Alexia Winters had three days of water left and no way to find more. The wasteland stretched gray and frozen past their crashed ship. No rivers. No plants. Nothing moved but the wind. She knew the answer sat inside the wreck. The ship's deep scanners could map water, warmth, anything buried under the ice. They could even read the strange pulse she kept feeling under her boots, the thing she believed had killed this world long ago. If she could reach those instruments, she could start to understand the curse. And if she understood it, she could break it. But the ship lay cracked open like a dropped egg. The hull had split along one side. The scanner bay sat under a leaning slab of torn metal, half-buried in ice and loose rock. One wrong move and the slab would drop. Grey crouched at the gap, running his gloved hand along the bent edge. Her husband had carried her out of the fire when they crashed. He had patched the shelter with his own hands. Now his jaw was tight, the way it got when a problem beat him. "The whole thing's holding on one strut," he said. "I go under there, it comes down on both of us." "Then we brace it," Alexia said. "With what?" She pointed at the landing legs, snapped off in the crash. "Those. Wedge them under the slab. Hold the weight long enough to pull the scanner free." Grey stared at her. "That's a guess." "It's a plan." She was already dragging the first leg across the ice. They worked fast. Grey jammed two legs beneath the leaning slab. The metal groaned but held. Alexia dropped to her stomach and crawled into the dark gap. Ice cut through her suit. Above her, the slab ticked and shifted. "Alexia, hurry." Grey's voice shook. She found the scanner bay. The core unit was the size of a lunchbox, still bolted in. She worked the bolts with numb fingers. One. Two. The third stripped. She wrenched it until her shoulder burned. The braces screamed. One landing leg buckled. "Out, now!" Grey grabbed her ankles. The bolt snapped. Alexia tore the scanner loose and shoved it ahead of her. Grey hauled her backward over the ice. The slab dropped behind her heels and slammed down. A spray of grit stung her face. They lay in the cold, both breathing hard. Alexia clutched the scanner to her chest. It was hers. They had it. Grey wiped his face and almost laughed. Then the scanner woke up in her hands. A screen flickered to life. Lines crawled across it, mapping the land around them. Alexia's smile died. The map showed heat. Dozens of marks, deep underground, moving in a slow ring around the shelter. Not water. Not rock. Something was alive down there. And it was circling closer.