It stands in the distance, high above the hills, completely still and impossibly thin. It’s made of the same ruddy stone as the ground beneath our feet, but it’s still pristine. Unmarked by the wind that scours everything else.

It glitters in the light.

I call up Aoki’s charts and match the marker to what I’m seeing. There isn’t a name for the strange shape ahead of me, but then, this hunk of rock doesn’t have one either. All it has is a number: Object KA6769. That’s it. None of the companies have claimed it yet. NorCol’s probably aiming to put their label on it, and that’s why they sent us. They want a feel for the place, a sense of whether it’s worth the time and trouble.

I look up at the Lighthouse.

They want us up close and personal—augurs and samples at minimum. Better yet, they want one of us to take a step inside.

I grind my teeth.

Whoever draws the short straw, it better not be me. I’m made for open skies.

We set our rifle to passive sweep/sentry and pan our lenses across the valley. NorCol’s here first, by the look of it. I scan the crags just in case, but nothing rises to meet us. We dropped down fast, letting the passives watch for threats—much as I like flying, there’s nothing for cover when you’re riding the breeze—but it looks like we’re alone.

We turn and glance up at the sky, and I wake our nets, pinging the three shells still overhead. They’re slowing already, mapping the space around us with their augurs. Their sensors are stronger than ours, and louder too. Much louder. They’ve got three hundred and thirty K to go, but it sounds like they’re right next to us.

I smile at the contacts. “Taking your time, aren’t you?” Hail must be losing hair.

We turn and survey our own private desert. “All right, old bird,” I whisper. “Let’s go for a stroll.”

SOMETHING CATCHES OUR eye, a silver spark against the red-grey sand. We run our sensors across it, but it comes back dull and cold. There’s no sign of a power source, no markers of anything made to explode. Augur returns come back clean.

We drop to our haunches and brush the dust away with our fingertips: a hunk of metal, cut like an armour plate. Flicking a corner out of the ground, we lift the whole thing out in one go.

Bright orange paint runs thick across one side, chipped on the edges and pearly where it burned. I roll it over.