Kendra stared into the computer screen in the research station, her fingers tapping on the wooden desk. The camera feed reflected her dirty hair, and she swept away the dust and smoothed out the tangles. She forced a smile, but it only deepened the circles under her eyes. Her composure failing, she shrank back. Her eyes prickled, and the liquid that slid down her cheeks was oily, like the fuel she drank to keep her body moving.

She wiped it away. Kendra clenched her hands against the desk and slowly let go. She began the recording.

“This may be the last message I leave here. Whatever the machines did to preserve me appears irreversible, and even if I could escape this place as I am, the fuel that sustains me is linked to its source.”

She rubbed a bit of sand from her chin. “I have a theory. The caretakers and their curator display attributes of both organic minds and artificial intelligence. Their fuel keeps organic tissue alive at least temporarily. The process may involve a signal or transmission that enables the organic matter in the fuel to rearrange itself to produce the cellular components required for repair. However, the process is not fully compatible with my physiology. It changed my body. Regardless, I am glad for the additional time the Asteracean machines gave me.”

She leaned closer to the screen. “I have learned that Aster’s ship holds a technology capable of translating my consciousness to an incorporeal form. My body would be gone, but my mind will remain, and if all goes well, I will leave this planet.”

Kendra let out a huff and shook her head. “There’s no returning my body to what it was before. I simply have to wrap my head around taking the leap into an unfamiliar form of existence. Even with that uncertainty, I wish to survive beyond my present circumstances. As for my colleagues, Antony, Seph, and Bria, I am grateful to have gone on this expedition with you.” She paused, contemplating the impersonal gaze of the camera. “No matter the outcome.”

She ended the recording and exhaled sharply, staring up at the ceiling. It would work; she would leave this planet and find them. She’d find Antony and show him she still lived. A pang of frustration hit her, sending an anxious thrum through her legs. She turned off the computer and headed for the roof of the research station.

Stars dotted the sky like the innumerable specks of sparkling sand below. She watched over the expanse of white desert and gray plateaus. The moons hung low, and the horizon faded to a pinkish haze. Small cracks marked her skin like the distant cliffs. Wherever she went, the grit from the desert and dust from her crumbling skin covered her.

She raised her hand to the sky and addressed the empty air. “My body is all I have known, and yet, I am more than my body. I am my potential for change, for movement, for self direction. I am a scientist, a scholar. I’ve spent my life driven to reach past the edges of knowledge into the unknown. So I will go into the unknown again.”

She rested there until the horizon burned red. In the distance, a shape appeared, a shadow crossing the sand and sending dust through the air. The flying sand glinted like snow in the fading sunlight.

Aster approached the research station, the edges of his form billowing like dark fabric in water. His body coalesced as he stepped neatly onto the roof, his heels clicking against the metal.

“I thought I might find you here,” he said.

“I wanted to see the sunset,” Kendra said. “It will be the last one I watch with these eyes.”

His expression shifted, eyebrows twitching upward and worry tugging at his mouth. “Then you have made up your mind.”

“Yes. I’m still apprehensive. Afraid. But I will use the ship’s technology tomorrow.”

“There is still time for you to speak further with the ship if you wish.”

“I don’t want to second guess myself. I made my decision; better to move forward.”

His gaze softened. “Of course. Is there anything I can do to help?”

She stood, bones creaking uncomfortably. “I thought I might spend the evening in your cavern—I have no desire to see the caretakers.”

“Certainly.”

He sat beside her in the rover. She pressed her foot firmly to the accelerator, picking up speed as they left the research station. She drove faster still as they reached the mountains of sand. The rover hung in the air as they crossed the top of a tall dune. It thumped against the ground, jarring her and sending a dull ache through her legs, but she couldn’t keep from grinning. Aster laughed beside her, the sound warm and resonant even through the wind. Above them, the light of the moons spilled over the desert.

“You’ll love flying,” Aster said as they stowed the rover in its space between the cliffs.

She grinned at him. The pain in her stomach was intensifying, but she would not drink more of the caretakers’ fuel. Not anymore.

They arrived in Aster’s cavern, where the ship pulsed with a welcoming glow, illuminating the surrounding stone in the darkness of the cave. He shifted from foot to foot, as if she were a guest and he the host suddenly concerned by the cleanliness of his home. He pressed his palms together like the start of a prayer.

“Now that I am regaining my energy, my abilities to work with our forms of matter are returning. The crystals are only one manifestation of the building blocks that we use to create structures and tools.” He pulled his hands apart, and tiny purple threads stretched between them. As he repeated the motion, they increased in number and size. He spun them in a circle until they formed a small, fluffy cloud, like a tiny nebula.

“Aster, that’s adorable. What is it?”

“Hopefully it will become functional in a moment.” He spread his hands wider apart, knitting more threads into the clouds until they were several feet across. Then he let go. They hung in the air a foot above the ground, dotted with light that glittered like stars. Carefully, he sat atop the clouds.

She poked at the miniature nebula and climbed up onto it as well. It held her weight, only dipping slightly beneath her. Kendra let out a laugh as she sank down and rolled to face Aster. “This is more comfortable than the bed in the research station.”

He grinned. “My people enjoy our creature comforts as well. I was never much of a builder, but others made magnificent things. Cities and art and all manners of technology.”

“You said your dimension was destroyed. Is there a chance any pieces of it remain?”

“That is … possible. We manipulate matter differently in our world; it would be difficult, but in theory, one could tuck a piece of our dimension around itself and form a protective bubble. But we were scattered across the universe, and even a shard of a dimension the size of a city would be difficult to find.”

“We could look for them. Your cities and your people.”

“I would like that.”

She relaxed into the clouds. They held her, easing away some of the aches in her body. Aster lay beside her, a small smile on his face as he burrowed deeper into the bed. Hearing the hope in his voice and seeing it on his face eased the knot in her chest. Her eyelids grew heavy.

She woke with her face buried in the clouds. Aster lay curled nearby, still facing her, and a warm rush of fondness rose in her chest. Even in a place as desolate as this, she had met someone so beautiful. Violet light rippled through him as he slept, the same color as the flowers that shared his name. His fingers twitched, still solid but lit up from within with a faint ethereal glow. He had learned to take a new form to navigate a strange world, to communicate, to survive, and now she would do the same.

She sat up, and he stirred. “Did you sleep?” he asked.

“Better than I expected. You have my gratitude for that,” she said with a gesture toward the bed.

“I am glad.”

Kendra let out a ragged breath as she stood and faced the ship. “I don’t want to put this off.” She rubbed her dusty arms, where hairline fractures were forming like spiderwebs across her skin. She lingered near the columns of the ship. Her stomach clenched with anxiety and she ground her teeth. Kendra turned back to Aster. “What if it doesn’t work and I simply fade away?”

“It will work.” He drew nearer, his presence enveloping her like a soothing breeze. He pressed his palms to her shoulders. “You’ve shown me I could be more than my weakened state, and you’ve given me care and kindness I did not expect to find in this place,” Aster said. “We will leave this planet together.”

She wrapped her arms around him, pulling him close. The fabric of the clothing he wore was smooth, and his hair brushed her forehead as she held him tight. “I’m glad I met you, Aster.”

“And I you, Kendra.”

She drew back and lifted her hand to his cheek. It was cool and soft beneath her fingers. A deep flush bloomed across his features, and he covered her hand with his own, leaning into the touch.

Kendra let him go and smiled. “I’ll see you on the other side.”

“Good luck.”

She entered the ship. The walls brightened at her arrival, sending a ripple of light through the interior.

“Hello Kendra. It is good to see you again.”

“I’m ready to use your medical technology.”

“Of course. Proceed forward.” The far wall pulled apart, the stone shifting inward and opening to a new space. The room was empty save for a circular indentation in the center. “Please take a seat.”

Kendra rested on the floor, and the room brightened. The walls were black marble, with splashes of bright violet and blue that flowed through them like rivers, casting a glow across the room. As she gazed upward, the ceiling disappeared into a soft golden haze.

“Do you have any further questions?” the ship asked in the same pleasant lilt.

“Is there anything else I need to know?”

A ray illuminated the air before her, and words appeared there. With her fingers, she scrolled through the text, finding much the same information they had previously discussed. “This is the documentation for the procedure,” the ship said. “I can explain the protocol in as much detail as you desire.”

“I’ve been through enough medical procedures to know that understanding the minute details doesn’t usually help. I know the outcome of this procedure: my body will be gone, but my mind will remain intact.”

“That is correct.”

“Then I want to ask you something else. You’ve been stuck here, too. What comes next for you?”

“It is my greatest desire to preserve the knowledge accumulated in my database,” the ship said. “We—myself and the other ships—originally chose to work alongside Aster’s people because we enjoy experiencing the world through information. We became databases, and we functioned best in a network. However, without my companions, my knowledge and capabilities have diminished. I wish to preserve what I have left and make that information available to others. I wish to be a library.”

“The world needs more libraries,” Kendra said.

“At the same time, I would not have my data without the individuals who observe and experience the world firsthand. Scientists, explorers, and scholars. Artists and architects.” The ship paused, and the air shimmered almost ruefully. “I have met many individuals and my knowledge has been enriched for their companionship. Their lives, feelings, dreams. I have only one regret from my experience in this place. That I have not made contact with the curator of these ruins.”

“The Asteracean AI?”

“Indeed. The curator and its machines reacted negatively to Aster, and though the curator’s mind is different from my own, I would speak with it if it allowed me. We could learn from each other.”

“I have never encountered anything like it, though my experience with AI is limited. Maybe, after all this, I can convince it to speak with you.”

“If you like. Have you any other questions?”

“No, I’m ready.”

A soft hum filled the chamber, and the lights of the walls grew brighter. Her forehead prickled, the sensation spreading backwards and down her spine, sending a faint buzz through her fingertips. She held them up to the light as their edges grew fainter and fuzzier.

It was nothing like the crumbling of the ruins, of Antony’s arm hitting the ground, leaving only gravel behind. It was gentle. The ship’s presence filled the air around her and comforted her like a warm hand resting against her back.

“Even after everything, I’m glad I came to this planet,” she said. “I found something in these caverns. Not simply in our research and discoveries, but in my experience. I have spent my life experiencing the world through science, through questions, through data. And I value that aspiration to objectivity and repeatability.”

She leaned back, stretching her legs as the tension in her muscles eased, and she watched the light dance through her translucent fingers. “Even machines reflect their creators, and we aren’t machines. We feel deeply. There is truth in experiencing the world through that emotion. We may live in pursuit of knowledge and yet choose to greet the world with awe.”

She was ink flowing through water. Her hand slowly unwound as skin, muscle, nerve, and bone disappeared, her body being remade with utmost care. As her thoughts fell away, she stared into the comforting lights of the ship.

“I choose to greet the future with wonder,” she said.