The morning arrived without ceremony—just the steady warmth of the two suns bleeding through the seams of her shelter.
Niri blinked awake, staring up at the cracked ceiling of the tower. The once-shiny surface was dulled now by age and sand, rust etching thin lines across every bolt. Wind whispered faintly through the gaps in the walls, and a soft vibration pressed into her side.
The orb.
It hovered no more than a hand's length away from her face, pulsing faintly with that steady, low hum. Not loud. Not sharp. Just present—like breath, or heartbeat. Always there.
She groaned and rolled onto her side. Her back ached from sleeping on the folded tarp. One shoulder popped loudly as she stretched.
"You're getting too clingy," she muttered at the orb, shielding her eyes. "Go be weird over there for a bit."
The orb didn't move. Of course.
Niri sat up, rubbed her neck, and reached for her water pouch. Only a few swallows left. She drank them anyway.
It wasn't thirst that drove her into the dunes most days—it was motion. Stillness was dangerous. Too much quiet let memories sneak in. Memories she wasn't even sure were real.
She pulled on her scarf and gloves, packed her digging shard, and tucked a small pouch under her belt for anything edible she could scrape from the sand. As she tied the last knot, she looked back at the orb.
It floated at the threshold of her shelter, as if waiting.
Niri narrowed her eyes.
"You always follow me, don't you?"
No answer. Not even a hum this time.
"Fine. Stay close. But don't distract me. I'm already running low on patience—and food."
She pushed the flap aside and stepped into the blinding morning.
The desert opened in front of her like an ocean without end.
Dunes rose and fell in every direction, their golden faces slashed by shadows where the sun hadn't yet crept. The sky was a bleached, cloudless dome that gave no hint of time—just brightness. Endless, emotionless brightness.
Niri didn't know why it still surprised her.
She'd walked these dunes most of her life—at least, the part she could remember. Every morning, she told herself she'd find something new. A rusted supply cache. An abandoned crawler. A buried hatch like the one that saved her life days ago.
But usually, she just found more sand.
The orb floated silently behind her. Its glow was faint in the sunlight, but it never flickered. It never dimmed. She tried not to look at it—but she always did.
Why did it feel like it was watching?
Her boots crunched softly across the ridge trail that led toward the canyon cleft—a sharp, jagged wound in the earth she'd named "the throat." It was the only place moisture still clung near the surface. And where moisture lived, roots sometimes did too.
The walk was long. Hot. Dull.
By mid-morning, she had stripped her outer layer and tucked her scarf tight around her nose. Sweat trickled down her spine. She didn't complain aloud—there was no point—but she did glare at the orb.
"You float. Must be nice."
Still no answer.
She reached the canyon lip and crouched beside a familiar rock spire, shading her eyes. The drop wasn't steep, but loose rocks could kill if you weren't careful. She took a controlled slide down the incline, landing in the powder-soft basin below with practiced ease.
The air was cooler here. Quiet. Almost peaceful.
She dropped to her knees and started digging. Her fingers were practiced—she knew how to find the fibrous layer just beneath the crust. Where the roots twisted, gnarled and black, surviving on what little water seeped from the rock.
It wasn't long before she found one.
Hard, ugly, bitter.
She bit into it anyway.
She chewed in silence, then paused—eyeing the orb, still floating behind her. It hadn't moved from its standard hover-distance. But that didn't mean it wasn't listening.
Niri stretched her legs out along a sun-warmed slab of stone near the canyon's edge, chewing idly on the last of the root she'd dug up.
The orb floated beside her like a silent, judgmental pet.
"Don't look at me like that," she grumbled. "It's not like you helped dig."
The orb pulsed faintly—just one slow blink of blue.
"Oh, now you're offended? Please. You've been hovering like a smug cloud since sunrise."
It gave no response, of course. It never did. But it hovered a little closer.
She leaned back on her elbows and squinted into the endless horizon.
Far off, a tremor rippled across the sand—slow, rhythmic. A dune bulged upward as something massive tunneled beneath.
A worm.
"Ugh. There's sand sausage number three," she muttered. "Probably sniffing for something to ruin."
She watched the worm breach the surface just enough to send a plume of dust into the sky, then vanish again below.
"Graceful," she said flatly. "Like a sandblasted walrus doing backflips."
The orb blinked again.
"Oh, now you approve of sarcasm? Where were you when I was monologuing to the last cactus I passed?"
She stood and brushed the sand from her pants.
"Right. Time to head back before the sausage decides I look snackable."
The orb rotated in place once, like a curious tilt of a head.
"What?" she said. "Don't give me that. You float. If it eats me, you'll just bob away like a balloon with no conscience."
It hovered behind her as she climbed out of the canyon, chuckling softly under her breath.
For a moment, the desert didn't feel quite as empty.
The twins suns had shifted by the time Niri neared her tower again, its slanted light stretching long shadows across the sand. The orb kept pace behind her—silent, steady, ever-glowing.
She was in a better mood than usual. Her pouch was half-full, her legs hadn't given out, and she hadn't been eaten. It was a good day by her standards.
The orb drifted to its usual spot near the ceiling, casting its glow.
Niri closed her eyes.
"I don't know what you are," she murmured. "But at least you're consistent. Weird, floaty, suspiciously silent, but consistent."
As she lay back and listened to the wind slide past the tower's shell, the orb dimmed slightly—then pulsed again.
This time, there was no audible hum.
But something else happened.
.
Message received.
But down in the dunes, Niri simply rolled over, oblivious to the ripples her orb had sent into the void.
"Whatever you are," she muttered into her blanket, "just don't explode."
The orb blinked once—almost thoughtfully.
By the time Niri reached her shelter, the twin suns was dipping low, painting the dunes in long strokes of orange and shadow. The heat had finally begun to loosen its grip, but it had already drained her—like every day.
She stepped inside and let the flap fall shut behind her.
The quiet was immediate. Thick. Familiar.
She shrugged off her gear, dropped the pouch of roots on the table, and peeled away the sweat-stained scarf around her neck. The orb floated into its usual corner, casting its gentle light over the room. Comforting, predictable.
She wiped her face, then sat cross-legged on the floor and pulled one of the roots from the pouch.
"You know," she said between bites, "I think we've hit a new record for 'uneventful.' No storm. No worm attack. No falling into sinkholes. Just good old-fashioned dehydration and sarcasm."
The orb blinked once. Maybe in agreement. Maybe not.
She reached up and gently tapped its surface with two fingers.
"You're lucky I haven't named you yet. That's how I get attached."
She leaned back and sighed.
The light in the room pulsed once—faint. Barely noticeable.
And above the planet, in the void beyond clouds and atmosphere, an invisible packet of data launched skyward. Silent. Directed. Ancient.
It slipped in the void , bypass and stretched toward the furthest edge of deep academy relay networks.
On the surface, nothing changed.
Inside her shelter, Niri yawned and kicked her boots off, curling beside her roll of cloth and patched furs.
"You're just a lamp," she mumbled, voice trailing as sleep took her. "Weird, quiet, stalker lamp."
The orb hovered silently, light pulsing slow and even.
Outside, the wind shifted.
And far away, the galactic universe listens