“What are you doing?” Nasir said.

“What does it look like I am doing?” the robot said. “I am digging.”

An arm and half a torso, then a leg. The robot piled up the objects on the ground almost reverentially.

“It’s going to blow up!” Habib said, staring at the nearest UXO. His eyes were wide with fear. The machine was built like a small solid tank with tracks scratched by the sand of centuries. They were capable of driving thousands of miles undetected, finding their way into civilian populations or army bases and blowing up. Or so Nasir read that they used to, in the old days, when there were wars. The ones that lived in the desert now were survivors: unexploded ordnances, UXOs.

“Get a grip!” Laila said. The UXO moved its turret head from side to side as though trying to ascertain what they were saying. Then the robot in the hole reached one last time into the sand and pulled out a golden skull.

“Hem i ded hemi kambakagen,” the robot said.

It was Asteroid Pidgin, Nasir thought. He only half spoke it. That which was dead is returned, he thought the robot said.

The UXOs moved as one. The sandworm raised its tail. The earth shook as it rose. Habib shouted. He grabbed the grenade launcher from Laila and fired. The nearest UXO was the swarm. It blew apart and each flying component exploded simultaneously. The blast of hot air and shards hit Nasir and threw him back. He fell into the hole. Laila landed hard, next to him.

“Habib?” Nasir said. “Habib!”

“They did not mean you any harm,” the robot said. There was a hint of reproach in the old voice. “You should not have come here.”

Nasir’s eyes stung. There were cuts on his face, his arms. He saw Laila stagger upright.

“Habib!”

“He is only wounded,” the robot said. It knelt by its find. The small pile of golden limbs of what might have once been a golden man.

“You stay here,” the robot said. “I will speak to them.”

“Speak to them? How?” Laila said.

The robot ignored her. It climbed up and out of the hole easily, finding purchase in the walls, crawling like an ant. Nasir could not see what was happening beyond. His world had shrunk to the hole in the sand. Laila knelt by the golden remains.

“It’s just some old robot,” she said.

“I think you should leave it alone,” Nasir said.

The sand shook. Nasir feared the hole would close up on them. Laila reached in her belt. She fired a flare into the sky. It lit up the night. Then the giant sandworm’s head came crashing down on the hole and everything went dark.