The rover stopped. The AI displayed one last message:
His breath caught. Seven klicks from what ? The original colony had been destroyed twenty years ago, the day he’d lost his family in the evacuation scramble. He’d buried them in his memory, not in the ground. drive u 7home
blinked again. Then: U7 = YOU ARE SEVEN KILOMETERS FROM HOME. The rover stopped
The route took him across cracked salt flats, past the skeletal remains of mining rigs, and into a canyon he’d never seen before. The walls glowed faintly, bioluminescent lichen pulsing in rhythm with his rover’s engine. The original colony had been destroyed twenty years
Still, the rover’s ancient wheels hummed to life beneath him. Aris didn’t argue. There was nowhere else to go.
The canyon opened into a valley. And there—impossible, irrational—stood a single dome, intact, with a warm light glowing through its scratched polymer skin. A small garden grew outside, hardy tubers and purple-leafed vines.
