“Initiating LifeScan,” the Omnipod replied. Eva watched the familiar radar hologram of the terrain before them. Muthr extended the radar’s range, revealing their final destination. There certainly were all sorts of structures present—as well as a lot of glowing life-forms. Large glowing life-forms.

“A first sweep shows that there are approximately two hundred and forty-seven large life-forms aboveground and in the area indicated,” the Omnipod reported. “They are elephantine in size and, based on recent images acquired through Identicapture, are likely giant tardigrades.”

Otto let out a long, low hoot.

“That’s Otto’s herd,” Eva added. “They’ve been here waiting for him to rejoin them.”

“Really?” Muthr asked.

“He told them where we were going,” Eva said, patting Otto; he started purring. “I guess they knew where the ruins were. Apparently there’s a lot of food for them there.”

“You never cease to astonish me, Otto.” Rovender climbed back up to his saddle and shooed away several turnfins that had taken his spot in his absence. “All right, Eva Nine. Lead the way!”

——

It took some time for the group to scale the windward slope of the largest linear sand dune that they had yet encountered in the boundless wasteland. Loose ebony grains blew about as the hovercraft rose higher and higher at a steep angle toward the summit. Eva parked the Goldfish at the crest and hopped out. Her friends soon joined her, staring in awe at the monumental sight that was now revealed to them.

In a vast valley that stretched across the entire horizon, hundreds—perhaps thousands—of spires, walls, and hunks of architectural rubble, stood half-submerged in the dark drifts of desert sand.

Extraordinary lichens, the largest and most colorful Eva had yet seen, grew from the old remnants of bridges, towers, and other edifices of this lost civilization. Countless turnfins circled and roosted among the ruins, while in the distance a great herd of water bears grazed around the structures.

“Oeeah!” Rovender whistled from high atop Otto’s back. He peered into his spyglass. “This is quite a find, Eva Nine. A place unlike any I have ever seen!”

The hot wind tousled Eva’s brown-blond bangs. She stared, speechless, as she tried to comprehend the utter enormity of the site. Muthr’s motor whined as the robot neared. Eva whispered, “This was once ours, wasn’t it? We had colonized Orbona, hadn’t we?”

“It certainly seems that way, does it not?” Muthr replied.

They both gazed out at the remains reaching up toward the sky—as if the remains themselves were trying to escape from the sands of time that slowly consumed them.

“The folly of humankind is that it believes it is impervious to decay,” Muthr said.

The Omnipod chirped as the lights on it began flashing in a flurry of patterns.

“What is it?” Eva pried her eyes away from the landscape before her. “What’s going on?”