seems to have been crushed. A blow from behind … or maybe part of the ceiling fell in on top of him.”

“Then where’s the rubble?” Margaret stepped back, drinking in every detail. The Klikiss alien bore a superficial resemblance to the hulking black robots, but was no more identical to them than DD’s crudely humanoid shape was to the delicate contours of a human form.

Incautious as always, Louis reached out with a gentle fingertip to brush the alien’s twisted forelimb, and a portion of the gray-brown body armor crumbled into powder. “Well, I guess that prevents us from performing a useful autopsy, dear,” he said. “But we had better image this specimen in every way we can.”

Margaret agreed. “Some biological scrapings of the residue will give us something to analyze. We can develop a chemical breakdown. There may even be some intact cells.” Her heart pounded with excitement. At the moment, everything seemed possible.

“What’s that sound?” Arcas stood up and looked around.

Margaret heard movement in the outer tunnels: heavy footsteps, a ticking, thumping sound as of something heavy moving along. She suddenly became intensely aware of how alone and isolated they were in this abandoned ghost city. They had no weapons, no defenses whatsoever.

Could something have survived after all this time?

The deserts of Rheindic Co were home to only a few small lizards and arachnids. There was no evidence of large predators. Outside, the storm had fallen to silence, enhancing the scraping sounds of ponderous movement. Margaret’s throat went dry, and Louis stood closer to her, either for emotional support or in a faint show of bravery and protectiveness.