“Yes,” Saleh said, surprised. This man was strange. Saleh said, “How do you live here?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“How do you live?”

The Webster shrugged. “My needs are few,” he said. “I use solar for power and atmospheric water generators to get what I can from the desert. My jackals range far. They are my friends. We have food. What else I need the winds provide in due course.”

“The caravans,” Saleh said.

“Yes.”

“Do you like it here?” Saleh said.

“Like it?” the Webster looked surprised. “I hadn’t thought of it that much,” he said. “I find the company of people uncomfortable. My home provides all that I need. It is peaceful. Yes. I do not wish to speak with you long. The experience is severely unpleasant. You have come to trade?”

“Yes,” Elias said.

“Good, good.” The Webster stepped from foot to foot, agitated. “I have found much since the last time. A Byzantine pot, complete all but for the handle. Three Roman coins, one gold. A Sidorov embryomech egg, inactive but functional.”

“A what?” Saleh said.

“Old Soviet Martian tech,” Elias said. “It was meant for colonizing. It can theoretically build anything out of surrounding matter. Make self-contained habitats. So you’d drop it down on a planet’s surface and once it hatched you just moved in. I didn’t know anyone tried using them here.”

“Did they use them on Mars?” Saleh said. He had a sudden longing for the early days of Martian colonization. How exciting it must have been.

“Not really,” Elias said. “But it has a value for collectors.”

“Yes, yes,” the Webster said. “I have more. Anubis, show them.”

The jackal padded away. It returned with a bird-like device held between its teeth. It was a drone, like the ones that attacked the caravan. The jackal dropped it on the sand.

“It thinks . . . angry thoughts,” Anubis said.

“How come your jackals speak?” Saleh said.

“Not . . . his jackals,” Anubis said.

“That’s true,” the Webster said. “I don’t know where they came from. They’ve lived here for generations. They tell stories around the fire sometimes. Something about the old wars, and people who thought that they might make good soldiers.”

“Jackals not . . . soldiers,” the jackal said with disgust. “We deserters.”

“You didn’t want to fight?” Saleh said.

“They make us speak,” Anubis said. “We say, screw you.” Its tongue lolled. The other jackals howled laughter.

“Machines fight,” Anubis said. “Machines stupid.”

“Not all the machines fought,” the Webster said distractedly. “A lot of those deserted too.”

“You have anything else?” Elias said.

“The Sidorov is valuable,” the Webster said. “I must go inside now. You will make the arrangements?”

“Yes.”

“Then goodbye.”

He nodded to them then vanished inside his home. Saleh looked at Elias, who shrugged.

“Websters,” he said. And that was that.