Adam knelt in the red dirt and shaped the first lump of clay. His grey makers had set him here to grow a workforce, hands enough to dig gold from the ground and send it to their dying sky. He worked alone. He had no mate. The hand that made him had not yet finished its work. A low growl rolled across the plain. Adam froze. Something huge moved through the tall grass, close enough that he smelled its breath. He dropped the clay and ran. He ran until he found a split in the rocks. He squeezed inside and piled stones across the mouth. The beast circled outside. It clawed the stone. It could not reach him. Adam pressed his back to the wall and breathed. When the dawn came, the grey ones stood at the cave mouth. They had opened his side in the night. A woman waited beside them, calm and steady on her feet. "I am Eve," she said. "They told me what we are for. We should start." Adam looked at her, and at the safe stone around them, and knew the work could finally begin.

Inside the cave, Adam and Eve gathered twigs and broad leaves. They wove them into a soft nest against the back wall. Eve set a plain pillow at one end and pressed it flat. "This will do," she said. "We start tonight." Adam looked at the bed and felt the shape of his purpose settle into something he could touch. The grey ones had given him hands, a mate, and now a place. He was clay still, but the hand had finished pressing. The nights passed. Eve grew round, then heavy, then full. She bore a son on the leaves and named him Cane. A season later she bore another. "Able," she said, and laid him beside his brother on the pillow. Two small mouths cried in the cave. Adam watched the boys breathe. The workforce had begun. But the bed was small, and the cave was small, and already Cane reached for what Able held. Adam saw it and felt something new tighten in his chest.