Zzyx's ship gouged a ragged trench into the ochre sand with all the grace of a falling millstone. The charred, smoldering remains left a black wound across the dunes, and the cry of unfamiliar birds circled above the cooling wreckage.

Zzyx, shaken but unbroken, slithered out of the lifepod hatch and surveyed the endless, shimmering horizon. Unimpressive. But he'd survived nearer to stars than this, and even the sand's oppressive dryness did not faze him. He patted down his translation module to ensure it survived the atmospheric buffeting—a must if he hoped to do anything but communicate in growls and gestures.

A quick systems check in his head: The pod was unsalvageable, his distress beacon was crushed, and his escape time from this primitive rock was measured, at best, in centuries. He squinted at the nearest clump of oddly symmetrical structures. Human settlements. Their design was laughably inefficient, but there was industry at work—smoke rising from clay ovens, humans scurrying with baskets filled with fragrant, golden grain.