Zero Aculin knelt in the mud beside the buried ship and pressed his clawed hand to its cold hull. Somewhere inside the ancient wreck was an intact drive core. Find it, and his tribe could rebuild the vessel that had crashed here and stranded his ancestors. They could reach the stars again. But the wreck was broken into three collapsed sections, and Zero did not know which one held the working core. Dig into the wrong one, and the whole ruin would fall and crush him. Behind him, his settlement clung to the crash site. Salvaged shelter frames leaned against woven coverings. Carved posts stood between racks of drying meat and stacked firewood. His people had made a home from the bones of the ship that failed them. Zero had promised them more than a home. He carried a spear on his back and a blaster at his hip, but neither weapon could tell him where to dig. He circled the wreck three times. The first section had caved inward, its roof sagging under wet soil. The second was flooded black to the waist. The third stood crooked but whole. Zero studied the seams. He was smarter than any hunter in his tribe, and he trusted patterns over hope. Then he saw it. A thin cable ran from the crooked third section, snaked through the mud, and vanished into the flooded second. Power cables led toward a live core, not a dead one. The intact drive sat in the flooded section, not the dry one his instinct favored. He waded in. Cold water gripped his legs. He followed the cable by touch, feeling along it until his hand met a smooth curved housing beneath the surface. He pried the panel loose. Inside, sealed against the water, a round core hummed faintly under his palm. Warm. Alive. Zero braced his shoulder and heaved it free. The housing shifted. Above him, the flooded section groaned and dropped a beam into the water an arm's length from his head. He froze, then pulled harder. The core tore loose. He staggered back through the flood, clutching it to his chest, as the ceiling behind him collapsed into the water with a heavy slap. He dragged himself onto dry ground and set the core down. It glowed. His people gathered around it, silent, then loud. He had the heart of a starship in his hands. But when Zero turned the core over, his claw found a fracture line across its base. A hairline crack, leaking a thin trail of blue fluid. The core was intact, but it was damaged. It would not run on its own. Somewhere he would have to find the tools, or the knowledge, to mend a machine older than his whole line. And that meant leaving the crash site, into lands his tribe had never dared to cross.

Zero rode from the crash site at dawn, the cracked core lashed across his saddle. His mount was a saurian beast, horse-tall, with an armored snout and a broad back built for burdens. It carried him into the lands his tribe had never crossed. But every stride jolted the core, and each jolt widened the crack. Blue fluid ran down the beast's flank and dripped into the mud. Zero pressed his palm over the fracture. The leak did not stop. He had maybe an hour of fluid left, and then nothing to repair. He halted the beast in a stand of tall reeds. He needed a seal, and he needed it now. His claws were too clumsy. His skins were too loose. He unslung his blaster and studied the fluid soaking his hand. It was thick and cooling fast. Cold sealed it. Heat kept it running. Zero understood the pattern at once. He turned the blaster in his grip. He did not fire it. Instead he thumbed the vent panel open and let the barrel's heat bleed out into the cold morning air. The metal cooled. He pressed the cool barrel flat against the crack. The fluid there thickened and slowed. It worked, but only while the metal stayed cold, and the barrel warmed against the core in moments. He needed something colder that would stay cold. Zero looked to the reeds and the black water pooled around their roots. He dug his claws into the mud beneath the surface. Cold clay came up in fistfuls, gray and dense. He packed it over the fracture, thick as his hand, and molded it tight around the housing. The clay chilled the crack and held the shape. The dripping slowed to a bead. Then it stopped. Zero waited, counting his breaths. The clay dried gray and hard. No new fluid ran. He tapped the shell with one claw. It held. He had bought the core its life. The fluid that remained sat trapped inside, enough to run the drive if he ever found a way to mend the crack for good. But the clay seal was not a repair. It was a bandage over a wound. It would crack again under heat or a hard fall, and the fluid would drain in minutes. Zero could not carry the core home like this and hope. He needed real tools, real knowledge, and neither waited in his settlement. He climbed back onto the beast and looked ahead. Beyond the reeds, a ridge rose against the sky. On its far slope stood towers of pale crystal, tall and sharp, catching the low sun. People lived there. People who built with more than salvaged bone. Zero turned his mount toward the crystal city. Someone in those towers knew how to mend a starship's heart, and the clay would not hold long enough for a second chance.

Zero rode toward the ridge with the core lashed to his saddle. The clay seal held for now, but the ground turned rough. His mount picked its way over loose stone and root. Each stride jolted the saddle. Each jolt threatened the dried clay over the crack. Zero heard a faint tick. He looked down. A thin line had split the gray shell. One bead of blue fluid welled at the edge. A hard fall would break the seal for good. He slowed the beast to a crawl. That helped the clay but cost him time, and the sun climbed higher. Warmth was his enemy now. Heat thinned the fluid and softened the seal. Ahead the terrain broke into a slope of shale. His mount could not cross it slowly without slipping. Zero faced a choice. Crawl and let the sun do its work, or charge and let the shaking finish the crack. He wrapped the core in his loosest animal skins to pad the blows. He tied it flat against his chest, off the jolting saddle, and gripped the beast with his knees. Then he urged it forward at speed. The saurian lunged up the shale. Stones flew. Zero curled his body around the core and took the shocks through his own back. The seal cracked wider, but his padded chest caught each jar before it reached the clay. Fluid seeped, slow, not streaming. He crested the ridge and reined in hard. Below stood the crystal city, its spires burning with color. At the road's edge waited two figures carved from crystal, each taller than three men. One held a sword and shield. The other cradled stone books. Between them, a living shape stepped from the shadow of the warrior. A saber-toothed cat, purple and green, padded onto the road. Its long fangs gleamed. It did not crouch to spring. It sat, watching him, calm as a scholar. A woman came behind the cat. She was tall, lavender-skinned, her white hair falling past her waist. She rested one hand on the beast's shoulder without fear. Her eyes went straight to the wrapped bundle at Zero's chest, then to the blue stain soaking through the skins. "You carry a wounded star-heart," she said. "And badly. Get down before it bleeds out on my road." Zero climbed down, one arm cradling the core. He did not know her, but she knew what he held. That was enough. He unwrapped the skins. The clay had split nearly through. Another hour of riding would have emptied the core. Alurianne Silvermist studied the fracture. "Clay," she said. "Clever, for a stopgap. It would not have reached my gates." She turned toward the spires. "Bring it inside. We can mend the crack. But you will owe me the truth of where you found it." Zero followed her through the crystal wardens. The seal had held long enough. Now the repair he had crossed the wild for waited past the gate.

The crystal gates closed behind Zero. Alurianne led him into a vast hall of shining crystal, its shelves stacked with books. Her saber-toothed cat padded beside her, calm and watchful. Four tall men in silver tunics waited by a work table. White hair, white beards, violet skin. They gathered around the wounded core the moment Zero set it down. One stepped forward from the others. His name was Aldrin Starweaver. He lifted the core to a lamp and turned it. The clay had split. Blue fluid crept along the crack. "The fracture runs deep," he said. "We can mend it. But not blind." Alurianne folded her arms. "You heard him. To fix a star-heart, we must know how it was harmed. Where did you find it, hunter? The truth. All of it." Zero looked at the core, then at the men circling it. If he named the crash site, these people could follow him back. His tribe had never met a stranger. They had no gates, no crystal wardens. He pictured armed men walking into his camp, past his mate Sythara, past the children. He said nothing. "Silence buys you a dead core," Aldrin said. He set his tools down. Zero weighed it. The core was already dying. Lie, and they would mend it wrong. Refuse, and they would not mend it at all. He chose. "There is a wrecked ship," he said. "Flooded inside. My people came down in it, long ago. We built our camp in its shadow. I pulled the core from the water." Alurianne's cat lifted its head. She studied Zero for a long moment. "A crash. That is why the fracture is old and stressed." She looked to Aldrin. "Water pressure, then a hard journey. Now we know the wound." Aldrin nodded and took up a fine crystal tool. He warmed the fluid, drew it back, then sealed the crack with a thread of molten crystal. The blue leak stopped. He set the core down. It gave off a low, steady hum for the first time. "It lives," Aldrin said. Zero reached for it. Alurianne raised a hand. "You gave me the truth," she said. "So I will give you one. A single core cannot lift your ship. That hull needs more than a mended heart. It needs a power source your camp does not have." She tapped a stone book on the shelf. "We hold that knowledge here." Zero's throat tightened. He had crossed the wild for this one repair. Now he learned it was not enough. "Then I need what is in your books," he said. Alurianne's mouth curved. "Knowledge has a price, like everything. You told me where. Next I will want to see it." She lifted the humming core and placed it in his hands. "Take your heart home, hunter. When you are ready to trade again, come back. And bring me to your ship."

Zero left the crystal gates with the mended core in his arms. Its low hum warmed his chest. But the price stayed sharp in his mind. Alurianne would trade the ship's power secret only if he brought her across the wild to the wreck. That meant guiding a stranger over the shale-and-heat ground that had already cracked his core once. He had no safe path for her. Alurianne came the next dawn, without her cat. She wore no armor, only a purple robe and thin sandals. She looked at Zero's riding beast, a saurian mount with an armored snout, and did not flinch. "That ground burns and breaks," Zero said. "My core cracked crossing it. You wear sandals." "Then find better ground," she said. "You are the hunter." Zero studied the land beyond the gates. He knew the fast route across the open shale. Heat rose off it in waves. It had ruined his core. It would blister her feet and could kill her. He needed another way. He remembered a line of shade he had glimpsed on his ride in. A low ridge, cooler, where old stone stood. It was slower. But it kept them off the burning flats. "We go the long way," he said. "Along the ridge." They rode double. The beast picked its way over broken rock. By midday they reached the ridge. A weathered stone pillar stood there, taller than two men. Ancient faces were carved into it, stacked one above another. Moss filled the cracks. Zero had never seen its like. It was not his people's work. Alurianne slid down and touched the carved eyes. "Older than my city," she said. Her voice dropped. "Someone stood on this world before either of us." Zero raised his blaster. Below the pillar, a shape moved in a hollow of wet stone. A great translucent mass slid toward them. Eyes floated inside it. Mouths opened along its skin. Tentacles dragged its bulk over the rock. It blocked the shaded path. He would not waste a shot into that jelly. He pulled Alurianne back onto the beast. "Hold the pillar," he said. He drove the mount up and around the stone, off the trail, over a spine of dry rock. The thing's tentacles slapped the pillar behind them. It could not climb the bare ridge. They cleared it and rode on. By dusk the land dropped. Zero saw the wreck below. The star hull rose from the mud, its torn plates scorched and huge. Smoke from his camp curled beyond it. Sythara stood at the treeline, spear ready, feathers bright against the green. Her eyes moved from Zero to the lavender stranger behind him. Zero stopped the beast. He had done it. He had brought Alurianne to the ship. Now a crystal-city woman stood at the edge of his tribe's home, and every secret his people kept lay open before her.

Zero swung down from his riding beast. Sythara came to meet him, spear still raised. Her eyes stayed on the lavender stranger. "You brought her here," she said. It was not a question. Zero set his hand on her shoulder. "She can tell us how to fly the ship. But she needs to see it first." Sythara lowered the spear an inch. "Then let her look. And let her go." Alurianne stepped past them toward the wreck. The star hull rose from the mud, torn plates black with scorch. She stopped at the edge of the flooded doorway. Dark water filled the ship's belly. "Your power secret waits in there," she said. "I must count the cores. One will not lift this hull off the ground." She looked at Zero. "How many did your people ever find?" Zero did not know. His tribe had lived inside the dry decks for generations. No one went into the flooded dark. "One," he said. "The one I carried to you." Alurianne shook her head. "Then we must learn the rest. I cannot swim that." Her thin sandals stood at the waterline. "You are the hunter. Go down and bring me light." Zero pulled a torch from Sythara's fire ring. The hide cushions around the pit were still warm from morning. He waded in. The cold water closed over his chest. He held the torch high and followed the old power cables along the wall, the same way he had found the first core. The cables split. One line ran deeper, into a sealed chamber. Zero forced the hatch. Inside, three cradles held three cores. Two hung dark and cracked, their fluid long drained into the water. One still glowed faint blue. He counted again to be sure. Four cores in all, with the one Aldrin had mended. Only two whole. He surfaced and told Alurianne. She went still. "Two working star-hearts," she said. "A ship this size needs three at least." She wrung water from her sleeve. "So you have your answer. And a harder road." Sythara stepped between them. "You said you would trade the secret. Speak it." Alurianne met her stare. "The secret is simple. Three cores, joined and tuned. I can tune them. But you are short one." She turned to Zero. "There is a place that holds more. A dark city in the mountains, held by machine-men. My people have feared them for ages." Zero felt the cold water drip from his skins. He had the ship. He had two cores. Now he knew the number he needed, and where the missing one waited. Sythara gripped his arm. "You will not go to a city of machines," she said. Zero looked at the dark wreck, then at the far mountains he could not yet see. "I have no choice," he said. "The stars cost one more core."

Zero rode two days into the mountains before the dark city showed itself. Sythara rode behind him on the saurian beast, silent since the crash site. She had refused to let him go alone. Now stone walls rose from the rock ahead, black and windowless, crowned with long cannons that swept the sky. He knew no gate, no path, no safe way past the machine-men. He had never crossed these peaks. A blind charge would end with both of them caught. "We watch first," Zero said. He slid off the beast and pulled Sythara down beside a boulder. "We learn how they come and go before we step in the open." Sythara gripped her spear. "You mean we walk into a nest and hope it sleeps." They crept along a ridge above the walls. Zero counted the cannons and found one dead corner, a slope of loose black rock the guns could not reach. He marked it. That was his way in. Then Sythara's foot slipped, and stone clattered down the slope. High on the wall, a shape turned toward them. It was no man. Its head was a smooth dark helm with one blue eye that glowed cold. Armor plated every limb. Red lights burned along its chest. The machine-man raised an arm, and the eye fixed on the ridge. Zero grabbed Sythara and dragged her flat. A beam of light cut the air where she had stood and burned the rock black. More lights woke along the wall. A horn sounded, low and grinding, and the cannons began to swing toward the ridge. "Move," Zero hissed. They scrambled back the way they had come. The saurian beast screamed and bolted before they reached it. Behind them, machine-men poured from a gate Zero had not seen, running in a straight cold line across the rock. Then the ridge itself came alive. Vines burst from a crack in the stone, thick as arms, their leaves lined with teeth. They had woken to the noise. One coiled around a machine-man's leg and pulled him down. Curling jaws snapped shut on his armor. The others stopped to burn the vines, their beams tearing green flesh. It bought Zero seconds. He pulled Sythara into a narrow cleft in the rock. They pressed into the dark while the machine-men fought the writhing mass behind them. The horn still sounded. The cold blue eyes still swept the slope. Zero pressed his back to the stone and breathed. He had his answer. There was no safe way in. The machine-men saw everything, and they did not tire. But he had seen the dead corner in their guns, and a gate that opened when they hunted. "They know we are here now," Sythara whispered. "Yes," Zero said. He watched a machine-man tear the last vine apart and turn its glowing eye back toward the ridge. "So we cannot come as hunters. We must come as prey they think they've already caught."

Zero waited in the cleft while the horn died. The machine-men would sweep the slope again soon. To be taken, he first had to be found in the open, and no patrol would leave the walls without a lure. He needed bait that moved and screamed and pulled them out. Then he saw it clinging to the rock above Sythara's head. A long crawling thing, its body a mass of tiny shifting shapes. Its edges blurred and vanished, then sharpened again. A swarm bound as one creature. Zero had seen it flee light on the ridge. Light drew it. Light also drew the machine-men. "Do not touch it," Sythara whispered. "I need it," Zero said. He cut a strip from his skins and looped it over the creature's back. It writhed but did not bite. He hauled it down and carried it to the mouth of the cleft. He set it on bare rock where the cannons could see. Then he fired his blaster into the sky. The bolt lit the dark like a torch. The swarm-thing screamed, a dry chittering sound, and its bodies scattered wide across the slope, then snapped back together. It made noise enough for ten fleeing hunters. High on the black wall, blue eyes turned. The grinding horn woke again. The hidden gate ground open, and machine-men poured out in a cold straight line, guns up, racing toward the noise. "Now," Zero said. He dropped his blaster and his spear on the rock. "Weapons down. Hands open. We are prey." Sythara stared at him. "You are mad." "They take what runs. So we do not run." He stepped into the open with empty hands. The machine-men reached the screaming swarm and burned it apart. Then their eyes found Zero and Sythara, standing still, unarmed. The guns swung. Zero did not move. A machine-man seized his arms and wrenched them behind him. Cold metal fingers closed on his wrists. Another took Sythara. They did not fire. They marched the two through the gate into the dark city. Halls of native stone swallowed the sky. At the end sat a shape on a black throne. A shriveled old man, half buried in tubes and cables that fed his sunken face. A great dark dome hung above his head on metal arms. Drool ran from his slack mouth. The leader of the machine-men. A soldier set Zero's own blaster on a rack against the wall, among other trophies taken from the caught. Zero marked it. His weapon was inside now, close, waiting. The old man's throat clicked. "Two more," he breathed. "Cage them with the rest." Metal hands dragged Zero deeper into the stone. He had gotten in. Now the third core lay somewhere in this black warren, and he wore no weapon and no plan but the one that had just walked him into a cage.