By Sand and Stars
Chapter 4: Thin Ice
Posted December 12th, 2025
The first person to see her jumped back, putting an arm out to their companions behind them. Their overlay tag Identified them as ‘Tav.’
Before the humans could say anything, The Stranger drafted and sent an open message through the overlay. She kept both of her humanoid hands visible and empty, outside of her cloak.
Hello! I’m sorry if I startled you; I hadn’t expected to meet any other explorers this high up.
Tav looked back at the rest of their group. The coats and goggles made reading expressions difficult, but The Stranger was sure they were each reading her own overlay tag.
Which was a forgery, of course. It said she was an itinerant mechanic from one of the city-clusters, and that she had lost her voice in an outbreak of plague some years ago.
A moment later, Tav turned back to The Stranger. “We can’t say we expected it either. What business do you have here?”
The Stranger wrote a reply, trying to make sure it was sent quickly, without being suspiciously fast. Her core was starting to warm with the effort, but she kept her fans off and quiet. Nothing here in particular. I was trying to cross the mountains from the Enna Basin, and stumbled across it.
After a pause, she sent a second message. Do you know what this place is?
Tav’s posture seemed to relax with the words. “Not at all. Our best guess is it was some sort of monastery. We were just about to log it and leave it behind. Some historian can investigate later.”
That was good. If The Stranger could redirect well, they might be gone within the hour. Her core flashed a warning about heat, but the fans stayed off. She would need to end the conversation soon. Ah, I see. I suppose there’s not much of interest here, for how old it is.
Tav sighed. “No, I suppose not.”
~~~
As soon as The Stranger was around the corner from the humans, she put her fans on full blast and dashed for her mount. It was just her luck that the humans needed sleep. They were staying in the town for at least ten hours, so she would have to work around them.
Reaching her mount, she sent it a quick message, instructing it to move and hide over the slope until it was called for. Then, she returned to the modified chair she had seen earlier.
Only when the flat surface of her core was flush against the cool metal of the heat sink did she open the overlay to find several frantic messages from unit 3305.
Without reading any of them, she sent a quick and simple message. Apologies. I needed full attention for that situation.
3305 replied instantaneously. Why did those people not want to destroy us? Has peace been achieved between Humans and Pseudonoids?
The Stranger shut off most of her sensory input, keeping open an audio channel in case anyone had followed her. No peace. They didn’t recognize us.
There was a pause before the reply. What do you mean by that? How could they not have recognized us?
The Stranger sank into the seat slightly. Her core was slowly returning to a normal temperature. Pseudonoids are rarer than we used to be. I doubt any of those people have ever seen one, or even met someone who has.
Oh. The message was sent quickly, and then there was nothing for a long while. After a time, The Stranger stood up and reactivated her visual input. Hopefully, the humans would be asleep soon, and it might be good to give 3305 some time to compose its thoughts.
~~~
The humans had set up camp in two houses towards the eastern edge of town. The Stranger gave them a wide berth, checking the houses along the western and southern edges. Most of the houses around the rim of the town were uniform, dusty and empty. So, reluctantly, The Stranger turned towards the crossroads at the center of town.
As soon as she approached, she saw what she was looking for. One of the doors on one of the houses had remained closed. If the children of this town had left anything valuable behind, it would be there. The Stranger reached out, and with a bit of effort, began sliding the door open.
It did not go quietly.
The rubber had rotted away, leaving only the searing screech of metal on metal. It rang out through the town and down over the sunlit cliffs as a pure note, unburdened and free. Somewhere down the road, a sleeping human opened their eyes.
The Stranger jumped through the open door, eager to get what was there and leave as fast as possible. What she found was rust and death.
Piles of defunct Pseudonoid components lay across the room. Broken protective plates, frayed wires, ball joints without their matching sockets and vice versa. Everything was covered in a fine layer of rust, its bleeding red color coating every bit of metal and seeping into the air around them.
The Stranger dug into the piles of pieces, searching for anything that might have carried information about the people who had lived here. All her arms were out and frantic, engaged with the task.
What happened here? Unit 3305 messaged, apparently stunned out of their stupor.
Time. The Stranger was too busy for a longer response. One of her lower arms shoved aside a plate, finding a small, flat object on the ground, the gleaming texture belying uncorrupted metal. She snatched it and dug further into the room.
Then, a gasp from behind her. The Stranger wheeled around, still frantic, with arms extended, to find Tav in the doorway. They were shaking, shocked, and holding a pistol aimed squarely at her chest. The Stranger stood very still.
“Y-you’re…” Their face was twisted in a way she couldn’t recognize. Somewhere between awe and disgust. The Stranger shifted forward, wrapping her cloak about herself, and Tav held their gun out further, as though putting it closer to her made it more of a threat. “Don’t. Move.”
The Stranger stopped, her cloak wrapped around her like a shield. Tav, please. I promise you don’t want to do that.
I don’t want to hurt you.
Tav’s eyes flickered between her and the room around her, taking the scene in. Silence stretched between them for an age, warping time.
Then, one of them twitched.
~~~
This is less than ideal. The Stranger sent the message to 3305 as they began their descent down the southern face of the mountain. She was back on her mount, and the village was far behind them.
In which way do you mean? 3305 was still taking more time to reply than it had before. There had been a lot to take in.
The prospectors were working for a new central government this side of the mountain.
Another pause before the reply. The mount stumbled on the slope, and then recovered. And what does that mean for us?
We’ll have trouble disappearing if we need to. I’ll need to make a new identity. Absently, she reached into a pocket of her cloak, where a tiny piece of metal sat. It was a disk, a relic from the star-faring days. Finding the equipment to read it would be difficult, but on it were the last surviving words of a long dead town.
And do you think word will get out about the village? The reply broke The Stranger out of her stupor.
She sat with the question for quite some time. Truthfully, she wasn’t sure. It was possible the people of the basin would regard the village as an oddity, nothing more than a ruin from the first days after the landing. On the other hand, a Pseudonoid camp that old going undiscovered might cause some alarm. Not to mention if anything was shared about her, and what had happened there just over a day ago, it would make things much more difficult.
Suppose we’ll have to wait and see.
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