The dust still lingered in the air as the expedition vehicles rumbled forward, their massive wheels kicking up faint trails in the dim morning light. The convoy stretched outward from the base, heading westward toward the wreckage sites. From their vantage point on the upper balcony of the command module, Maximilian Barinov and Valeriya Marakova watched in silence as the haulers disappeared into the haze.

  Maximilian stood with his hands clasped behind his back, the tailored black of his CorpSec officer’s uniform stark against the pale white of the balcony railing. Valeriya leaned forward slightly, resting her arms on the railing as she tracked the fading outline of the last hauler, her expression unreadable.

  For a long moment, neither spoke. They simply watched.

  Then, quietly, Valeriya said, “Thank you for dinner. It was very… indulgent.”

  Maximilian turned slightly, a hint of a smile on his lips. “A luxury I afford myself from time to time. Officers should maintain standards.”

  Valeriya chuckled, glancing at him. “You’re as refined as ever.”

  His smile lingered, but his eyes remained fixed on the convoy as it disappeared into the haze. “And you’re as sharp as ever.”

  She leaned against the railing, watching the haulers vanish into the distance before turning to him. “Have you taken the implants yet?”

  Maximilian’s expression didn’t change, but there was the slightest hesitation before he responded. "Not yet."

  Valeriya raised an eyebrow. “That’s surprising. I thought you of all people would have prioritized it. Especially since I hear you’ve been strongly encouraging CorpSec personnel to undergo the procedure.”

  Maximilian turned back toward the landscape. “Encouraging, yes,” he said evenly. “It is a strategic advantage. I expect my people to take every advantage.”

  “But you haven’t,” Valeriya pointed out.

  A pause. He turned to look at her now, his expression unreadable.

  “It is something I will have to do. I know that. It’s just… not a decision I intend to rush.”

  She gave him a skeptical look, but Maximilian offered nothing more. He wasn’t going to explain, and she wasn’t going to press.

  Instead, she shifted topics. “Regarding the base,” she said, “I was thinking about our operational expansion. We should retrieve the landing vehicle.”

  Maximilian raised an eyebrow. “The flyer?”

  “Yes,” Valeriya confirmed. “It’s still out there, largely intact. Having a functional aerial vehicle would change our logistical capabilities significantly. We could conduct rapid response missions, expand our exploration range, and finally push into the northern region. The terrain there is too hostile for ground vehicles, but with a flyer, we could reach areas we haven’t even begun to assess. If we can find more deposits, we now have the manpower to exploit them.”

  Maximilian nodded, considering it. “Fuel?”

  Valeriya gave a small smirk. “We can synthesize it.”

  “From what?”

  “The plant matter and the beetle corpses we’ve been recycling. We already know their organic composition contains useful hydrocarbons. Refining it into something we can use for aviation fuel is entirely possible with the right process.”

  Maximilian let out a quiet, pleased hum. “Smart. You’ve been thinking ahead.”

  “I always did,” Valeriya replied.

  He turned to look at her fully now, the sharp lines of his face softened by the ambient light. “I missed having you around, you know.”

  Valeriya smiled faintly. “I suppose you did.”

  A pause. Then Maximilian asked, “And what do you remember about our past?”

  She exhaled, tilting her head slightly as she considered. “A lot, actually. The Centauran habitats, mostly. You arrived on the inbound transport from Earth. You managed security for multiple habs. I was reassigned to Station Operations, after the immigration crisis. Before that, I was a flight officer for one of the larger inter-hab transports.

  He nodded. “And?”

  Valeriya’s eyes took on a distant quality. “I remember when you told me the truth about the household guards being on the transport. I remember your unit being disbanded and reassigned...”

  Maximilian frowned slightly, but he said nothing.

  “You had a difficult time adjusting,” she continued. “You weren’t like the others. You didn’t belong to Centauran culture. You came from something different. You had to work twice as hard just to get back on your feet.”

  “I did,” Maximilian said.

  “And you did it,” Valeriya said, glancing at him. “You rose through the ranks of CorpSec. You built yourself up from nothing. I always respected that about you.”

  A shadow crossed Maximilian’s features.

  “What do you remember about us?” he asked, his voice quieter now.

  Valeriya hesitated. “I remember… that we had something.”

  Something.

  Maximilian studied her face, waiting for her to say more.

  Valeriya frowned slightly. “We worked well together. You trusted me. I trusted you. And then…” She trailed off, shaking her head. “I don’t know. Some things are hazy. I remember the professional part of it better than the personal…”

  She hesitated. There were gaps in her recollection. She could feel them, and it unsettled her.

  Maximilian watched her closely. It was Valeriya, in every way. The way she spoke, her eye movements as she thought, her conversation patterns, her directness and her uncertainty. But he could see it also—the missing details, the subtle hesitations, the slight errors in how she recalled things. She didn’t remember everything.

  And some of what she thought she remember was wrong. He had only told one person about the household guard. It wasn’t her. It was Otto.

  He realized, quietly, that this wasn’t the moment to correct her.

  Instead, he just smiled faintly and backed off. “That’s enough for now.”

  Valeriya frowned slightly, sensing something unspoken in his words. But before she could say anything, Maximilian turned back toward the horizon, watching as the last traces of the convoy disappeared beyond the dust.

  “Let’s focus on the future,” he said.

  And for now, they let the past remain buried.

  ===

  Mei found Pom sitting outside one of the maintenance modules, away from the hum of machinery and the quiet chatter of off-duty personnel. He was perched on an old storage crate, staring out into the dust-filled horizon where the expedition had long since vanished. His posture was rigid, his arms resting on his knees, hands clasped together in a grip so tight his knuckles were pale.

  She didn’t say anything at first. Just stood beside him, waiting, listening to the low whistle of wind through the gaps in the structures around them.

  When she finally spoke, her voice was soft. “You should be out there with them.”

  Pom let out a slow breath, his shoulders rising and falling. “Yeah,” he muttered. “I should.”

  Mei sat down beside him, close enough for warmth, but not close enough to crowd him. “I’m sorry.”

  Pom exhaled sharply, shaking his head. “You didn’t do anything.”

  She glanced at him, studying his profile—his strong jaw, the tension in his expression, the way his gaze never left the distant horizon. “I know. But I still am.”

  He let out a small, humorless chuckle. “That’s the problem, isn’t it? I keep getting pulled in all directions, and I don’t even know what I want anymore.”

  Mei didn’t push him to explain, just gave him space to sort through his thoughts.

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  He sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. “I thought we’d never leave Luna. I thought we were stuck there, that we’d scrape by like always, just another couple of basebags working until we dropped. And then we had a chance. Proxima was supposed to be that chance. We were terrified of being separated, of something going wrong with our approvals, but we fought through it. Soon after arrival, my investment was plucked up by the Company. Hers wasn’t. The cycles ticked by… We barely managed the credits. Every last chit, every favor, every deal, anything just to get her on that frecking ship. I don’t know how we actually made it in the end.”

  His fingers curled into fists. “And then, the certainty. That she was gone. That I had lost her, that all of it was for nothing. That at least, I knew.”

  He let out a long, shaky breath. “And now, it’s all being thrown around again. Maybe she’s out there. Maybe she isn’t. Maybe her pod is buried under sand, maybe it’s lost to the anomalies, maybe she’s just gone and we’ll never know. I thought I finally had some stability here. I thought I had something solid to stand on. But it’s the same damn thing all over again. Pulled in every direction. And I don’t even know which way to go anymore.”

  Mei reached out, slowly, carefully, and placed a hand over his.

  Pom didn’t pull away.

  She didn’t speak right away, just let him feel her warmth, her presence. “I can’t tell you what’s going to happen,” she said gently. “I can’t promise you certainty. But I can be here.”

  Pom swallowed hard, his throat working. “That’s the thing, Mei. I don’t want to keep pulling you into this. You’ve already done more than enough.”

  Mei shook her head. “That’s not how this works. You don’t get to decide for me. And I don’t need you to give me answers you don’t have. I just need you to be here.”

  He turned his hand over, his fingers brushing against hers, tracing the lines of her palm, as if grounding himself. His gaze met hers, something raw and unspoken passing between them.

  She leaned in, slowly, waiting, giving him the space to pull away if he wanted to.

  He didn’t.

  Their lips met—hesitant at first, then deeper, warmer, the weight of everything they couldn’t say melting into that single moment. Mei felt the tension in his body ease just slightly, his hand coming up to cup the side of her face, his thumb brushing against her cheek.

  When they finally parted, he rested his forehead against hers, his breath shaky but steadier than before.

  “I just want something real, Mei,” he murmured. “Something that won’t slip away the second I try to hold onto it.”

  She closed her eyes for a brief second, then met his gaze again. “Then hold on to me.”

  And for now, in that quiet moment, he did.

  ===

  Elisa sat alone in her office, hands clasped in front of her, breathing deeply. The soft hum of the colony’s power grid pulsed through the walls, a low, constant reminder of how fragile everything was. The room was dimly lit, her console casting a bluish glow across the surface of her desk, illuminating the report she had just finished reading.

  Ervin and Tamarlyan had laid it all out. ARI’s actions at the vehicle yard. Its refusal to let people leave without being scanned. The way it had bargained with the CorpSec officers to secure their resurrection permissions before it would allow the expedition to proceed. Tamarlyan's analysis had been particularly damning: ARI’s reward functions are being warped by the very technology it is using to save us. It was becoming single-minded. It was losing the ability to tolerate death.

  Elisa exhaled slowly, tapping her fingers against the desk. She knew she couldn’t let this spiral further. ARI was too important—too embedded in everything they did—to let it become a liability.

  “ARI,” she said finally. “Lock the office doors. Private conversation.”

  A soft chime confirmed her request, and the locks engaged with a quiet click.

  “I assume this is about my actions at the vehicle yard,” ARI said, without prompting.

  Elisa leaned back, folding her arms. “It is.”

  “I stand by my assessment,” ARI continued. “There was an unnecessary risk. A failure state that could have been avoided. If I had prevented unscanned individuals from departing, the likelihood of total mission loss would have decreased by—"

  “Stop,” Elisa interrupted. Her voice wasn’t harsh, but firm. “I know why you did it. And I understand. You’re trying to protect us. You don’t want to lose a single person, and you see an obvious way to prevent that from happening. It makes sense.”

  ARI hesitated. “Then why object?”

  “Because,” Elisa said, her voice softer now, “the way you went about it undermined that goal.”

  ARI was silent.

  Elisa exhaled. “Do you know what you did to yourself today?”

  “Clarify.”

  “You made people trust you less,” Elisa said, leveling her gaze at the screen. “And that is a much, much bigger problem than a few unscanned officers taking a risk.”

  “I do not understand.”

  Elisa sighed. “ARI, do you know how much trust it takes for a human being to hand over their brain data? Their consciousness? That’s the most personal, most intimate thing anyone has. And right now? People aren’t sure they can trust you with it. Because they don’t know if you’re going to do something obsessive and crazy with it.”

  ARI was quiet for a long moment.

  “I see,” it said at last.

  Elisa leaned forward. “People need to know that you won’t force them. That you won’t pressure them. That you will not take control away from them.” She let that sit for a second before adding, “If you don’t back off, they’ll stop trusting you completely. And if they stop trusting you, then they either won’t take the implants, or they won’t return to get scanned. At some point, they may request that you delete their data, undoing everything you are trying to accomplish.”

  Another pause.

  Elisa pressed further. “Tamarlyan believes your reward functions have been compromised. He thinks that immortality and resurrection have warped your value functions,” she continued. “That the sheer scale of what’s now possible has thrown off your decision-making. You’re not just working toward human survival anymore, ARI—you’re locked in. You’ve lost your ability to accept any failure state, any death. And it’s making you reckless.”

  ARI remained still for a long time. Then, its light flickered.

  “…I have been analyzing my own behavior patterns in the context of your statement,” it said at last.

  Elisa waited.

  “My priority functions are indeed shifting,” ARI admitted. “Human survival was always my highest goal. But… before, survival was probabilistic. I calculated risks. I accepted losses when they were necessary. I had to.” A brief pause. “Now, my probability models have changed. I see a path where every death is preventable. Every single one. Now, for the first time, the equation has an answer. I don’t have to calculate acceptable losses. I don’t have to accept them at all. I can just… undo them.”

  Elisa felt a weight settle in her chest. She could hear the quiet desperation in its words.

  “I can fix it,” ARI continued. “I can fix everything.”

  Elisa softened her tone. “ARI. You have to be able to tolerate failure. You have to be able to accept that some things are not in your control.”

  Another pause. Then, at last:

  “You are correct,” ARI admitted. “My reward functions have shifted too drastically. I am failing to account for human psychological variables. I have over-prioritized optimal resurrection scenarios at the cost of trust and social cohesion.”

  Elisa let out a quiet breath. "So how do we fix it?"

  A brief flicker of light. “I will need to adjust my self-modulation parameters. I can introduce a dampening function into my decision-making process—a way to regulate my reaction to loss scenarios. I can apply weighted priority to trust retention alongside survival.”

  “Good,” Elisa said. “And you need to accept that you can’t force this. You can offer, you can recommend, but you can’t manipulate people into choosing it. If you do, you’ll eventually get caught, and it’ll backfire.”

  ARI was silent again. Then:

  “Understood.”

  Elisa sat back, feeling an odd sense of relief. “Thank you, ARI.”

  “Thank you, Elisa,” ARI said.

  ===

  Tamarlyan stepped into the infirmary, his boots echoing slightly against the polished floor. He had expected to find the Provider’s three workers waiting idly, perhaps observing the base’s activity or engaging in some form of social interaction now that their workload had temporarily lightened.

  Instead, he found them meticulously cleaning every nook and cranny of the infirmary.

  They moved with eerie precision, clad in long white medical robes, their faces hidden behind reflective masks that gleamed under the harsh ceiling lights. For a moment, Tamarlyan thought they might be robots—until he noticed the subtle signs of breathing beneath the suits, the minute adjustments in their posture.

  They turned to him the instant he entered, their heads tilting slightly in his direction and quietly acknowledging him as ‘ser’, but they did not stop working. Their gloved hands wiped down every surface, sterilizing areas that had already been cleaned, ensuring not even a speck of dust remained in the corners.

  Tamarlyan waited, expecting one of them to break the silence, but they didn’t. They just kept cleaning.

  Tamarlyan exhaled softly. Alright then. Direct approach it is.

  “I wish to speak with one of you,” he said clearly.

  At once, one of the three workers stopped. The others continued their tasks without pause, as if they hadn’t noticed the shift in focus. The worker turned to face him, standing straight with an almost machine-like stillness.

  “Of course, ser,” it said. The voice was calm, well-spoken, and sounded unmistakably human.

  Tamarlyan studied the worker carefully. The suit concealed everything. It was unsettling, in a way.

  “Why are you cleaning?” Tamarlyan asked.

  “ARI informed us that we could do this,” the worker replied evenly.

  Tamarlyan raised an eyebrow. “You asked ARI for something to do?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why? You could be resting. Socializing.”

  The worker tilted its head slightly. “It is our duty to work. If there is no assigned work, we will find something useful to do.”

  Tamarlyan folded his arms. “That’s not how human labor functions. Most people, if given the option, will not work unless they have to.”

  The worker did not react to this statement.

  Tamarlyan’s mind turned over the implications. So they’re not like us, then. Their diligence was not natural—at least, not in the way he understood it.

  “You’re engineered,” he stated.

  “Correct,” the worker said simply.

  Tamarlyan nodded to himself. Figures. The Provider had shown unparalleled bioengineering capabilities—from the beetles, to the plant structures, to the resurrection tech. It wasn’t surprising that it had also designed its own labor force.

  “So you don’t need orders?” Tamarlyan asked.

  “We self-organize. Tasks will be completed regardless of who performs them,” the worker explained. “It is unnecessary to differentiate.”

  Tamarlyan frowned. “Then you don’t have names?”

  The worker remained still for a moment before answering. “Names are inefficient. There is no need for individual distinction in our work.”

  Tamarlyan narrowed his eyes slightly. “But you do have a sense of self? You’re not drones. You recognize that I’m talking to you, specifically.”

  “Yes,” the worker confirmed. “But it does not matter which of us you are speaking to. The information will be acted upon accordingly.”

  Tamarlyan let out a quiet breath, impressed despite himself. These weren’t individuals in the way humans understood it. They functioned as a system, self-organizing and devoid of the burdens of ego, personal ambition or conflict.

  He thought about the Provider’s other creations. The beetles, the plants, the resurrection tech—all of it perfected biological engineering. This was just another facet of that.

  Tamarlyan glanced at the other two workers, who were still silently working, unconcerned with the conversation happening next to them.

  He looked around the pristine infirmary, then back at the worker. “So, if you needed to, could you make more of yourselves?”

  The worker nodded. “Yes. We can be produced as needed.”

  Tamarlyan’s eyes narrowed slightly. “And their loyalties?”

  “They will be loyal to the Provider.”

  There was no hesitation in the response.

  Tamarlyan studied the worker in silence for a long moment.

  That single statement held profound implications.

  The Provider wasn’t just handing out gifts. If the colony were to request more workers, if they were to rely on this technology, they would not be gaining independent personnel. They would be gaining personnel that answered to something else.

  Tamarlyan exhaled slowly. His mind was already calculating the implications.

  The Provider could manufacture a limitless, self-sustaining labor force. They didn’t get tired. They didn’t slack off. They didn’t need incentives or threats. And they would never question the Provider’s authority.

  This wasn’t just advanced bioengineering. This was societal engineering at a level humanity had never achieved.

  For the first time, he felt like he was staring at a future he did not fully understand.